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PODCAST

History of South Africa podcast

A series that seeks to tell the story of the South Africa in some depth. Presented by experienced broadcaster/podcaster Des Latham and updated weekly, the episodes will take a listener through the various epochs that have made up the story of South Africa.

history places & travel

All Episodes

25:48

Episode 63 – Shaka’s isicoco regulation, a “she”...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/04/24

Last episode we spent some time back in Zululand hearing about the amaMthethwa, the amaNdwandwe, the amaHlubi, the amaQwabe and that tiny little chiefdom called the amaZulu. They were largely irrelevant in the history of South Africa at the time, until Zwide’s amaNdwandwe began pushing southwards into Mthethwa territory. Then Dingiswayo’s amaMthethwa needed to bolster their flank and that’s when the AmaZulu became much more important. We’ll also return to the Cape where Governor Caledon was going

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21:59

Episode 62 – Dingiswayo and Shaka of the amaMthethwa,...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/04/17

We’re hustling towards the year 1807. If you remember last episode, we heard that the young Shaka had grown up in amaZulu chief Senzangakona’s house – the Zulu chief – but by 1802 he’d fled. By the early 1800s only about 2000 people were part of the AmaZulu and they lived between the upper Umhlatuzi and white Umfolozi Rivers. Remember that Shaka who was Senzangakona’s illegitimate son, was showing signs of being a troublemaker, at least that’s the view of oral historians, and by now the future

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20:18

Episode 61 – British Governor Lord Caledon launches...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/04/08

This is episode 61 and the English are back in Cape Town. This was a momentous moment for southern Africa. Gone was the VOC and its chaos, in its place a world superpower had arrived and it was going to exploit the region in various ways over the next century. This led much later in the 19th Century to what became known as the Scramble for Africa. In January 1807 David Baird who’d seized the Cape made the great mistake of sending an expedition under Brigadier General Beresford and Commodore Sir

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18:30

Episode 60 – The Battle of Blaauberg in 1806 and an...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/04/03

Its January 1806 and the British have dispatched a fleet of 61 vessels to Cape Town under the charge of Commodore Home Popham to seize the port. As you’ve heard that was after the war between England and France reignited in 1805 after a the briefest of lulls. On the 2nd October 1805 Admiral Nelson overcame the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar and his victory helped put some of the fears of an invasion of England to rest. But this meant Cape Town and other colonial backwaters faced

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22:30

Episode 59 – Senzangakhona and his son Shaka,...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/03/27

The Batavians trying to setup a formal long-term administration that was rooted inside the Cape rather than in Europe. Unfortunately, their tenure was to be short. International events were conspiring to upset this plan – with the renewal of the war between the English and the French – old enemies with a propensity for blood-letting. While the Cape was safe from immediate attack by the English until 1805, the effect of a world war could not be escaped. Some would feel the effects less than others,

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21:41

Episode 58 – A dilemma of principle as religious...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/03/20

For on 18th May 1803, ten days after Janssens had reached Algoa Bay on his long journey overland to the frontier from Cape Town, Malta in the Mediterranean became a flashpoint. This little island was the first step on a Mediterranean passage from Europe to India as far as both Napoleon and the British were concerned. Under the Treaty of Amiens, Britain undertook to hand Malta back to the Knights of St John, who had ruled it before Napoleon and the British began fighting over it. But then the

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19:26

Episode 57 – The Batavian Republic takes over the...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/03/13

Last episode we dealt with the arrival of the new representatives of the Batavian Republic who’d come to take over the Cape Colony from the British. While the British received commissioner-General Jacob Abraham Uitenhage de Mist who was a brilliant organizer and administrator, things did not go well at first. de Mist was to install a new administration then hand over to a new governor called Lieutenant-General Jan Wilhelm Janssens once the new executive and judicial machinery were in place. So

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19:44

Episode 56 – The burghers suffer their worst setback...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/03/06

Last episode we heard about Doctor Somerville’s expedition to Dithakong which was interesting but a failure in terms of its main aim. That was to secure cattle – he came back with only around 160 or so when the Cape needed a few hundred at least. Also on the move was the London Missionary Society’s Johannes Theodorus van der Kemp – remember him? He had arrived in Graaff-Reinet in May 1801 joined by James Read replacing poor Edmonds who had a nervous breakdown while at Ngqika’s Great Place

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19:25

Episode 55 – Somerville's 1802 description of the...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/02/27

Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast, with me your host Des Latham - this episode 55. We’ll follow Doctor William Somerville on his way home from the expedition you heard about last episode and there’s a lot of action. First we’ll spend time with the Scots doctor as he spent time at Dithakong, that Great Tswana city of the Tlhaping. They had entered Griqua country By November 21st and made their way towards Dithakong cautiously. First they sent a guide ahead “…the inform the

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20:45

Episode 54 – Doctor William Somerville’s...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/02/20

World events has once again conspired to interrupt the flow of events in southern Africa by the early 1800s. The British were going to withdraw from the Cape of Good Hope and their move began far away in Ireland. As part of the price for Irish agreement to parliamentary union with Britain in 1800, Prime Minister William Pitt had promised to liberate Roman Catholics from the restrictions of their civil liberties imposed since the 16th Century . Three hundred years of English yoke through

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19:56

Episode 53 – The surge in centralized chiefdoms circa...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/02/13

This episode we return to the eastern coastal region of what would become Zululand – but first we’ll cover the trekboers quick getaway in the Zuurveld. It’s crazy town time at Ngqika’s Great Place after Ndlambe his uncle makes off westwards and the Khoe in the area decide it’s time to fight the trekboers once more. By the end of 1800 Coenraad de Buys had convinced all trekboers and the missionary Van Der Kemp it was time to leave the amaXhosa king’s /Great Place before he killed them all. Ngqika’s

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24:22

Episode 52 – Christmas 1799 brings a fortuitous...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/02/06

We’re heading into a new and most momentous century – the 1800s. When we left off last episode, Ngqika was still trying to decide what to do about the missionaries camping near his Great Place – somewhere east of King Williamstown and south of Hogsback today. The British had managed to stabilize the Eastern Cape at the end of 1799 but this was a false peace as you’re going to hear. Coenraad de Buys the giant Trekboer was still living with Ngqika and muttering sweet horribles into his ear about

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23:23

Episode 51 – The Third Frontier War ends and...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/01/29

So this war was set off by the blunt British instrument called Packenham Vandeleur as we heard in Episode 50. The Zuurveld farmers were now in a defenceless state since their supply of powder and lead had been stopped by the British who were trying to stymie the Graaff-Reinet trekboer rebels. Some Khoe and Bastaard were also fighting with the amaXhosa who had been confronted by Vandeleur on the Sunday’s River. To use a more modern and yet English phrase, everything had gone pear shaped. By now 29

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22:04

Episode 50 – Brigadier General Vandeleur fires...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/01/23

This is episode 50 and the British have mobilized the dragoons to end a trekboer uprising in Graaff-Reinet. That will spark what is known as the Third Frontier War. But first we'll have a quick look at a powerful party that arrived in 1799 that was going to change everything on the frontier. The Missionaries. The idea started earlier, on November 4th 1794, when a small group gathered in Baker’s Coffee House, Change Alley, London. The outcome of this gathering was the London Missionary Society

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20:00

Episode 49 – The Khoe War of 1799, Gerrit Owies is...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/01/16

This is episode 49 and Khoe and Oorlam Afrikaaner uprising of 1799. Keep in mind at this point in South African history, Afrikaaners are the mixed race band of former Khoe, mixed race, slaves and Namaqua living in the northern Hantam and at times, raiding Namaqualand. When we left off last episode things were sliding towards war as the settlers of the Hantam and the Khoe were thrown into chaos. This episode we’ll hear also pick up the story further east in the Zuurveld where Coenraad de Buys who’d

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20:00

Episode 48 – Petrus Pienaar shot dead on his Hantam...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/01/09

This is episode 48 and we’re following the sagas of the Visagies and others in the Hantam, that rough and ready part of the northern Cape. This chaotic land had spawned another by the name of Petrus Pienaar of the Afrikaaners. Regarded as one of the most influential men of the frontier, Pienaar emerged as the spokesman of the Hantammers. He was closely linked to the Afrikaaner Oorlams from at least the 1780s and was capable of incredible feats of physical endurance even by the standards of the day

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24:53

Episode 47 – Tales of the Hantam including the bandit...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2022/01/02

This is episode 47 and we are concentrating on a mysterious and contradicted part of southern Africa, the Hantam. We’re also going to meet a German sailor who’d deserted and ran away to the Orange River in the 1780s by the name of Jan Bloem. He worked as an overseer, a Knecht, at Sandfontein farm owned by Petrus Pienaar. Groups of white hunters were also now resident in the area to the south of the Orange by this stage and we’ve already heard about how the Kora, the Griqua and the Oorlams had

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20:05

Episode 46 – We meet the Afrikaaner Oorlams of...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2021/12/26

This is episode 46 and it’s about Namaqualand, the Oorlam Afrikaaners and the Griquas But first a note about the British occupation. We know that they arrived in 1795, defeated the Dutch forces and then attempted to take control of events on the frontiers. As the Dutch had found, this was not an easy undertaking. The new Governor Sir George Yonge had replaced the acting Governor Macartney and Yonge was a stiff formal Englishman. But he was also a man of ideas and experimented with farming, and

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19:17

Episode 45 – The ancient people of the Orange River...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2021/12/19

This is episode 45 and it’s time to turn our attention to Namaqualand. This is an area which is not spoken of very often, the wild northern frontier where bandits rode oxen and escaped slaves, white ex-soldiers and black clans joined forces – or fought each other. The brigands and Badlands here are exotic to say the least as you’re going to hear. Folks fixate on the tales from the eastern Cape frontier for good reason that’s true. And yet, much of the rich history of southern Africa encompasses

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19:46

Episode 44 – Trekboer Coenraad de Buys marries...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2021/12/12

This is episode 44 and we continue to travel about the Zuurveld and beyond with Englishman John Barrow. Remember he’d arrived in Graaff-Reinet with landdrost FR Bressler and their entry into the mud and daub village marked the restoration of Cape control after an interval of two and a half years. That was late 1797. Because they were accompanied by a small group of Dragoon light cavalry, the message was clear. Authority is back. But the trekboers and particularly the giant Coenraad de Buys were

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