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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.

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All Episodes

23:48

Episode 191 - Trekkers' Bob-and-Weave Politics ,...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/10/05

First off, some news!This series has been selected as one of the five finalists for the DStv Content Creators podcast of the year awards which is taking place on October 12th 2024. I feel completely out of place folks - a kind of imposter syndrome - finalists include the hugely successful series called True Crime South Africa with the glorious Nicole Engelbrecht and African Story Magic with magnificent Gcina Mhlophe. I had to rub my eyes when I received the email and immediately thought it was a

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22:26

Episode 187 - The Albany Rangers and Mantsopa the...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/09/08

This is episode 187 - it’s 1851. Time to take stock of what’s going on across southern Africa which as you know was in the throes of the 8th Frontier War. A significant war. After that we’ll return to Thomas Stubbs who had turned himself into a useful night raider and was about to show the British how to fight in the Albany thickets. To the north, in the mountains of the BaSotho people, King Moshoeshoe the first was not idle in early 1851and his patience with his own kith and kin as well as with

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22:20

Episode 186 - Cognate Epistemology, TikTok and Nkosi...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/09/01

Episode 186 it is - we’re taking a closer look at theological suppositions, ecclesiastical superstitions, magic and myth. Some housekeeping - first thanks to John for taking the time to send a note regarding ecclesiastical and to Mphuthumi for your message about Nkosi Maqoma - I’ll get hold of your book, The Broken River Tent published in 2017. In this episode we’re going to plunge into a sea of mystery because we’re going to investigate the incredibly diverse history of situations where people

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22:41

Episode 184 - A Fort Hare rout, “Vieux d’Afrique”...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/08/18

This is episode 184 and we’re picking up our story on old year’s eve 1850. Last episode, we heard how Cape Governor Harry Smith was holed up in Fort Cox, and the amaXhosa were in control of most of British Kaffraria - the 8th Frontier War was in full flow. There were fears amongst the settlers that the war would spread as far as the Cape Colony, and the five thousand British troops stationed in southern Africa were spread as far as across the Orange River. What was also unclear was what was going

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20:09

Episode 183 - Maqoma lectures lecherous missionary...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/08/11

Episode 183 it is, and we’re going to take stock as we enter 1851. In war, truth is the first casualty. It’s a military maxim attributed to Aeschylus (“ES-kuh-lus"), the father of Greek tragedy. Aeschylus actually fought in the front lines against the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC. We don’t know much about the rest of his life, but we do know that his work called Persians which was financed by Pericles was such a success that he was invited to Sicily by Hieron of Syracuse to restage the play

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19:01

Episode 182 - The English Column’s Desperate March to...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/08/04

Welcome to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham, this is episode 182. 182 is a triangular number meaning it can be arranged in an equilateral triangle — specifically it is the 13th triangle number because 13x4 Divided by 2 is 182. And it’s a death triangle that the British were facing now - facing amaXhosa prophecy, a blazing hot environment not conducive to their warfare, and the amaXhosa chiefs who were stacking up against the invaders. When we left off, the

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10:21

Episode 181 - The amaXhosa ambush Mackinnon’s column...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/07/28

Shots fired! We’re with the amaXhosa under Maqoma and Sandile, and the British soldiers under Lieutenanat Colonel George Mackinnon, fighting on the steep cliffs of Boma Pass.When the firing began, one of the companies of 73rd Regiment had just entered the pass and it’s Captain JC Gawler explained later about the confusion. Last episode we heard all about the long column of British troops strung out more than two kilometers up this pass, and how Mackinnon, along with the Xhosa police fighting

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24:03

Episode 180 - Missionary Browns’ philanderings and...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/07/21

Episode 180 it is then so let’s get cracking. Or crackling, which was the atmosphere in late 1850 as Xhosaland and British Kaffraria was seized by the exploits of prophet Mlanjeni. He’d combined world views, his messianic emergence shook the land as far away as Cape Town. AS a sickly young man from near King Williams Town, he’d disappeared to work in the Cape Colony and returned in 1850 claiming to have been living under the sea. Not quite Sponge Bob because unlike that loveable kids

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20:46

Episode 179 - A messianic prophet emerges in 1850:...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/07/14

This is episode 179 and the prophet Mlanjeni is about to emerge. His story is one of the phenomenal tales of our land, he joined an already fairly long list of colonial era fighters who imbued their struggle against encroaching settlers with a combination of christian salvation ethos and a narrative full of amaXhosa ancient mystery and magic. If you recall last episode, Mlanjeni had been calling all local spiritual leaders to his home, where they were to pass between two poles that had been

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20:04

Episode 177 - The Missionaries position on sex and...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/06/30

We’re plunging into the developments of the 1850s now and this is episode 177.In numerology the digits 1 and 7 are significant,1 represents new beginnings and leadership, while 7 is often associated with spirituality and introspection. So it’s no mistake this this episode probes spirituality and introspection - and leadership. Not that I necessarily ascribe to the tenets of numerology, but its a useful way into a sensitive subject. By mid-19th Century, most of the game of the Cape, from the

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21:18

Episode 176 - Cape Conservatives vs Radicals in 1850,...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/06/22

This is the period of the utilitarian liberal, not of the democrat, it’s 1850 and in the Cape, a newly ninted constitution had been drafted by the attorney general, William Porter. This was based on a nonracial qualified franchise - all adult males who had occupied property worth at least twenty five pounds for a year were eligible to vote. Porter had toiled on the draft of this document for the also newly minted Governor, Sir Harry Smith, who sent it to London. Porter later in 1850 had a

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25:44

Episode 173 - Boer women fight off the Bapedi, Mpande...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/06/01

This is episode 173 and we’re in what was called the north eastern transvaal, modern day Mpumalanga and Limpopo. Last we heard how Hendrick Potgieter’s Voortrekkers had camped at a new town they named Ohrigstad in 1845, after leaving the are around Potchefstroom. Potgieter wanted to move further away from the British, and he sought a new port to replace Durban which had been annexed by the English. The area around Ohrigstad had a major drawback, apart from the fact it was already populated by

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19:58

Episode 172 - The Republic of Potchefstroom,...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/05/26

This is episode 172 and we’re galloping back to cover the effect of the Boers 33 Articles, approved by the Volksraad on April 9th 1844, and thus installing the little Republic of Potchefstroom. Some of the articles and the fledgling laws and rules were going to crop up throughout the history of South Africa, all the way through to the time of apartheid, and even to the present. If you recall, the Natal Boers and the Vaal Boers had been in dispute — largely because of the difference of opinion

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22:27

Episode 167 - Maitland dithers, Stockenstrom sallies...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/04/21

This is episode 167 and the British army is clumping along towards the Amathola fastnesses, the deep ravines and steep riverine environment not the most ideal for an army that dragged everything around on wagons. Leading this army were officers steeped in the traditions of empire, and marching under their command were men from across Great Britain and beyond. They were poor, some with debts to pay back home, many were recruited from the haunts of dissipation and inebriation as historian Noel

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20:53

Episode 166 - Colonel Lindsay lashes a local lad,...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/04/14

The Seventh Frontier war has burst into flame, and across the Ceded Territory and down into the land around Port Elizabeth amaXhosa warriors are on the warpath, the British have been forced into the defensive. If you remember, Sir Peregrine Maitland declared war on the amaXhosa chief Mgolombane Sandile Ngqika on 1st April 1846 — but the eastern Xhosa, the Gcaleka under Sarhili, had remained out of the latest war - at least for now. The amaXhosa have notched up two major victories against the

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23:05

Episode 163 - British engineers build forts and...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/03/24

This is episode 163, the year, 1845. New Cape Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland had shown he was a man of action — as a veteran of the Peninsular Campaign against Napoleon you’d expect that, particularly as he fought at Waterloo. This new man of action governor had some doubts about a few things here in sunny South Africa. He doubted the effectiveness of Andries Stockenstrom’s Eastern Cape Ceded territory system for a start. He would sort that he thought with the introduction of a new system which

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23:29

Episode 162 - The 1845 Battle of Swartkoppies, Divide...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/03/16

This is episode 162. First, some housekeeping. A huge thank you to all my supporters, the podcast just passed 1.3 million listens, so there’s a large number of folks out there who’ve found this series useful. I’m so delighted that our crazy tale here on the southern tip of Africa has resonated with so many people. The response has utterly stunned me, thinking when I started that being so battered by headwinds as we are at the moment, cynicism would sink the show. But it’s the opposite. To all

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21:44

Episode 161 - Moshoeshoe signs a Treaty then collects...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/03/10

This is episode 161 — and what’s this I hear? The sound of wind whipping and howling through the mountain recesses, snow-capped mountains, where the rivers have torn deep ravines in the geography, terraphysics scraping rocks, rushing waters plunging from the escarpment into the eastern cape and free state, foaming and roiling.It must be the home of the BaSotho. Many South Africans make the fatal mistake of thinking that Lesotho is such a small place, reliant on its big neighbour, it is basically

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23:19

Episode 160 - A tour of Philippolis, an 1844 update,...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/03/03

This is episode 160 and we’re breathing the spicy smells of the semi-desert, and taking in the exotic and wonderous scenary of the Richtersveld, Namaqualand, and the stunning area around south westn Free State in the 840s. Last episode we heard about the period 1840-1843 in the southern Caledon River valley, and how the Voortrekkers like Jan Mocke were flowing into land that Moshoeshoe of the BaSotho believed was his. That was setting up a classic situation where land was the core of the ension

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22:35

Episode 159 - Boer women as handmaidens to history...

History of South Africa podcast ·

2024/02/25

This is episode 159.If we take out a map of south Africa and reconsider the regions, it will become quite apparent that the main demarcation is geographical, geological, the main points of reference are the rivers and the mountains, the desert and semi-desert, the good soils and the bad. Take a look at a map of the region to the south west of the Drakensberg, for its this area way down to the Orange River and extending towards the Kalahari and the Richtersveld that we’re going to focus on in

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