Episode 197 - The Show Trial of Andries Botha and the Forgotten Significance of the 8th Frontier War

History of South Africa podcast

This is episode 197. Which is a prime number and therefore symbolic too because this episode we’re dealing with a unique event in Southern African history.
The 8th Frontier war, which began on Christmas Day 1850, was going to end eventually although as with all conflicts that stretch into years, most of those involved despaired believing perhaps the guns would never fall silent.
A British government under Russell had come a cropper partly because of the way in which this war dragged on, it led to Sir Harry Smith losing his job as Cape Governor, and Sir George Cathcart had arrived to escort the conflagration to its spluttering expiration.
Lord Earl Grey had lost his job as Colonial Secretary, only a few weeks after he’d fired Harry Smith. Among the amaXhosa, things were actually not much better. The overall situation was different from the previous war, because there was no longer any attempt at a central command, or even unity of action.
Chief Sandile of the amaNqgika had told his warriors to avoid gathering in large numbers, preferring quick and dirty small raids to anything large scale. Committing acts of mischief of all kinds as the British referred to it. For both the settlers and Xhosa people who were trying to get on with their lives, the unstable frontier was a torturous concoction of blood, sweat and tears.
It was actually the Khoekhoe rebels under leaders like Willem Uithaalder who were determined to hold out whatever happened. This position was reinforced when the British conducted a show trial of a man who has been treated very badly by History, by the name of Andries Botha.
A Khoe veteran — former of the Cape Mounted Rifles.
He faced two treason trials, the first ended in 1851, but the settlers were baying for his blood as a former Cape Mounted Rifles commander who was accused of switching sides to fight with the amaXhosa. As you’ll hear, he hadn’t.
In May 1852 he was re-arrested and marched into a court where Judge Sir John Wylde presided in what became known as South Africa’s first show trial — foreshadowing others such as the Rivonia Treason Trials where Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life on Robben Island. It as an unprecedented event this 1852 show trial, the first of its kind in the Supreme Court of the Cape Colony. Previously the trials had been dominated by the almost ritualised sentencing of rebellious slaves, but this one was the first politically charged trial taking aim at an indigenous person, a man of Southern Africa, not a rebellious slave from Madagascar or West Africa.
Botha was defended by two of the Cape’s top lawyers, Frank Watermeyer and Johannes Brand. In what amounted to an unsightly rush, he was sentenced to death in spite of a strong defence, however the outrage that followed led to the death sentence commuted to life in prison.
The amaXhosa were exhausted and in Febuary 1853, Sir George Cathcart, like his predecessors, had tired of greedy colonists making quite a bit of cash out of this war. They hiked up their prices for all goods, horses, oxen, feed, leather goods, food.
After protracted negotiations, Sandile and Maqoma surrendered, along with their chiefs. They were pardoned by Cathcart, who had promised they would not be arrested like Siyolo, in exchange for an unconditional surrender.
And so dear listener, the end of the eighth frontier war was inconclusive. At first glance, it appeared the British had prevailed, the amaXhosa had been vanquished. It had cost close to three million pounds, 16 000 Xhosa had died, 1400 British and colonials.
It had given the world something called the Birkenhead Drill, women and children first. It had also revealed to planet earth, a modern war where a guerrilla-style army with experience in the bush had forced the conventional army into unconventional tactics.