We so often hear about Blood river where the Voortrekkers defeated 10 000 Zulus. The Voortrekker monument is a testimony to their sacrifices. But what you don’t hear is why there was a battle against the Zulus? What happened before Blood river? Blood river was a revenge attack by the Voortrekkers on incidents that happened a few months prior.

This is that story.

The Boers climbed Execution Hill (Hlomo Amabutu) in the hot, subtropical, Natal sun; the stench of rotting flesh filled their nostrils and sensibilities. This had been the Zulu king Dingaan’s execution site, and many had been the executions he had ordered! Thousands had found their tortured, final resting place here!

Mostly, executions were conducted with the aid of a sangoma or witchdoctor, who would conduct “smelling out” ceremonies, during which he would claim to sniff out those people who were evil, wizards, or plotting some mischief against the chief. Sometimes, he would “smell out” hundreds at a time. Then they would be taken to Hlomo Amabutu to be executed, their bodies left for the vultures, which Dingaan affectionately referred to as his “children”, to feed on. Holding their noses, the Boers picked their way over countless bones and bodies. Vultures rose to the air reluctantly, squawking their protest, their stomachs distended — with human flesh. At last, the Boers recognized the remains of the bodies of the White men – Piet Retief and his party, whom Dingaan had murdered so treacherously: How cruelly they had been murdered!

The Zulus had held Piet Retief and forced him to watch, as one by one, his comrades, and finally his own teenage son were murdered before his eyes — bludgeoned with a knobkierrie or sliced up with an assegaai (Zulu spear). When it was all over, Piet Retief’s heart and his liver had been cut out and presented to Dingaan. But, what was that ? Beside Retief’s body, lay a leather pouch. Inside, lay that precious Treaty he had signed with Dingaan, granting the Boers all the land between the Tugela and the Umzimvubu rivers.

Of French Huguenot ancestry, Retief was an educated man, of a refined and intelligent character: his involvement in various commandos against the Xhosa, and his leadership role in mediations with the British had developed in him just the skills necessary to lead such a trek. Retief led his party across the Orange River, and out of British-held territory to Thaba Nchu, where they met up with other parties of Voortrekkers who had left earlier, Retief was promptly elected as the leader of the combined group.

Retief led the largest group of Trekkers across the formidable Drakensberg Mountains (Dragon Mountains) into Natal, while yet others crossed the Vaal River into the Transvaal or remained in what was to become the Orange Free State. Previously, in return for 49 cattle and Boer protection against the Matabele chief Mzilikazi (a renegade Zulu captain), the black leader Makwena had granted Hendrik Potgieter’s party the land between the Vet and Vaal Rivers. When, in 1836 Mzilikazi attacked, Potgieter’s commando succeeded in driving Mzilikazi and his Matabele (Ndebele) from the western Transvaal into what is now Zimbabwe, where they have remained to this day.

For the Retief Trek, crossing the formidable Drakensberg Mountains in itself was an almost superhuman feat, requiring an indomitable determination, resilience, and perseverance not to mention an optimistic, adventurous spirit. These intrepid qualities were required of even the children and women, for the ordeal was easy on none, and it became indelibly etched into the Boer psyche. Tottering over near vertical inclines, they ascended the Drakensberg, and on the other side, they descended often near vertical declines, requiring that the wheels be removed from the wagons, and saplings tied in their place; while the men would hold fast onto ropes at the front of the wagons, to prevent them from running over the oxen — making their laborious descent, almost on their knees; or careering to their destruction far below.

When they saw the green lands that lay before them, as they surmounted the Drakensberg, they could not be blamed for thinking that they too, had reached the Promised Land, and they called it Blydevooruitzicht – Happy Prospects. Dingaan and the Zulus Natal was occupied by the warlike Zulu tribe, like the Xhosa, part of the Nguni people who originated in the Uganda area of Africa. Leaving the bulk of his party encamped along the Bloukrans River, Retief led a party of some 60 men and teenage boys to negotiate for land with Dingaan, the chief, at his kraal, “Umgungundlovu,” (Place of the Elephant- meaning Dingaan himself).

Dingaan promised Retief and his Trekkers, that if they could recover the cattle that a local chief had stolen from him, then he would grant them land. With little difficulty, the Boers recovered the cattle, and on 2 February 1837, they arrived at Umgungundlovu with the some 7,000 retrieved cattle. On 5 February, Dingaan and Retief signed a treaty granting the Boers the land between the Tugela and the Umzimvubu rivers in Natal. Being illiterate, Dingaan signed with an “X”. During the ceremony, a little Zulu picaninny (child) knelt at Dingaan’s side, with his hands cupped.

At intervals, Dingaan would spit into his hands, and the boy would rub the spittle into his belly, praising the king. The honor was greatly coveted. Festivities followed the signing of the agreement. The following day, 6 February, the Boers rose before daybreak to return to Bloukrans where the rest of the trek awaited them. Just then, a messenger arrived from Dingaan, inviting Retief and his party to meet once more with the King, before they left. Unwisely, Retief and his Trekkers, as well as two Englishmen from Port Natal, were persuaded to leave their weapons outside the kraal, as a mark of respect to the Zulu king. Offering them some raw sorghum beer, Dingaan toasted their friendship, attested to by the signed treaty Retief carried in his bag.

(An American Missionary perspective of that incident)

Then Dingaan commanded two of his impis (regiments) to entertain them by dancing. For some fifteen minutes the warriors danced, shouted and made feinting movements with their spears. Advancing three steps and retreating two — they advanced towards the Boers. Suddenly, Dingaan rose shouting, “Bulala Amatakati” (“Kill the White Wizards!”), and immediately some 2,000 Zulus fell upon the unsuspecting Boers.

Some leaped to their feet, drawing their small hunting knives, but they were no match for the numbers and spears of the Zulu warriors. Feet trailing, they were dragged off to a hill next to Umgungundlovu, called “Hlomo Amabutu,” the Hill of Execution, there to be savagely murdered, one by one, where Andries Pretorius and the victors of Blood River would eventually find them.

About two hours after Retief’s heart and liver had been presented to Dingaan, his impis under the captains Ndlela and Dambuza, set off to massacre the rest of the Boer party, who were camped out at Bloukrans, a considerable distance from Umgungundlovu; chanting, “We will go and kill the white dogs!”. The English missionary, Francis Owen and an American William Wood, witnessed the murder from Owen’s hut overlooking Hlomo Amabutu.

Fearful for their own lives, they fled several days later for Port Natal. Not suspecting any treachery, the Boers had not formed their wagons into a defensive laager or circle, but were camped out in groups of varying sizes. As they slept on the night of 16 February 1838, the Zulu army of some 10,000 attacked: The Liebenberg family was slaughtered in their beds. Having been left for dead, along with his murdered wife, mother, and sisters, a badly wounded Daniel Bezuidenhout managed to mount his horse and ride to warn other camps.

It was a bloody massacre: the Zulus were snatching up babies, throwing them into the air, and impaling them upon their assagaais or dashing their heads on rocks. One man grabbed his baby daughter and ran for miles through the bush, clutching his child to his chest, only to find that she had already been murdered while still in her crib! One woman, having survived the initial onslaught, was seeking her opportunity to warn the others, when she was surprised by some Zulus, returning from their bloody past-time.

Trying to crawl into a wagon, her leg was still protruding as they came in sight of her. She lay motionless, feigning death. As they passed her by, each Zulu stabbed her leg. To flinch or cry out would have meant certain death, so with superhuman will-power she managed to remain absolutely motionless, as tens of Zulu stabbed that exposed leg and survived to tell of it.

At last, some of the larger camps managed to draw their wagons into a laager, and the Zulus were fended off. Weenen As dawn broke on February 16th, the specter of the mutilated corpses of some 300 people assailed the eyes of the survivors: The senseless brutality of the Zulus impressed itself upon all: the body of Johanna van der Merwe was found to have been stabbed 21 times; Catherina Prinsloo’s 17 times, while Elizabeth Smit lay with her three-day-old baby beside her — her breast hacked off. Anna Elizabeth Steenkamp’s diary describes the gory scene of a wagon filled with the corpses of 50 people, mostly children, all of whom had been hacked apart, their blood drenching the wagon.

Altogether, 41 men, 56 women and 185 children – had been murdered. Together with the Retief party, more than half of the Boer party in Natal had been massacred. So, the Voortrekkers named the place Weenen, or “Weeping”, the name it is called by, still though the Black ANC government seeks to erase all such reminders of the Boer presence in South Africa, and how they watered the ground with their blood, and still do.

Leaving their bloody handiwork at Bloukrans, the Zulu turned on the British trading settlement of Port Natal, seeking to exterminate the Whites there too. Some Englishmen from Port Natal, including Thomas Halstead and George Biggar, had been murdered along with Retief’s party. Wishing to avenge the deaths of their friends, the British set out to meet the Zulu, but only four Englishmen and 500 of their Zulus (refugees from Dingaan) escaped to Port Natal. The English eventually took refuge on a ship in port, leaving the Zulu refugees to face Dingaan’s forces.

Other Boer parties came to the aid of the Boers at Weenen but were ambushed at the Battle of Italeni. Andries Pretorius The news of the treachery of Dingaan aroused much indignation, and a wave of sympathy for the Natal Boers resulted in hundreds of Boers joining Andries Pretorius’ Trek. Pretorius was a successful farmer from Graaff Reinet — an area that along with Swellendam, in opposition to the autocratic rule of the Dutch India Company, had declared itself an independent republic in 1795 — before the British had occupied the Cape, though the British had reversed this the next year when they occupied the Cape during the Napoleonic wars.

Many Voortrekkers hailed from this area. Pretorius’ Trek arrived in Natal in November 1838. He was elected Commandant General by the Natal Boers. Pretorius swiftly organized a commando of some 464 men. He would not attack the Zulu, but waited for them to attack him. First, Sarel Celliers, the pastor, led the Boers in taking an oath to Almighty God, that if He would deliver them from the Zulu and grant them victory, then for ever more, they and their descendants would celebrate the day as a sacred day and celebrate it as if it “were a Sabbath”.

Then, on the 15th December, as his scouts reported a large Zulu army in the area, Pretorius chose the site of his camp: He formed a laager of 64 wagons into the shape of a capital “D”: the straight side ran along a deep donga or ditch which extended for some distance at a 90 degree angle to the Ncome river; the lower part of the “D” ran parallel with the Ncome River, and the rest of the rounded part faced the north west, where there were no natural defenses.

The two muzzle loading canons were positioned in openings between the wagons; while the 900 oxen and about 500 horses were penned up in the centre of the laager. The motto of the Boers has ever been “Boer maak ‘n plan” (a Boer makes a plan), and they plugged the spaces between and under the wagons with thorn bushes, which worked like barbed wire, to bar the entry of the Zulu into the laager. They also lined the donga with thorn bushes. As it grew dark and a mist descended, the Boers hung their lanterns on the ends of their long whips, and secured them on the wagons, so that the lights protruded from the wagons.

To the Zulus, creeping up for a surprise attack under the cover of dark, it appeared that a halo of ethereal light hovered over the laager, protecting the Boers. “Bewitched! Bewitched!” they screamed as they fled in terror, leaving the Boers safe for the night. The Battle of Blood River The Boers fought with muzzle-loading rifles, loaded by pouring gunpowder down the barrel, then ramming leaden, ball-shaped bullets down the barrel with a ramrod. On pulling the trigger, the gunpowder ignited and a few seconds later, the shot was fired.

The Boers made their own bullets. Traditionally, while the man was shooting, his wife, mother, or daughter would be loading another gun, and they would shoot until the guns were hot. Sometimes, if the Blacks were too close, the women would have to make the shot, or hit a Black on the head with the butt of the gun, as they tried to crawl under the wagons. Opening up this land was not for the feint-hearted!

The Zulu attack came at dawn on the 16th December, 1838. Looking out on the veld before them, the Boers were greeted instead by a seething Black mass of between 15,000 and 20,000 Zulu warriors, chanting and stamping their feet in a bloody war dance, working themselves up into a killing-frenzy. The sight was enough to send chills through the stoutest of hearts. They had no desire to replay the events of the massacre at Bloukrans (Weenen).

Heavily outnumbered as they were, the Boers needed to hold their fire until they were sure it would count; at the first burst of fire, the Zulu fell in their hundreds, and at every successive round, their corpses stacked up hampering them in their charge. The successive rains of spears thrown by the Zulus came hurtling through the air like a black rain, but miraculously, throughout the battle, they caused no casualties at all. Inside the laager, the air grew blue with smoke so that the Boers could hardly see their hands before them. Fortunately, the Zulu retreated out of range of the rifles, allowing the guns to cool and the air to clear, before a second charge.

Again and again they charged, swarming into the donga, and through the river, and again and again the Boers shot into their midst, taking a heavy toll on their numbers. The Boers used their canons to maximum effect, at one stage aiming one as far as possible into the rear lines, and the other into the centre of the front lines. Attacking en masse, the Zulu crossing the river were shot in the water, until the river turned red with the blood of the Zulu. So, the river came to became known until this day, as “Blood River.” The Boers pulled aside a wagon, and a commando of around 100 men galloped out, shooting from the saddle, they caused havoc amongst the Zulu until their forces were divided and routed.

 

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The Zulus fled, and the Boers pursued them until dark, leaving around 3,000 Zulus dead on the battlefield, and countless more off the site, with even more dying later from their wounds. Remarkably, there were no Boer casualties at all, though Pretorius himself was slightly wounded in the arm, and another two Boers were nicked by a spear. It was truly a miracle, and the Calvinistic Boers gave the glory to God, taking their victory as a sign from God that He was with them and that just as he had given the Land of Canaan to the Israelites, He had delivered Natal to the Boers.

After the Battle, Dingaan fled into Swaziland, where he was subsequently assassinated, and in 1840, Andries Pretorius and a Boer commando of around 400 helped Dingaan’s half-brother, Mpanda, establish himself as king. And, so it was that the Boers of the Blood River made a pilgrimage to “Hlomo Amabutu”, “The Hill of Execution”, to find the murdered bodies of Piet Retief and his party, and to give them a Christian burial, and so it was that they retrieved the Treaty from their untouched bodies.

The Boers kept their part of the vow, and built a Church to God and ever after their descendants have celebrated the 16th December as a Sabbath, — that is, until the traitor governments of PW Botha and F.W. De Klerk (1980’s onwards) ceased observing it as a public event at the Voortrekker Monument, though there were always Boers who kept the day holy at private and political rallies. One hundred years later, in 1938, when the Boers had once again gained power in their own country, they built the mighty Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria to commemorate the Battle of Blood River and the Covenant they had made with God.

On the lower floor of the massive monument, stands a cenotaph to the Voortrekker dead; which from the ground floor, can be seen through a circular well in the marble floor. In the domed ceiling, some hundred and twenty feet above, there is a little hole, and at exactly midday on the 16th of December, the sun shines through that little aperture, down onto the cenotaph, to illuminate the words on it: “ONS VIR JOU SUID-AFRIKA.” (We for you South Africa)

The site of Blood River too, was graced with 64 bronze, life-size wagons, forming an eternal laager to mark the site of this significant battle, and God’s grace. Aftermath The defeat of the Zulus at Blood River, and the murder of Dingaan had broken the back of the Zulu power for the moment. Significantly, the Boers never sought to rule the Zulu, but in 1840 helped Mpande establish his own independent kingdom; while the Boers had established their own independent Boer Republic of Natalia in 1839.

However, the defeat of the Zulu, caused the British to cast even more covetous eyes over Natal, and by 1843, British encroachment from the Eastern Cape led to a war between the Boers and the British, with the Boers besieging Congella. The British broke the siege and in 1845, just as the Boers were reaping the rewards of their hard work, the British formally annexed the Republic of Natalia, claiming that the Boers were still British subjects and as such any land they claimed belonged to the Crown. Once again, the Boers became disheartened, having sacrificed so much, only to find themselves once again under British rule.

However, it was the Boer women who vowed that their beloved dead husbands, fathers and sons, and all those at Bloukrans, should not have died in vain, and even if they had to cross that Drakensberg range barefoot, they would do so, but they would never remain under British rule. Heartened by the courage and the willingness of their women to endure further sacrifice, the Boers trekked once again over the Drakensberg mountains into the fledgling republics in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.