Stockenstrom began to suspect that the frequent patrols were part of a sinister agenda to drive the Xhosa on the border to a desperate incursion into the colony, which could then be used as a pretext for a further colonial land grab contemplated by British soldiers in alliance with British merchants and land speculators. He wrote of people ‘desiring a chain of sanguinary wars’ that would cost vast amounts of money but ‘would popularise themselves by bringing enormous fortunes to some dozens of speculators and overwhelm headquarters with patronage’. He appealed to government to bring to an end the patrols attempting to drive the Xhosa and other Bantu-speakers out of the neutral territory altogether.
Considering Stockenstrom a colonial who did not know his proper place, Colonel Somerset, appealed over Stockenstrom’s head to the governor and continued his patrols. In 1833 Stockenstrom travelled to London to seek more power for his post, and resigned then it was denied. He decided to leave the Cape permanently for Sweden, the country of his father’s birth. After his departure the government’s frontier policy lost the little credibility it still had in the eyes of both the burghers and the Xhosa.
The Sixth Frontier War (1834–1835) was a profound shock to all the frontier colonists. Twenty whites and 80 Khoikhoi were killed, 455 homesteads were burned down and thousands of horses, cattle and sheep were carried off. They had believed a Xhosa invasion impossible. Their hope that the colony’s counterattack would bring stability was soon dashed. An English-speaker wrote in April 1836 from the Lower Fish River that the Afrikaner farmers had little hope for the future, adding: ‘One said that in his father’s lifetime and his own they had been five times clean swept out by the [Xhosa].’
A large colonial force counterattacked and drove the Xhosa far eastwards. Sub sequently the governor, Sir Benjamin D’Urban, extended the eastern border of the colony to the Kei River and the source of the Wit Kei in the Stormberg, with the newly acquired territory designated as the Province of Queen Adelaide. This raised strong hopes among the burghers that a large new region would become available for farms. However, a select parliamentary committee in London was hearing evidence on the treatment of indigenous peoples. The missionary John Philip had become one of the main sources of information to the Imperial government, cutting much of the ground from underneath D’Urban’s feet.
A key witness was Stockenstrom, who had travelled from Sweden to London to testify. He blamed much of the violence on the reprisal system and the patrols and commandos. Many of these actions, he said, were based on fraudulent claims about theft and on a desire to grab more land from the Xhosa.
On 26 December 1835 the colonial secretary in the Imperial government, Lord Glenelg, reversed D’Urban’s decisions. The colonists had expected the Xhosa to be forced to pay for instituting another war, but Glenelg declared that the Xhosa had been driven ‘by a long series of acts of injustice and spoliation’ and had ‘ample justifi – cation’ for invading the colony.
He now announced that the Province of Queen Adelaide was to be abandoned and the colonial boundary moved back from the Kei to the Keiskamma, Tyhume and Gaga rivers, with colonial control over the area between the Fish and the Keiskamma (the neutral territory). The chiefs had to abandon all claims to this land, but the government was prepared to ‘lend’ this region to chiefs and their subjects on condition of good behaviour. Glenelg appointed Stockenstrom to return to the Cape as lieutenant-governor and implement his ideas for a stable system on the frontier (see Stockenstrom, Godlonton and Bowker). For many of the frontier farmers the retrocession of the Province of Queen Adelaide and the general tenor of Glenelg’s dispatch was a final blow that prompted them to join the trek that had begun before the war.
Stockenstrom assumed office in Grahamstown on 3 September 1836. His priority was to give people on both sides of the frontier a sense of security and stability. The Xhosa had to be left in peace and the reprisals and commandos had to cease. The colonists had to be allowed to protect their property and life against plunderers and, if necessary, shoot the assailants. A line of military posts manned by a strong force was necessary. He recommended additional resident magistrates in Cradock, Colesberg and a place further east.
Hintsa’s war
