President Thomas Francois Burgers of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR). Educated at Utrecht in Holland, Burgers became president of the ZAR in 1872. Though he was a man of energy and ideas, the ZAR was economically and politically fragile, and was easily annexed by Britain in 1877.
The same forces that imperilled the Zulu Kingdom threatened other powerful African kingdoms almost simultaneously. As already noted, relations between the Pedi and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) deteriorated after the opening up of the diamond fields. This was to culminate in an attack on the Pedi instigated by President Thomas Francois Burgers.
In July 1876, on the orders of President Burgers, the ZAR army, supported by the Swazi army and other Africans from the eastern Transvaal, invaded the Pedi chiefdom. Pedi resistance was so successful that by early August the invaders had abandoned the exercise. The Boer-led attack failed for a number of reasons, such as poor morale among the Boers and poor leadership by Burgers, an ex-minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. Clearly, by now the Pedi kingdom had become an alternative focus of power to that of the ZAR.
The invasion was precipitated by a complex combination of factors. By the early 1870s, the kingdom’s population and military power had grown considerably due to the accumulation of firearms, resulting in a number of Pedi military victories against the Swazi. This served to undermine ZAR authority. There were also struggles over labour following the migration of Pedi men to the diamond fields. Sekhukhune rejected ZAR claims to land in the Pedi heartland, while Boer-Pedi disputes continued. The Boers attacked Pedi labour migrants, passing through Boer-occupied land on their return from a labour term at the diamond fields in Kimberley, and took the guns with which they had been paid away from them.
Meanwhile, large numbers of armed returning Pedi migrants led to growing Boer rumours and fears of Pedi preparations for war. Boer-Pedi hostilities continued for two years, following the abortive Boer invasion of the Pedi kingdom. Unbeknown to the Pedi, however, the British authorities were planning to annex the Transvaal, preparatory to an invasion of their kingdom. This was in fact part of the plan of Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Carnarvon, to bring together the two British colonies of the Cape and Natal and the two Boer republics into a confederation of states.
A number of factors prompted the British authorities to intervene in the Transvaal. The threats to the free flow of Pedi migrant labour to the diamond fields posed by Boer attacks upon the migrants threatened the stability of diamond mining. The ongoing struggles over land and labour in the Transvaal underpinned the fear of African resistance and even possible revolt, as indicated by the outcome of the abortive Boer invasion of the Pedi in 1876. Independent African states, argued Theophilus Shepstone in Natal, might sooner or later combine and act together against the burgeoning British rule.
Shepstone further argued that imperial expansion into the Transvaal would, as was already happening in Natal, pay for itself through the use of African chiefs, African taxes and African police. Lastly, the ZAR had no resource capacity to enforce labour service by Africans or collect taxes. Such arguments by Shepstone convinced Lord Carnarvon about the need for imperial intervention in the Transvaal. It was annexed in 1877.
Sekhukhune was advised by the British authorities that he should submit to their authority, and a fine of 2 000 cattle was imposed upon him, supposedly for suffering incurred by the Boers in the 1876 campaign. Sekhukhune could hardly meet such a demand; the Pedi had after all, suffered from the confl ict with the ZAR and had been hard hit by a drought. Secretary for Native Affairs, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, annexed the Transvaal in January 1877 and began to push more strongly for imperial intervention. Some minor incidents were used as an excuse to attack the Pedi and war broke out in 1878. But British attention was diverted temporarily to Natal and the war with the Zulu.
In 1878 the British defeated the Pedi and Sekhukhune was captured and taken to Pretoria to be imprisoned. This picture shows Sekhukhune and his wives on the wagon.
After the defeat of the Zulu, Shepstone and Sir Garnet Wolseley hoped that Sekhukhune would see the futility of resisting British hegemony. Consequently, another set of demands was presented to Sekhukhune. The Pedi prevaricated and Wolseley decided to subjugate them; an act that would not only destroy one of the strongest independent African kingdoms in the Transvaal, but also restore the military prestige of the British in the eyes of the Transvaal burghers.
The Pedi defended their capital quite successfully but the British, assisted by Swazi regiments and other African auxiliaries from within the Transvaal, were able to surround them. The Pedi were defeated and Sekhukhune was captured and taken to Pretoria to be imprisoned. Pedi losses were considerable; at least a quarter of Sekhukhune’s 4 000 men lost their lives. The British abandoned the Transvaal some three years later and the Pedi were subject once again to the vagaries of rule by the ZAR.
