Episode 284 - Australians and the Struben Brothers Hunt Gold on the Ridge of White Waters

Episode 285 - The Three Georges Gold Saga and a Bottle of Mampoer Vignette

Farming dominated the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek economy in the 1880s, even after gold was discovered in the eastern Transvaal but that was about to change. Last episode we heard about the early gold finds around Rustenburg which was part of the Witwatersrand Ward back in the late 1800s. Farms along the Ridge of White Waters had a fairly steady supply of water courtesy of the many springs that could be found along the ridge. Still, the freezing winters and the lack of wood meant the region was not in high demand despite water and fairly good soils. By 1886 dozens of diggers began arriving on the Witwatersrand, having heard reports of the earlier finds and growing tired of the limited options available in Pilgrims Rest. Others made their way from the south, from Kimberley or the coast, trekking on foot. Two of those were the George’s I mentioned in episode 284 .. George Harrison and George Walker, who walked from the Orange Free State who had decided to chance their luck in Barberton. If it were possible and we teleported ourselves back to this time, we would have come across hundreds of other fortune seekers tramping across the countryside, determined to strike it lucky. George Harrison is a bit of a mystery. He was Australian, or perhaps more accurately, an Englishman who’d live in Australia and joined the gold rush there, failed to find any treasure, then read about the Eastern Transvaal Barberton and Pilgrim’s Rest discoveries and made a B-line for South Africa. We don’t know much more about Harrison’s origin story. George Walker on the other hand had quite an extensive CV — born in Wigan in England in 1853, he made his way to Kimberley in 1879 but had little luck digging for diamonds. He joined a British cavalry contingent during the Anglo-Zulu war and fought in Zululand, after which he rode off to Pilgrim’s Rest and Kaapsehoop to dig for gold. Coal had been discovered in large quantities in the Free State, and he first took up a job at the Witrand Coal Mine near Kroonstad, where he met Elizabeth Johanna Catharina Pretorius and the couple married in 1883. It was there that George Harrison bumped into him on his great trek from Kimberley to the eastern Transvaal gold fields and the two decided to try their luck one more time at Barberton. George Walker left his wife Catharina and children in Potchefstroom, and joined Harrison for their trek to Barberton. They broke their journey on the Witwatersrand, deciding to earn more cash to set themselves up with a wagon, horses and other necessities before heading on to Barberton. It just so happened that the Struben brothers were looking for builders around their Confidence Mine, which as you heard last episode, was somewhat of a misnomer. When Hendrik Potgieter and other Voortrekker reconnaissance parties arrived along the Vaal and Witwatersrand in 1836, battles followed, eventually the Ndebele were pushed out the Transvaal completely and ended up in Zimbabwe. The two Georges would have been aware of the Potgieter saga, but blissfully unaware of the pre-history as they wondered through Langlaagte Farm. Originally 2 260 Morgan in size, It had been broken up into four portions. In common with other pastoral communities across Southern Africa, Boer custom stipulated that marriage entailed a land grant or farm subdivision for every son. The difference is most African communities relied on the King or Chief assigning land, whereas in the Boers case, it was the grandfather, or the father. Portion A was owned by Andries Breedt, Portion B by Anna Elizabeth de Beer Mulder - her maiden name was Oosthuizen - Portion C by Gerhardus Oosthuizen, and Portion D by the widow Petronella Oosthuizen and her son, Jan Hendrick Oosthuizen. Portion D was where Harrison was working, building the widow and her son their home. George Walker and George Harrison strolled onto Gerhardus’ Oosthuizen’s Portion C property, when they stumbled on a well weathered outcrop of rock.

Episode 284 - Australians and the Struben Brothers Hunt Gold on the Ridge of White Waters

Gold sends a shiver through the spine of the adventurer, the merest hint drives men to acts of extreme bravery, or stupidity. Moderate men and women throw off their cloaks of social anonymity and travel thousands of kilometers in arduous conditions just to lay their hands on a Gramm or two of the yellow treasure. Gold fever is a pandemic even in the modern world, although the price of gold fluctuates based on world geopolitics and economics. What is this allure? Callous investors of the modern era decry gold bugs and their passion, sneering at the pursuit of a commodity that appears to have very little going for it other than it’s scarcity. Despite these days of blockchain, ETFs, polymarket and AI investor hullabaloo, the physical value underpinning billions is bullion. By the 1880s, gold was more than something to lock away in a vault or fashion into a king's crown. It had become one of the world's essential industrial commodities, prized because it would not rust, tarnish or corrode, and because it could be beaten into sheets so thin they were almost transparent. Gold leaf adorned the domes of public buildings, church altars, picture frames and the spines of expensive books. Dentists relied on it for fillings, crowns and bridges because it was soft, durable and chemically inert. Watchmakers and instrument makers used it for precision components that had to resist corrosion, while jewellers transformed it into rings, brooches and chains for an expanding middle class. Gold salts found their way into photography and medicine, and artisans incorporated the metal into fine porcelain, glass and luxury decorative objects. Yet these practical uses consumed only a fraction of the world's output. The overwhelming demand for gold came from another purpose altogether: it was the metal that underpinned the global financial system. Nations minted it into sovereigns, eagles and francs, banks stored it in their vaults as the foundation of their currencies, and governments measured their economic strength by the weight of bullion they possessed. Every new reef discovered promised not merely ornaments or luxury goods, but the power to expand credit, finance empires and reshape the world economy. Geologically speaking the Witwatersrand gold basin is a unique phenomenon, it is the most immense gold resource with the poorest grade ever discovered. Witwatersrand makes up 1/3rd of all gold ever mined in the history of planet earth. Standing south of Johannesburg these days and looking at the high ground, the Witwatersrand, gives you very little idea about why early settlers called this the Ridge of White Waters. It’s all developed now, there the inevitable town house development complexes, shopping malls, industrialised and urbanised land has obfuscated the look and feel of the landscape. As the early trekkers made their way north from the Vaal River in the mid-1830s, they were struck by the beautiful vista of a broad ridge about 100 kilometers across, dotted with waterfalls in summer. To give you an idea about what this must have looked like, go visit the Walter Sisulu botanical gardens in Roodepoort to take a look at the stunning waterfall there. The entire ridge was covered with these waterfalls, particularly spectacular after heavy rains — places like Roodepoort, Melville, Parktown, Upper Houghton, Orange Grove, Bedfordview were covered in clear running falls, long since channeled and drained, the silver cascades long gone. The Australians have a lot to do with gold discoveries in South Africa - particularly Henry Lewis who had been lured to Southern Africa by reports of paydirt in the Eastern Transvaal - Pilgrims Rest etc. That was in 1874 and like many other diggers, he wondered about and eventually discovered alluvial gold on the farm Blaaubank near Rustenburg. Fred Struben was the son of a Dutch naval officer who arrived in South Africa in the 1850s, and he disembarked in Cape Town with a thirst for adventure.

Episode 283 - Warren’s Great North Road Balloon and Telegraph Escapade

Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham. Episode 283 and it’s 1885. And boy! Do we have a plethora of happenings to report. This is a year before the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, and global events are full of war, innovation, ethnic carnage, economic ups and downs, world firsts, medicine, and a dose of snot and trauma. The year 1885 opened with a strange and ironic trial by fire across England, balancing state-sanctioned progress against lawless destruction. In January, Irish rebels shattered the peace by detonating dynamite inside Westminster Hall and the Tower of London, raining literal fire and brimstone upon the ancient symbols of British authority. Amidst this chaotic violence, a far more orderly kind of incineration took place. That same year, the widowed painter Jeanette Pickersgill of London, a lady "well known in literary and scientific circles," became the first person to be legally cremated in England by the Cremation Society at Woking, Surrey. It was a classic Victorian paradox: while the state scrambled to suppress the lawless Irish bombs threatening to burn the old order down, it was simultaneously finalizing the bureaucratic regulations on how its most respectable citizens could legally burn themselves to ashes. In Southern Africa, 1885 saw two major geopolitical moves - In March the United Kingdom Established the Bechuanaland Protectorate - modern day Botswana. The second event was the incorporation of the tiny Boer republic of Stellaland into Bechuanaland. It was all part of a grand plan partly initiated by Transvaal president Paul Kruger. He had sailed to London in 1884 and met Secretary of State of the Colonies Lord Derby where the two struck a deal. Derby would drop the British claim to suzerainty over the Transvaal and reduce the Transvaal’s debt, and reduce the powers of the British representative in Pretoria, in exchange Kruger agreed to decrease tariffs on imported goods and to drop claims to Stellaland and Goshen, thus opening up Cecil John Rhodes’ important North Road. The agreement promised a rare season of peace and stability for the fractured region. Yet, its true survival rested entirely on whether both sides would honor the principles they had so recently espoused. They did not. Or to be more accurate, Pro-Boer and Pro-Imperial activists did not. Transvaal commandos rode into Zululand and into Bechuanaland, cocking a snook at their own leadership. On the British side, all manner of colonials looked askance at the Kruger/Derby Deal. One was missionary and humanitarian, Reverend John Mackenzie, a prominent member of the London Missionary Society. He had spent most of his adult life proselytizing amongst the Tswana people at Kuruman and Shoshong. Mackenzie was the Boer’s arch enemy, denouncing incursions from the pulpit in South Africa, then back in the UK when he was on leave in 1882 and 1883. The Road to the North worried him because of how dominant the Transvaal Boers were in this region.As King Leopold of Belgium, the French, Bismarck of Germany and others met to finalise who got what in Africa, the British Foreign Office suddenly woke up. They were concerned about the Transvaal and German South West Africa. The British Government did a volte-farce, and sent a powerful army up the North Road. Four thousand regular troops, including the famous Inniskilling Dragoons cavalry regiment from Ulster in Northern Ireland, along with three observation balloons, all headed towards Stellaland from Kimberley.

Episode 282 - The Scramble for Africa Berlin Conference of 1884/5 and Lüderitz becomes German

There are many correlations and connections in this episode, so hang on tight as we toboggan down the slippery slopes of history bumping into all manner of bizarre and simultaneously heinous characters. Keeping in mind that we’re dealing with men and women of their age, nevertheless, the tale is one of intrigue, ego, treasure hunting, not to mention, madness. Belgium by 1882 was barely half a century old, becoming independent in 1830, ruled by King Leopold the Second, who sported a spade shaped beard and a giant colonial chip on his shoulder. Because he led a respectable European country, he was a king, but how he’d become a king was a sleight of hand. His father was a German prince, related to the British Royal family, Leopold the First. This trembling nation had been pasted together — an uneasy amalgam as Adam Hothschild writes — of French and Flemish, a version of Dutch spoken in northern Belgium. King Leopold the Second was fluent in French, German, like his father and later, English. He never bothered to learn Flemish, spoken by more than half his people. A snob, some said, bitterly, as bitter as the division created by language and class. French was the language of the bourgeois, the educated, Flemish was working class. Even the professionals of northern Belgium spoke French instead of Flemish, the perceived language of the farm labourer and factory worker. As a teen, Leopold the Second was a gangly youth, his head too big for his body, his clothes hanging off his spindly shoulders — a callow boy who’s mother tended to write him threatening letters about his lack of interest in studies rather than speak to him directly. He was useless in most subjects except for Geography. Leopold the Second was a Geography freak, and from the age of ten, his education was based in military lore. By fifteen he was a lieutenant of the Belgian army, 16 he was a captain, 18, a major, 19, a colonel, and a year later, at 20, a major general. This pencil thin spindle of a boy had to apply for an audience with his father - who spoke to his son through messengers. As this alienated boy aged, he surrounded himself with men who explained how government worked, and plied him with maps.When the elder Leopold died, Leopold exclaimed : “Petit pays, pettis gens”. — small country, ordinary people. Belgium, just for the record, is about the same geographic size as Lesotho and squeezed between France and Germany, the grand nations of Europe in the late 19th Century. Leopold was peeved by his puniness, something had to be done to rouge up the petit pays. Recognizing growing domestic pressure and the strategic need to split British and French alliances, Bismarck plunged Germany into the colonial race. In 1884, he hosted the Berlin Conference, with a hazy goal at formalizing something about the European partition of the African continent. The main aim of Berlin Conference was to deal with the growing pressure of European claims over West Africa, but it was much more than that. It began formally on Saturday 15th November 1884, as winter snow which had arrived early cloaked Berlin. The plenipotentiaries had their brief - but what was Bismarck planning? Was this a free trade conference to safeguard German business in the Congo and Niger? Or was Bismarck about to wield a hefty cake slicer, to carve up the whole African continent?

Episode 281 - The Boers anoint Dinizulu King of the Zulus

Cetshwayo had sought refuge in Nkandla as his arch enemy, Zibhebhu, turned his attention to the royalists living along the Zululand Coastal plain. Soon Somkhele of the Mphukunyoni and the emaNgweni people were hiding in the swamps and reed-beds of the sub-tropical bush along the Indian Ocean. Melmoth Osborne was the resident commissioner of Zululand and a committed foe of Cetshwayo’s royal line, a supporter of Zibhebhu. As Cetshwayo waited for the civil war to die down, he came to the conclusion that it was imperative to convince Melmoth of his right to rule. It was time to come out of hiding and to seek shelter from the commissioner — which he did under Henry Francis Fynn’s junior’s escort in October 1883. Cetshwayo was placed in a small house alongside his father’s old kwaGqikazi homestead where he could contemplate how far he’d fallen. There he remained until 8th February 1884. Had he lived longer, he would have heard that his old Nduna and councillor, Mnyamana, had escaped with his life after being poisoned. The Zulu king was another going to be so fortunate. Shortly after he ate, at 2.30 pm on 8th February, he was overtaken by convulsions, then he collapsed and died a short while later. His family members refused permission for a post-morten, surgeon Scott declared the death had been caused by heart disease. However, historians know the truth - Cetshwayo had most likely been poisoned - placed either in his beer, or his snuff. While it’s not known what poison was used, my research into the symptoms and passage of death points to Erythrophleum lasianthum, commonly known as the Swazi ordeal tree, is a medium to large leguminous tree native to southern Africa. It is notable for its exceptionally toxic bark and seeds, traditional cultural significance, and ecological value as a component of woodlands and forests across parts of South Africa, Eswatini and Mozambique. All parts of the tree—especially the bark, seeds, and roots—contain powerful alkaloids and cardiac toxins. Historically, extracts from the bark were used in ordeal poison practices in parts of southern Africa, giving rise to the common name "ordeal tree." The tree has also been used in traditional medicine, but these practices carry substantial risk because the difference between a toxic and potentially therapeutic dose is extremely small. Symptoms of poisoning can include vomiting, tremors, irregular heartbeat, seizures, respiratory failure, and death. The second option is Boophone disticha — a bulb known across southern Africa for centuries and Zulu herbalists were fully aware of its toxicity. Every part of the plant—especially the bulb—contains powerful Amaryllidaceae alkaloids and is highly poisonous to people, livestock, and pets. Traditional healers have employed carefully prepared doses for medicinal and ceremonial purposes but like the Swazi Ordeal Tree, there is a tight margin between a traditional dose and a dangerous one. Exposure to flowers in confined spaces alone causes eye irritation or headaches, giving rise to the common name sore-eye flower. Still, this bulb is highly sought after by modern collectors because of the bulb’s beauty. Just wash your hands after fiddling with it, folks. A third possibility is the Acokanthera which causes death through cerebral hypoxia, and a fourth, poison beans, the species of Abrus precatorius in particular — but those can take days to kill you and Cetshwayo perished in an hour or two. Zibhebhu was immediately blamed and he would pay eventually for his actions. But first, the king had to be buried. First he was placed in a sitting position and tied to his hut’s central post. The building was sealed with clay and mud so that no smell could emerge and Cetshwayo’s body was left there for a few weeks to putrefy. The royal attendants asked Melmoth Osborne for permission to take the body to the emaKhosini valley so he could be buried with his ancestors, but the commissioner refused.