History of South Africa podcast

Episode 293 - The Rudd Concession: Paper, Powder, and Grand Theft Zambesia

We’re in Bulawayo, just over the border from the Limpopo, and very much part of South Africa’s story — the Ndebele Chief Lobengula ruled what was known generally as Matabeleland, in a territory that the British colonial office called Zambesia, which we now call, Zimbabwe. Name changing is one of…

20 Sep 22 min

Episode 292 - Irish Nationalists, the Grobler Affair and Manifest Destiny

If you have access to Google Maps, or preferably, an original wall map of Africa, stand back for a moment to savour the grand vista which is southern Africa. Living on the tip looking upwards creates a culture of outwardness, a mental and psychological state of eternal expansion. Despite this…

13 Sep 21 min

Episode 291 - The Miracle of South Africa’s Railways: Navvies, Gangers and Granny Mavis

Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham. This is episode 291, The miracle of South Africa’s railway engineering and a little bit of commentary thrown into the mix. This episode is part history, party histrionic. Play sound - old steam train Yes,…

6 Sep 23 min

Episode 290 - Africanders, Afrikaners and the Sprigg/Hofmeyr/Rhodes Voter Disenfranchisement of 1887-1892

In 1883 Joseph Moss, regarded as the wealthiest black man in Kimberley, stood before the newly formed Africander League in the diamond mining city. Africander spelled A F R I C A N D E R. It which was not what you’d imagine, the Africander League was made up of…

30 Aug 21 min

Episode 289 - Black Velvet Opskop, De Beers’ Trojan Horse, an Historic Trick and a Multi-Racial Miner Protest

It could be said that Cecil Rhodes quest for hegemony over the diamond industry of South Africa was quickened by rumours of significant gold discoveries in the Transvaal. Others say not, because no-one was aware in these heady days of just how valuable the Motherlode of Main Reef was to…

23 Aug 21 min

Episode 288 - Squabbling Europeans Dissect Africa and the Sultan of Zanzibar gets Shafted

In the last few episodes we have tracked the miraculous discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand — the importance of which cannot really be overstated. While diamonds placed South Africa on the map, gold was going to convert the struggling region into a financial paradise for British financiers — and…

16 Aug 20 min

Episode 287 - "Not Worth Hell Room" — JB Robinson, Widow Oosthuizen, and the Witwatersrand Gold Grab

Onwards! Or more accurately - downwards! Because we’re continuing the saga of early gold digging around the farm Langlaagte, and the other farms like Turfontein, it is 1886, hundreds of treasure hunters have descended on the empty veld just south of the Witwatersrand Ridge. First a quick note about Kimberley,…

9 Aug 21 min

Episode 286 - German Mercenary von Brandis formally Proclaims Johannesburg

Welcome back to the history of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham. This is episode 286 - Johannesburg is proclaimed but the flow of water and cash provs challenging. We’ll start however, with the Orange Free State. Its president Johannes Brand was certainly carved from an original…

2 Aug 22 min

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…

26 Jul 19 min

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…

19 Jul 21 min

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,…

12 Jul 18 min

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…

5 Jul 23 min

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…

28 Jun 25 min

Episode 280 - Zibhebhu’s Mandlakazi shatter Cetshwayo’s uSuthu setting off a Zulu Civil War

On the afternoon of 10th January 1883, King Cetshwayo kaMpande climbed off a skiff and onto the beach at Port Dunford, surviving the heavy and powerful surf. The British had been using this stretch of desolate sand as their transport hub into Zululand, which is south of the modern harbour…

21 Jun 32 min

Episode 279 - Dean Williams and Bishop Merriman compete for Anglican Souls as De Villiers Graaff Ponders

We’re up to the early 1880s where world events are intersecting in various ways with southern African events. The mere ratification of the Pretoria Convention in 1881 failed to bring peace and prosperity to South Africa. The frenzied speculation in diamond shares reached it’s height in 1881, and war expenditure…

14 Jun 20 min

Episode 278 - The South African Suez Canal, Stellaland and Goshen and James Honey's Murder Most Foul

In 1882, the German mathematician Ferdinand von Lindemann proved that π was transcendental: it cannot be reduced to a tidy equation, never captured inside the comfortable boundaries expected by mathematicians. For centuries mathematicians tried to “square the circle” — creating a perfect square with the same area as a circle…

7 Jun 20 min

Episode 277 - Cetshwayo visits Queen Victoria and the Victorian link between Afghanistan and Zululand

When Cetshwayo kaMpande was captured after the Anglo-Zulu War, he was ferried to Cape Town and on to Robben Island. His countenance was one of dignity but that is difficult to maintain in the face of terrible sea-sickness. The Zulu king had made it be known that he was afraid…

31 May 18 min

Episode 276 — Okavango Khwebe Wind and a Dorsland Trekker Angolan Odyssey

Die Dorsland — the Thirstland — is part of the Kalahari that has an interesting history when it comes to pastoralists. The San didn’t call it the Thirstland, for them it wasn’t a barrier but part of a network of seasonal resource nodes. They would navigate the dry spans using…

24 May 18 min

Episode 275 — Pilgrims Rest, French Bob’s Gold and Barberton’s Champagne Foot Baths

Thousands of miners were streaming into the Transvaal by the third quarter of the 19th Century, a horde of avuncular independent-minded treasure hunters. In volume Two of the Cambridge History of South Africa, Stanley Trapido calls them the ragbag of humanity - Stanley who sadly is no longer with us,…

17 May 26 min

Episode 274 - The Pretoria Convention ends the First Anglo-Boer War, Suzerainty Unresolved

The hill of Doves — in isiZulu amaJuba means the place of many doves or pigeons. It became a place of violence and blood, and yet the catastrophic defeat of the British at Majuba was indeed to lead to peace. The doves would fly again albeit fleetingly. As you heard…

10 May 28 min