Monene affair, 1864 to 1865 in the sources
The Monene affair was a quarrel between João Albasini and the Boer officials of Schoemansdal over a Tsonga trader, Monene, whom Albasini had planned to surrender to Mzila. Monene’s flight, arrest and escape in March 1865 led to Albasini’s commando into Venda country in April and May 1865, which Nemudzivhadi counts among the events that began the Zoutpansberg war.
What the sources say
Who Monene was. Boer sources, as Nemudzivhadi sets them out, describe Monene as a Tsonga trader and “onrusstoker” (troublemaker), who sought refuge with Albasini after offences under Manukosi; the Venda accounts differ. Möller-Malan says Monene was a trader whose business Albasini took over after Monene left Schoemansdal, but also that he sought Albasini’s protection, which Nemudzivhadi calls contradictory. His own reading is that Monene, like other Tsonga refugees, came to Venda after Manukosi established the Gaza state, and that Albasini took over his business and demoted him to induna of the Tsonga at Luonde (p. 76).
The demand. After defeating Mawewe in 1861, Mzila asked Albasini to deliver Monene with his wives and children, or put them to death, warning that otherwise he would close the Gaza hunting grounds to traders and so cut off the ivory. Albasini, faced with the dilemma, felt he must give way; but Monene learned of it and fled to Commandant F. H. Geyser at Schoemansdal, who placed him with the farmer Jacob de Couto at Morgenzon (p. 77). On 7 April 1864 de Couto was ordered to bring Monene and his witnesses to the landdrost, F. C. Vercueil, and Albasini was subpoenaed; he did not appear, holding that only the Executive Council could hear the matter, and Monene was told to wait until President M. W. Pretorius visited in July 1864 (pp. 77 to 78).
Arrest and escape. After the president left, Albasini complained against Monene, who alleged Albasini wanted to kill him, and the government ordered his arrest; he was held under field cornet Stephanus van Rensburg and escaped on 28 March 1865, going, the records say, first to Luatame, then Phahwe and Mukumbani. Nemudzivhadi finds it odd that a Tsonga should seek refuge at Venda royal homes, and explains it by Monene’s flight from Albasini, who had sheltered Davhana (p. 78).
The commandos. Albasini raised an impi to hunt Monene, which Nemudzivhadi says fell on villagers and pillaged them, committing crimes against Magoro and other mahosi. A Boer commando then reported to Commandant Venter at Goedewensch on 1 April 1865, and on 7 April a commando under Venter and Albasini, which included Davhana and Tsonga warriors, went over the mountains as far as Phahwe, where, he writes, subjects of Tshikumbu Maphaha including his mother Makhadzi Nyakhuhu were killed and cattle, sheep, goats, women and children taken; on 8 May 1865 the combined force attacked Madzivhandila at Tshakhuma, “signalled the commencement of the conflict in earnest” (pp. 78 to 79; see Tshakhuma). Nemudzivhadi calls the killings at Magoro, Phahwe and Tshakhuma a criminal act against a people living in peace, using the search for Monene as an excuse for loot and the subjection of rulers who would not pay tax (pp. 79 to 80).
Whose war. His point is that these disputes began inside the White community of the Soutpansberg, between Albasini’s stubbornness and the Schoemansdal officials who felt he had too much power, and “had nothing to do with the Vhavenda”; the Venda, living independently, were drawn in when the problems of the Boers “simply spilt over them” (p. 80).
Cautions
The accounts of Monene’s identity and Albasini’s motives rest on Boer sources read by Nemudzivhadi and on a few Venda informants who, he says, knew nothing of the episode; we have not seen the Boer sources. The Möller-Malan articles he cites are in Afrikaans and we have not read them. Dates are as he gives them. Names (Magoro, Phahwe, Mukumbani) are as the scan gave them and may contain misreadings. Nemudzivhadi is a Venda historian whose subject is Makhado’s reign; he built on oral interviews done between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s and on colonial archive papers, and he often says where his informants and the written sources disagree, as do we.
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Sources and further reading
See also João Albasini, Mzila, Monene affair, Makhado, Davhana and Nxumalo.
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