Xhoxho
M. Hirst’s 2004 article on Xhoxho in the Amathole Museum’s newsletter Imvubu (16:1, pp. 1 to 8) describes him as a minor son of Ngqika and gives his dates as “fl. 1815 to 1878”, so no birth year. The article says he was the half-brother of Tyali and, in the early 1830s, pastured Tyali’s cattle in the Mancazana valley in the Ceded Territory between the Fish and Keiskamma rivers, where Xhosa settlement had been barred under the 1819 treaty with Somerset and which a treaty of 1821 under Donkin opened to white settlement.
The skirmish of December 1834
According to Hirst, a patrol under Lieutenant William Sutton was sent from Fort Beaufort to expel Tyali’s followers and on 10 December 1834 burned huts and seized oxen; in the fight that followed Xhoxho was grazed by a musket ball and received a slight head wound, which sparked what the article calls the War of Hintsa (1834 to 1835). It quotes Dyani Tshatshu as saying every Xhosa who saw Xhoxho’s wound took spears and shield and went to fight, argues that the Ngqika used the incident as a pretext and that Western Xhosa claims of British brutality were justified, notably given Hintsa’s killing on 12 May 1835, and criticises historians for neglecting climate, land and the social and economic importance of cattle. See Hintsa and Maqoma.
Regent, then deposed
Hirst says that after Tyali’s death in May 1842 Xhoxho became regent for Tyali’s minor sons Oba and Feni, but that by September 1845 Sandile and Maqoma had deposed him for cruelly treating a councillor, Bashe, and the regency passed to Tyali’s widows. It says British officials Henry Calderwood, Charles Brownlee and John Maclean described him unfavourably, and that an early portrait by F. T. I’Ons, held at MuseumAfrica in Johannesburg, partly contradicts that view.
Later wars, the cattle-killing and Robben Island
The article says he fought in the War of the Axe (April to November 1846), swore allegiance to the British in January 1848, and fought again in the War of Mlanjeni (1850 to 1853). It says that in 1856 to 1857 he slaughtered his own cattle and, with Maqoma, pressed Sandile to join the cattle-killing, and that Xhoxho’s, Sandile’s and Feni’s followers are estimated to have killed 58,000 head in its first months (see Nongqawuse). It says he was arrested in January 1858 for possessing stolen horses and sentenced to fourteen years, escaped, was re-arrested on 31 March 1858 with seven years added, was sent to Robben Island and was released in 1869 with Maqoma and Seyolo. In 1878, in the war of 1877 to 1878, he joined his sons in supporting Sandile and shared his fate, dying “a patriot” in Hirst’s phrase.
What we have not read
The page rests on one museum newsletter article, whose only named sources are Peires’s The House of Phalo (1981), the Tshatshu quotation and the portrait caption; it gives no birth date, wives or parentage beyond Ngqika. It takes a position (that the British were to blame) that other historians may not share. We have not read Peires or the colonial officials’ writings, and we found no Ngqika royal-house account.
Izithakazelo and totem
We found no recorded praises or totem for Xhoxho, so we are printing none. If you belong to the Ngqika house and want its history recorded here, with your permission and credited to you, we would like to hear from you.
Sources and further reading
- M. Hirst, Amathole Museum: Xhoxho (Imvubu 16:1, 2004)
Do you belong to the Ngqika house? Tell us the history you know and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.