Battle of Mangwele (1869) in the sources
In October 1869 a Swazi force, which Nemudzivhadi says João Albasini had directed against Tshakhuma, attacked the Madzivhandila people. They fled to their fortress on Mount Mangwele, where a stone-walled cave complex protected the ruler and his people, and the Swazi, unable to take it, withdrew in defeat towards Dzanani.
What the sources say
The background. M. H. Nemudzivhadi’s 1998 thesis places the attack in the struggle between Stephanus Schoeman and Albasini within the White community in Soutpansberg, and in the war between the brothers Makhado and Davhana. He says that in October 1869 a large Swazi offensive was launched against Venda, that Albasini directed one impi to Tshakhuma against Madzivhandila and another to face Makhado at Dzanani, and that Madzivhandila had to be attacked because Davhana knew that he was Makhado’s father-in-law and wanted to cut him off from helping Makhado (p. 113).
At Mount Mangwele. The Swazi impi was spotted and the Tshakhuma residents fled to their fortress on Mount Mangwele. Nemudzivhadi describes caves with “beautifully constructed stone walls”, one section reserved for the ruler and well to the rear, and the area for ordinary people near the entrance, with cattle and goats accommodated inside and the men positioned outside to defend the ruler and the population (pp. 113 to 114). He writes that Madzivhandila’s warriors were joined by women, among them Mudzunga, described as Tshivhase’s daughter and Raluthaga Madzivhandila’s wife, who after her son Masindi was fatally wounded brought ammunition in her basket and led the warriors in reciting a royal praise; and Nyatshivhiahuvhi, a princess of Tshivhazwaulu, who is said to have pinned a Swazi warrior to the ground with his own assegai. Mudzunga’s recitation was the royal praise of her own dynasty, Tshivhase, “Singo-Singo u a vhaswa”, “be careful, you will soon land in trouble”, and the thesis says those of Tshakhuma replied “u ya vhadwa, u ya vhadwa”, “you are to be destroyed”, which it gives as Tshakhuma’s royal praise and oath (p. 114, citing Schwellnus).
Afterwards. The Swazi, “unable to penetrate the caves or cope with the slopes, ravines and cliffs”, fled to Dzanani, terrorising the people of Tshiunzi on the way, and joined the second Swazi army. Together with Albasini’s Tsonga and Davhana’s followers they then gathered against Makhado’s headquarters at Luatame (pp. 114 to 116; see Makhado and Davhana).
Cautions
The detail of the fighting rests on the missionary Schwellnus’s later writing (Ndededzi) and a Venda book by Dzivhani and Mudau, as cited by Nemudzivhadi; we have read neither. We give no map reference for the caves and print no detail of the site beyond what the thesis says. 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.
Sources and further reading
See also Madzivhandila, Tshakhuma, Makhado, Sinthumule and Vhadau.
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