Hintsa
Wikipedia describes Hintsa kaKhawuta (about 1780 to 12 May 1835), also called Hintsa Zanzolo, as king of the Xhosa of the Gcaleka house, the son of Khawuta kaGcaleka and Nobutho, a ninth descendant of King Tshawe, with his capital at Kulo Mali near present-day Butterworth. It names four known sons: Sarili (born 1810), Ncaphayi, Manxiwa and Lindinyura. See our Gcaleka page for the Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims’ account of the Gcaleka house.
The reign
The article gives two dates: it says he became king in 1804, and also that he was crowned in 1820 after succeeding his uncle Nqoko ka Gcaleka, who had been regent, ruling until 1835; we cannot reconcile them. It says that at its peak the kingdom stretched from the Mbashe to the Gamtoos river and that refugee groups from the Mfecane put pressure on it. It says the Bhaca under Madzikane were defeated by a Xhosa, Thembu and Mpondomise alliance (1823 to 1825) and Madzikane was killed, which conflicts with our Madzikane page, whose source says he died in 1836, and that Hintsa repulsed a joint Bhaca and Mpondo attack on the Bomvana. The Battle of Amalinde article says Hintsa personally led Gcaleka warriors for Ndlambe in October 1818 and returned across the Kei before the British campaign, and that Ngqika had kidnapped him as a boy.
The Sixth War and his death
Wikipedia says the Sixth Frontier War (1834 to 1836) began in December 1834 when the Rharhabe chiefs Maqoma, Tyali and Botumane led a large force into the colony, and that Hintsa gave only moral support. It says he offered 1,000 men to the British in February 1835, but when it was clear he would not turn against the Rharhabe chiefs Governor d’Urban used this as a pretext to declare war on him, that on 14 April 1835 terms were imposed that included annexing the land between the Keiskamma and Great Kei as “Queen Adelaide Province”, and that he was held captive while Sir Harry Smith demanded 50,000 cattle. It says that on 12 May 1835, while being escorted, he tried to escape on horseback and was shot by Lieutenant George Southey and killed in the river. Its main source is Noel Mostert’s Frontiers (1992), and the article records Premesh Lalu’s argument that colonial archives shaped the story of his death to justify his killing, so some details may have been added to diminish him.
Memory
The article says Hintsa is regarded as a hero in South African and Xhosa history, and records that in 1996 Nicholas Tilana Gcaleka claimed to have returned his skull from Scotland, which the Gcaleka monarch and court rejected, and forensic tests indicated the skull was most likely that of a middle-aged European woman. It also lists a King Hintsa Bravery Award (since 1999), King Hintsa TVET College and an annual memorial lecture.
What we have not read
The article cites Mostert, Peires’s The House of Phalo (1982), Lalu’s The Deaths of Hintsa (2008), Mkhize (2009), Etherington (2014) and Cory, none of which we have read. We found no Gcaleka family account of him on a page we could open.
Izithakazelo and totem
We are printing no praises or totem for Hintsa because none has been confirmed. If you belong to the Gcaleka house and recite his izibongo, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
Do you belong to the Gcaleka house? Tell us the history you know and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.