Mhlontlo
Mhlontlo (spelled Mhlonthlo in some sources) was the Mpondomise king in 1880. Wikipedia’s article on the Mpondomise gives his reign as 1870 to 1912, a date we could not check; see Mpondomise for the people. This page follows South African History Online’s record for 23 October 1880, which rests on D. Craig’s 2003 article “Chiefs and Bureaucrats in the Making of Empire: A Drama from the Transkei, South Africa, October 1880” in the American Historical Review, which we have not read.
October 1880
According to South African History Online, Hamilton Hope, the third resident magistrate at Tsolo, was told the Mpondomise would help the British defeat the Basotho in the Gun War of 1880 to 1881, in return for arms and ammunition, and was drawn to Sulenkama, Mhlontlo’s capital. It says Mhlontlo asked him to address the assembled warriors before they marched, and six men then rushed Hope and his two companions and stabbed them within minutes; only a man named Davis, whose father and brother were missionaries among the Mpondomise, was spared. Mhlontlo told Davis the killings were a revolt against the government, complaining of broken promises and harsh treatment and of plans to brand cattle, confiscate arms and seize children. The revolt continued on 29 October with the destruction of the magistrate’s offices and jail. Other writers describe Hope as magistrate of Qumbu, so the sources disagree on his post.
Exile, trial and return
The page says the revolt was crushed and Mhlontlo fled to Lesotho, where he stayed for more than two decades. He was arrested in 1903 and charged with murdering Hope and his assistants but was found not guilty, returned home in 1906 as a commoner and died in 1912. Wikipedia’s Mpondomise article says he was acquitted of murder but lost his kingship by administrative action. A University of the Western Cape thesis titled “Revisiting Mhlontlo and his legacy”, which we saw only in a search result, is said to treat him as a contested figure in the historical writing.
What we have not read
We have not read Craig’s article, the UWC thesis, or the Mpondomise accounts of these events, including the T. K. Jubase manuscript in the van Warmelo Collection. We have not verified what is said about the Mpondomise kingship since; see the Mpondomise page. We found no Mhlontlo family account on a page we could open.
Izithakazelo and totem
We found no recorded praises or totem for Mhlontlo, so we are printing none. If you belong to the Mpondomise royal house and recite his izibongo, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
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