Stephanus Schoeman in the sources
Stephanus Schoeman (1810 to 1890) was the Voortrekker commandant-general who gave Schoemansdal its name and headed the settlement in the 1850s. In the 1860s he is the Transvaal official sent to restore order in the Soutpansberg: he led the volunteer force of December 1867, became the Republic’s Diplomatic Agent there in 1868, and sought Gaza and Swazi help against Makhado, until the Republic abolished the post in 1869.
What the sources say
The man. Wikipedia gives his birth as 14 March 1810 at Oudtshoorn and his death as 1890 at Pretoria, lists him as the second President of the South African Republic (6 December 1860 to 17 April 1862), a position he assumed after a dispute in which he refused to accept the elected leadership and was overcome by Paul Kruger’s forces, and records his nickname “Stormvogel van die Noorde”, “storm bird of the north”. That article is tagged for more citations. O. J. O. Ferreira’s 1978 biography, Stormvoël van die Noorde, is the standard life, and we have not read it. Nemudzivhadi notes that the Soutpansbergers had “seceded from the Republic” during the constitutional quarrels and were still not among the “forgiven” when the Republic called them to arms in 1867 (p. 91).
At Schoemansdal. By Wikipedia’s account he became the settlement’s de facto leader in 1855 and renamed it Schoemansdal after himself. Nemudzivhadi has him chairing the meeting of 27 February 1855 which resolved to raise money by imposing tribute on the Africans believed to be under the Whites’ control, and which named 38 so-called chiefs in a country that, by Venda custom, had only five senior rulers: Ramabulana, Tshivhase, Mphaphuli, Rambuda and Modjadji; he calls the arrangement a source of lasting misunderstanding (pp. 62 to 65). Schoeman appointed João Albasini tribute collector, with the Dutch title Superintendent van kafferstammen, on 9 June 1859 (p. 63). Schoeman also opposed the practice, driven by the ivory trade, of lending guns to Venda hunters, which he thought unwise and which the government’s hunting rules of 1858 did not allow (pp. 71 to 72).
Sent to settle things, 1865. When tension rose in 1865, Nemudzivhadi says, Schoeman was sent by the government to settle the matter and was misinformed that Makhado had allowed war rituals as early as 14 July 1865; the reality, he writes, was that Makhado, having refused to return the weapons, was reorganising his kingship against any threat from Davhana (p. 92).
The volunteers, 1867. After the evacuation of Schoemansdal, President Pretorius organised an army of volunteers; only 53 men came, and Schoeman led them into the Soutpansberg. They could not attack Makhado, held meetings with the Boers in the laagers and with local communities favourable to the Boers, and were disbanded on 13 December 1867 (p. 107). A second call in January 1868, for 1,000 men, brought 260, and the President himself took the field in July 1868 (pp. 107 to 108).
Diplomatic Agent, 1868 to 1869. At the meeting at Welgevonden on 21 July 1868, attended by Tsonga, the Buys community and Davhana, it was announced that Albasini was no longer in government service and that Schoeman would replace him as Diplomatic Agent (p. 108). Nemudzivhadi calls Schoeman’s arrangements with rulers “who did not hold the reins of true power” the Boer strategy of divide and rule, and says they restored authority only over Africans already loyal to the Whites (pp. 108 to 109). Writing from Morgenzon and the Klein Spelonken, Schoeman looked east for help: Albasini had been ordered in June 1867 by Kruger to approach the Ngoni and Swazi (p. 109); contact with the Swazi began in December 1867, and he approached Mzila through messengers, offering land (pp. 109 to 110; see Mzila). In April 1869, when Mzila’s warriors arrived and intended to annex Lwamondo, Schoeman and five other Whites joined them and failed to take the mountain; he later blamed Albasini for the Ngoni attack (p. 111; see Lwamondo).
The end of the post. Schoeman had identified Davhana and Albasini as the source of considerable misunderstanding and recommended that they be removed from the Spelonken; Albasini’s agents, in Pretoria in October 1869, accused Schoeman of having invited the Swazi, and Madzhie’s messenger blamed both Makhado and Schoeman for the tension (pp. 119 to 120). The Executive Council alleged Schoeman had failed to restore peace (p. 113), and on 12 November 1869 the commission of Paul Kruger, R. A. van Nispen and D. B. Snyman arrived at Goedewensch to tell the Africans they were now under the landdrost, since there would no longer be a Superintendent or Diplomatic Agent (p. 121).
Hofmeyr. The missionary Stephanus Hofmeyr at Kranspoort refused Schoeman’s offer of shelter in the Schoemansdal laager when conflict began, because Madzhie had promised him protection (p. 129).
A namesake in 1865
Hofmeyr’s book mentions “an old white man, Stefanus Schoeman, who lived near us” at Goedgedacht, who died of the yellow fever of March 1865 and whose funeral address Hofmeyr gave. That cannot be the Commandant-General, whom Wikipedia has alive until 1890; it is presumably a relative or namesake. See Cornelis Lottering and Goedgedacht.
Overview articles
The meeting of 27 February 1855 and its tribute system are set in context in Tribute, land and the Boer state in the Soutpansberg, 1855 to 1898.
Cautions
Almost everything above is from one Venda historian’s reading of the Boer archive, and it is critical of Schoeman; the Boer view, in Ferreira’s biography and in Schoeman’s own letters, would read differently, and we have not seen it. The Wikipedia biography is thin and partly unsourced. We give “Diplomatic Agent” as the thesis does. Placenames (Morgenzon, Welgevonden, Klein Spelonken) are as the scan gave them. 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.
Izithakazelo and totem
We have found no confirmed totem or praise poem for this page. If you know the Venda or Tsonga traditions of these events and recite related praises, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Mphaya Henry Nemudzivhadi, “The attempts by Makhado to revive the Venda kingdom, 1864-1895”, PhD thesis, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (1998); open access at the North-West University repository (a scanned copy; we read it by OCR, and page numbers cited are the thesis’s printed numbers)
- Wikipedia: Stephanus Schoeman (tagged as needing more citations)
- O. J. O. Ferreira, Stormvoël van die Noorde: Stephanus Schoeman in Transvaal (Pretoria, 1978), the standard biography, which Nemudzivhadi cites often; listed only, not read
See also Stephanus Schoeman, Schoemansdal, Evacuation of Schoemansdal, 1867, Makhado, João Albasini and Madzhie.
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