Northern Ndebele people

You know his story if you've followed the series.

Lobengula was crowned King of the Ndebele in 1868 after a short, sharp civil war at the great place called Mhlathlandlela.

He had long been tolerant of the Boer and English hunters who showed up at his home, Bulawayo, in Matabeleland, and in 1870 had even granted Sir John Swinburne's London and Limpopo Mining Company the right to search for gold along the Tati River between the Shashe and the Ramakgabane Rivers.

The Ndebele king was keeping a sharp eye out on the south across the Limpopo, where the Transvaal Boers were building their republic, as well as to the southwest towards Bechuanaland.

The British were showing a great deal of interest in Southern African states, moving inexorably closer to him.

Another important character is Edward Maund, who served with the Bechuanaland Field Force under Sir Charles Warren during the Warren Expedition to Bechuanaland in 1884 and '85.

The stories of the alleged riches of Mashonaland circulated in Pretoria and the Witwatersrand, and soon the Transvaal's border commissioner General Piet Joubert met a merchant called Pieter Grobler, who knew Mashonaland and Matabeleland well.

Joubert sent him north to negotiate a possible treaty with Lobengula, who, like other African chiefs of the period, were well-versed in playing the English off against the Boers and vice versa.

And are we, who ourselves are not in this horrible predicament, to stand by and coldly condemn these piteous victims of the furies and fates? Are we to decry as miscreants these human beings who act with heroic self-devotion, sacrificing their lives in protest, where less social and less energetic natures would lie down and grovel in abject submission to injustice and wrong? Are we to join the ignorant and brutal outcry which stigmatizes such men as monsters of wickedness, gratuitously running amok in a harmonious and innocently peaceful society? No.

We hate murder, with a hatred that may seem absurdly exaggerated to apologists for Matabele massacres, to callous acquiescers in hangings and bombardments.

But we decline in such cases of homicide or attempted homicide as those of which we are treating to be guilty of the cruel injustice of flinging the whole responsibility of the deed upon the immediate perpetrator.

The guilt of these homicides lies upon every man and woman who, intentionally or by cold indifference, helps to keep up social conditions that drive human beings to despair.

Yeah, very common.

There's another king, I think it's, it's in Zimbabwe where he, he, he was raised in the Eastern Cape, a Ndebele king.

But they stopped having a king a while back.

I mean, he still wants to be recognized.

And are we, who ourselves are not in this horrible predicament, to stand by and coldly condemn these piteous victims of the furies and fates? Are we to decry as miscreants these human beings who act with heroic self-devotion, sacrificing their lives in protest, where less social and less energetic natures would lie down and grovel in abject submission to injustice and wrong? Are we to join the ignorant and brutal outcry which stigmatizes such men as monsters of wickedness, gratuitously running amok in a harmonious and innocently peaceful society? No.

We hate murder, with a hatred that may seem absurdly exaggerated to apologists for Matabele massacres, to callous acquiescers in hangings and bombardments.

But we decline in such cases of homicide or attempted homicide as those of which we are treating to be guilty of the cruel injustice of flinging the whole responsibility of the deed upon the immediate perpetrator.

The guilt of these homicides lies upon every man and woman who, intentionally or by cold indifference, helps to keep up social conditions that drive human beings to despair.

And are we, who ourselves are not in this horrible predicament, to stand by and coldly condemn these piteous victims of the furies and fates? Are we to decry as miscreants these human beings who act with heroic self-devotion, sacrificing their lives in protest, where less social and less energetic natures would lie down and grovel in abject submission to injustice and wrong? Are we to join the ignorant and brutal outcry which stigmatizes such men as monsters of wickedness, gratuitously running amok in a harmonious and innocently peaceful society? No.

We hate murder, with a hatred that may seem absurdly exaggerated to apologists for Matabele massacres, to callous acquiescers in hangings and bombardments, but we decline in such cases of homicide or attempted homicide as those of which we are treating to be guilty of the cruel injustice of flinging the whole responsibility of the deed upon the immediate perpetrator.

The guilt of these homicides lies upon every man and woman who, intentionally or by cold indifference, helps to keep up social conditions that drive human beings to despair.

The man who flings his whole life into the attempt, at the cost of his own life, to protest against the wrongs of his fellow men is a saint compared to the active and passive upholders of cruelty and injustice, even if his protest destroy other lives besides his own.

I think I like cultural music now.

Like, um, somebody put me on to Ndebele music, you know, the Ndebele songs.

[laughs]

No, listen, listen.

Eh?

Yeah, that's a

That's a Ndebele guy, eh?

Yeah.

So we thought we're going to take a couple of weeks to learn, um, I'm also learning more about royal families.

We've already learned about the Ndebele royal family.

And today we're focusing on the Vavenda royal house.

I mean, as you know, or you may know, some of you, the history of South Africa's traditional kingdoms is quite deeply intertwined with the country's history of colonialism.

And we're talking about the Vendor Royal Conference.

This is part of a series that we started a couple of weeks ago where every Monday at 10.30 we found out more about one of the royal households in the country.

So we've already focused on the Ndebele Royal House.

Today we're focusing on the Bavenda Royal House.