Celebrating Makhanda’s Day!

Celebrating Makhanda’s Day!

On 25 December 1820, exactly 205 years ago, during his imprisonment on Robben Island, Makhanda drowned as he escaped along with 30 other prisoners. The escape boat that carried Makhanda capsized in the waves just off Bloubergstrand. According to legend, he clung to a rock until dragged under water, shouting encouragement to the other escapees that they should swim to freedom. The other prisoners managed to survive, mostly Xhosa and Khoisan prisoners of war from the Eastern frontier. Since he had promised his people he would never abandon them, they continued to hope for his return for another 50 years before his funeral rites were observed.

Makhanda (aka “Makana”), who was also known as Nxele (“the left-handed”), was a prophet of mixed Khoi-Khoi and Xhosa descent. Makhanda was born near the coast around 1780 in the Uitenhage area of the Eastern Cape. His father was a Xhosa named Gwala of the amaCwerha clan and his mother was a Khoi-Khoi of the Gqunukhwebe clan. After Makhanda’s father died, when he was still a young boy, he was brought up by his mother strongly influenced by her people’s Gqunukhwebe traditions. His mother was a spiritual diviner and medicine woman.

Makhanda was later recognised as an “inyanga”, which seemed rooted in the early guidance of his mother and her traditions. The Xhosa also particularly held the Khoikhoi and San spiritual guides in high esteem. His mother took him and his siblings to the Great Fish River Valley, where they lived with his foster father, Balala. Makhanda encountered the Christian Missionary Dr James van der Kemp, who had established a mission station in Bethelsdorp in 1799, and Makhanda became a lay preacher.

During his days as an itinerant preacher, he was attacked by a gang of detractors and was rescued by Qalanga, a councillor of Chief Ndlambe. Qalanga introduced Makhanda to the Royal Chief of the Rharhabe and around 1812 Chief Ndlambe appointed Makhanda as an advisor and military doctor. Makhanda came to serve as a top advisor to Chief Ndlambe and he ensured that all of the amaXhosa had an understanding that the British, as the Dutch before them, were seeking to take their land from them.

Makhanda viewed the emerging conflict between the European and African world views as a contest between Thixo, the god of the whites, and “Mdalidiphu” (“Creator of the deep”), the God of the Xhosas. He began to preach a fusion of these religions to reconcile them, leaning towards Xhosa beliefs.

In 1818, at the Battle of Amalinde, Makhanda fought against Chief Ngqika, who was considered to be selling out his people in return for personal gain as an ally of the British Cape Colony. When a British-led force, commanded by Colonel Thomas Brereton, seized 23,000 head of cattle from Ndlambe’s people, Makhanda urged all the Xhosa to unite to try to drive British forces out of Xhosaland once and for all. Makhanda advised Ndlambe that the gods would be on their side if they chose to attack the British garrison in the settlement of Grahamstown, and promised that the British “bullets would turn to water”.

Ndlambe took Makhanda’s advice, and on 22 April 1819, Makhanda led a raid on Grahamstown with a force of about 6,000 men, all under the overall command of Ndlambe’s son Mdushane. The British garrison was able to repulse the attack only after timely support was received from a Jan Boesak-led Khoi-Khoi group. Defeated by superior British firepower and poor tactics by the amaNdlambe leadership, as well as betrayal by the Boesak-led Khoi group, Makhanda eventually chose to surrender himself under the belief it would bring an immediate end to the conflict.

Makhanda was never captured since he was protected by the common people everywhere that he went. The British spread the story that there was no animosity between them and the Xhosa and that Makhanda was the source of the conflict. So he handed himself over to the British to demonstrate that resistance from the African people would continue because of the theft of land by the British and the rejection of their subjugation by the British. The British colonial government imprisoned him on Robben Island, but treated him with great respect, giving him private accommodation, food and furniture.

“In Robben Island with some of his followers and other prisoners in that dingy dungeon, Makana emerges to be the indisputable leader, whose qualities were never changed, whose spirit was never dampened and deterred by conditions imposed upon him and his people by the treachery of those who usurped their land and were now enforcing their rule over the people” (Diale: Sechaba 1979).

“In his days”, according to Diale, Makhanda “symbolised unity, patriotism and lived to demonstrate the sacred qualities needed in any freedom fighter; sacrifice and an abundant love for humanity as well as peace. He was a man who, seeking freedom from his people, realised the need to be in the forefront to give guidance. Practical action, shining example and consistency in the course of the people’s resistance were qualities so mixed in him that even his adversaries were forced to respect him as well as fear him.”

In his article in Sechaba, the official journal of the African National Congress (ANC), which was first published in Dawn, the monthly journal of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), Diale credited Makhanda’s actions with having inspired the multiculturalism of the upon its founding and later the non-racialism that came to characterise the revolutionary struggle against apartheid colonialism. Makhanda is regarded as one of the first Africans to attempt a cultural synthesis of African and European beliefs in the fight against imperialism.

According to Diale, “There remains no doubt, therefore, why today the organisation of the people, true to the principles of unity, entered into a democratic alliance with other national organisations fighting the demon of minority rule, racism and discrimination. Our people have come to realise the strength that lies in unity. Our organisation has always been and continues to be prepared at all times to join hands with all those whose for the progress of the people and who cherish liberty.”

Anti-apartheid political prisoners imprisoned on Robben Island, including Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, later petitioned for the renaming of the island after Makhanda. The city of Makhanda (Grahamstown) is named after him.

CELEBRATING MAKHANDA’S DAY!
ETERNAL GLORY TO THE PEOPLE’S MARTYRS!
THEIR CAUSE IS A LIVING ONE!

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
Edwin Diale, “Makana”, Sechaba, December Issue 1979.
Keith Irvine (Ed.), “Makhanda (Nxele)”, The Encyclopaedia Africana Dictionary of African Biography, Vol. 3: South Africa-Botswana-Lesotho-Eswatini, 1995.
SAHO, “Grahamstown Now Known as Makhanda”, South African History Online (SAHO), 16 March 2011.
Camisa Museum, “Makhanda (1780 – 1819)”, https://camissamuseum.co.za/index.php/7-tributaries/1-cape-indigenous-africans/makhanda

Castro Khwela
Seasonal Greetings Fellow Compatriots!