The Mfecane and its effects on the Wakkerstroom area
These events sparked of the Mfecane – a period of terrible wars which affected developments throughout southern Africa as far north as southern Tanzania for almost the entire 19th century. They also had a profound effect on the Wakkerstroom area.
A group of Ngwane, living under their chief Matiwane in the area east of the present Vryheid were attacked, first by Dingiswayo and then by Zwide. They fled westwards and fell upon the Hlubi in the upper umZinyathi in the Wakkerstroom area. The Hlubi were defeated and their people either fled, survived in scattered remnants (e.g. a group of Sotho speaking Hlubi still survive in the Vryheid district and still cling to traditions long since abandoned in Lesotho). The Ngwane were in turn dislodged from the old Hlubi lands when they were attacked by Shaka.
At least in part the Mfecane can be said to have been one of the stimulants of the Great Trek. Populations of large parts of the southern Highveld, the present-day KwaZulu-Natal had been devastated and dislocated. While these areas had never been cleared of people the tendency of their inhabitants to hide in sheltered places gave the impression of empty lands to the Boer reconnaissance expeditions in 1834 and 1835.
After the Battle of Blood River in 1838 and the subsequent death of Dingane in 1840, Mpande became ruler of Zululand with the help of the Boer settlers. In acknowledgement for this help he granted them the right to settle, among other places, along the umZinyati (Buffalo River) in the area of the present-day town of Utrecht – part of the former territory of the Hlubi and the Ngwane and a seemingly empty landscape in the wake of the Mfecane.
The Boers, under Andries Pretorius formed the short-lived republic of Natalia. After four years of independence the British defeated Boer forces at Congella near Durban and annexed the republic as the district of Natal under the jurisdiction of the Cape Colony. This annexation led to the large scale exodus of Boers from the area. Among them was “Swart Dirk” (named after his black beard and hair) Uys. He initially settled in the area between the present-day towns of Wakkerstroom and Utrecht.