Pioneer Forts in Rhodesia 1890-1897
Reprinted from Rhodesiana, No. 12, September, 1965
PIONEER FORTS IN RHODESIA, 1890-1897
by
P. S. GARLAKE
Senior Inspector of Monuments
Commission for the Protection of Natural and Historical Monuments and Relics P.O. Box 3248
Bulawayo
Recompiled by Eddy Norris for ORAFs in February 2010
Original document made available by Diarmid Smith. Thank you Diarmid
The original purpose in preparing this paper was to describe the location, standing remains and history of the several forts of the period between 1890 and 1897 that have been proclaimed National Monuments, and briefly to place them in their historical context. As the most important surviving remains of a short, crowded and vital period in the country's history, accessible to any interested visitor, they merit at least this. It became apparent, however, that these and other forts had in fact played a fundamental role in the establishment of both the European and of pacific government in Rhodesia, and therefore a detailed list of every fort of the period and some study of their purposes and functions seems worthwhile, particularly as it may also encourage the location and preservation of the remnants of the minor forts which may survive but are so far unrecorded
(Fig- 1).
Today it is hard to visualize the difficulties facing a tiny population of uneasily accepted newcomers, isolated by many hundreds of miles of difficult, often hazardous, country from any base or regular and certain source of supply. Almost nothing could be done to combat climate, which would often cut all communications for weeks on end; disease, especially horse-sickness and rinderpest, which could and did virtually wipe out all transport animals; or the uncertain reactions of a local population which was vastly superior in numbers, little understood and entirely alien in every way of life and belief. The attempt to introduce new systems of government, law and living into a vast area of largely unknown country was to be undertaken with the minimum of force, not only from altruistic motives, though these existed, but because the resources available were never sufficient enough to hope to be able to engage a completely hostile population for more than a matter of weeks. Such conditions would not only completely halt and destroy the infant economy of the country but would rapidly exhaust all available resources—food, money and material that had with difficulty been built up and whose replacement was always difficult and uncertain and for long periods almost impossible. These conditions applied in Rhodesia until the arrival of the railway at Bulawayo in October 1897, by which time all danger had passed and the country was at peace.
Until 1897 the survival of the new colonisers of Rhodesia owed much to the establishment, during the occupation and the subsequent war and rebellions, of some four dozen tiny,
Figures in brackets refer to the List of Sources attached to this article.
The normal garrison of a fort was some 50 men, with a dozen horses and possibly a maxim gun, though they were normally assisted in the initial building by bodies of some 100 loyal Africans or the Cape Corps. After the main hostilities of the Rebellion had ended in August, 1896, garrisons of all but the most important forts were cut to about 15. Conditions in the forts varied. In 1896 the important forts of the Matopos, such as Umlugulu, received the four local newspapers daily from Bulawayo, periodicals were sent on by the Bulawayo Public Library, and tobacco, jam, groceries and newspapers were stocked for sale to the garrison. In October, 1896, an enterprising Mr. Golding was, however, refused a licence to open a store next to Fort Umchabezi, even though, "Of course, it is understood that no liquors of any kind are to be offered for sale". At the other extreme, the garrison of Hartley Hill, dependent on intermittent supplies from Salisbury, was plagued by fever through the rains of 1896-97. Out of a garrison of about 140 the hospital continually contained 50 or more men. At one stage there were only ten fit men in the entire garrison. At the foot of this and other forts small cemeteries contain graves of men who did not survive the rains and fever.
5 ft. wide, 3 ft. deep, dry ditch. This ditch provided the material for the walls and additional protection but posed a serious health problem if allowed to contain water. It was therefore often omitted, particularly in poorly drained sites such as Charter. The base of the outer wall was normally revetted with stone if available timber or sandbags, and the wall topped by sandbags. If heavy weapons,one or two maxim guns or a seven-pounder were to be accommodated, ramps would lead up to circular internal bastions. Only in 1896 were projecting corner bastions introduced, normally at two diagonally opposite corners. Inside, there was usually only a sun-dried brick store roofed with corrugated iron. Outside, but under cover of the fort, a double line of impermanent pole and dagga huts housed the garrison. Wagons, mess huts, telegraphist and hospital were also frequently situated outside the fort; for, rightly, it was never expected that the forts themselves would ever have to resist prolonged direct attack. A fort re¬presented a show of force, a stronghold only to be occupied as a last resort. Horses were stabled within the fort or in the ditch at the base of the wall, and the whole was encircled by an outer thorn bush abattis. The three Pioneer forts of Victoria, Charter and Salisbury, and Forts Hill and Umlugulu were typical examples of the standard fort. Forts Mangwe, Luck, Shangani, Solusi and Shiloh were all circular enclosures, 45 ft. in diameter, but otherwise identical to the standard fort. Rarely, the outer wall was of stone, laid without mortar, well dressed and fitted as at Fort Gibbs, or roughly piled as at Forts Rixon and Ingwenya. Finally, minor forts such as Figtree, Marquand and Halsted, not in¬tended as permanent outposts, and even the major sites of Hartley and Fort Martin, frequently consisted of adaptations of the summits of easily defensible kopjes by the construction of short lengths of stone, timber or sandbag walls between the natural boulders and cliff faces of the kopje (PI. 1). Maj. R. S. S. Baden-Powell described such forts thus: "They would make a sapper snort, but none the less effective for all that. They are first, the natural kopje or pile of rocks aided by art in the way of sandbag parapets and thorn bush abattis fences— easily prepared and easily held"(4)*. The garrison of such a fort lived in tents or even, as at Fort Dawson, simply under a sailcloth.
Refinements were often added. The ever resourceful Captain D. T. Laing, initially with 33 men, at Belingwe, on hearing of the first Matabele rebellion murders of March 24th 1896, worked by moonlight through the night of March 26th and the next day to build the defences he described thus: "The two round redoubts are practically impregnable and twelve dynamite mines are connected to these by overhead wires and attached to electric batteries we have also an outer line of bush, through the top of which runs a continuous wire, which is connected with a rifle over the guard room and there are indicators to show which part of the wire has been tampered with"(6). Baden-Powell recommended that a fort should be sited with a tall tree in the centre to act as a crow's-nest and look¬out and he even placed a maxim gun up such a tree when he built Fort Usher No. 3. He also recommended leaving a wide belt of grass round the outside, which would show up the dark bodies of any attackers, with finally an outer ring burnt out to provide a fireguard. One would expect such refinements from the founder of the Boy Scouts.
Figures in brackets refer to the List of Sources attached to this article.
The normal garrison of a fort was some 50 men, with a dozen horses and possibly a maxim gun, though they were normally assisted in the initial building by bodies of some 100 loyal Africans or the Cape Corps. After the main hostilities of the Rebellion had ended in August, 1896, garrisons of all but the most important forts were cut to about 15. Conditions in the forts varied. In 1896 the important forts of the Matopos, such as Umlugulu, received the four local newspapers daily from Bulawayo, periodicals were sent on by the Bulawayo Public Library, and tobacco, jam, groceries and newspapers were stocked for sale to the garrison. In October, 1896, an enterprising Mr. Golding was, however, refused a licence to open a store next to Fort Umchabezi, even though, "Of course, it is understood that no liquors of any kind are to be offered for sale". At the other extreme, the garrison of Hartley Hill, dependent on intermittent supplies from Salisbury, was plagued by fever through the rains of 1896-97. Out of a garrison of about 140 the hospital continually contained 50 or more men. At one stage there were only ten fit men in the entire garrison. At the foot of this and other forts small cemeteries contain graves of men who did not survive the rains and fever.
In April, 1890, the Pioneer Column's escort of British South Africa Company's Police moved to a site three miles south of the Macloutsie River and built a pentagonal earthwork fort, Matlaputla, designed by McAdam of the Bechuanaland Border Police. Round this fort developed the main base-camp of the expedition. From here. Fort Tuli, (Nat. Mon. 94) (Fig. 3) was established on July 1st, 1890, by the Pioneer Column itself and by 'A' Troop of the British South Africa Company's Police. This fort was first named Fort Selous, after the hunter, explorer and then guide to the Column. The hill on which the fort was built stands less than a mile south of the Shashi River in a hollow basin surrounded by higher hills—its siting was therefore frequently criticised for it was vulnerable to long-range guns and even rifles, a necessary consideration with regard to any threat from the Transvaal Republic. A further disadvantage was that the perimeter of the hill was too extensive to be properly fortified or garrisoned by the small force available; indeed, because of its area, much of the defences consisted of bully-beef cases and thornbush. From 1890 to 1893 Tuli was the main entry to Rhodesia and a small town rapidly grew up at the foot of the fort. It was the dis¬charge depot for the Police who left Rhodesia and a training depot for new recruits, the head of the telegraph, and here the first hospital in Rhodesia was started by Mother Patrick and her Dominican Sisters on April 1st, 1891. By July, 1891, Tuli even boasted its own newspaper, the Tuli Times. Rhodes reached Tuli in October, 1890, on his way to Mashonaland but the rains ended his journey there. Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Frederick Carrington, Jameson and Beit were all entertained in the fort in July, 1891, while the large numbers of wagons and new immigrants, streaming north, had to replenish their supplies at Tuli and provided the few stores and the British South Africa Company's Commissariat Officer with exorbitant profits. In 1893 Tuli was the base from which the Southern Column marched on Bulawayo but thereafter it declined for the Tati-Mangwe road now provided a more direct route to Bulawayo and then on to Salisbury. The decline was even greater when the railway reached Bulawayo
in 1897. It is ironic that two of the three main bases for the occupation of Bulawayo, Tuli and Fort Victoria, suffered most from the very success of the operation. From 1899 to 1902, Tuli, under Col. H. C. Plumer, was to defend Rhodesia against invasion during the Boer War. The lower slopes of the fort and the larger hill to the north were then fortified with rifle trenches and gun emplacements and Tuli became the base for Plumer's march to the relief of Mafeking. Fort Tuli was finally abandoned soon after the end of the Boer War.
From Tuli the long march of the Pioneer Column to Mashonaland began on July 11th, 1890. On entering the highveld, 'C' troop of the Police started the building of the first Fort Victoria on August 14th oil a site four miles south of the present town. By September, 1891, this fort was in such disrepair that construction was started on a second fort and garrison huts nearby. The pentagonal earthwork that remains today is probably that of the second fort (Fig. 4). By the end of the year the water supply proved inadequate and the town moved to its present position early in 1892. On September 3rd, 1890, 'A' troop was detached from the Column to build Fort Charter (Fig. 5), opposite Chief Mtigeza's kraal. Although reduced in status to a post station in August, 1891, Charter became important after the occupation of Matabeleland, standing as it did where the road to Bulawayo joined the main Pioneer Road south from Salisbury. This fort still survives, and its vicinity is laced with tracks, some probably of this period, while the original buildings of Meikle's Hotel and Zeederberg's coach house, both built in the 1890's, still stand nearby. The Column halted finally on September 12th and 'B' troop started work on Fort Salisbury itself, on the site of the present Cecil Square. The origin of the design of the Pioneer forts is known, for clause 7 of the contract between Frank Johnson and the British South Africa Company for the occupation of Mashonaland states "that the fort to be erected on Mt. Hampden or thereabout shall not be inferior to that constructed in 1885 at Brussels in the district of Stellaland by the Bechuanaland Field Force". These forts, with the exception of Tuli, were almost identical—a simple earthwork square, without ditches, revetted in stone at Victoria, but in sandbags and timber at the others. No heavy weapons could be left at Victoria or Charter, so there the internal bastions necessary at Matlaputla and Salisbury were, of course, omitted. Outside all the forts there were two lines of pole and dagga huts for the garrison.
In 1893, co-existence with the Matabele kingdom finally proved impossible. A Matabele impi, raiding and pillaging the local Mashona in the neighbourhood of Fort Victoria forced that town into laager in the fort (Nat. Mon. 17) on July 12th, 1893, and even demanded the surrender of those Mashona who had found refuge within the fort. For six weeks the women and children remained permanently in the fort, initially manned by 80 men. This fort, was more accurately, a defensible administrative centre and consisted, much as it does today, of the post office, courthouse and gaol surrounded by a high brick wall with a firing step and two towers containing maxim guns at opposite corners. The towers still stand but were originally unroofed and of bare brickwork. The hospital was set up in the Magistrate's office while the Dominican Sisters running the hospital lived in a hut in the prison yard. Although the Matabele withdrew on July 18th, this incident sparked the inevitable war which resulted in the rapid defeat of the Matabele and the overthrow of Lobengula by columns from Salisbury and Victoria. They were reinforced by a Southern Column, consisting of a detachment of the Bechuanaland Border Police under Lieut.-Col. H. Goold- Adams and volunteers under Commandant P. J. Raaff (Raaf's Rangers), from Tuli. This column was the only one to establish permanent fortifications. At Empandeni, Fort Adams (Nat. Mon. 88) was built on November 3rd, 1893, three miles from the site of this column's one serious battle—at Singuesi on the previous day. The fort was only occupied for three days. At Mangwe, the southern entrance to the Matopos, a further fort was built. These two forts were only temporary timber and earthwork stockades around the laager camps, built when attacks were expected, but deserted as the column left.
in 1897. It is ironic that two of the three main bases for the occupation of Bulawayo, Tuli and Fort Victoria, suffered most from the very success of the operation. From 1899 to 1902, Tuli, under Col. H. C. Plumer, was to defend Rhodesia against invasion during the Boer War. The lower slopes of the fort and the larger hill to the north were then fortified with rifle trenches and gun emplacements and Tuli became the base for Plumer's march to the relief of Mafeking. Fort Tuli was finally abandoned soon after the end of the Boer War.
From Tuli the long march of the Pioneer Column to Mashonaland began on July 11th, 1890. On entering the highveld, 'C' troop of the Police started the building of the first Fort Victoria on August 14th oil a site four miles south of the present town. By September, 1891, this fort was in such disrepair that construction was started on a second fort and garrison huts nearby. The pentagonal earthwork that remains today is probably that of the second fort (Fig. 4). By the end of the year the water supply proved inadequate and the town moved to its present position early in 1892. On September 3rd, 1890, 'A' troop was detached from the Column to build Fort Charter (Fig. 5), opposite Chief Mtigeza's kraal. Although reduced in status to a post station in August, 1891, Charter became important after the occupation of Matabeleland, standing as it did where the road to Bulawayo joined the main Pioneer Road south from Salisbury. This fort still survives, and its vicinity is laced with tracks, some probably of this period, while the original buildings of Meikle's Hotel and Zeederberg's coach house, both built in the 1890's, still stand nearby. The Column halted finally on September 12th and 'B' troop started work on Fort Salisbury itself, on the site of the present Cecil Square. The origin of the design of the Pioneer forts is known, for clause 7 of the contract between Frank Johnson and the British South Africa Company for the occupation of Mashonaland states "that the fort to be erected on Mt. Hampden or thereabout shall not be inferior to that constructed in 1885 at Brussels in the district of Stellaland by the Bechuanaland Field Force". These forts, with the exception of Tuli, were almost identical—a simple earthwork square, without ditches, revetted in stone at Victoria, but in sandbags and timber at the others. No heavy weapons could be left at Victoria or Charter, so there the internal bastions necessary at Matlaputla and Salisbury were, of course, omitted. Outside all the forts there were two lines of pole and dagga huts for the garrison.
It was not only as safeguards against local unrest that defence was necessary, for the borders of the new country were contested briefly by both the Transvaal Republic and the Portuguese. Early in 1891, when a Boer commando sought to establish claims to Rhodesia and to enter the country across the Limpopo, men from Tuli established posts at all the Limpopo drifts, with their main body at a fort opposite Massibi Drift. As an additional precaution, the Naka Pass, on the Pioneer Road south bf the Tokwe River, was fortified by the Police. "The hills on either side of the pass had seven-pounders and maxim guns galore, trees cut down, it would have taken an army to storm the place" (10). At the same time, on the eastern border, a Portuguese force had gathered at Macequece to press their claims to Manicaland. A mixed volunteer and Police force under Captain H. M. Heyman marched on the Portuguese to counteract this and inflicted a complete defeat from a fort built at Chua Hill, two miles from Macequece. Meanwhile the Police station at Penhalonga was fortified by a small body of local prospectors and the remaining Police to become Fort Hill (Nat. Mon. 34), (Fig. 6)
In 1893, co-existence with the Matabele kingdom finally proved impossible. A Matabele impi, raiding and pillaging the local Mashona in the neighbourhood of Fort Victoria forced that town into laager in the fort (Nat. Mon. 17) on July 12th, 1893, and even demanded the surrender of those Mashona who had found refuge within the fort. For six weeks the women and children remained permanently in the fort, initially manned by 80 men. This fort, was more accurately, a defensible administrative centre and consisted, much as it does today, of the post office, courthouse and gaol surrounded by a high brick wall with a firing step and two towers containing maxim guns at opposite corners. The towers still stand but were originally unroofed and of bare brickwork. The hospital was set up in the Magistrate's office while the Dominican Sisters running the hospital lived in a hut in the prison yard. Although the Matabele withdrew on July 18th, this incident sparked the inevitable war which resulted in the rapid defeat of the Matabele and the overthrow of Lobengula by columns from Salisbury and Victoria. They were reinforced by a Southern Column, consisting of a detachment of the Bechuanaland Border Police under Lieut.-Col. H. Goold- Adams and volunteers under Commandant P. J. Raaff (Raaf's Rangers), from Tuli. This column was the only one to establish permanent fortifications. At Empandeni, Fort Adams (Nat. Mon. 88) was built on November 3rd, 1893, three miles from the site of this column's one serious battle—at Singuesi on the previous day. The fort was only occupied for three days. At Mangwe, the southern entrance to the Matopos, a further fort was built. These two forts were only temporary timber and earthwork stockades around the laager camps, built when attacks were expected, but deserted as the column left.
The precariousness of the first eight years is highlighted by the events of 1896-97. Within days of the outbreak of the Matabele Rebellion on March 23rd, 1896, no European or European property survived in Matabeleland outside the laagers of Bulawayo, Gwelo, Belingwe and Mangwe. Bulawayo was surrounded by 15,000 Matabele, 2,000 of these armed with breech-loading rifles, while inside Bulawayo there were only 800 men with 580 rifles; the Police force for the whole of Matabeleland consisted of 48 men. Their slender hope of survival was clearly realised and made explicit by the Administrator, Earl Grey, immediately after the outbreak: "The position is not pleasant. Bulawayo is a beleaguered town with barely one month's supplies, 500 miles from its base, Mafeking. Under the most favourable circumstances transport wagons take a good deal over a month from Mafeking to Bulawayo".(9). And circumstances were not favourable; the roads were in bad condition, rinderpest had destroyed all the transport oxen, mules had to be used", and the Matabele threatened every road. The tiny force was clearly unable to attempt to defeat the Matabele in their hill strongholds of the Matopos, and so Imperial troops entered the country, but they could only provide temporary relief. Grey estimated that to feed the horses and mules of the Imperial troops alone would require that 1,000 wagon loads of grain be brought into the country before the rains of 1896—clearly impossible. Lady Grey wrote in August: "Starvation stares the country in the face. It is not a question of money—no amount of money could save the situation when the rainy season comes or if the war is continuing and all the troops are still in the country".(9).
It was the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial and local troops, Major- Gen. Sir Frederick Carrington, who within two weeks of arriving in the country at the beginning of June, 1896, determined a solution. Forts had already been built to secure the lines of communication, now they were to be sited and built to contain and dominate all known rebel concentrations in the country, wherever they had been met. This strategy was to save the settlers and was already in operation and having effect when Rhodes's first Peace Indaba halted hostilities in the Matopos in August, 1896. The policy came fully into its own after the first Indaba. This had made it clear that most of the Matabele wanted peace but were hesitant to lay down their arms, particularly outside the Matopos. Therefore forts were to be sited to make it clear to the rebels that the European was "in possession and was determined to stay", to protect "friendly natives", to encourage rebels to surrender and to provide a centre to which they Could hand in their arms. Again and again orders emphasised that "offensive action was not to be taken" from the forts or "hostilities provoked", though, in Mashonaland at the end of the rains in early 1897, forts were sited near the rebel grain lands so that these could be destroyed if necessary. The strategy was so successful that by December, 1896, the Imperial troops could leave Rhodesia, with the protection of the country remaining in the hands of 1,200 men of the newly formed British South Africa Police, reinforced only by 200 men of the 7th Hussars. They manned the newly erected forts, almost all of which were by now administrative centres, with civilian Native Commissioners in overall direction of pacification. By this means a few men could control the whole country, primarily by establishing a psychological dominance over the rebels without bloodshed or resort to arms. Indeed this dominance was so clear that only one fort was in fact ever attacked.
At the start of the rebellion the Tuli road, skirting the eastern Matopos, was cut by the rebels and was impassable. It became urgent to protect the only remaining link with the south—the road skirting the northern and western Matopos leading to Mangwe, and then, free of danger, southwards. The protection of this road and telegraph line became the responsibility of Capt. F. C. Selous, playing his last part in Rhodesia's history. Within a month he had established forts every eight or ten miles along the road; at Wilson's farm (seven miles from Bulawayo), the Khami River, Mabukitwani, Figtree, the Shashani Pass and finally Matoli, 15 miles from the fort and laager of Mangwe itself. Each fort was garrisoned by some 30 to 50 men and named after the builder and first commander, with the exception of that at Mabukitwani which was under Selous himself and who named it after Lieut. F. J. Marquand, a Bulawayo architect who helped choose the site and supervise construction. Their names were thus Dawson, Khami (an exception), Marquand, Molyneux, Halsted and Luck.
Mangwe (Nat. Mon. 50), (Fig. 7) lay at the foot of the Mangwe Pass and had since 1863, when John Lee established the farm and house which still stands 1 and a half miles from the fort (Nat. Mon. 83), been the main entry for hunters and explorers to the Matabele kingdom. From the outbreak of the rebellion, 150 men, women and children, both British and Afrikaner, formed laager and enlarged and improved the fort built by the Southern Column in 1893. To quote Earl Grey: "We have got a British laager at Mangwe Pass so that place, which is the key of the country, is all right"(9). The 52 men formed the Mangwe Field Force under Commandant Cornelius van Rooyen. The Civil Authority and Native Commissioner was a very young and overbearing nineteen-year-old, Major B. W. Armstrong. Women and children slept in the central stone circular enclosure roofed with pole and dagga, on which roof the men slept, protected by a sandbag para¬pet (PI. 2). This building had previously been used as a grain store and was badly infested with rats. Animals were stabled within the circular outer walls and fifty yards outside the walls a laager of wagons encircled the fort to give some relief from what must have been cramped conditions. Mangwe was never attacked or even threatened, for the Matabele of the western Matopos and the officials of the nearby Mlimo shrine, one of the three major shrines, took no part in the rebel¬lion, though Mkwati, priest of the shrine at Thaba zaka Mambo, north-east of Bulawayo, was a leader of the rebellion. However, when it was rumoured that the Mangwe priests were about to join the rebels, Armstrong and an American, Burnham, rode to the shrine and shot a Matabele they claimed to be the chief priest.
improved the fort built by the Southern Column in 1893. To quote Earl Grey: "We have got a British laager at Mangwe Pass so that place, which is the key of the country, is all right"(9). The 52 men formed the Mangwe Field Force under Commandant Cornelius van Rooyen. The Civil Authority and Native Commissioner was a very young and overbearing nineteen-year-old, Major B. W. Armstrong. Women and children slept in the central stone circular enclosure roofed with pole and dagga, on which roof the men slept, protected by a sandbag parapet (PI. 2). This building had previously been used as a grain store and was badly infested with rats. Animals were stabled within the circular outer walls and fifty yards outside the walls a laager of wagons encircled the fort to give some relief from what must have been cramped conditions. Mangwe was never attacked or even threatened, for the Matabele of the western Matopos and the officials of the nearby Mlimo shrine, one of the three major shrines, took no part in the rebel¬lion, though Mkwati, priest of the shrine at Thaba zaka Mambo, north-east of Bulawayo, was a leader of the rebellion. However, when it was rumoured that the Mangwe priests were about to join the rebels, Armstrong and an American, Burnham, rode to the shrine and shot a Matabele they claimed to be the chief priest.
The discomfort, anxiety and resulting tensions of the laager made life difficult, increased by the clash of temperaments and the friction between the Afrikaners and the British, for the Jameson Raid had taken place only three months before. This life is vividly described from a first-hand source by J. M. Boggie (2). Immediately after the laager was formed Selous led a patrol to investigate rumours that "in the Mangwe laager order and discipline were conspicuous by their absence"(3). He returned however, with praise for Armstrong and van Rooyen, having found the laager "in excellent order"(3). In May the Matabele- land Relief Force under Col. Plumer passed through Mangwe on their way to Bulawayo. His comments did not bear out Selous' opinion: "Any value this fort might have had as a defensive work was quite nullified by the collection of huts, wagons and paraphernalia of all kinds huddled inside"(5). In such surroundings, six children were born before the laager and Field Force were disbanded on August 20th, 1896, to be replaced by a garrison of 15 police.
Plumer went into camp at Fort Khami, and took command of the road forts on May 16th. He replaced the existing system, in which all transport was escorted from fort to fort, by a single dawn patrol from each fort. But, due to the debility of their horses, the garrisons were not efficient. There was also great discontent and unrest among the men, who did not take kindly to military discipline. There were disputes over pay and payment for loot and the men felt that, as people with a stake in and knowledge of the country and who had successfully carried out the initial fighting and defence, they should be allowed to take part in the active operations to come. Request after request to resign was refused. This culminated with the O.C. of Fort Marquand refusing to return there from Bulawayo in August. Fort Molyneux, at Figtree, was particularly plagued with disaster; 90 sick horses, left there by Plumer in May, were driven off" by the Matabele half an hour after he left and could not be recovered as the garrison had no saddles. In June orders were sent to the Sergt.-Major commanding to "Please report as soon as you have put your fort in such condition as to render it safe from catching fire". This was apparently not done for by the end of the month he and the entire garrison were replaced. Two weeks later Figtree reported a rebel force at the fort. Capt. T. Laing and 200 men, mainly of the Belingwe Field Force, were sent out, but the reports were false. This is not surprising for on arrival they found no one in authority, Lieut. Botha, the officer commanding, was drunk, and the corporal under arrest for shooting the sergeant. Botha was relieved of his command, but, before returning under arrest to Bulawayo, managed to make matters still worse by cutting the telegraph wire. Laing remained at Figtree and used it as a base for his move into the Matopos to attack Imbesa at Inungu on July 20th.
With Plumer's arrival active operations became possible and a new impetus was given to the establishment of outposts. On May 23rd Capt. C. W. Halsted and 47 men went to the burnt and deserted mission at Hope Fountain and were fiercely attacked on arrival (PI. 3). After three hours' fighting the Matabele were repulsed. A fort was established above the mission, dominating the fertile land around. On June 7th a strong patrol under Lieut. Col. J. A. Spreckley went north of Bulawayo, and on June 12th started work on a fort at Shiloh, on the Tekwane River, three miles from the old established mission. By afternoon a circular earthwork wall, 4 ft. high and 45 ft. in diameter, surrounded by a ditch, was complete. Four days later a detachment left Shiloh for Inyati to superintend the building of a fort below the mission there. In September the garrison of Inyati was only seven men of the 7th Hussars, living in a "small fort, open flat, blazing sun and flies innumerable"(4). They had removed corrugated iron from the mission to improve the fort, causing much complaint. Immediately prior to his patrol to Shiloh and Inyati, Spreckley had routed a large Matabele force six miles north of Bulawayo where the Salisbury road crossed the Umgusa River. On June 20th a force of 20 men established the Welsh Harp Fort at the site of the battle and named after the hotel at the drift, with the main object of gaining intelligence on enemy movements. This outpost was moved on August 12th five miles south-east to Springs Farm to guard the 150 sick horses left nearby and to provide protection for miners near the Matopos who were already planning to restart operations.
On June 17th orders had been given to establish a fort further up the Salisbury road, 24 miles north of Bulawayo, on the Bembesi Battlefield (the sites of the battle and laager of 1893 are Nat. Mons. 109 and 107), to collect grain and provide the intelligence on rebel movements. It was manned by a garrison of Afrikaners under Capt. L. C. Geyser, and again was a centre of discontent. Geyser himself was selling purloined grain in Bulawayo until personally stopped by Plumer. On July 28th a detachment from Plumer's forces was ordered to Bembesi to take over and, with the garrison, to build a new fort at the Insiza drift on the Belingwe road. However, the garrison sent word to say they all wanted to take their discharges at the end of the month and the orders had to be countermanded. Geyser himself resigned at the end of July and reported that his men would only serve under their own officers. After some hesitation he was, however, replaced by Lieut. Barrett of the Police, whereon Geyser's second-in- command, Lieut. W. Swart, resigned and a stream of further resignations was refused. This obstructiveness culminated on August 26th when eight men of the garrison refused to join a patrol of Imperial troops they were court-martialled, fined and discharged. The disbandment of Bembesi had again been pressed by the Native Commissioner of Insiza, H. P. Fynn, on August 8th. "I beg to suggest that the fort at Lee's store (Bembesi Fort) be shifted to the Insiza Drift on the Belingwe road as it is absolutely useless where it is at the moment"(6). At the end of August this suggestion was finally acted on and Fort Rixon was established.
In the Midlands, Gwelo was in laager under the command of Capt. J. A. C. Gibbs, who had arrived with a small party from Salisbury on April 1st and who appears from his own and other diaries to have been a most enthusiastic fort builder. On his arrival at Gwelo a diarist recorded: "Captain Gibbs disgusted with state of laager, formed fatigue parties and commenced fixing us up, it's a Godsend he came to camp"(10). A week later the laager was fortified and in order. On May 20th Gibbs left Gwelo with a force of 66 troops and 120 others to prepare a fort controlling the Charter-Salisbury road. He chose the site for the future Fort Gibbs (Nat. Mon. 98), (Fig. 8), two days later at Makalaka Kop, a low but commanding kopje where, three weeks before, the Salisbury Column on its way to Bulawayo had skirmished with a Matabele force, and which dominated the rebel grain lands. The outer wall was completed in a week and work started on a brick iron-roofed store within it on June 1st. Two weeks later the fort was complete, the flag hoisted and appropriately celebrated. This square building, with fine dressed stonework and even the fort's name and date engraved on a stone block at the entrance, is probably the best built of any fort. Subsequently a cattle kraal and pole and dagga huts for the officers' mess, hospital and telegraphist were built outside the entrance to the fort and a larger hut for the men inside, and the stone wall protected by sods and sandbags. The fort never saw action, beyond a skirmish in which a Coloured scout killed three Mashona on June 6th. At the end of 1896 Fort Gibbs was taken over by the British South Africa Police, to be finally abandoned at the conclusion of the rebellion. On June 25th, 1896, Gibbs left a garrison at the fort and went on to Shangani, on the Bulawayo-Gwelo road, where a standard circular earthwork fort was erected, again at a site where the Salisbury Column had reported a strong Matabele concentration.
Plumer's force of 800 men then moved east along the edge of the Matopos and, after a minor action at Mshabezi on July 31st, formed "Sugarbush Camp" on the Nsezi River on August 3rd, opposite a large rebel impi under the Indunas Sekombo and Nyanda. On August 5th an advance guard of 138 dismounted men moved towards the pass leading to Sekombo's stronghold. They were surrounded and attacked by 3,000 Matabele, whom they held off for two hours until the main body arrived and put the Matabele to flight. This was to prove the severest engagement of the campaign. Seven men of the force were killed but the Matabele had 200 casualties and their forces were completely dispersed. On hearing news of the engagement, Carrington and Rhodes had left Bulawayo and arrived at the camp on the evening of the 5th. The next day it was decided to build a fort on the site of the camp and work started on August 7th on Fort Inceza, (named after the river, but known from September 22nd, 1896, as Fort Umlugulu (Nat. Mon. 71), (Fig. 10). On August 14th the troops at Inceza were afforded some relief from the monotony of camp life and fort building by a sports day. The shooting during the V.C. race however, not only caused concern to other garrisons in the Matopos, who sent out patrols to investigate, and to newly arrived Imperial reinforcements whose advance guard galloped into camp at that moment, but must have disturbed the Matabele themselves. The day before the battle of August 5th, Baden-Powell and the Native Commissioner, J. Richardson, had captured one of Mzilikazi's wives, the mother of Nyanda. She was held in Fort Inceza for a week and then became the go-between in the negotiations that now opened, as it became clear that some rebels wished to surrender. Rhodes returned to Fort Inceza on August 15th to initiate these negotiations. On August 19th,-by which time the new fort was practically complete, the main body withdrew to its main camp in the western Matopos, Malema Camp. On August 21st Rhodes left his camp outside Fort Inceza to meet the rebels for the first lndaba, and thus succeeded in bringing hostilities in the Matopos to a halt. Fort Inceza with forts at Spargo's and the Umzingwane River (8 miles and 20 miles respectively from Bulawayo) governed the head of the Tuli road. At the beginning of October the last patrol of the Matabeleland Relief Force extended the protection to this road with forts built along it at Grainger's Store and the Manzinyama River, 48 and 75 miles respectively from Bulawayo. To secure communications between Inceza and the base camp at Fort Usher, Fort Impeachable had been built midway between them on a site selected by Plumer on September 1st. Of the Matopos forts in mid-September only Inceza had good permanent pole and dagga huts for the men. The others contained only makeshift structures but improvements were started. The garrison left at Inceza at the end of August consisted of 60 Police with one seven-pounder, one 2.5" R.M.L. mountain gun and one or two maxims. This varied armament is reflected in the differing designs of the two bastions and the gun emplacement.
It was the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial and local troops, Major- Gen. Sir Frederick Carrington, who within two weeks of arriving in the country at the beginning of June, 1896, determined a solution. Forts had already been built to secure the lines of communication, now they were to be sited and built to contain and dominate all known rebel concentrations in the country, wherever they had been met. This strategy was to save the settlers and was already in operation and having effect when Rhodes's first Peace Indaba halted hostilities in the Matopos in August, 1896. The policy came fully into its own after the first Indaba. This had made it clear that most of the Matabele wanted peace but were hesitant to lay down their arms, particularly outside the Matopos. Therefore forts were to be sited to make it clear to the rebels that the European was "in possession and was determined to stay", to protect "friendly natives", to encourage rebels to surrender and to provide a centre to which they Could hand in their arms. Again and again orders emphasised that "offensive action was not to be taken" from the forts or "hostilities provoked", though, in Mashonaland at the end of the rains in early 1897, forts were sited near the rebel grain lands so that these could be destroyed if necessary. The strategy was so successful that by December, 1896, the Imperial troops could leave Rhodesia, with the protection of the country remaining in the hands of 1,200 men of the newly formed British South Africa Police, reinforced only by 200 men of the 7th Hussars. They manned the newly erected forts, almost all of which were by now administrative centres, with civilian Native Commissioners in overall direction of pacification. By this means a few men could control the whole country, primarily by establishing a psychological dominance over the rebels without bloodshed or resort to arms. Indeed this dominance was so clear that only one fort was in fact ever attacked.
At the start of the rebellion the Tuli road, skirting the eastern Matopos, was cut by the rebels and was impassable. It became urgent to protect the only remaining link with the south—the road skirting the northern and western Matopos leading to Mangwe, and then, free of danger, southwards. The protection of this road and telegraph line became the responsibility of Capt. F. C. Selous, playing his last part in Rhodesia's history. Within a month he had established forts every eight or ten miles along the road; at Wilson's farm (seven miles from Bulawayo), the Khami River, Mabukitwani, Figtree, the Shashani Pass and finally Matoli, 15 miles from the fort and laager of Mangwe itself. Each fort was garrisoned by some 30 to 50 men and named after the builder and first commander, with the exception of that at Mabukitwani which was under Selous himself and who named it after Lieut. F. J. Marquand, a Bulawayo architect who helped choose the site and supervise construction. Their names were thus Dawson, Khami (an exception), Marquand, Molyneux, Halsted and Luck.
Mangwe (Nat. Mon. 50), (Fig. 7) lay at the foot of the Mangwe Pass and had since 1863, when John Lee established the farm and house which still stands 1 and a half miles from the fort (Nat. Mon. 83), been the main entry for hunters and explorers to the Matabele kingdom. From the outbreak of the rebellion, 150 men, women and children, both British and Afrikaner, formed laager and enlarged and improved the fort built by the Southern Column in 1893. To quote Earl Grey: "We have got a British laager at Mangwe Pass so that place, which is the key of the country, is all right"(9). The 52 men formed the Mangwe Field Force under Commandant Cornelius van Rooyen. The Civil Authority and Native Commissioner was a very young and overbearing nineteen-year-old, Major B. W. Armstrong. Women and children slept in the central stone circular enclosure roofed with pole and dagga, on which roof the men slept, protected by a sandbag para¬pet (PI. 2). This building had previously been used as a grain store and was badly infested with rats. Animals were stabled within the circular outer walls and fifty yards outside the walls a laager of wagons encircled the fort to give some relief from what must have been cramped conditions. Mangwe was never attacked or even threatened, for the Matabele of the western Matopos and the officials of the nearby Mlimo shrine, one of the three major shrines, took no part in the rebel¬lion, though Mkwati, priest of the shrine at Thaba zaka Mambo, north-east of Bulawayo, was a leader of the rebellion. However, when it was rumoured that the Mangwe priests were about to join the rebels, Armstrong and an American, Burnham, rode to the shrine and shot a Matabele they claimed to be the chief priest.
improved the fort built by the Southern Column in 1893. To quote Earl Grey: "We have got a British laager at Mangwe Pass so that place, which is the key of the country, is all right"(9). The 52 men formed the Mangwe Field Force under Commandant Cornelius van Rooyen. The Civil Authority and Native Commissioner was a very young and overbearing nineteen-year-old, Major B. W. Armstrong. Women and children slept in the central stone circular enclosure roofed with pole and dagga, on which roof the men slept, protected by a sandbag parapet (PI. 2). This building had previously been used as a grain store and was badly infested with rats. Animals were stabled within the circular outer walls and fifty yards outside the walls a laager of wagons encircled the fort to give some relief from what must have been cramped conditions. Mangwe was never attacked or even threatened, for the Matabele of the western Matopos and the officials of the nearby Mlimo shrine, one of the three major shrines, took no part in the rebel¬lion, though Mkwati, priest of the shrine at Thaba zaka Mambo, north-east of Bulawayo, was a leader of the rebellion. However, when it was rumoured that the Mangwe priests were about to join the rebels, Armstrong and an American, Burnham, rode to the shrine and shot a Matabele they claimed to be the chief priest.
The discomfort, anxiety and resulting tensions of the laager made life difficult, increased by the clash of temperaments and the friction between the Afrikaners and the British, for the Jameson Raid had taken place only three months before. This life is vividly described from a first-hand source by J. M. Boggie (2). Immediately after the laager was formed Selous led a patrol to investigate rumours that "in the Mangwe laager order and discipline were conspicuous by their absence"(3). He returned however, with praise for Armstrong and van Rooyen, having found the laager "in excellent order"(3). In May the Matabele- land Relief Force under Col. Plumer passed through Mangwe on their way to Bulawayo. His comments did not bear out Selous' opinion: "Any value this fort might have had as a defensive work was quite nullified by the collection of huts, wagons and paraphernalia of all kinds huddled inside"(5). In such surroundings, six children were born before the laager and Field Force were disbanded on August 20th, 1896, to be replaced by a garrison of 15 police.
Plumer went into camp at Fort Khami, and took command of the road forts on May 16th. He replaced the existing system, in which all transport was escorted from fort to fort, by a single dawn patrol from each fort. But, due to the debility of their horses, the garrisons were not efficient. There was also great discontent and unrest among the men, who did not take kindly to military discipline. There were disputes over pay and payment for loot and the men felt that, as people with a stake in and knowledge of the country and who had successfully carried out the initial fighting and defence, they should be allowed to take part in the active operations to come. Request after request to resign was refused. This culminated with the O.C. of Fort Marquand refusing to return there from Bulawayo in August. Fort Molyneux, at Figtree, was particularly plagued with disaster; 90 sick horses, left there by Plumer in May, were driven off" by the Matabele half an hour after he left and could not be recovered as the garrison had no saddles. In June orders were sent to the Sergt.-Major commanding to "Please report as soon as you have put your fort in such condition as to render it safe from catching fire". This was apparently not done for by the end of the month he and the entire garrison were replaced. Two weeks later Figtree reported a rebel force at the fort. Capt. T. Laing and 200 men, mainly of the Belingwe Field Force, were sent out, but the reports were false. This is not surprising for on arrival they found no one in authority, Lieut. Botha, the officer commanding, was drunk, and the corporal under arrest for shooting the sergeant. Botha was relieved of his command, but, before returning under arrest to Bulawayo, managed to make matters still worse by cutting the telegraph wire. Laing remained at Figtree and used it as a base for his move into the Matopos to attack Imbesa at Inungu on July 20th.
With Plumer's arrival active operations became possible and a new impetus was given to the establishment of outposts. On May 23rd Capt. C. W. Halsted and 47 men went to the burnt and deserted mission at Hope Fountain and were fiercely attacked on arrival (PI. 3). After three hours' fighting the Matabele were repulsed. A fort was established above the mission, dominating the fertile land around. On June 7th a strong patrol under Lieut. Col. J. A. Spreckley went north of Bulawayo, and on June 12th started work on a fort at Shiloh, on the Tekwane River, three miles from the old established mission. By afternoon a circular earthwork wall, 4 ft. high and 45 ft. in diameter, surrounded by a ditch, was complete. Four days later a detachment left Shiloh for Inyati to superintend the building of a fort below the mission there. In September the garrison of Inyati was only seven men of the 7th Hussars, living in a "small fort, open flat, blazing sun and flies innumerable"(4). They had removed corrugated iron from the mission to improve the fort, causing much complaint. Immediately prior to his patrol to Shiloh and Inyati, Spreckley had routed a large Matabele force six miles north of Bulawayo where the Salisbury road crossed the Umgusa River. On June 20th a force of 20 men established the Welsh Harp Fort at the site of the battle and named after the hotel at the drift, with the main object of gaining intelligence on enemy movements. This outpost was moved on August 12th five miles south-east to Springs Farm to guard the 150 sick horses left nearby and to provide protection for miners near the Matopos who were already planning to restart operations.
On June 17th orders had been given to establish a fort further up the Salisbury road, 24 miles north of Bulawayo, on the Bembesi Battlefield (the sites of the battle and laager of 1893 are Nat. Mons. 109 and 107), to collect grain and provide the intelligence on rebel movements. It was manned by a garrison of Afrikaners under Capt. L. C. Geyser, and again was a centre of discontent. Geyser himself was selling purloined grain in Bulawayo until personally stopped by Plumer. On July 28th a detachment from Plumer's forces was ordered to Bembesi to take over and, with the garrison, to build a new fort at the Insiza drift on the Belingwe road. However, the garrison sent word to say they all wanted to take their discharges at the end of the month and the orders had to be countermanded. Geyser himself resigned at the end of July and reported that his men would only serve under their own officers. After some hesitation he was, however, replaced by Lieut. Barrett of the Police, whereon Geyser's second-in- command, Lieut. W. Swart, resigned and a stream of further resignations was refused. This obstructiveness culminated on August 26th when eight men of the garrison refused to join a patrol of Imperial troops they were court-martialled, fined and discharged. The disbandment of Bembesi had again been pressed by the Native Commissioner of Insiza, H. P. Fynn, on August 8th. "I beg to suggest that the fort at Lee's store (Bembesi Fort) be shifted to the Insiza Drift on the Belingwe road as it is absolutely useless where it is at the moment"(6). At the end of August this suggestion was finally acted on and Fort Rixon was established.
In the Midlands, Gwelo was in laager under the command of Capt. J. A. C. Gibbs, who had arrived with a small party from Salisbury on April 1st and who appears from his own and other diaries to have been a most enthusiastic fort builder. On his arrival at Gwelo a diarist recorded: "Captain Gibbs disgusted with state of laager, formed fatigue parties and commenced fixing us up, it's a Godsend he came to camp"(10). A week later the laager was fortified and in order. On May 20th Gibbs left Gwelo with a force of 66 troops and 120 others to prepare a fort controlling the Charter-Salisbury road. He chose the site for the future Fort Gibbs (Nat. Mon. 98), (Fig. 8), two days later at Makalaka Kop, a low but commanding kopje where, three weeks before, the Salisbury Column on its way to Bulawayo had skirmished with a Matabele force, and which dominated the rebel grain lands. The outer wall was completed in a week and work started on a brick iron-roofed store within it on June 1st. Two weeks later the fort was complete, the flag hoisted and appropriately celebrated. This square building, with fine dressed stonework and even the fort's name and date engraved on a stone block at the entrance, is probably the best built of any fort. Subsequently a cattle kraal and pole and dagga huts for the officers' mess, hospital and telegraphist were built outside the entrance to the fort and a larger hut for the men inside, and the stone wall protected by sods and sandbags. The fort never saw action, beyond a skirmish in which a Coloured scout killed three Mashona on June 6th. At the end of 1896 Fort Gibbs was taken over by the British South Africa Police, to be finally abandoned at the conclusion of the rebellion. On June 25th, 1896, Gibbs left a garrison at the fort and went on to Shangani, on the Bulawayo-Gwelo road, where a standard circular earthwork fort was erected, again at a site where the Salisbury Column had reported a strong Matabele concentration.
Plumer's force of 800 men then moved east along the edge of the Matopos and, after a minor action at Mshabezi on July 31st, formed "Sugarbush Camp" on the Nsezi River on August 3rd, opposite a large rebel impi under the Indunas Sekombo and Nyanda. On August 5th an advance guard of 138 dismounted men moved towards the pass leading to Sekombo's stronghold. They were surrounded and attacked by 3,000 Matabele, whom they held off for two hours until the main body arrived and put the Matabele to flight. This was to prove the severest engagement of the campaign. Seven men of the force were killed but the Matabele had 200 casualties and their forces were completely dispersed. On hearing news of the engagement, Carrington and Rhodes had left Bulawayo and arrived at the camp on the evening of the 5th. The next day it was decided to build a fort on the site of the camp and work started on August 7th on Fort Inceza, (named after the river, but known from September 22nd, 1896, as Fort Umlugulu (Nat. Mon. 71), (Fig. 10). On August 14th the troops at Inceza were afforded some relief from the monotony of camp life and fort building by a sports day. The shooting during the V.C. race however, not only caused concern to other garrisons in the Matopos, who sent out patrols to investigate, and to newly arrived Imperial reinforcements whose advance guard galloped into camp at that moment, but must have disturbed the Matabele themselves. The day before the battle of August 5th, Baden-Powell and the Native Commissioner, J. Richardson, had captured one of Mzilikazi's wives, the mother of Nyanda. She was held in Fort Inceza for a week and then became the go-between in the negotiations that now opened, as it became clear that some rebels wished to surrender. Rhodes returned to Fort Inceza on August 15th to initiate these negotiations. On August 19th,-by which time the new fort was practically complete, the main body withdrew to its main camp in the western Matopos, Malema Camp. On August 21st Rhodes left his camp outside Fort Inceza to meet the rebels for the first lndaba, and thus succeeded in bringing hostilities in the Matopos to a halt. Fort Inceza with forts at Spargo's and the Umzingwane River (8 miles and 20 miles respectively from Bulawayo) governed the head of the Tuli road. At the beginning of October the last patrol of the Matabeleland Relief Force extended the protection to this road with forts built along it at Grainger's Store and the Manzinyama River, 48 and 75 miles respectively from Bulawayo. To secure communications between Inceza and the base camp at Fort Usher, Fort Impeachable had been built midway between them on a site selected by Plumer on September 1st. Of the Matopos forts in mid-September only Inceza had good permanent pole and dagga huts for the men. The others contained only makeshift structures but improvements were started. The garrison left at Inceza at the end of August consisted of 60 Police with one seven-pounder, one 2.5" R.M.L. mountain gun and one or two maxims. This varied armament is reflected in the differing designs of the two bastions and the gun emplacement.
With the ending of hostilities in the Matopos and the approach of the rains, it was urgently necessary to attempt to withdraw as many troops as possible and, at the beginning of September, Forts Dawson, Halsted, Hope Fountain, Spargo's, Umzingwane and Bembesi, were abandoned and the garrisons at Figtree, Khami, Mangwe, and Luck reduced to 20 men each. The total garrisons of the forts two months before had been 347 men by mid October Forts Khami, Marquand and Luck were also abandoned and the garrisons had been reduced to a total of some 100 regular Police, first known as the Matabeleland Mounted Police but soon to be incorporated in the new British South Africa Police. The whole emphasis also shifted from hostile operations to peaceful encouragement of rebel surrender, under the Police and native commissioners, backed by the power of forts built in areas outside the Matopos. The first fort intended primarily and expressly for this purpose had been established on July 23rd at Solusi's Kraal, 35 miles west of Bulawayo between the Gwaai and Manzinyama rivers, by civilian volunteers commanded by Lieut. Bull, under the direction of the Native Commissioner, and soon reinforced by a Police contingent.
The first and most widespread murders had occurred in the Insiza district at the start of the rebellion. When news of the first murders reached the settlers in the area they planned to gather at Rixon's Farm, where the northern Bulawayo- Belingwe road crossed the Insiza river; instead they laagered further south at Cumming's Store and were brought to Bulawayo two days later. Dr. and Mrs. Langford and C. J. Leman were making for Rixon's Farm when they were attacked and the men killed. Mrs. Langford fled for help but found Rixon's Farm deserted, and hid alone in a nearby river bed for several days before being discovered and killed. Col. Napier's Gwelo patrol, which recovered their bodies in May, lost two troopers in the area. On August 27th the Native Commissioner re¬ported that rebels, desperately short of grain of which there were rich stores in the area, had gathered at Rixon's Farm and were killing Hlomdhleni's people, refugees from Thaba zaka Mambo, in their search for food. Although the leaders of these rebels had attended the first Indaba they were said to have renounced the negotiations and the Matopos chiefs, and claimed that they were the true voice of the Matabele nation, and still undefeated. A detachment of Matabeleland Mounted Police was sent to the farm and on September 10th their Commanding Officer, Insp. J. A. Warwick, reported: "With the assistance of surrendered natives, have erected a Fort in which I think the most suitable position, commanding a view of Rixon's valley and the open country along the Insiza river. The fort consists of a stone wall substantially built with a row of sandbags on which the top is not completed owing to the scarcity of sandbags. It is about 40 ft. square. I'm building a good substantial hut at each corner, which will be finished within a few days. My instructions were to establish a fort in a suitable position, which may mean anything, a temporary or a permanent one".(7) Fort Rixon (Nat. Mon. 97), (Fig. 11) was threatened soon after and the area reinforced by men from the strong Belingwe Field Force patrol then in the area, but no more than isolated skirmishes took place with the rebels.
North of Gwelo, in the Somabula forest, strong rebel forces remained and two strong patrols of the 7th Hussars, under Lieut.-Col. Baden-Powell and Lieut.-Col. H. M. Ridley, entered the area in September. The latter found and buried the bodies of men killed six months before at the start of the rebellion at Harbord's store where the Hartley Hill road (originally the Hunter's Road) crossed the Ingwenya River. The rebels were not brought to action and on September 26th Baden-Powell's patrol built a fort where the road crossed the Vungu River. A Matabeleland Mounted Police garrison remained behind and, on October 10th, their commanding officer Capt. W. H. Robinson, and the Native Commissioner, W. J. J. Driver, rode out unarmed to meet the rebels and to persuade them to surrender, with such success that rebels and arms streamed into the fort—180 on one day alone. But the fort was in a poor position, in broken country, with water supplies exposed and not easily obtainable, and communications with Gwelo, the headquarters, difficult. Soon after, therefore, the fort of Ingwenya (Fig. 12), on the site of Harbord's store, replaced Vungu as the main post. A further minor fort was built at Cactus Poort near where the Hartley Hill road crosses the Kwe Kwe River. Forts Rixon and Ingwenya are similar constructions of rough, dry stone walling and below both are small cemeteries containing the graves of the settlers and troops killed in the vicinity. Below Ingwenya the foundations of Harbord's store are also still visible. In the final stages of pacification of Matabeleland further small, defended posts were built at Mpateni near Belingwe; at Edkin's store, Filabusi; and at Balla Balla.
In Mashonaland rebellion broke out in June and Imperial troops arrived there in August. The same basic strategy used by Carrington in Matabeleland was not at once applied by the Commander of the forces in Mashonaland, Lieut.- Col. E. A. H. Alderson, nor with sufficient thoroughness. He preferred a system of rapid strikes against the rebels by strong patrols which would then withdraw. Largely as a result of this the Mashona Rebellion dragged on through the rainy season of 1896 and only ended in October, 1897. His lack of success emphasizes how essential the forts were to the successful pacification of the country.
Kagubi, spirit medium or Mhondoro of the Mashona and a leading rebel (later reinforced by Mkwati, leader of the M limo cult who fled from Thaba zaka Mambo), was at Mashiangombie's kraal on the Umfuli River. This kraal, "the powerhouse of the rising in Western Mashonaland", was to survive all attacks for over a year. On June 14th men from this kraal killed two prospectors at Beatrice, the start of the Mashona rebellion. Four days later the toll of murdered Europeans in the area was twenty. Seventy volunteers from Natal, forming the Natal Troop under Capt. J. F. Taylor, were fortunately halted at Fort Charter on their way to Matabeleland, and on June 21st they attacked Mashiangombie but were beaten off and retired. Immediately they left Fort Charter that district rose and 16 Europeans were killed. The Afrikaner farmers of the district then hurriedly formed laager both at Enkeldoorn and at Charter, the latter in the old fort, repaired and now surrounded with a ditch. It held 150 women and children. Provisions were scarce, food was rationed and all the cattle were dead from rinderpest, so transport and evacuation were impossible. However, ammunition Lieut.-Col. R. Beal and the Salisbury Column, returning from Bulawayo to the defence of Mashonaland, on July 17th, but a garrison remained, receiving provisions from Salisbury. Like most of the laagers of the time, crowded conditions made it look disreputable. "It had the appearance of a gypsy encampment just before being told to move on by the local police"(l ). Charter remained a base for numerous strong patrols through what was a strong rebel district.
The first and most widespread murders had occurred in the Insiza district at the start of the rebellion. When news of the first murders reached the settlers in the area they planned to gather at Rixon's Farm, where the northern Bulawayo- Belingwe road crossed the Insiza river; instead they laagered further south at Cumming's Store and were brought to Bulawayo two days later. Dr. and Mrs. Langford and C. J. Leman were making for Rixon's Farm when they were attacked and the men killed. Mrs. Langford fled for help but found Rixon's Farm deserted, and hid alone in a nearby river bed for several days before being discovered and killed. Col. Napier's Gwelo patrol, which recovered their bodies in May, lost two troopers in the area. On August 27th the Native Commissioner re¬ported that rebels, desperately short of grain of which there were rich stores in the area, had gathered at Rixon's Farm and were killing Hlomdhleni's people, refugees from Thaba zaka Mambo, in their search for food. Although the leaders of these rebels had attended the first Indaba they were said to have renounced the negotiations and the Matopos chiefs, and claimed that they were the true voice of the Matabele nation, and still undefeated. A detachment of Matabeleland Mounted Police was sent to the farm and on September 10th their Commanding Officer, Insp. J. A. Warwick, reported: "With the assistance of surrendered natives, have erected a Fort in which I think the most suitable position, commanding a view of Rixon's valley and the open country along the Insiza river. The fort consists of a stone wall substantially built with a row of sandbags on which the top is not completed owing to the scarcity of sandbags. It is about 40 ft. square. I'm building a good substantial hut at each corner, which will be finished within a few days. My instructions were to establish a fort in a suitable position, which may mean anything, a temporary or a permanent one".(7) Fort Rixon (Nat. Mon. 97), (Fig. 11) was threatened soon after and the area reinforced by men from the strong Belingwe Field Force patrol then in the area, but no more than isolated skirmishes took place with the rebels.
North of Gwelo, in the Somabula forest, strong rebel forces remained and two strong patrols of the 7th Hussars, under Lieut.-Col. Baden-Powell and Lieut.-Col. H. M. Ridley, entered the area in September. The latter found and buried the bodies of men killed six months before at the start of the rebellion at Harbord's store where the Hartley Hill road (originally the Hunter's Road) crossed the Ingwenya River. The rebels were not brought to action and on September 26th Baden-Powell's patrol built a fort where the road crossed the Vungu River. A Matabeleland Mounted Police garrison remained behind and, on October 10th, their commanding officer Capt. W. H. Robinson, and the Native Commissioner, W. J. J. Driver, rode out unarmed to meet the rebels and to persuade them to surrender, with such success that rebels and arms streamed into the fort—180 on one day alone. But the fort was in a poor position, in broken country, with water supplies exposed and not easily obtainable, and communications with Gwelo, the headquarters, difficult. Soon after, therefore, the fort of Ingwenya (Fig. 12), on the site of Harbord's store, replaced Vungu as the main post. A further minor fort was built at Cactus Poort near where the Hartley Hill road crosses the Kwe Kwe River. Forts Rixon and Ingwenya are similar constructions of rough, dry stone walling and below both are small cemeteries containing the graves of the settlers and troops killed in the vicinity. Below Ingwenya the foundations of Harbord's store are also still visible. In the final stages of pacification of Matabeleland further small, defended posts were built at Mpateni near Belingwe; at Edkin's store, Filabusi; and at Balla Balla.
In Mashonaland rebellion broke out in June and Imperial troops arrived there in August. The same basic strategy used by Carrington in Matabeleland was not at once applied by the Commander of the forces in Mashonaland, Lieut.- Col. E. A. H. Alderson, nor with sufficient thoroughness. He preferred a system of rapid strikes against the rebels by strong patrols which would then withdraw. Largely as a result of this the Mashona Rebellion dragged on through the rainy season of 1896 and only ended in October, 1897. His lack of success emphasizes how essential the forts were to the successful pacification of the country.
Kagubi, spirit medium or Mhondoro of the Mashona and a leading rebel (later reinforced by Mkwati, leader of the M limo cult who fled from Thaba zaka Mambo), was at Mashiangombie's kraal on the Umfuli River. This kraal, "the powerhouse of the rising in Western Mashonaland", was to survive all attacks for over a year. On June 14th men from this kraal killed two prospectors at Beatrice, the start of the Mashona rebellion. Four days later the toll of murdered Europeans in the area was twenty. Seventy volunteers from Natal, forming the Natal Troop under Capt. J. F. Taylor, were fortunately halted at Fort Charter on their way to Matabeleland, and on June 21st they attacked Mashiangombie but were beaten off and retired. Immediately they left Fort Charter that district rose and 16 Europeans were killed. The Afrikaner farmers of the district then hurriedly formed laager both at Enkeldoorn and at Charter, the latter in the old fort, repaired and now surrounded with a ditch. It held 150 women and children. Provisions were scarce, food was rationed and all the cattle were dead from rinderpest, so transport and evacuation were impossible. However, ammunition Lieut.-Col. R. Beal and the Salisbury Column, returning from Bulawayo to the defence of Mashonaland, on July 17th, but a garrison remained, receiving provisions from Salisbury. Like most of the laagers of the time, crowded conditions made it look disreputable. "It had the appearance of a gypsy encampment just before being told to move on by the local police"(l ). Charter remained a base for numerous strong patrols through what was a strong rebel district.
As in Matabeleland, the main line of communications in Mashonaland had to be protected and the Imperial troops under Alderson, on their way to Salisbury from the coast in August, established fortified posts between Salisbury and Umtali at Devil's Pass, Headlands and the Marandellas Hotel (the two latter then at points south of the present main road and towns.) Their garrisons were provided by local volunteers and Imperial troops of the Mashonaland Field Force under Major C. W. Watts. During the march Makoni's kraal was attacked by Alderson with only partial success on August 4th, and to contain Makoni Fort Haynes was built on the next day at the camp site beside some newly erected Police huts. It was named after Capt. A. E. Haynes, R.E., who had designed it and who fell in the attack; it became the main depot for the road garrisons. The Police huts were converted to a hospital and Alderson's sick and wounded left there. Subsequently, after negotiations with Makoni had failed, and after a three day siege ending on September 3rd, 1896, the kraal was destroyed and Makoni court-martialled and executed. At Mazoe, a few hundred yards from the Alice Mine, an area of strong rebel activity, a fort was built and garrisoned, on August 19th, by men of the Salisbury Rifles in order to protect the men working the Alice Mine; it was named Fort Alderson. Alderson, at the beginning of November, moved this fort higher up the hill for the better control of the rebel grain- lands in the valley below and also of the rebel leader Nehanda's kraal, 4i miles from the fort across the Mazoe River. He thereby caused a near mutiny in the garrison, who by no means enjoyed fort building.
Hartley Hill (Nat. Mon. 92), (Fig. 13, PL 4), a long established and important mining centre on the then borders of Matabeleland, had early taken precautions against a rising, and twelve of the 34 Europeans in the vicinity, mainly prospectors, reluctant to abandon their property and retire to Salisbury, started to fortify the hill. They asked for, and received, arms from Salisbury as early as April 4th. Three weeks later the threats became real when news was received that H. Taylor, a prospector, had been murdered 25 miles away. Matabele were in the neighbourhood and the tiny garrison retired permanently to the fort. They did not realize that their real danger lay 12 miles away in the seemingly peaceful kraal of Mashiangombie until, on June 15th, all but two African servants deserted, and the Native Commissioner of Hartley, D. E. Moony, was killed while on a visit to investigate the murder of an Indian storekeeper at the kraal. At the same time two prospectors were killed at the kraal. Three days later two more Europeans of the Hartley garrison and an African companion were killed on their way to Salisbury with despatches. Thenceforward the hill was fired on daily from adjacent Johnson's Kopje and parties collecting water were harassed. The tiny force held out until relieved by a patrol of 185 men under Capt. the Hon. C. J. White on July 22nd. From then. for over five months, the district was abandoned to the rebels. On October 10th, 500 European and 100 African troops under Alderson, with four seven-pounders and four maxims, attacked Mashiangombie. After three days they retired again, having achieved little. Alderson realized the need for a fort but felt the difficulties of transport and supplies, and the shortage of men prevented the establishment of one at this time, particularly as the rains were about to start.
Earl Grey, who clearly realised how important an instrument the forts could be, criticised Alderson's policies strongly: "Alderson and his mounted infantry made so rapid a promenade militaire through the country that in many places the result is nil and the natives are in a state of mutiny. Alderson committed two blunders, after his third attack on Mashiangombie he should have blown up the cave and left a fort behind. He did neither and the result is that Mashiangombie believes we are afraid and impotent".(9) Under Earl Grey's prodding Hartley Hill was reoccupied on December 1st by the Natal Troop, reinforced two weeks later by Major H. Hopper and 80 men of the British South Africa Police. The original fort was then enlarged and improved. Orders were: "To make frequent patrols especially after arrival to show we are in possession, to encourage the friendlies, but not to provoke hostilities". Grey commented: "Alderson has left an inheritance of difficulty for us to deal with. If you remember the first thing I did after my arrival at Salisbury [November 18th, 1896] on finding out that no fort had been established at Hartley was to get Alderson to send out a force at once and establish one and after some little difficulty I got him to do so. Well, the evidence which this fort gives that we intend to stay there is puzzling Mashiangombie and is already beginning to make him uncomfortable— the latest news is that he is quarrelling with the Mondoro Kagubi, the main leader of the entire Mashona rising, who had his headquarters at this kraal] who has taken some of his wives. I have every hope that we shall be able, without taking any active measures against his kopjes, to reduce him to the state of sub¬mission which is necessary if the country is to be safe for the miner"(9). However, still apparently believing that the Matabele were behind the Mashona rising, the authorities at Hartley established seemingly friendly relations with Mashiangombie who must indeed have felt invincible, until on January 9th the Chief Native Commissioner warned "Mashiangombie and Kagubi must be harassed. All stray Mashonas shot. Do not talk further with Mashiangombie" (8). Three days later the Commandant of the British South Africa Police, Lieut.-Col. the Hon. F. R. W. E. de Moleyns, planned a night attack with 170 men on Kagubi, now living a quarter of a mile from Mashiangombie, but failed to surprise the kraal and retired, though he did establish Fort Mandora, on an "extensive kopje" nearby, presumably and surprisingly named after Kagubi, the Mhondoro. Earl Grey commented: "de Moleyns again was irresolute made a night march to within a mile of the enemy and then right about to build a fort instead of instantly putting the matter to the touch.... "(9). It did, however, result in Kagubi leaving the district. Fort Mandora, like Hartley itself, was extremely unhealthy and fever-ridden, and took a heavy toll on its garrison. At last, on February 20th, Capt. R. C. Nesbitt, famous for his part in the Mazoe Patrol, left Hartley and established Fort Martin (Nat. Mon. 95), (Fig. 14), on a site one mile from Mashiangombie's kraal and within seven-pounder range of the kraal. He reported: "Fort Martin is very healthy, being splendidly situated very high ... it is impregnable and the best possible place"(8). The two kopjes forming Fort Martin are protected and unclimbable to the east, the side facing Mashiangombie's kraal, while the lower, sheltered western sides have level areas, which were encircled with walls and on which tents were pitched. The smaller kopje to the north, which naturally also had to be defended, was occupied by the African Police. The fort was named after Sir Richard Martin, who had succeeded Carrington in overall command of all the forces in Rhodesia and was also the Imperial Deputy Commissioner. The garrison were destroying crops and Mashiangombie now realized his vulnerability. Mkwati fled while many others, where they could, deserted. Mashiangombie was again persuaded to parley and tried to buy off his besiegers with £15 10s. 6d. "tax" and five muzzle loaders — not a convincing gesture. When this failed he attacked Fort Martin, on March 17th, with three to four hundred men, and killed three African Police before being repulsed. Thereafter the fort was fired on intermittently and his kraal shelled in return. The end came on July 24th. The British South Africa Police under de Moleyns and the 7th Hussars under Captains Carew and Poore, a total force of 670 men, stormed the kraal and after a sharp fight, which lasted only a few minutes, occupied the kopje and started to picket and dynamite its many caves. Among the attackers two Europeans and three Africans were killed. At dawn on the 25th, Mashiangombie himself appeared at the mouth of a cave, wounded by the blasting, and was shot down. The Mashona Rebellion was virtually over. Fort Martin remained the Police and administrative post for a further year; Hartley, then a rough mining camp, was not considered a suitable spot.
The last fort of importance in Mashonaland had been built on January 28th, 1897, opposite Chikwakwa's Kraal and Gondo's kraal, 25 miles east of Salisbury, and garrisoned by 40 Police under Sub. Insp. C. Harding after whom the fort was named. It was to this kraal that Kagubi came after de Moleyns' attack on him at Mashiangombie's. On February 16th the kraals were attacked and destroyed, though Baguio had again fled, this time to Mazoe. During the final stages of the pacification of Mashonaland minor forts were built at Lomagundi, 7 miles west of Sinoia, by the 7th Hussars in September 1897, the last act of the Imperial forces, and at Mt. Darwin by the Police under Major F. H. van Niekerk.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was carried out as part of the author's normal duties as Senior Inspector of the Historical Monuments Commission.
I would like to thank both Mr. R. Summers and Col. A. S. Hickman for reading and criticising the first drafts of this paper.
LOCATION OF FORTS
Many of these forts are on private land. In all such cases permission to visit them must be obtained from the owners. All map references are to the 1: 50,000 Federal Topographical series.
Fort Tuli, Nat. Mon. 94. Map ref. sheet 2I29C3, marked. 0: Bulawayo, take Beit Bridge road; 82.2 m. (4.0 m. past Gwanda), turn R to "Tuli"; 184 m., Tuli Police Station. Fort 2 m. further, across Shashi River.
Pioneer Cemetery, 1 m. from Fort.
Prison (1891), between Fort and Shashi River.
Fort Victoria (1891). Map ref. Sheet 2030B2 713728 0: Fort Victoria, take Beit Bridge road; 3.5 m., turn L to Clipsham Farm; 4.4 m., Homestead. Fort 100 yards behind Homestead.
Fort Victoria (1892). Nat. Mon. 17. In the centre of Fort Victoria on Dillon Avenue between Allan Wilson St. and Hughes St:
Mangwe Fort. Nat. Mon. 50. Map ref. Sheet 2128C1, marked. 0: Bulawayo, take Plumtree road;
43.5m., Marula, turn L to "Mangwe B.S.A.P."; 63.8 m., Mangwe Police Station. Fort 1.8 m. past Station.
Cemetery and John Lee's House. Nat. Mon. 83. Approx. 1 m. from Fort.
Fort Adams, Empandeni. Nat. Mon. 88. Map ref. Sheet 2027D2 939058. As for Mangwe, but 63.8 m., Mangwe Police Station, turn R; 68.9 m., fork L; after 100 yds. turn L; 71.2 m., cross grid, turn R; 77.9 m., Empandeni Mission. Fort 2.6 m. past Mission.
Fort Luck. Map ref. Sheet 2128C1, not located in detail. As for Mangwe, but 53.2 m., turn very sharp L (before, not at, sign "Lydeard Store") crossing Lydeard to Darnaway Farm. Fort can be found on this farm.
Fort Inugu. Map ref. Sheet 2028A4 496383. Matopos, approx. 10 m. past Rhodes Estate; Fort 5 yds. W of main Antelope road, i m. S of the Malonga River.
Fort Usher No. 3. Map ref. Sheet 2028B3 658423. "Fort Usher" signposted from Bulawayo and Matopos. Only tree, originally lookout within fort, survives, 100 yds. S of main road, 200 yds. E of bridge crossing Kantolo River.
Fort Umlugulu. Nat. Mon. 71. Map ref. Sheet 2028B4 959424. 0: Bulawayo, take Beit Bridge road; 17.5 m. turn R at signposted route "Fort Umlugulu"; 31.5 m., turn R at Esibomvu; 32.5 m., Fort.
First Indaba Site. Nat. Mon. 63. 2 m. past Fort, route signposted. Rebellion Memorial and Cemetery. Visible near Fort, the main Matopos rebellion ceme¬tery. Commemorating and containing graves of troops who fell in all Matopos actions, including seven in Selcombo engagement August 5th, 1896, also later members of Police garrison.
Fort Inyati. Map ref. Sheet SE-35-16 PJ9422. From Inyati Village, proceed to Government Clinic; immed. before Clinic turn R; fork R; enter fenced, cultivated land through gate. Fort 50 yds. W of road, and 50 yds. S of northern fence (approx. i m. from Clinic.).
Rebellion Memorial in Inyati Mission Cemetery, commemorating the men killed in de¬fending the Police Station at the outbreak of the Rebellion.
Fort Rixon. Nat. Mon. 96. 0; turn off Salisbury-Bulawayo road at Shangani, follow signs to Fort Rixon; 30.5 m., just before Fort Rixon village turn R; 31.1 m., fork L; 31.3 m., turn L;
31.6m.. Fort.
Cemetery on right at foot of hill with graves of Dr. and Mrs. Langford, Leman and troopers killed on Gwelo Patrol, May, 1896.
Fort Ingwenya. Nat. Mon. 67. Map ref. Sheet 1929B1, marked. 0: turn R from Salisbury-Gwelo road at Hunters Road Station, follow signs to "Lower Gwelo"; 2.9 m., fork L; 7.9 m., fork L; 8.0 m., turn R; 14.3 m,, Fort on L at S end low, grassy hill.
14.5 m. Cemetery on R of road, for civilians killed in district at outbreak rebellion. 0: Gwelo; take "Lower Gwelo" road; 26.0 m. turn R; 26.6 m. Fort.
Fort Gibbs. Nat. Mon. 98. Map ref. Sheet 1930A3, marked. 0: turn off Gwelo-Umvuma road at Lalapanzi, turn R; 1.9 m., turn R off road on to grass track; 2.2 m., pass ruined farmhouse; 4.2 m., farm dip; Fort visible J m. S of dip on summit of low granite dome.
Grave of Sgt. W. Maxwell "found dead in the veld" in June 1897, in clump of trees at foot of hill.
Fort Charter. Map ref. Sheet 1831C1, marked. 0: Salisbury, take Fort Victoria road; 52.3 in., turn L to "Charter Estate" ; 65.1 m., turn R ; 65.3 m., turn L; 66.7 m.. Charter Estate Offices. Fort 2.8 m. from Offices on Charter Estate.
Fort Martin. Nat. Mon. 95. Map ref. Sheet I830B1, Spot ht. 4156, Fort Martin Farm. 0: Salisbury; take Salisbury-Bulawayo road; 30.0 m., turn L at "Epsom Mine Road", follow Farm signs to "Fort Martin" ; 48.1 m., turn L; 54.0 m., Farmhouse. Fort 1 m. away.
Cemetery on farm boundary i m. S.W. of Fort with graves of men killed in final action, and Native Commissioner, Hartley, killed at outbreak of rebellion.
Hartley Hill. Nat. Mon. 92. Map ref. Sheet 1830A2 246859. 0: Salisbury; as for Fort Martin but at 48.1 m. turn R; 68.1 m., turn R to hill, visible £ m. N of road with beacon at summit. 0: Hartley; turn R off Salisbury road and continue along road to Beatrice. Hill 18 m. from Hartley.
Cemetery £ m. from east foot of hill with graves of garrison, and of D. Hoste, died 1893.
LIST OF SOURCES
Published Works:
1. Alderson, E. A. H. With the Mounted Infantry and the Mashonaland Field Force, 1896.
Methuen, 1898.
British South Africa Company. Report on the native disturbances, 1896-1897. The Company, 1897.
Brown, W. H. On the South African frontier. Sampson, Low, Marston, 1899.
2. Boggie, Mrs. J. M. First steps in civilizing Rhodesia. Bulawayo, Philpott and Collins, 1953.
Glover, L. S. "Memories of the Mashonaland Mounted Police" (in Rhodesiana, No. 11,
1964).
Hickman, A. ,S. "Norton District in the Mashona Rebellion" (in Rhodesiana, No. 3, 1958). Tuli expedition. Salisbury, Rhodesian Schools Exploration Society, 1959. Men who made Rhodesia.
Salisbury, British South Africa Company, 1960. Macloutsie expedition. Salisbury, Rhodesian Schools Exploration Society, 1961. Hole, H. M. *Fhe making of Rhodesia. Macmillan, 1926. Jones, N.
Rhodesian genesis. Glasgow University Press, 1953. Leonard, A. G. How we made Rhodesia. Kegan Paul, 1896. Newman, C. L. N. Matabeleland and how we got to it. Fisher Unwin, 1895.
3. Plumer, H. C. O. An irregular corps in Matabeleland. Kegan Paul, 1897.
4. Baden-Powell, R. S. S. The Matabele campaign, 1896. Methuen, 1897.
Ranger, T. O. "The organisation of the rebellions of 1896 and 1897" (in Conference on the history 'of the Central African peoples. Lusaka, Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, 1963).
5. Selous, F. C. Sunshine and storm in Rhodesia. Rowland Ward, 1896. Stevens, H. L. Autobiography of a Border Policeman. Withers, 1927. Sykes, F. V. With Plumer in Matabeleland. Constable, 1897.
Wills, W. A., and Collingridge, L. T. The downfall of Lobengula. "African Review'', 1894.
Public archives of Southern Rhodesia, National Archives: BA 1/1/1 G:O.C. 1896 Rebellion forces—Outletters.
6. BA 2/9/1 Military operations, Matabeleland, 1896, Apr. 7—July 31.
7. BA 2/9/2 Military operations,: Matabeleland, 1896 Aug. 1—Dec. 22. BA 6/1 Chief Staff Officer—Diary.
BA 8/1 G.O.C.—Orders.
BA 8/2 Garrison and regimental orders.
8. LO 5/4 London Office—In letters from Salisbury, 1896-1899. N 1/1 C.N.C.—In letters from Native Commissioners.
Historical Manuscripts, National Archives:
BA 4/1 Barker, M. D. Gwelo laager and Fort Gibbs. BO 9/1/1 Borcherds, J. K. G. Fort Charter.
9. GR 1/1 Grey, Earl. Correspondence.
10. TA 4 Taylor, R. B. Diaries and reminiscences.
FOOTNOTE 1
Neill Jackson has made this image available from 'Bid Time Return' by Basil Fuller.
Thank you Neill.
Hartley Hill (Nat. Mon. 92), (Fig. 13, PL 4), a long established and important mining centre on the then borders of Matabeleland, had early taken precautions against a rising, and twelve of the 34 Europeans in the vicinity, mainly prospectors, reluctant to abandon their property and retire to Salisbury, started to fortify the hill. They asked for, and received, arms from Salisbury as early as April 4th. Three weeks later the threats became real when news was received that H. Taylor, a prospector, had been murdered 25 miles away. Matabele were in the neighbourhood and the tiny garrison retired permanently to the fort. They did not realize that their real danger lay 12 miles away in the seemingly peaceful kraal of Mashiangombie until, on June 15th, all but two African servants deserted, and the Native Commissioner of Hartley, D. E. Moony, was killed while on a visit to investigate the murder of an Indian storekeeper at the kraal. At the same time two prospectors were killed at the kraal. Three days later two more Europeans of the Hartley garrison and an African companion were killed on their way to Salisbury with despatches. Thenceforward the hill was fired on daily from adjacent Johnson's Kopje and parties collecting water were harassed. The tiny force held out until relieved by a patrol of 185 men under Capt. the Hon. C. J. White on July 22nd. From then. for over five months, the district was abandoned to the rebels. On October 10th, 500 European and 100 African troops under Alderson, with four seven-pounders and four maxims, attacked Mashiangombie. After three days they retired again, having achieved little. Alderson realized the need for a fort but felt the difficulties of transport and supplies, and the shortage of men prevented the establishment of one at this time, particularly as the rains were about to start.
Earl Grey, who clearly realised how important an instrument the forts could be, criticised Alderson's policies strongly: "Alderson and his mounted infantry made so rapid a promenade militaire through the country that in many places the result is nil and the natives are in a state of mutiny. Alderson committed two blunders, after his third attack on Mashiangombie he should have blown up the cave and left a fort behind. He did neither and the result is that Mashiangombie believes we are afraid and impotent".(9) Under Earl Grey's prodding Hartley Hill was reoccupied on December 1st by the Natal Troop, reinforced two weeks later by Major H. Hopper and 80 men of the British South Africa Police. The original fort was then enlarged and improved. Orders were: "To make frequent patrols especially after arrival to show we are in possession, to encourage the friendlies, but not to provoke hostilities". Grey commented: "Alderson has left an inheritance of difficulty for us to deal with. If you remember the first thing I did after my arrival at Salisbury [November 18th, 1896] on finding out that no fort had been established at Hartley was to get Alderson to send out a force at once and establish one and after some little difficulty I got him to do so. Well, the evidence which this fort gives that we intend to stay there is puzzling Mashiangombie and is already beginning to make him uncomfortable— the latest news is that he is quarrelling with the Mondoro Kagubi, the main leader of the entire Mashona rising, who had his headquarters at this kraal] who has taken some of his wives. I have every hope that we shall be able, without taking any active measures against his kopjes, to reduce him to the state of sub¬mission which is necessary if the country is to be safe for the miner"(9). However, still apparently believing that the Matabele were behind the Mashona rising, the authorities at Hartley established seemingly friendly relations with Mashiangombie who must indeed have felt invincible, until on January 9th the Chief Native Commissioner warned "Mashiangombie and Kagubi must be harassed. All stray Mashonas shot. Do not talk further with Mashiangombie" (8). Three days later the Commandant of the British South Africa Police, Lieut.-Col. the Hon. F. R. W. E. de Moleyns, planned a night attack with 170 men on Kagubi, now living a quarter of a mile from Mashiangombie, but failed to surprise the kraal and retired, though he did establish Fort Mandora, on an "extensive kopje" nearby, presumably and surprisingly named after Kagubi, the Mhondoro. Earl Grey commented: "de Moleyns again was irresolute made a night march to within a mile of the enemy and then right about to build a fort instead of instantly putting the matter to the touch.... "(9). It did, however, result in Kagubi leaving the district. Fort Mandora, like Hartley itself, was extremely unhealthy and fever-ridden, and took a heavy toll on its garrison. At last, on February 20th, Capt. R. C. Nesbitt, famous for his part in the Mazoe Patrol, left Hartley and established Fort Martin (Nat. Mon. 95), (Fig. 14), on a site one mile from Mashiangombie's kraal and within seven-pounder range of the kraal. He reported: "Fort Martin is very healthy, being splendidly situated very high ... it is impregnable and the best possible place"(8). The two kopjes forming Fort Martin are protected and unclimbable to the east, the side facing Mashiangombie's kraal, while the lower, sheltered western sides have level areas, which were encircled with walls and on which tents were pitched. The smaller kopje to the north, which naturally also had to be defended, was occupied by the African Police. The fort was named after Sir Richard Martin, who had succeeded Carrington in overall command of all the forces in Rhodesia and was also the Imperial Deputy Commissioner. The garrison were destroying crops and Mashiangombie now realized his vulnerability. Mkwati fled while many others, where they could, deserted. Mashiangombie was again persuaded to parley and tried to buy off his besiegers with £15 10s. 6d. "tax" and five muzzle loaders — not a convincing gesture. When this failed he attacked Fort Martin, on March 17th, with three to four hundred men, and killed three African Police before being repulsed. Thereafter the fort was fired on intermittently and his kraal shelled in return. The end came on July 24th. The British South Africa Police under de Moleyns and the 7th Hussars under Captains Carew and Poore, a total force of 670 men, stormed the kraal and after a sharp fight, which lasted only a few minutes, occupied the kopje and started to picket and dynamite its many caves. Among the attackers two Europeans and three Africans were killed. At dawn on the 25th, Mashiangombie himself appeared at the mouth of a cave, wounded by the blasting, and was shot down. The Mashona Rebellion was virtually over. Fort Martin remained the Police and administrative post for a further year; Hartley, then a rough mining camp, was not considered a suitable spot.
The last fort of importance in Mashonaland had been built on January 28th, 1897, opposite Chikwakwa's Kraal and Gondo's kraal, 25 miles east of Salisbury, and garrisoned by 40 Police under Sub. Insp. C. Harding after whom the fort was named. It was to this kraal that Kagubi came after de Moleyns' attack on him at Mashiangombie's. On February 16th the kraals were attacked and destroyed, though Baguio had again fled, this time to Mazoe. During the final stages of the pacification of Mashonaland minor forts were built at Lomagundi, 7 miles west of Sinoia, by the 7th Hussars in September 1897, the last act of the Imperial forces, and at Mt. Darwin by the Police under Major F. H. van Niekerk.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was carried out as part of the author's normal duties as Senior Inspector of the Historical Monuments Commission.
I would like to thank both Mr. R. Summers and Col. A. S. Hickman for reading and criticising the first drafts of this paper.
LOCATION OF FORTS
Many of these forts are on private land. In all such cases permission to visit them must be obtained from the owners. All map references are to the 1: 50,000 Federal Topographical series.
Fort Tuli, Nat. Mon. 94. Map ref. sheet 2I29C3, marked. 0: Bulawayo, take Beit Bridge road; 82.2 m. (4.0 m. past Gwanda), turn R to "Tuli"; 184 m., Tuli Police Station. Fort 2 m. further, across Shashi River.
Pioneer Cemetery, 1 m. from Fort.
Prison (1891), between Fort and Shashi River.
Fort Victoria (1891). Map ref. Sheet 2030B2 713728 0: Fort Victoria, take Beit Bridge road; 3.5 m., turn L to Clipsham Farm; 4.4 m., Homestead. Fort 100 yards behind Homestead.
Fort Victoria (1892). Nat. Mon. 17. In the centre of Fort Victoria on Dillon Avenue between Allan Wilson St. and Hughes St:
Mangwe Fort. Nat. Mon. 50. Map ref. Sheet 2128C1, marked. 0: Bulawayo, take Plumtree road;
43.5m., Marula, turn L to "Mangwe B.S.A.P."; 63.8 m., Mangwe Police Station. Fort 1.8 m. past Station.
Cemetery and John Lee's House. Nat. Mon. 83. Approx. 1 m. from Fort.
Fort Adams, Empandeni. Nat. Mon. 88. Map ref. Sheet 2027D2 939058. As for Mangwe, but 63.8 m., Mangwe Police Station, turn R; 68.9 m., fork L; after 100 yds. turn L; 71.2 m., cross grid, turn R; 77.9 m., Empandeni Mission. Fort 2.6 m. past Mission.
Fort Luck. Map ref. Sheet 2128C1, not located in detail. As for Mangwe, but 53.2 m., turn very sharp L (before, not at, sign "Lydeard Store") crossing Lydeard to Darnaway Farm. Fort can be found on this farm.
Fort Inugu. Map ref. Sheet 2028A4 496383. Matopos, approx. 10 m. past Rhodes Estate; Fort 5 yds. W of main Antelope road, i m. S of the Malonga River.
Fort Usher No. 3. Map ref. Sheet 2028B3 658423. "Fort Usher" signposted from Bulawayo and Matopos. Only tree, originally lookout within fort, survives, 100 yds. S of main road, 200 yds. E of bridge crossing Kantolo River.
Fort Umlugulu. Nat. Mon. 71. Map ref. Sheet 2028B4 959424. 0: Bulawayo, take Beit Bridge road; 17.5 m. turn R at signposted route "Fort Umlugulu"; 31.5 m., turn R at Esibomvu; 32.5 m., Fort.
First Indaba Site. Nat. Mon. 63. 2 m. past Fort, route signposted. Rebellion Memorial and Cemetery. Visible near Fort, the main Matopos rebellion ceme¬tery. Commemorating and containing graves of troops who fell in all Matopos actions, including seven in Selcombo engagement August 5th, 1896, also later members of Police garrison.
Fort Inyati. Map ref. Sheet SE-35-16 PJ9422. From Inyati Village, proceed to Government Clinic; immed. before Clinic turn R; fork R; enter fenced, cultivated land through gate. Fort 50 yds. W of road, and 50 yds. S of northern fence (approx. i m. from Clinic.).
Rebellion Memorial in Inyati Mission Cemetery, commemorating the men killed in de¬fending the Police Station at the outbreak of the Rebellion.
Fort Rixon. Nat. Mon. 96. 0; turn off Salisbury-Bulawayo road at Shangani, follow signs to Fort Rixon; 30.5 m., just before Fort Rixon village turn R; 31.1 m., fork L; 31.3 m., turn L;
31.6m.. Fort.
Cemetery on right at foot of hill with graves of Dr. and Mrs. Langford, Leman and troopers killed on Gwelo Patrol, May, 1896.
Fort Ingwenya. Nat. Mon. 67. Map ref. Sheet 1929B1, marked. 0: turn R from Salisbury-Gwelo road at Hunters Road Station, follow signs to "Lower Gwelo"; 2.9 m., fork L; 7.9 m., fork L; 8.0 m., turn R; 14.3 m,, Fort on L at S end low, grassy hill.
14.5 m. Cemetery on R of road, for civilians killed in district at outbreak rebellion. 0: Gwelo; take "Lower Gwelo" road; 26.0 m. turn R; 26.6 m. Fort.
Fort Gibbs. Nat. Mon. 98. Map ref. Sheet 1930A3, marked. 0: turn off Gwelo-Umvuma road at Lalapanzi, turn R; 1.9 m., turn R off road on to grass track; 2.2 m., pass ruined farmhouse; 4.2 m., farm dip; Fort visible J m. S of dip on summit of low granite dome.
Grave of Sgt. W. Maxwell "found dead in the veld" in June 1897, in clump of trees at foot of hill.
Fort Charter. Map ref. Sheet 1831C1, marked. 0: Salisbury, take Fort Victoria road; 52.3 in., turn L to "Charter Estate" ; 65.1 m., turn R ; 65.3 m., turn L; 66.7 m.. Charter Estate Offices. Fort 2.8 m. from Offices on Charter Estate.
Fort Martin. Nat. Mon. 95. Map ref. Sheet I830B1, Spot ht. 4156, Fort Martin Farm. 0: Salisbury; take Salisbury-Bulawayo road; 30.0 m., turn L at "Epsom Mine Road", follow Farm signs to "Fort Martin" ; 48.1 m., turn L; 54.0 m., Farmhouse. Fort 1 m. away.
Cemetery on farm boundary i m. S.W. of Fort with graves of men killed in final action, and Native Commissioner, Hartley, killed at outbreak of rebellion.
Hartley Hill. Nat. Mon. 92. Map ref. Sheet 1830A2 246859. 0: Salisbury; as for Fort Martin but at 48.1 m. turn R; 68.1 m., turn R to hill, visible £ m. N of road with beacon at summit. 0: Hartley; turn R off Salisbury road and continue along road to Beatrice. Hill 18 m. from Hartley.
Cemetery £ m. from east foot of hill with graves of garrison, and of D. Hoste, died 1893.
LIST OF SOURCES
Published Works:
1. Alderson, E. A. H. With the Mounted Infantry and the Mashonaland Field Force, 1896.
Methuen, 1898.
British South Africa Company. Report on the native disturbances, 1896-1897. The Company, 1897.
Brown, W. H. On the South African frontier. Sampson, Low, Marston, 1899.
2. Boggie, Mrs. J. M. First steps in civilizing Rhodesia. Bulawayo, Philpott and Collins, 1953.
Glover, L. S. "Memories of the Mashonaland Mounted Police" (in Rhodesiana, No. 11,
1964).
Hickman, A. ,S. "Norton District in the Mashona Rebellion" (in Rhodesiana, No. 3, 1958). Tuli expedition. Salisbury, Rhodesian Schools Exploration Society, 1959. Men who made Rhodesia.
Salisbury, British South Africa Company, 1960. Macloutsie expedition. Salisbury, Rhodesian Schools Exploration Society, 1961. Hole, H. M. *Fhe making of Rhodesia. Macmillan, 1926. Jones, N.
Rhodesian genesis. Glasgow University Press, 1953. Leonard, A. G. How we made Rhodesia. Kegan Paul, 1896. Newman, C. L. N. Matabeleland and how we got to it. Fisher Unwin, 1895.
3. Plumer, H. C. O. An irregular corps in Matabeleland. Kegan Paul, 1897.
4. Baden-Powell, R. S. S. The Matabele campaign, 1896. Methuen, 1897.
Ranger, T. O. "The organisation of the rebellions of 1896 and 1897" (in Conference on the history 'of the Central African peoples. Lusaka, Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, 1963).
5. Selous, F. C. Sunshine and storm in Rhodesia. Rowland Ward, 1896. Stevens, H. L. Autobiography of a Border Policeman. Withers, 1927. Sykes, F. V. With Plumer in Matabeleland. Constable, 1897.
Wills, W. A., and Collingridge, L. T. The downfall of Lobengula. "African Review'', 1894.
Public archives of Southern Rhodesia, National Archives: BA 1/1/1 G:O.C. 1896 Rebellion forces—Outletters.
6. BA 2/9/1 Military operations, Matabeleland, 1896, Apr. 7—July 31.
7. BA 2/9/2 Military operations,: Matabeleland, 1896 Aug. 1—Dec. 22. BA 6/1 Chief Staff Officer—Diary.
BA 8/1 G.O.C.—Orders.
BA 8/2 Garrison and regimental orders.
8. LO 5/4 London Office—In letters from Salisbury, 1896-1899. N 1/1 C.N.C.—In letters from Native Commissioners.
Historical Manuscripts, National Archives:
BA 4/1 Barker, M. D. Gwelo laager and Fort Gibbs. BO 9/1/1 Borcherds, J. K. G. Fort Charter.
9. GR 1/1 Grey, Earl. Correspondence.
10. TA 4 Taylor, R. B. Diaries and reminiscences.
FOOTNOTE 1
Neill Jackson has made this image available from 'Bid Time Return' by Basil Fuller.
Thank you Neill.
posted by Rhodesia Remembered @ 14:51
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