¹ The mixed Khoikhoi-white group was the origin of the Cape Coloured population. Those Khoikhoi to the north of the colonial frontier, and others (Khoikhoi and mixed) who trekked to join them, formed groups such as the Koranna, Bergenaars and Griqua; there was some intermixture between these and Tswana and Sotho peoples. For the sake of convenience all these peoples will be referred to in this article as Griqua.

² Mentzel, O. F., Description of the Cape of Good Hope, trans. Mandelbrote, H. J., V.R.S. (Cape Town, 1921), pt. 1, 151.Google Scholar

³ Moodie, D. (ed.), The Record, pt. III (Cape Town, 1838), 77:Google Scholar report of Field Sergeant van Zyl, A., 2 11 1778.Google Scholar

⁴ Most white travellers and missionaries commented on Griqua arms and horses. See, for instance, Robert, Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa (London, 1842).Google Scholar

⁵ See inter alia, Neumark, S. D., The Economic Influences of the South African Frontier, 1652–1836 (Stanford, 1956);Google ScholarStow, G. W., The Native Races of South Africa (London, 1905), 279.Google Scholar

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⁷ Lye, W. F., ‘The Ndebele Kingdom south of the Limpopo River’, J. Afr. Hist., x, 1 (1969), 91.Google Scholar

⁸ Cumming, R. G., The Lion Hunter of South Africa (London, 1904), 181.Google Scholar

⁹ Henry, Lichtenstein, Travels in Southern Africa, 11 (London, 1815; Cape Town 1930), 382.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Cumming, Lion Hunter, 254, 350.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Agar-Hamilton, J. A. I., The Native Policy of the Voortrekkers (Cape Town, 1928), chs. 5–10.Google Scholar

¹² Robert, Moffat, Apprenticeship at Kuruman, ed. Schapera, I. (London, 1951), 142–3.Google Scholar According to Moffat, the Tlhaping had come to the conclusion that the Kuruman missionaries were a barrier to the acquisition of arms and ammunition. Livingstone noted that people around Kuruman had sent for guns to Colesburg, 300 miles to the south east: Schapera, I. (ed.) Livingstone's Missionary Correspondence, 1841–56 (London, 1961), 24.Google Scholar

¹³ Text of the Sand River Convention, in Eybers, G. W., Select Documents Illustrating South African History (London, 1918), 358–9.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See de Kiewiet, C. W., The Imperial Factor in South Africa (London, 1937/1965), 18–19.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Livingstone for example. Schapera, , Missionary Correspondence, 214.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Wallis, J. P.R., The Matabele Journals of Robert Moffat (London, 1945),1, 91, 121, for the enterprising transactions between Lobengula and the Transvaal veld comet Viljoen.Google Scholar

¹⁷ For an early example of Tswana winning a small engagement, see Journal of Rev. James Read, 1816, in Incoming Letters in the London Missionary Society archives. The Tlharo, a small southern Tswana group, beat off with firearms the attack of the Bergenaars under Jan Bloem.

¹⁸ See Moffat, , Apprenticeship, 224, for a brother of Mothibi setting out ‘on commando’.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Richard, Brown, ‘External Relations of the Ndebele Kingdom in the pre-partition era’, in Leonard, Thompson, ed., African Societies in southern Africa (London, 1969), 262,Google Scholar citing Robert Moffat, in Wallis, , op. cit., 87.Google Scholar

²⁰ Wallis, , op. cit. 91, 121.Google Scholar

²¹ Schapera, I., ed. and trans., Praise Poems of the Tswana Chiefs (Oxford, 1965), 132–3.Google Scholar

²² Ibid.. 196–7. Praise poem of Sekhoma of the Ngwato, c. 1865. In this praise poem, tlhobolo = rifle, bobojane = carbine, tsedimelalana = flintlocks.

²³ Ibid. 93, 95 (matini = Martini-Henry).

²⁴ Ibid. 105, 110–11. (Mmakasone = Maxim).

²⁵ Brown, , ‘External Relations’, 277,Google Scholar citing Coillard, F., On the Threshold of Central Africa (London, 1897), 48–9.Google Scholar

²⁶ DrEmil, Holub, Seven Years in South Africa, 11 (London, 1881), 386.Google Scholar

²⁷ Hall, H. M., The Passing of the Black Kings (London, 1932), 129–31, using estimates of the missionary Coillard.Google Scholar

²⁸ Brown, , ‘External Relations’, 277.Google Scholar

²⁹ LMS, Edwin, Lloyd to Thompson, R. W., 25 07 1888.Google Scholar For another version of the wounding of Lobengula—in the leg—see Taylor, G. A., ‘The Ndebele Head Ring (Isidhlodhlo) and some fragments of history’, NADA (1925), III. 42, note 34.Google Scholar

³⁰ De, Kiewiet, Imperial Factor, 18–19.Google Scholar De Kiewiet's findings, written in the 1930s, are still worthy of close attention. See also somewhat exaggerated figures and conclusions of a contemporary observer, DrArthur, Cunyinghame, My Command in South Africa (London, 1879), xi, 190, 195.Google Scholar Dr Rodney Davenport of Rhodes University, Grahamstown, has made the following suggestions to us for further research into the Griqualand West arms traffic: Matthews, J. W., Incwadi Yami (1887);Google ScholarCollins, W. W., Freestatia (2nd ed., Cape Town, 1965);Google ScholarDoughty, O., Early Diamond Days (London, 1963); J. B. Currey, ‘50 Years in South Africa’, MS. in SAPL, Cape Town. There is extensive material in the Cape Town archives.Google Scholar

³¹ Figures taken from the Cape Blue Book on Native Affairs, 1882, 382–3. The consequences of the large-scale arming of the Pedi of the East Transvaal forms one of the major omissions of the survey of firearms in southern Africa in this number of the Journal.

³² C.O. 417/91, Moffat, to Loch, , 7 01 1893,Google Scholar enclosed in Loch, to Ripon, , 31 01 1893. The High Commissioner's Proclamation of Oct. 1892 re Bechuanaland Protectorate, made it illegal to sell ammunition to a native unless he had obtained a permit by registering his gun with a magistrate. On Ngwato armaments, see, below, Dr S. Miers's article on the Arms Trade, p. 575.Google Scholar

³³ Aldridge, J. D., ‘The Langeberg Rebellion, 1896–7’, M.A. dissertation (London, 1968), 21.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ibid. 43–4.

³⁵ Ibid. 49. Mr Neil Parsons of the University of Zambia, has informed us that the acquisition by the South African Republic of Austro-German firearms led to many older ‘muskets’ becoming redundant. He suggests that this might account for the ‘sudden overflow of Z.A.R. muskets' to the Langeberg rebels.

³⁶ Woon, H. V., Twenty-Five years soldiering in South Africa, London, 1909.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid. 369.

³⁸ Aldridge, , ‘Langeberg Rebellion’, 50.Google Scholar

³⁹ Woon, , Twenty-Five years, 361.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid. 364.

⁴¹ Ibid. 366.

⁴² See Richard, Gray's article ‘Portuguese musketeers on the Zambezi’, above, pp. 531–33.Google Scholar

⁴³ Arquivo Historico Ultramarino, Moçambique, Maço 21, 1 June 1831. Anon.

⁴⁴ Mudenge, S. I., University of London, forthcoming thesis ‘The Rozvi Empire and the Feira of Zumbo c. 1680–1890’.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Beach, D. N., ‘The Rising in South-Western Mashonaland, 1896–7’, University of London Ph.D. thesis (1971), 143–4.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Mudenge, ‘Rozvi Empire’.

⁴⁷ Beach, , ‘The Rising’, 148–9.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See note 31 above. Hugh Barber, who visited Lobengula's court in 1877, found ‘piled up in the corners of the room were many rifles and guns, and cartridges were strewed about the floor. Among the guns were beautiful rifles by the best known London makers, rusting and getting mouldy. (He) asked why they did not take care of them. “Oh, it does not matter. Isn't he a king? Can he not buy more?” It was a pity, but it was good for trade.’ Tabler, E. C., ed., Zambezia and Matebeleland in the Seventies (London, 1960), 104.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See, inter alia, Samkange, S., Origins of Rhodesia (London, 1968),Google Scholar ch. 8; Glass, S., The Matabele War (London, 1968), 8.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Communication from Dr David Beach.

⁵¹ Selous, F. C., Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia (London, 1896), 48–9.Google Scholar

⁵² Estimate made by Dr David Beach.

⁵³ Selous, , Sunshine and Storm, 48–9.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Tabler, E. C., The Far Interior (Cape Town, 1955), 565. Tabler (172) recounts that during the five years ending 1875, Lozi obtained from traders and hunters some 500 flintlock muskets, 1,500 percussion muskets, 80 percussion elephant guns, 150 rifles, 30 double-barrelled guns, 10 breech-loading rifles and 3 revolvers.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Tabler, Ibid. 172.

⁵⁶ See, for example, Wallis, J. P. R., ed., The Northern Goldfields Diaries of Thomas Baines, v, ii, 413. In 1870 Baines was rebuked by Lobengula for trading guns.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Beach, , ‘The Rising’, 145.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Beach, Ibid. 158–74.

⁵⁹ Beach, Ibid. 175–97.

⁶⁰ Glass, Matabele War, passim. In note 16 on p. 192 Glass provides the following information (with no evidence cited): ‘The Maxim machine-gun was adopted by the British army in 1889 and used in Uganda before it was employed against the Matabele. It was fed with cartridges from belts and capable of firing 600 shots a minute. The Maxims used in the Matabele war were hoisted onto cavalry carriages’.

⁶¹ Ranger, T. O., Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896–7 (London, 1967), 276–8.Google Scholar

⁶² Ranger, Ibid. 230–1. Plate VI shows armed African troops from the Cape, ‘Cape Boys’, attacking the Ndebele positions.

⁶³ Ranger, Ibid. 247. Also cartoon in plate VIII.

⁶⁴ Ranger, Ibid. 248, citing De, Vere Stent, A Personal Record of Some Incidents in the Life of Cecil Rhodes (Cape Town, 1924).Google Scholar