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Harriette Colenso and the Zulus, 1874–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Extract

Harriette Emily Colenso, oldest of the five children of the famous Bishop John Colenso of Natal, was born in Norfolk, England, in 1847, and died in Natal at the age of 85, after a life of outstanding activity and purpose. Although the average Natal colonist regarded her as fanatically prejudiced, even the local Natal Witness, the mouthpiece of colonial views, was forced to acknowledge her ‘personal and intellectual qualities’. At the height of her unpopularity in 1907, when she was defending Dinizulu, it wrote:

There is probably no person in the colony whose influence on the natives is greater, and there is none who, should she but exert her power in that direction could exercise a more pacifying effect upon the native mind. Miss Colenso is strongly endowed with the judicial faculty and … her grasp of the intricate points of trials and cases in which natives have been involved has often astonished able and experienced lawyers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

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References

1 Natal Witness, 14.12.07.Google Scholar

2 Colenso Collection (hereafter Col. Col.) Box 202. W. P. Schreiner to H. E. Colenso (H.E.C.).Google Scholar

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4 Colenso, F. E. and Durnford, E., The History of the Zulu War and its Origin (London, 1881), and the 2-volume The Ruin of Zululand, an account of British doings in Zululand since the invasion of 1879 (London, 1884).Google Scholar

5 This information is drawn from various sources, chiefly Frank Colenso's own pamphlets, his papers and newspaper cuttings at ‘Elangeni’, Amersham (kindly shown to me by his son-in-law, Mr A. Crovo) as well as his letters to the Colonial Office and the Aborigines' Protection Society.Google Scholar

6 Colenso, F. S. (the Bishop's wife) to Mrs Lyell, June 1883, cited in Letters from Natal, the correspondence of F. S. Colenso arranged and edited by Wyn Rees (Pietermaritzburg, 1958), 374.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. 320. F. S. Colenso to Mrs Lyell, 14.9.75.

8 Ibid. F. S. Colenso to her sons, 16.2.75.

9 Bishop Colenso appealed against his excommunication to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which upheld him ‘on the ground that Colonial Churches…were simply voluntary associations in which no-cne…had power to enforce obedience on another’, so he continued in his position as Bishop of Natal supported by a large section of the Natal public and Press.Google Scholar (Walker, Eric A., A History of Southern Africa (London, 1957), 301.)Google Scholar

10 Letters from Natal, 380–1, F. S. Colenso to Mrs Lyell, 19.5.84.Google Scholar

11 Natal Witness, 7.1.11; also letters from C. de B. Persse to Travers Buxton, Secretary of A.P.S., 1910–11, in MSS. Brit. Emp. S22 G189, Rhodes House.Google Scholar

12 Col. Col. 121. Diary H.E.C., 4.3.10.Google Scholar

13 F. R. Moor: later Sir Moor, P.M. Frederick, and Minister for Native Affairs, Dec. 1906–May 1910. M.N.A. previously, 1893–7 and 1899–1903.Google Scholar

14 Natal Witness, 18.9.10.Google Scholar

15 Cited by ‘Laymar:’—i.e. C. de B. Persse, an ardent supporter of H.E.C.—in a letter to the Natal Witness, 18.9.10.Google Scholar

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22 Cited , H.E.C. in The Present Position among the Zulus with some suggestions for the future (London, 1893), 14.Google Scholar

23 Letter to the Natal Mercury from Sir Theophilus Shepstone, 29.1.92.Google Scholar

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25 See for example Bourne, H.E.C. Fox and Bourne, H. R. Fox, The Story of Dinizulu (London, 1890), andGoogle ScholarColenso, F. E., Miss Colenso as an aid to justice in Zululand (London, 1908).Google Scholar

26 ‘Message to the Zulu Chiefs ‘—a copy of this was seen enclosed in a letter from H.E.C. to Mr Chesser, Secretary of A.P.S., 1.7.88. MSS. Brit. Emp. Soc. S.18 at Rhodes House.Google Scholar

27 On hearing of Dinizulu's imminent arrest, Harriette immediately set off for Zulu-land in an attempt to see him, but was promptly turned back under Martial Law by Col. Duncan McKenzie, in charge of the Natal troops despatched to secure his arrest. She was no doubt behind the cable sent by Frank Colenso to Dinizulu advising him to submit peacefully. See C.O. 179/243/43116, F. E. Colenso to Sir F. Hopwood 7.12.07 with enclosures.Google Scholar

28 Walker, E. A., W. P. Schreiner, A South African (O.U.P., 1937), 296–7.Google Scholar

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33 The Star, 1.6.10.Google Scholar

34 This is not to deny that ‘Ethiopianism’ in the sense of an anti-white movement existed and posed a threat of sorts to the status quo, but the threat was vastly exaggerated and used to justify acts and legislation of an altogether unwarranted nature against missionaries and their converts by the Natal Government, which tended to see in every European dressed and educated African an ‘Ethiopian’ and in most missionaries a foreign agitator.Google Scholar

35 Col. Col. 126, IV, H.E.C. to Mr Kilbon (Missionary of the American Zulu Mission), 28.7.02.Google Scholar

36 Ibid. H.E.C. to P. J. Mzimba, 1.5.00.

37 Martin Luruli: uncle of the more famous ex-Chief Albert Lutuli, Martin Lutuli's career in many ways foreshadows that of his nephew. Secretary to Dinizulu in the 1880's, he later became a leading member of the American Zulu Mission at Groutville, where he was elected chief of the Reserve in 1908. One of the founding members of the Natal Native Congress, and its chairman for some years, he took a keen interest in such issues as African education and agriculture, land tenure, and the position of exempted Africans in Natal, appearing on several delegations to the Natal Government on these matters. He died in 1921.Google Scholar

38 Saul Msane: born in Natal, he was educated at Edendale Mission Station and later at the Healdtown Institution in the Eastern Cape, both Wesleyan institutions. In the early 1890's he became a compound manager on the Transvaal mines, a position he retained for several years. Editor of Abantu-Batho, which appeared in the four main African tongues of South Africa, he also played an important role in the African politics of his day, and became Vice-President of the S.A.N.N.C. in 1912, appearing on all the major deputations to the Government at that time.Google Scholar

39 Col. Col. 120. H.E.C. Diary, 21.12.00.Google Scholar

40 ‘The Eye of the Black Tribe’.Google Scholar

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42 Ibid. Report of a meeting held at Ladysmith, 23.7.08.

43 Plaatje, S. T.: born c. 1877 in O.F.S. Educated in a mission school near Kimberley; founder and editor of the Koranta ea Becoena (‘Bechuana Gazette’) in Serelong and English; author of several books, including translations of Shakespeare into Serelong. First secretary of the S.A.N.N.C. and member of several of its deputations overseas.Google Scholar

44 DrSeme, Pixley Ka Isaka: an outstanding African lawyer, educated at Columbia University, Oxford, and the Inner Temple; chief founder of the S.A.N.N.C. in 1952.Google Scholar

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47 See for example Feit, Edward: South Africa, The Dynamics of the African National Congress (O.U.P., 1962).Google Scholar

48 A term recently used in a television programme to describe women like Helen Joseph, Helen Suzman and the members of the Black Sash in present-day South Africa.Google Scholar