Kousop

Last updated July 13, 2019

Kousop (also rendered Kausob or Kausobson), birth date unknown, killed in a battle at Slypklip, Vaal River, near Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, on 6 July 1858, was the leader of a group of San or Khoe-San who inhabited the area between the Modder, Riet and Vaal Rivers, western Orange Free State, in the mid nineteenth century.^[1]

The Vaal River is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of Ermelo and only about 240 kilometres (150 mi) from the Indian Ocean. It then flows westwards to its conjunction with the Orange River southwest of Kimberley in the Northern Cape. It is 1,120 kilometres (700 mi) long, and forms the border between Mpumalanga, Gauteng and North West Province on its north bank, and the Free State on its south.

Kimberley is the capital and largest city of the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. It is located approximately 110 km east of the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The city has considerable historical significance due to its diamond mining past and the siege during the Second Boer War. British businessmen Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato made their fortunes in Kimberley, and Rhodes established the De Beers diamond company in the early days of the mining town.

The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, an international park shared with Botswana. It also includes the Augrabies Falls and the diamond mining regions in Kimberley and Alexander Bay. The Namaqualand region in the west is famous for its Namaqualand daisies. The southern towns of De Aar and Colesberg, in the Great Karoo, are major transport nodes between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. In the northeast, Kuruman is known as a mission station and also for its artesian spring, the Eye of Kuruman. The Orange River flows through the province, forming the borders with the Free State in the southeast and with Namibia to the northwest. The river is also used to irrigate the many vineyards in the arid region near Upington.

Kousop's resistance to colonial (Republic not Colony) encroachment (wrong word, try "Resistance to Transaction where land was purchased" or "Kouskop's Land dispute conflict")

From the mid-1840s Kousop enters the archival record contesting what he believed was a fraudulent transaction, which took place at the future Boshof, in the year 1839, by which a vast tract of land passed into white ownership (was aquired, possibly by purchasing it from local clans for vast amounts of cattle). In an attempt to dissipate friction, officials from the Republic granted Kousop a farm along the Vaal River. However, tensions only mounted after further complaints to the Orange Free State Republic were dismissed and Kouskop and a gang took the law in their own hands. [This whole section needs clarification, it talks about resisting colonials and about a Republic which is it? Also "transaction he believed was fraudulent", if there was a transaction it was not colonial it was contractual under the Republic Law.]

Boshof is a farming town in the west of the Free State province, South Africa.

The 1858 rising

During May and June 1858, while the Orange Free State was engaged in war with the Basotho, Kousop launched a number of attacks on farms, including Benaauwdheidsfontein (Benfontein), now on the outskirts of Kimberley. Goliath Yzerbek and Gasibonwe, a Tlhaping Kgosi at Taung, were among Kousop’s allies. In retaliation, a commando of 400 men – composed of 240 burgers, a number of Mfengu, and Khoe-San who were loyal to the burgers – was called up and equipped with a canon. On 6 July 1858 they surrounded Kousop and his followers upstream from what is now Riverton, in the vicinity of “Khossopskraal”, on the Vaal River, and forced them to surrender after a battle of three hours. Kousop himself with about 130 of his people, consisting of San, Khoekhoe, Korana and Griqua, were killed in the battle and 43 men and 50 women were captured.

Taung is a small town situated in the North West Province of South Africa. The name means place of the lion and was named after Tau, the chief of the Tswana speaking Legoya or BaTaung tribe. Tau is the Tswana word for lion.

A commando is a soldier or operative of an elite light infantry or special operations force often specializing in amphibious landings, parachuting or abseiling.

The Korana is a river in central Croatia and west Bosnia and Herzegovina. The river has a total length of 138.6 km (86.1 mi) and watershed area of 2,301.5 km² (888.6 sq mi).

The subsequent ambush and massacre of male prisoners, as they were being taken from Boshof to stand trial in Bloemfontein, was never fully investigated and came to represent a major miscarriage of justice. It is known to have caused much personal indignation and anguish on the part of President Boshof, at the head of a young Republic finding itself not quite able or, locally, willing to enforce its authority. However, upon the President’s instructions, the women and children from Kousop’s group, who had been captured and divided among the local farmers as indentured labour, were freed.

Bloemfontein is the capital city of the province of Free State of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals and is the seventh largest city in South Africa. Situated at an altitude of 1,395 m (4,577 ft) above sea level, the city is home to approximately 520,000 residents and forms part of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality which has a population of 747,431.

Assessments of Kousop

Much contemporary and historical writing dismissed Kousop, or Scheelkobus, as he was known on account of an injured eye, as a robber and a gangster. Some writers were more sympathetic, for example, the geologist George William Stow who was writing in the 1880s. Kousop is the hero in historical fiction by the Afrikaans writer Dolf van Niekerk.

George William Stow was a South African geologist and ethnologist, a poet, historian, artist, cartographer and writer.

Afrikaans is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Botswana and Zimbabwe. It evolved from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland spoken by the largely Dutch settlers and the people of colour associated with them in what is now South Africa, where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the course of the 18th century. Hence, it is a daughter language of Dutch, and was previously referred to as "Cape Dutch" or "kitchen Dutch". However, it is also variously described as a creole or as a partially creolised language. The term is ultimately derived from Dutch Afrikaans-Hollands meaning "African Dutch".

Rudolf Johannes van Niekerk is a South African author, dramatist, radio presenter and professor. He writes in Afrikaans and was a member of the Sestigers group.

The Tswana Kgosi Mahura observed in a letter to Boshof at the time that he had “realised that a little spark would ignite the entire country” and that Kousop might “bring fire to our land.” The historian Karel Schoeman writes that the documentation surrounding Kousop’s “sustained protest against his dispossession” is a valuable record of the “vain attempts by an indigenous leader” to assert his authority in the face of farmers taking over his land. Frustration over his powerlessness “eventually drove him to large-scale violence.” Schoeman adds that the support he received from various indigenous groups demonstrates how “he embodied sentiments that were real and widely felt.”

The Tswana are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group who are native to Southern Africa. The Tswana language belongs to the Bantu group. Ethnic Tswana made up approximately 85% of the population of Botswana in 2011.

Karel Schoeman was a South African novelist, historian, translator and man of letters. He was the author of 19 novels and numerous works of history. He was one of South Africa's most honoured authors. Schoeman wrote primarily in Afrikaans, although several of his non-fiction books were originally written in English. His novels are increasingly being translated into other languages, notably, English, French and Dutch.

The conclusive way in which Kousop’s resistance, and that of Gasibonwe of the Trans-Vaal, were suppressed and, more specifically, the alleged murder of the prisoners of Kousop’s gang, “made a profound impression upon the indigenous people, and did much to discourage future resistance and to consolidate the position of the farmers in the two republics.”^[2]

Commemoration

A century and a half after his death near what would become Kimberley, Kousop is judged a champion for indigenous rights. As a leader Kousop was able, remarkably, to mobilize multi-ethnic opposition to colonial encroachment. But the odds were ultimately stacked against him and his people, and their resistance was suppressed with considerable violence.

On Sunday 6 July 2008, the 150th anniversary of the battle in which Kousop and about 130 of his followers were killed, the South African San Institute, as part of its ‘Footprints of the San’ project, and in association with the !Xun and Khwe communities, the Friends of Wildebeest Kuil and the Northern Cape Rock Art Trust, hosted the unveiling (by the Revd Mario Mahongo) of an inscribed stone on the edge of the hill at Wildebeest Kuil. One historical reference^[3] speaks of Kousop as living, at some period in his life, at the hill which is now the Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre outside Kimberley. To commemorate the life of this hero of anti-colonial resistance, the programme additionally included the ceremonial lighting of a fire, creation of a memorial cairn, and traditional dancing.^[4] Speakers included the Revd Mario Mahongo and Barend van Wyk.

The memory of Kousop had been reflected in the story line at Wildebeest Kuil since the site opened in 2001. The commemoration of 6 July 2008 placed this story more centre-stage, to initiate a process to grant greater recognition to a significant figure in the resistance to colonial conquest in central South Africa in the mid nineteenth century.

Related Research Articles

The first humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago. South Africa's prehistory has been divided into two phases based on broad patterns of technology namely the stone age and iron age. After the discovery of hominins at Taung and australopithecine fossils in limestone caves at Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, and Kromdraai these areas were collectively designated a World Heritage site. The first inhabitants of South Africa are collectively referred to as the indigenous Khoisan people, some were absorbed by the darker skinned Africans during the Bantu expansion from Western and Central Africa while majority became known as Coloureds. European exploration of South Africa began in the 13th century when Portugal committed itself to discover a new silk road route to China. These explorers created detailed maps as they pressed down the African Coast and in 1488 they rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch East India Company established a trading post in Cape Town under the command of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652, European workers who settled at the Cape became known as the Free Burghers and gradually established farms in the Dutch Cape Colony.

The Orange Free State was an independent Boer sovereign republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Empire at the end of the Second Boer War in 1902. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province. Extending between the Orange and Vaal rivers, its borders were determined by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1848 when the region was proclaimed as the Orange River Sovereignty, with a seat of a British Resident in Bloemfontein. Bloemfontein and the southern parts of the Sovereignty had previously been settled by Griqua and by Trekboere from the Cape Colony.

Boer Republics Former countries in southern Africa

The Boer Republics were independent, self-governed republics in the last half of the nineteenth century, created by the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of the Cape Colony and their descendants, variously named Trekboers, Boers and Voortrekkers in mainly the middle, northern and north eastern and eastern parts of what is now the country of South Africa. Two of the Boer Republics achieved international recognition and complete independence: the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. The republics did not provide separation of church and state, and initially only the Dutch Reformed Church, then also other churches in the Calvinist Protestant tradition, were allowed. The republics came to an end after the Second Boer War which resulted in the British annexation and later incorporation into the Union of South Africa.

The Griqua are a subgroup of Southern Africa's heterogeneous and multiracial Coloured people, who have a unique origin in the early history of the Cape Colony.

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Kgosi (Chief) Galeshewe,, was a South African chief of the Batlhaping group in South Africa. He was an anti-colonial revolutionary and orchestrated rebellions against the Cape Colony government. The Galeshewe Township in the Sol Plaatje Municipality, Kimberley, has been named after him. A South African Navy fast attack craft has also named after him. Galeshewe was born in 1835 near Taung, South Africa.

Jacobus Nicolaas Boshof was a South African (Boer) statesman, a late-arriving member of the Voortrekker movement, and the second state president of the Orange Free State, in office from 1855 to 1859.

The McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a multidisciplinary museum which serves Kimberley and the Northern Cape, established in 1907.

Siege of Kimberley event during the Second Boer War

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Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre is a rock engraving site with visitor centre on land owned by the !Xun and Khwe San situated about 16 km from Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. It is a declared Provincial Heritage Site managed by the Northern Cape Rock Art Trust in association with the McGregor Museum. The engravings exemplify one of the forms often referred to as ‘Bushman rock art’ – or Khoe-San rock art – with the rock paintings of the Drakensberg, Cederberg and other regions of South Africa being generally better known occurrences. Differing in technique, the engravings have many features in common with rock paintings. A greater emphasis on large mammals such as elephant, rhino and hippo, in addition to eland, and an often reduced concern with depicting the human form set the engravings apart from the paintings of the sub-continent.

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Pniel was a mission station established by the Berlin Missionary Society on the Vaal River between modern Barkly West and Kimberley, South Africa, in 1845.

The Revd George Mitchell was a missionary priest of the Anglican Church serving in the Free State, South Africa, from 1864, and afterwards at Kimberley, who pioneered early translation of liturgical Epistles and Gospels and portions of the Book of Common Prayer into Setswana. He was born near Mintford in England in 1835 and died in Kimberley, South Africa.

The Revd William Crisp was a missionary priest of the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Bloemfontein, South Africa, who served there from the mid-1860s. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel described him as “the first and greatest apostle of the native races” in the central part of South Africa, who, it added, “had sympathy with the native point of view”. Crisp was born at Southwold, England, in 1842. He died in Cape Town in 1910.

Kgosi (Chief) Luka Jantjie was a hunter, trader, diamond prospector, and farmer. He was a chief of the Batlhaping ba Manyeding group of the Batswana in Kuruman. He was born in Kimberley, South Africa in 1835 and was the son of a Christian convert. Jantjie spent most of his life protecting the rights to land of his people and is considered a struggle hero for his battle against British colonialism. He was the cousin of Kgosi Galeshewe.

References

↑ Schoeman, Karel. 1995. New Dictionary of South African Biography edited by E.J. Verwey Vol 1 Pretoria: HSRC Publishers. pp 110-112.
↑ Schoeman, Karel. 1995. New Dictionary of South African Biography edited by E.J. Verwey Vol 1 Pretoria: HSRC Publishers. pp 110-112.
↑ Louis Péringuey 1909. On rock engravings of animals and the human figure found in South Africa. Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society of South Africa 18:401-420.
↑ Wildebeest Kuil brochure on Kousop

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[1] Schoeman, Karel. 1995. New Dictionary of South African Biography edited by E.J. Verwey Vol 1 Pretoria: HSRC Publishers. pp 110-112.

[2] Schoeman, Karel. 1995. New Dictionary of South African Biography edited by E.J. Verwey Vol 1 Pretoria: HSRC Publishers. pp 110-112.

[3] Louis Péringuey 1909. On rock engravings of animals and the human figure found in South Africa. Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society of South Africa 18:401-420.

[4] Wildebeest Kuil brochure on Kousop