Battle of Blood River, 1838: the laager on the Ncome

Few battles in African history are as lopsided in their losses, and few have been argued over for as long. Blood River, or Ncome as it is also known, was a clash between spears and muskets that lasted one morning. Its date became a political symbol for more than a century and a half afterwards.²

A year of massacres

The battle came at the end of the bloodiest year of the Great Trek, the migration of Dutch-speaking farmers out of the British Cape Colony. In February 1838 the Trek leader Piet Retief and his party were killed at KwaMatiwane, King Dingane's royal kraal, and Zulu regiments then fell on the scattered Trekker camps in the foothills of the Drakensberg. According to the South African Military History Society, 540 Trekkers and their retainers died there, 185 of them children; the place is remembered as Blaauwkrantz.³

A commando sent to recover cattle in April was led into a trap at Italeni, where its leader Piet Uys was killed. In August Dingane's army attacked again, this time a fortified camp called Gatslaer, and after three days of fighting withdrew without breaking in, though it drove off most of the Trekkers' cattle. According to South African History Online (SAHO), Andries Pretorius, who had arrived from Graaff-Reinet, became Commandant-General of the Voortrekkers in Natal on 25 November 1838 and at once prepared a retaliatory strike.⁴

The vow and the laager

On Sunday 9 December, by SAHO's dating, Pretorius and his men made a vow on the march: if God granted them victory they would build a church and their descendants would keep the day as a day of thanksgiving. SAHO notes that recent research has questioned the vow, since no thanksgiving was held in the years right after the battle, although the church was built.⁵

In SAHO's account, the commando crossed the Ncome, and on Saturday 15 December its scouts reported a large Zulu army approaching. Pretorius drew his wagons into a laager, a closed ring, on the best ground he could find, between a deep pool in the river and a donga, a steep natural ditch. The ring had only two gaps, and a cannon stood in each.⁶

The size of the two forces is one of the points on which the sources differ. SAHO gives the Voortrekkers 470 men and puts the Zulu army at 10,000 to 20,000 warriors. A talk on the military history of the Trek, summarized by the South African Military History Society, counts 820 men in the laager, including retainers and about 60 traditionally armed Zulu allies from Port Natal, and estimates the attackers at 15,000. The gap is mostly a question of who is counted: the fighting farmers alone, or everyone inside the wagons.⁷

The morning of 16 December

At dusk, SAHO continues, the Zulu regiments began to surround the laager. A heavy mist lay over the camp and lifted only in the early hours, so the defenders could see little until dawn. The army was led by Dingane's generals Dambuza, also called Nzobo, and Ndlela kaSompisi.⁸

At first light the warriors, armed with stabbing spears and shields, swept toward the wagons. To use their weapons they had to come to close quarters, and the Voortrekkers met them with musket and cannon fire so heavy that, by SAHO's account of the eyewitnesses, the attackers vanished in the smoke. The defenders' weak point was the slow reloading of their flintlocks. A second attack followed almost at once and came close to the wagons.⁹

According to SAHO, hundreds of warriors took cover in the donga. During a lull Sarel Cilliers led about 80 men out against them. When the Zulu, who had pulled back about 50 yards, did not attack a third time, Pretorius sent mounted men out to draw them on. The riders met hard resistance, and only after a third sortie did the Zulu army break and run, with the horsemen in pursuit. The society's summary puts the start of the chaotic retreat at about 11 a.m., after heavy losses and what it calls tactical and command errors on the Zulu side; SAHO says the pursuit was called off at midday.¹⁰

Counting the dead

More than 3,000 bodies were counted around the laager. Three Voortrekkers were wounded, Pretorius among them, and none was killed. The slaughter was so great that the river was said to have run red, and the Ncome became Bloedrivier, Blood River. These are counts from the victors' side: the Military History Society points out that most of the primary sources on the Trek's battles were written from the Trekkers' viewpoint.¹¹

The campaign did not end at the river. A later attempt to seize cattle at the Ophathe Gorge on the White Mfolozi led the commando into another trap, from which it fought its way out with some loss of life.¹²

After the battle

The Zulu kingdom never really recovered. According to SAHO, Dingane's half-brother Mpande allied himself with Pretorius, Dingane was beaten and was later killed by the Swazi as he tried to regroup further north. In March 1839 the Voortrekkers declared the republic of Natalia, with its capital at Pietermaritzburg, but it did not last: British troops occupied Port Natal in May 1842, and SAHO dates the annexation of Natal to the Cape to May 1844. Four decades later a British army fought the Zulu kingdom in its turn, and suffered a heavy defeat at Isandlwana.¹³

A date with three names

For most of the twentieth century 16 December was a public holiday. It was observed as Dingane's Day until 1948; in 1952, SAHO notes, the National Party government renamed it the Day of the Covenant, or Day of the Vow, and used it to support its own reading of Afrikaner history. Opponents of white rule turned the date to their own purpose: the armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, launched its campaign on 16 December 1961. In 1995 the holiday became the Day of Reconciliation.¹⁴