![Chief Sarili - Kreli - with councillors](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Chief_Sarili_-_Kreli_-_with_councillors.jpg)
King Sarhili (
about 1810 -
1892
Events
January–March
* January 1 – Ellis Island begins accommodating immigrants to the United States.
* February 1 - The historic Enterprise Bar and Grill was established in Rico, Colorado.
* February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies fo ...
) was the King of
Xhosa
Xhosa may refer to:
* Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa
* Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people
See als ...
nation from
1835
Events
January–March
* January 7 – anchors off the Chonos Archipelago on her second voyage, with Charles Darwin on board as naturalist.
* January 8 – The United States public debt contracts to zero, for the only time in history. ...
until his death in
1892
Events
January–March
* January 1 – Ellis Island begins accommodating immigrants to the United States.
* February 1 - The historic Enterprise Bar and Grill was established in Rico, Colorado.
* February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies fo ...
at
Sholora, Bomvanaland. He was also known as "Kreli", and led the Xhosa armies in a series of
frontier wars.
Early life and family
Sarili was the oldest son of the Great
Hintsa ka Khawuta and Nomsa kaGambushe Tshezi.
Sarili had nine wives including Nohuthe, Nondwe of the abaThembu and Bayo of the amaGwali. His first heir died in
1853
Events
January–March
* January 6 – Florida Governor Thomas Brown signs legislation that provides public support for the new East Florida Seminary, leading to the establishment of the University of Florida.
* January 8 – Taiping R ...
at the age of 12 and the next in line was his son
Sigcawu ka Sarili from his second wife Nohuthe. His daughter Novili Nomkafulo became the great wife of
Ngangelizwe Qeya, the 6th paramount chief of the
abaThembu
The AbaThembu (''abaThembu ababhuzu-bhuzu, abanisi bemvula ilanga libalele'') are a Xhosa-speaking Bantu people who were under the Thembu Kingdom.
According to Bantu oral tradition, the AbaThembu migrated along the east coast of Southern Africa ...
. Another daughter Nowisile became the wife of Chief
Falo Mgudlwa
Chief Falo kaMgudlwa (Falo son-of-Mgudlwa) was a Chief of AmaJumba Clan, of the amaThembu people near Qhumanco, Ngcobo. His household was based at Lucwecwe.
Family
The Mgudlwa line was established by Falo's father, the Chief Mgudlwa kaJumba ( ...
of the amaJumba Thembu and the adoptive mother of the future Thembu national poet
Mbombini Molteno Sihele. Another daughter became the wife of Mhlontlo of the Mpondomise and another became the wife of Chief Gwadiso of the Khonjwayo.
Reign (1835-1892)
![Frederick Timpson I'Ons08](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Frederick_Timpson_I%27Ons08.JPG)
Sarhili ascended without any dispute to his birth right. However, the young king had a difficult start, because King Hintsa's power had mostly fallen to his Great Councillors and so Sarhili struggled to assert himself in his own right. When Sarhili left his father's Great Place (the residence of the King), as custom,to establish himself, he began trying to fight the Sotho to no avail.He then tried to conquer the upper Kei region in 1839 that was occupied by what was itself a Xhosa state, the Thembu, but led by Mtirara, he was defeated and retreated. In July 1843, Sarhili tried again this time with the official army of the Xhosa Kingdom and succeeded in seizing Thembuland. King Sarhili then set up his Great Place at Hohita, the capital of Xhosaland.
Throughout his reign, Sarili entered into intermittent conflict against the expanding
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...
He was a skilled diplomat who was respected and loved, even by those of the prominent whites of the Cape who knew him well.
He typically sought to maintain Gcaleka independence by avoiding direct confrontation with the Cape Colony. This strategy initially worked, but as a nationalist and paramount chief of all the Xhosa, he was later drawn into conflict with the Cape by the neighbouring Ngqika Xhosa. His Kingdom's indirect aid to the Ngqika during the
Seventh and Eighth Frontier Wars (1846–1853) was discovered and led to a temporary British invasion of Gcalekaland.
The Great culling (1856-1858) and aftermath
Sarili played an important part in the
Great Cattle Killing, a
millennialist movement which began among the Xhosa in 1856, and led them to destroy their own means of subsistence in the belief that it would bring about salvation by supernatural spirits, who would return and drive all white people into the sea. Genuinely believing the prophecies of
Nongqawuse, Sarili destroyed his cattle and crops, causing thousands of his subjects to do likewise. The famine that followed devastated the last Xhosa Kingdom, forcing the Xhosa to turn to the neighbouring Cape Colony for food, blankets and other relief. His fostering of the cattle killing also led to him being hated in white opinion, as the supposed villain of the frontier conflicts.
He was briefly exiled from Gcalekaland, to the territory on the far side of the Mbashe, only being allowed to return in 1865. In his absence, the
Mfengu
The ''amaMfengu'' (in the Xhosa language ''Mfengu'', plural ''amafengu'') was a reference of Xhosa clans whose ancestors were refugees that fled from the Mfecane in the early 19th century to seek land and protection from the Xhosa and have sinc ...
people (traditional enemies of the Gcaleka) settled in much of his former land.
The Fengu-Gcaleka War (1877-1879)
![Mfengu soldier of Cape Colony - Fingo People](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Mfengu_soldier_of_Cape_Colony_-_Fingo_People.jpg)
Subsequently, the policies of the
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...
and those of the government in London differed with regards to Sarili. The Cape achieved
responsible government in 1872 and, with little further interest in annexing Xhosa land, signed treaties with both Sarili and his enemies such as the Thembu, recognising Gcalekaland's territorial integrity. The
British government, on the other hand, sought to offer protection to increasing numbers of Transkeian chiefdoms, isolating Sarili diplomatically and reducing his power in the region. Both parties appear to have favoured Sarili's enemies in trade and other dealings with the Transkei territories, and when fighting broke out between Sarili and the neighbouring Thembu, the British government intervened once again and brought yet another of his opponents under their protection.
From the mid-1870s, a series of severe droughts across the Transkei began to place growing strain on the relative peace which had prevailed for the previous few decades. The droughts had begun as early as 1875 in Sarhili's territory, and had spread to other parts of the Transkei and Basutoland, and even into the Cape Colony controlled Ciskei. Their severity increased up until 1877 and ethnic tensions began to break out, particularly between the
Mfengu
The ''amaMfengu'' (in the Xhosa language ''Mfengu'', plural ''amafengu'') was a reference of Xhosa clans whose ancestors were refugees that fled from the Mfecane in the early 19th century to seek land and protection from the Xhosa and have sinc ...
, the
Thembu
The Thembu Kingdom (''abaThembu ababhuzu-bhuzu, abanisi bemvula ilanga libalele'') was a Xhosa-state in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
According to Xhosa oral tradition, the AbaThembu migrated along the east coast of Southern Africa ...
and the
Gcaleka Xhosa.
In 1877, fighting between Mfengu and Gcaleka tribesmen broke out at a festival, rapidly escalating into a shoot-out and finally into a full-blown inter-tribal war that spread along the frontier. Sarili sought to avoid any further escalation of this conflict, as he fully understood that the Mfengu, as allies of the Cape Colony, would draw all forces stationed in the Cape which he could not overcome. However he was nonetheless forced into involvement by several of his councillors and chiefs. Decades of hostile relations with the Cape Colony, overpopulation, and pressure from his councillors drove Sarili into a corner, and he mobilised his armies.
Initially the situation seemed unlikely to escalate further, as the
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...
government insisted on only deploying its local mounted commandos to police the frontier, but the involvement of the
British government, via Sir
Sir Henry Bartle Frere, desiring to finally annex Gcalekaland for his planned confederation of South Africa.
Sarili tried to unite the Xhosa tribes into a unified force in order to prevent the annexation, but after two devastating pitched battles, he declared an end to his resistance and went into exile, first in Pondoland and afterwards to Bomvanaland.
He died in exile in
1892
Events
January–March
* January 1 – Ellis Island begins accommodating immigrants to the United States.
* February 1 - The historic Enterprise Bar and Grill was established in Rico, Colorado.
* February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies fo ...
, at
Sholora, Bomvanaland.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kahintsa, Sarili
1810s births
1892 deaths
19th-century monarchs in Africa
Rulers of the Gcaleka
Sarili