grade 10 history essay about moshoeshoe

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The Survival of the Sotho Under Moshoeshoe Essay

Introduction.

• The 19th Century Sotho Kingdom

The Thaba Bosiu Experience

Cited works.

Trade was the major economic activity that brought groups of people together during the time the Basotho people arrived in their present homeland. In fact, by the beginning of 19 th century, white traders, the Voortrekkers inhabited what is now called the Basutoland. With this conglomeration of different groups of people, there emerged extreme pressure on the environment for resettlement.

Meanwhile, the Zulu state, led by Shaka was expanding and with it a series of violence across the entire southern Africa. The violence that was witnessed throughout this region threatened the extinction of many groups of people but not the organized Sotho society.

The survival of this group of people is attributed to the strong leadership of their king Moshoeshoe the Great that was necessitated by frequent cattle raids. The paper investigates the validity of the postulate that the Basotho people survived because of cattle raids, which made their leader to seek refuge in Thaba Bosiu.

The 19 th Century Sotho Kingdom

In the 19 th century, a violent explosion erupted annihilating the South African chiefdoms border today’s Lesotho. Those who did survive the annihilation either were dispersed or were incorporated into larger chiefdoms that were stronger and well reorganized.

The leaders of these new chiefdoms were capable of defending their subjects; and Moshoeshoe was one such leader. The political situation in the east of Drakensberg Mountains was characterized by increasing competition over trade links, arable land for cultivation, cattle raids, among other factors (Stokes 102).

Owing to the political and economic instability of the region courtesy of Shaka Zulu’s autocracy, food scarcity and famine struck the region thereby according dominant chiefdoms the opportunity to increase their wealth and power. Consequently, the leader who promised wealth and security obtained from agricultural and pastoral production as well as from trade commanded greater support and following.

Cattle raiding and agricultural production became the silver bullet to the peoples’ problems, a policy that was pursued religiously by leaders. It is little wonder then, that conflicts resulting from food shortage interrupted food production hindered economic growth, and starvation punctuated the disruptions caused by migrating chiefdoms that sought a place to settle (Eldredge 2).

From 1822 throughout the century, raids were common phenomena in this region of southern Africa. For example, destitute immigrants crossed the Drakensberg Mountains from the east and executed their raids on the population around Highveld and upper Caledon River Valley to get crops and cattle (Eldredge 2).

These raids conjured up survival instincts of the young Sotho leader, Moshoeshoe l to forge alliances with their neighbors, the Sesotho group, and move to the mountains for protection. He, therefore, sent his scouts to find a good place in the mountains that could act as a fortress against their would-be raiders notwithstanding the risk that he was exposing them to. A large flat-topped mountain was located south of the territory.

In 1824, Moshoeshoe led his subjects in a three-day trek to occupy this new residence with natural bulwarks against the raiders. However, the weather was terribly cold and some people died as a result; and according to oral tradition, desperation led to their bodies being eaten up by the starving groups.

Nevertheless, the move proved to be an act of ingenuity of the Moshoeshoe l, thus earning him credit for having saved his people from extermination in the hands of marauding neighbors. This mountain fortress was called Thaba Bosiu, which literally translates to the “mountain of the night”. It was almost an invulnerable site for the Basotho people could now protect themselves, their cattle, and crops (McKenna 93).

Moshoeshoe l is hailed as a leader of remarkable political and diplomatic ace who expanded his hegemony by incorporating many chiefdoms into his own lineage. As a shrewd leader, he acknowledged the crucial role played by such skills as farming, hunting, adventuring, among others that his neighboring community in the south had mastered.

As a result, he welcomed missionaries to inform him about the events of the rest of the world and to import these skills into his chiefdom. Actually, that is how the Boer trekkers trickled into his kingdom to later wreck havoc.

After a protracted period of war occasioned by chronic hunger and frequent famine, the Basotho grew weary of being marooned in the Thaba Bosiu and wanted to resettle on their ancestral lands to expand agricultural production.

Eventually, they managed to resettle in these lands and built up their stores of food, which in turn expanded their economy so rapidly that they supplied their African and European neighbors with surplus food.

During this time, the Boers who resided in the Cape Colony were increasingly becoming frustrated with the British rule that had imposed strict policies on land tenure, prohibited slavery, and restricted continued expansion eastwards. Consequently, in the early 1830s this discontent caused the Great Boer Trek where about fifteen thousand Boers together with their households migrated across the Orange River.

Many of them settled “along the southwestern fringes of lands which had belonged to the forefathers of the Basotho” (Eldredge 3). The earliest settlers in this region did acknowledge the authority of Moshoeshoe over this territory and therefore, sought his permission to settle.

The events that shaped the survival mechanisms of the Basotho people such as economics and politics are best explained from the perspective of the pursuit of security. These dynamics of the 19 th century can only be interpreted within the context of security structures rather than blatant physical survival.

The reason being, security denotes recognition that extracting resources for purposes of satisfying peoples’ material needs was governed by social structure that puts a limit to the abilities of people to exploit others. Moreover, the pursuit of security expedites the explanation of the motivations underlying the acceptability of the authority of Moshoeshoe by subordinate groups (S.A.H.S. 113).

Such groups had a strong belief that physical survival presupposed the achievement of security in the political front, which guaranteed their protection and access to productive resources therewith.

Not surprisingly then, that individuals as well as groups that were weary of the regional politics sought clientship under Moshoeshoe, the Basotho leader, but not other chiefs in the region owing to their despotic bent and lamentable lack of generosity.

The Basotho was a dominant group in the southern African region in the 19 th century and unlike any other group of its caliber, it was shaped by the pursuit of holistic security.

With violent struggles reverberating across the region, beginning among Africans in the 1820s before Europeans followed suit, it will be a great misrepresentation of fact to reduce the motivation of this group to a craving for exploiting subordinate groups in their society.

Many chiefs within the neighborhood copied the leadership style of Moshoeshoe and endeavored to achieve security by attracting outsiders and consolidating their authorities over a greater population of subjects.

The key to this strategy was to accumulate vast resources and reallocating it to people in a way that would win their support. Briefly, dominant as well as subordinate groups strived to achieve a degree of security by midwifing clientship relations (Eldredge 4).

It can be said with confidence that the survival of the Basotho people in the 19 th century was occasioned by the political and economic instability in the southern African region. The repercussions of this hapless situation bred a habit of cattle raiding by groups that were considered dominant.

In order to spare his group from this disastrous attack, Moshoeshoe mooted a security plan to whisk his people in a mountain fortress called Thaba Bosiu with virtually impenetrable frontiers. While safely marooned in their new residence, Basotho could cultivate their crops and keep their cattle undisturbed.

Moshoeshoe was also endowed with excellent diplomatic skills besides good leadership and this enabled him to have clientship relations with many individuals and groups that were incorporated in his society.

Eldredge, Elizabeth A. A South African Kingdom: The pursuit of security in nineteenth-century Lesotho. New York; NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

McKenna, Amy. The History of Southern Africa. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2011.

S.A.H.S. (South African Historical Society). South African historical journal, Issue 30. Cape Town, South African Historical Society, 1994.

Stokes, Jamie. Encyclopedia of the People of Africa and the Middle East, Volume 1. New York, NY: InfoBase Publishing, 2009.

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History Grade 10 - Topic 6 Essay Questions and Answers

Impact of the 1913 Land Act

Based on the 2012 Grade 10 NSC Exemplar Paper:

Grade 10 Past Exam Paper

Grade 10 Source Addendum

Grade 10 Past Exam Memo

The Land Act of 1913 was the final nail in the coffin for Black South Africans in the 20th century and a step to Apartheid. Discuss this statement with reference to the social and economic impact of the Land Act and how it laid the foundation for the system of Apartheid. [1]

Sol Plaatje, a member of the SANNC and an activist against the implementation of the 1913 Natives Land Act wrote in his book, Native Life in South Africa,  concerning the Act that: “Africans were born as pariahs in the land of their birth”. [2]   The 1913 Land Act stipulated that Africans were restricted to own 7% of the land in South Africa, while the remaining 93% of the land were allocated to white settlers. [3] The impact of this new law was far-reaching since it impoverished African communities, while enforcing racial segregation. The following essay will discuss the economic and social impact of the Natives Land Act and how it laid the foundation for the system of Apartheid.

Firstly, the Natives Land Act impoverished black South Africans, since they were not given enough land to become independent farmers. [4] The land allocated to them were also overused and infertile which lessened their agricultural production and their income. According to the law, Africans were also not allowed to rent land allocated to white settlers, which forced them to live in overpopulated and impoverished reserves. [5] Since Africans were not allowed to rent land, sharecropping also became illegal. Sharecropping refers to the practice where various farmers, regardless of race, could sow on the same land and split the profit. Under the Natives Land Act this practice was declared illegal and previous sharecroppers were destitute and impoverished without a source of income. [6] This forced many Africans to become cheap labour tentants or farm labourers, since they could not farm independently on the land allocated to them. Other Africans were forced into the mining industry and were given minimum wages. [7] Ultimately, the Native Land Act impoverished Africans, since they were left destitute without their land, roaming around without enough fertile soil to feed their cattle or themselves. This forced Africans to sell their livestock to survive or kill the livestock for meat while becoming cheap labour as labour tenants or miners. [8]

Secondly, the Natives Land Act had a vast social impact on Africans. The Act promoted the racial ideology that white settlers were superior to Africans and therefore the races had to be divided by law. [9] This enabled the Union of South Africa to pass legislation that gave 93% of the country, with its rich resources, to the white population, while forcing Africans into servitude. After this legislation was accepted, Africans were evicted from their land and were forced to wander around with their cattle and possessions in extremely hot and cold weather. [10] Those who pitied destitute Africans were also forbidden by law to give them a place to stay, since they would be fined 100 pounds or be imprisoned. [11] This forced Africans to live in overpopulated and infertile areas, where they were malnourished and sick. [12] Africans hardly had enough food to feed themselves and therefore it was no surprise that they were often forced to kill their livestock or sell them before they died of hunger. [13]

After the implementation of the Natives Land Act, the SANNC was established in 1913 to fight against the new law and to promote racial equality. [14] Members of the SANNC, which included Sol Plaatje, sent a delegation to Prime Minister, Louis Botha in 1914 which showed the impact of the Natives Land Act. This delegation failed, which resulted in the SANNC travelling abroad to Britain to ask for them to intervene [15] . However, since the delegation occurred at the start of the First World War, Britain did not want to lose the support of the white settlers in South Africa. After the South African War, Britain’s relationship with the Afrikaners were still fragile and they did not want to lose their support by intervening with their new racist policies. This led to Sol Plaatje writing his book, Native Life in South Africa, which documents the delegations sent to Louis Botha and to Britain, while portraying how Africans became “pariahs” in the land of their birth. [16]

While the SANNC actively fought against the Natives Land Act, they could not overturn it. The Natives Land Act became the precursor to Apartheid, since it led to the establishment of various other laws, such as the Urban Areas Act (1923), the Natives and Land Trust Act (1936), The Group Areas Act (1950) and the Natives Act (1952). These laws controlled the movement of employed Africans into the cities (Urban Areas Act) [17] , while illegalizing ownership of land by Africans that are allocated to white settlers (Native Land Act, Land Trust Act, Group Areas Act) [18] and forced Africans to wear passes (Natives Act). [19]

In conclusion, the Natives Land Act impoverished Africans and forced them into destitution based on their race. This then made the Act a precursor to further racist legislation that segregated black and white South Africans based on the racial hierarchy where the white man was viewed as superior to the black man. Africans became pariahs in their home country and while they tried to oppose the Natives Land Act, Britain refused to intervene, which enabled the Union of South Africa to continue issuing racist legislation.

Tips & Notes:

• Check out our Essay Writing Skills  for more tips on writing essays.
• Remember, this is just an example essay.  You still need to use the work provided by your teacher or learned in class.
• It is important to check in with your teacher and make sure this meets his/her requirements.  For example, they might prefer that you do not use headings in your essay.

This article was originally produced for the SAHO classroom by Ilse Brookes, Amber Fox-Martin & Simone van der Colff

[1] The Department of Basic Education, “National Senior Certificate: Grade 10 History Marking Guideline 2017”, (Uploaded: November 2017), (Accessed: 28 October 2020), Available at: https://www.awsumnews.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/HISTORY-GR10-MEMO-NOV2017_English.pdf

[2] Sol Plaatje, Native Life in South Africa, 16.

[3] Author Unknown, “1913 Natives Land Act Centenary”, South African Government, (Uploaded: Unknown), (Accessed: 13 September 2020), Available at: https://www.gov.za/1913-natives-land-act-centenary

[4] Author Unknown, “The Natives Land Act of 1913”, South African History Online, (Uploaded: 27 August 2019), (Accessed: 13 September 2020), Available at: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913

[6] Mtshiselwa, N., & Modise, L. “The Natives Land Act of 1913 engineered the poverty of Black South Africans: a historico-ecclesiastical perspective”, Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, (Vol. 39), (2013).

[7] The Department of Basic Education, “National Senior Certificate: Grade 10 History Marking Guideline 2017”, (Uploaded: November 2017), (Accessed: 28 October 2020), Available at: https://www.awsumnews.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/HISTORY-GR10-MEMO-NOV2017_English.pdf

[9] Author Unknown, “The Homelands”, South African History Online, (Uploaded: 17 April 2011), (Accessed: 13 September 2020), Available at: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands

[10] The Department of Basic Education, “National Senior Certificate: Grade 10 History Marking Guideline 2017”, (Uploaded: November 2017), (Accessed: 28 October 2020), Available at: https://www.awsumnews.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/HISTORY-GR10-MEMO-NOV2017_English.pdf

[11] Ibid.  

[12] The Department of Basic Education, “National Senior Certificate: Grade 10 History Marking Guideline 2017”, (Uploaded: November 2017), (Accessed: 28 October 2020), Available at: https://www.awsumnews.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/HISTORY-GR10-MEMO-NOV2017_English.pdf  

[16] Sol Plaatje, Native Life in South Africa, 16.

[17] Author Unknown, “1923. Native Urban Areas Act (No.21), O’Malley: The Heart of Hope, (Uploaded: Unknown), (Accessed: 20 September 2020) Available at: https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01646/05lv01758.htm

[18] Author Unknown, “1936. Native Trust and Land Act No. 18”, O’Malley: The Heart of Hope, (Uploaded: Unknown), (Accessed: 20 September 2020), Available at: https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01646/05lv01784.htm

[19] Author Unknown, “Pass laws in South Africa, 1800 – 1994”, South African History Online, (Uploaded: 21 March 2011), (Accessed: 20 September 2020), Available at: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pass-laws-south-africa-1800-199

• Author Unknown, “Pass laws in South Africa, 1800 – 1994”, South African History Online, (Uploaded: 21 March 2011), (Accessed: 20 September 2020), Available at: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pass-laws-south-africa-1800-199
• Author Unknown, “1936. Native Trust and Land Act No. 18”, O’Malley: The Heart of Hope, (Uploaded: Unknown), (Accessed: 20 September 2020), Available at: https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01646/05lv01784.htm
• Author Unknown, “1923. Native Urban Areas Act (No.21), O’Malley: The Heart of Hope, (Uploaded: Unknown), (Accessed: 20 September 2020) Available at: https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01646/05lv01758.htm
• Author Unknown, “The Homelands”, South African History Online, (Uploaded: 17 April 2011), (Accessed: 13 September 2020), Available at: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands
• Author Unknown, “The Natives Land Act of 1913”, South African History Online, (Uploaded: 27 August 2019), (Accessed: 13 September 2020), Available at: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913
• Author Unknown, “1913 Natives Land Act Centenary”, South African Government, (Uploaded: Unknown), (Accessed: 13 September 2020), Available at: https://www.gov.za/1913-natives-land-act-centenary
• Mtshiselwa, N., & Modise, L. “The Natives Land Act of 1913 engineered the poverty of Black South Africans: a historico-ecclesiastical perspective”, Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, (Vol. 39), (2013).
• Plaatje, S.,  Native life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion, Fourth Edition, 1914,  (Uploaded: 26 August 2019), (Accessed: 8 November 2020), Available at: https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/native-life-south-africa-and-european-war-and-boer-rebellion-sol-t-plaatje
• The Department of Basic Education, “National Senior Certificate: Grade 10 History Marking Guideline 2017”, (Uploaded: November 2017), (Accessed: 28 October 2020), Available at: https://www.awsumnews.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/HISTORY-GR10-MEMO-NOV2017_English.pdf  

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