This is episode 200 - we have reached the double century milestone on our winding journey through the past.
When I began the series in 2021 after some years of planning, I had no idea what would happen. Diving into the shark tank that is history podcasting took a great deal of forethought. One person’s history is another persons’ propaganda after all, social engineers rewrite the past to suit their own agenda’s and this series has been based on our people’s stories first.
Endeavouring to let the folks of the south talk for themselves, which of course, can threaten folks’ world view about their origins, or their personal narrative. It is rife with risk.
So it’s with some relief to report that the response has been overwhelmingly positive. This series is now the third most shared podcast in South Africa — a stunning revelation given that I am doing this solo. There is no marketing team, no financier, no patron, just me and you the listener.
Thanks to Francois at iono.fm for the growth in advertising, nothing for mahala I guess. Speaking of filthy lucre, I have a PayPal account for donations which can be found on desmondlatham.blog. The funds go towards the series audio hosting fees. The third video episode is about to land on YouTube, so things are happening.
With that craven bit of begging, let us continue for we are going to spend this episode meeting Cape Governor, Sir George Grey. He is probably the most influential Englishman in both New Zealand and South Africa’s history, playing a key role in the annexation of Maori land, he spent time as a Governor of Australia. Very much an administrator of his time, he believed in educating the masses, and put his money where his mouth was, founding Grey’s College in Bloemfontein in 1855, then Grey’s High School in Gbeberha a year later.
In between, all manner of shenanigans were recorded. But wait. As we hear about Sir George, I’ll introduce his amaxhosa alter ego, Manhlakaza, aka Wilhelm Goliath, who was the first amaXhosa Anglican in South Africa.
Manhlakaza’s relationship with the Archdeacon of Grahamstown, Nathanial James Merriman, was going to change the whole course of South Africa’s history. Don’t take my word for it, this is the view of many who know much more than me about these things, particularly the fantastic historian Jeff Peires.
Here were two people, opposites. Grey and Goliath.
Their tale is tantamount to the gears of history turning like a great, soot-streaked clockwork, steam-punk cogs groaning under the weight of human ambition and magical ether, while the past, a fog of coal-smoke and brass, hisses and sputters, propelling the unwieldy engine unsteadily into the unknown.
The allegorical story this episode contains metaphors and illustrations of an era.
Grey believed white and black people were essentially the same, it was only culture and backward rituals that separated the races. Grey wrote regularly about how aborigines and later amaXhosa
“…are as apt and intelligent as any other race of men I am acquainted with…”
“They are subject to the same affections, appetites and passions as other men…”
Simply put, he thought that the Aborigines, the Maoris, the First People’s of Canada, the Khoekhoe, the Nguni and Tswana speaking south Africans, all wanted to become Englishmen but couldn’t because they were trapped by the barbarous customs and rituals enforced by their older generation.
At the same time, the colonial in him believed that no Aborigine, or Maori or African culture, was worth the grand heights of English culture. Still, that didn’t stop him personally conducting a major contribution study of the Maori language and folklore. That study is regarded one of the most important research into early Maori ways — a contradiction considering that he didn’t hold the Maori ways in high regard.
What a strange character.
