The Province of
Queen Adelaide

Sir Benjamin D'Urban arrived as Governor of the Cape Colony in January 1834, bringing with him instructions to implement a new frontier policy.

Negotiations were still underway when, in December that year, the Xhosa tribes under Maqoma and Tyhali invaded the Colony over a wide front. Colonial retaliation was swift, with Sir Benjamin personally supervising the campaign.

The British forces took the initiative of invading Xhosa territory. They set up their headquarters at a mission station on the banks of the Buffalo River which they called "King William's Town" after Sir Benjamin's good friend, King William IV.

The Governor then devised a scheme for carving out a new British territory between the Keiskamma and Kei Rivers, which he named the "Province of Queen Adelaide" after King William's wife.

It was the Governor's intention that the "hostile tribes" were to be "forever expelled and treated as enemies" if found within the annexed territory. Sir Benjamin appointed Lieutenant Colonel Sir Harry Smith, the officer next in rank to himself, to control the process.

A form of martial rule was instituted which was almost solely of Sir Harry's own making. Queen Adelaide Province was divided up into a series of small fiefdoms, each under the control of special magistrates who resided at the Chiefs' Great Places.

Sir Benjamin, however, had overstepped himself when he created the Province of Queen Adelaide. First, his action contravened the plans mapped out by the Colonial Office which did not want a further expansion of the British Empire.

Sir Benjamin also did not have the power in terms of his instructions as Governor to take this step. Indeed, he was a Governor of the Cape Colony, not of any territory beyond the borders of the Colony. But it was the brutality of the campaign which effectively brought his house crashing down.

The Governor had embroidered his reports with copious references to the brutality of the military campaigns. His anecdotes spoke enemy soldiers senselessly slaughtered, crops destroyed, huts burnt to the ground - and women and children led away almost as slaves.

These words offended the Colonial Office. To consign an entire country "to desolation", the Secretary of State wrote, and a whole people "to famine" was "so repugnant to every just feeling and totally at variance with the habits of civilized nations".

Lord Glenelg also questioned Sir Benjamin's logic that the Kei River was a more defensible boundary than the Keiskamma. It merely created a larger area to defend, he argued, and ultimately it brought the Cape Colony into contact with "new tribes of uncivilized men".

Sir Benjamin himself had already realised that he needed to revise his plans. For one, it was impossible to drive the amaXhosa beyond the Kei River with his limited forces. He therefore needed to conjure peace on more humanitarian grounds.

In September 1835, therefore, he drew up new treaties with the Chiefs which gave them reserves in the annexed territory and recognised them as British subjects under Colonial Law. The Chiefs were now recognised as magistrates. At least, that was the theory.

Sir Benjamin, however, was a poor correspondent and this proved the undoing of his plans. In June 1835 he had revealed to Lord Glenelg the May annexation. His second despatch containing the modified proposals only reached Glenelg in January 1836.

Because he had received so little information from the Governor, Lord Glenelg was more inclined to be influenced by other knowledgeable people - but who were inclined to take the side of the amaXhosa. Sir Benjamin was therefore instructed to surrender the Province of Queen Adelaide by the end of 1836.

By August that year, Sir Andries Stockenström had been appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Eastern Districts, with instructions to dismantle the Province of Queen Adelaide and create a new treaty system. On 5 December 1836 he restored independence to the Xhosa Chiefs.

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