NONGQAWUSE

It was not for the sake of mere plunder that the ama-Xhosa people, in obedience to the false prophesy of a misguided girl burned their corn and killed their cattle in the hope that the white men would be driven into the sea. Nor was it merely to bring calamity upon the Xhosa native that Nongqause 'prophesied' the day when the great men of the past would rise from their graves and lead the Xhosa native to victory over the white man. It was for something greater, something nobler than all this. It was for the independence of the African race, for its right to develop along its natural lines so as to determine its destiny without hindrance. As I read South African history, comparing it with that of Europe, I discovered that Nongqause was but a prototype of Joan of Arc. The only difference being that Joan's scheme succeeded while that of Nongqause proved a disastrous failure. But no one can deny that Nongqause, like Joan of Arc, was prompted by the spirit of patriotism. In urging the Xhosa people to kill their cattle and burn their corn and wait with hungry stomachs for the coming of the Day of Deliverance she was activated by one thing only, and that was her desire to see her people free from the thraldom of an alien race.

-R. V. Selope Thema, Out of Darkness: From Cattle-Herding to the Editor's Chair (unpublished autobiography, 1935).