wealth and the convening of initiation schools-actions
that created yet
another line of cleavage in a sorely divided society.77
The medley of Bantu-speaking
communities that occupied the north-
eastern highveld was more favored by the terrain. During the I840S and
1850S, white prospectors, hunters, and adventurers of many nationalities
were attracted to the area because it was a rich source of elephant ivory, and
a settled population
became established there. Tsetse flies and mosquitoes,
however, decimated the settlers in the lowlands, whereas the Soutpansberg
provided defensible mountain
refuges for Venda chiefdoms close by. In
1867, Paul Kruger's punitive expedition of four hundred men to the area
was repulsed by the Venda and by disease, and the settlement collapsed.Ff
During the I 85as, the Pedi chief Sekwati checked Afrikaner expansion
in the fertile and disease-free eastern Transvaal by creating a loose-knit
kingdom centered on a defensible mountain
stronghold.
After Sekwati's
death in 1861, however, the kingdom was rent by a civil war rooted in
rivalry between two of his sons-
a setback that was typical of the mixed-
farming societies of Southern Africa. This cleavage, accentuated by a bitter
religious controversy resulting from the activities of German Protestant