Tes Rogers
DNA on the Groot Trek: Night of Slaughter
Somehow word of the Retief delegation massacres filtered through to various English traders still in Dingane’s territory, causing a panicked exodus to the Port Natal harbor. Francis Owen, his family and three American missionaries made it safely to the Hambanathi mission near Tongaat, from where they also fled to Port Natal. Some traders took refuge on the schooner, Mary, that was anchored off Port Natal, while others put together a defense force with 3,000 Natal Zulus (not part of Dingane’s rule), seeing this as an opportunity to counter-attack and get back some of the cattle that was stolen by Dingane’s forces. On February 12 Alexander Biggar sent Dick King with a few Zulus on foot (so as to escape attention by the impis) to warn the rest of the Voortrekkers in Natal, a journey of four days. Alexander’s 18-year old son, George, was at the Bloukrans camp of the Voortrekkers. King would arrive a few hours too late for George Biggar and many others.
For the Voortrekkers in Natal, a deadly silence hung over their encampments, one that they mistook as peaceful. Quite a few families had jumped at the chance to trek ahead of the main body of Trekkers gathered at the foot of the Drakensberg mountains. By mid-February these families were outspanned (unhitched) along a fourty-mile stretch along the Bloukrans and Bushmen Rivers (see map). So sure were these Trekkers of the success of Retief’s mission, that many of the men were either out hunting to replenish their supplies, while some were even on their way back to the Drakenberg mountains to help others descend those steep cliffs. In most of the camps the women and children were alone with their servants, who were taking care of the livestock grazing on the abundant sweet grass of these fertile valleys. Their ox wagons were staggered in small, indefensible family groups, far away from others. None were pulled together in a defensive laager.