BROADCASTS.com

The Voortrekkers had survived the trauma of the Battle of Vegkop, they had narrowly survived and as they huddled together in Thaga \u2018Nchu a form of unity was required. These different Voortrekker parties under various leaders, Trichardt, Van Rensburg, Cilliers, Potgieter, Maritz, focused their minds on the main threat to their further expansion in southern Africa.
\n
\nMzilikazi of the Khumalo. The man born in Zululand, the raider of many across southern Africa, he who had defeated numerous clans on the highveld, the Hurutshe, Barolong, Batlokwa. The BaSotho feared him, the BaTswana hated him.
\nThe external threat to the Voortrekkers suppressed internal divisions, but that wouldn\u2019t be for very long. Gerrit Maritz had arrived in transOrangia with a huge trek party, 700 men women, children and servants.
\n
\nOne hundred of these were Boer men - a relatively large company of soldiers if you take the firepower of the day into account.
\nGerrit Maritz was not your average trekboer, he was a wagon maker from Graaff-Reinet, prosperous, more middle class if you like than working farmer type. He was well educated compared to other Voortrekkers, and young - in this 30s. A large man, dwarfing most around him, his upper lip clean shaven as was the manner back in these days, but he sported a beard \u2014 noticeably darker than his tawny coloured hair.
\nHe also painted his wagon light blue, not the usual green adopted by most Voortrekkers which allowed them to blend a little better into the Veld \u2014 not for Maritz. He also dressed up, long coat, top hat, latest fashionable trousers. Maritz could crack a joke, but was also a pillar of the Dutch Reformed Church. He regarded the Doppers, the extremist arm of the trekboers, the most thin lipped and orthodox of the church members, with contempt.
\nThe amaXhosa had just done that against the English, and the amaNdebele were the new challenge to the Boers.
\nThe trekkers also were motivated by a more primordial need - revenge. The amaNdebele had killed their men, women and children. This could not go unpunished. They also wanted to recover their looted livestock and wagons thus sending a message throughout southern Africa like the ripples of a pebble in a pool \u2014 do not fight us, there will be a payment.
\nSo enter stage left, Erasmus Smit and his memorable wife Susanna. She was also living in Graaff-Reinet when her brother Gerrit suggested they trek out of the colony to escape the clutches of the evil English in 1836.
\nShe and Erasmus Smit joined the Maritz trek with her husband in a wagon on loan from her brother. As they travelled, Smit conducted church services three times on a Sunday, and on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. Erasmus was a lay preacher, he\u2019d been trained by the Netherlands missionary Society between 1809 and 1829, but he was never formally inducted. Susanna his wife was the official who greeted churchgoers \u2014 the helpmeet as they were known.
\nSusanna Smit wrote in her diary as the family departed for Thaba \u2018Nchu \u201cde Heere leide het Kroos der martelaren uit van onder Ingelsche verdrukking\u201d \u2014 or The Lord led his progeny of martyrs away from English oppression.
\nAnd its back to the Kommando we now return.
\n
\nA second section or detachment led by Gerrit Maritz left the following day, with the men wearing distinctive red ribbons around their hats. So who was in overall command? The Kommandant or the President? They were leading two different sections, companies if you like.
\n
\nHistorians generally agree that it was Maritz, not Potgieter, who were the leaders although he didn\u2019t have the military experience. As with everything African, leaders get to divvy up the spoils and treasure, so this question was going to emerge later in a pointed fashion.
\n
\nThese 107 Voortrekkers, plus 100 auxiliaries, including 40 mounted Griquas under Pieter Dawids, were joined by 60 members of the Barolong tribe on foot led by chief Matlaba.