Egazini, Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown), Eastern Cape
Egazini – the place of blood – commemorates the Battle of Grahamstown, which occurred in April 1819 in what is now the Eastern Cape. Around 10,000 Xhosa warriors, led by war doctor or sangoma Makana, combined to attack the Grahamstown settlement; they were defeated by a much smaller group of British army troopers, settlers, and their allies, who were armed with guns. For many years this key event was largely forgotten in historiography of the so-called Frontier Wars, and was commemorated mainly by a taken-for-granted monument in Grahamstown (now Makhanda) to Elizabeth Salt, said to have carried gunpowder through the attackers’ lines.
The site of the battle is on a hill close to Fort England Hospital, with the area now a low-income township. The Egazini Memorial, erected to remember the many Xhosa dead, was unveiled by the Department of Arts & Culture in 2001 and has a toposcope on its far corner.
The Egazini Outreach Project’s involvement in recovering memory and encouraging new interpretations started in the 2000s and is interestingly discussed in Wells 2003. Through this a newer part of the Memorial was added in 2015. This has a number of mosaic pillars by local artists commemorating different aspects of Egazini, with some featuring amaXhosa proverbs. Much of the artwork was developed through the Outreach Project. The site is now littered and rarely visited.
Egazini Outreach Project http://www.egazinioutreachproject.com
Julia C. Wells. “From Grahamstown to Egazini: Using art and history to construct post colonial identity and healing in the new South Africa.” African Studies 62.1 (2003): 79-98.
