Before the year recedes, it seems timely to reflect on the historical footprint of the arrival of a small, white settler presence around the Durban Bay area 200 years ago in 1824.
Of the three main settlers, the lives of the two ex-officers of the Royal Navy, Francis Farewell and James Saunders King, were short-lived. King died of natural causes in 1828 and was buried on the Bluff. Farewell was murdered in 1829 while returning overland from Port Elizabeth.
Henry Francis Fynn, the son of a reputable Cape Town resident, survived to be appointed magistrate on the South Coast between 1853 and 1860. However, referring to the latter years of his life, historian Dan Wylie has described Fynn as a “frontier ruffian” who was dogged by accusations of cattle-rustling, gun-running and whose records were dubious in terms of factual integrity. He died in 1861.
Acting as agents for Cape merchants, the objective of the three was to establish a trading station at Port Natal dealing in ivory, hippopotamus tusks and hides. Their motives were purely economic. A diplomatic accord with Shaka resulted in permission to occupy the environs of the bay area at the Zulu King’s pleasure.
With a view to establishing a permanent settlement, in 1824 they appealed, unsuccessfully, to the Governor of the Cape Colony, Lord Somerset, for British annexation of the port enclave.
In 1828, they tried a new approach. James King, who seemed to have been fully taken into Shaka’s confidence, persuaded the Zulu monarch to open up diplomatic relations with King George IV. But the mission got no further than Port Elizabeth, thanks to the Cape government’s determination to render it stillborn. The murder of Shaka shortly afterwards put paid to any further ideas of annexation until 1843.
Apart from their sound relations with Shaka, which were a practical necessity, it is difficult to find any positives concerning the roles of Farewell, King and Fynn. Their idea of British annexation was self-serving in that they wanted security.
They were opportunists whose aim was to make money by plundering wildlife. Their idea of commerce is abhorrent by our environmental standards. They initiated the decimation of species to the extent that by 1870 sightings of lion, elephant, buffalo, hippopotamus and rhinoceros were very rare.
Despite the intrepid nature of their venture, in terms of the history of KZN, they did not accomplish anything worthwhile. The only reminders of their time are Fynn’s detailed diary and his extensive correspondence in the Pietermaritzburg Archives, King’s grave in Marlborough Park on the Bluff and a few streets bearing their names.
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