Kousop

Much contemporary and historical writing dismissed Kousop, or Scheelkobus, as he was known on account of an injured eye, as a robber and a gangster. Some writers were more sympathetic, for example, the geologist George William Stow who was writing in the 1880s. Kousop is the hero in historical fiction by the Afrikaans writer Dolf van Niekerk.

The Tswana Kgosi Mahura observed in a letter to Boshof at the time that he had “realised that a little spark would ignite the entire country” and that Kousop might “bring fire to our land.” The historian Karel Schoeman writes that the documentation surrounding Kousop’s “sustained protest against his dispossession” is a valuable record of the “vain attempts by an indigenous leader” to assert his authority in the face of farmers taking over his land. Frustration over his powerlessness “eventually drove him to large-scale violence.” Schoeman adds that the support he received from various indigenous groups demonstrates how “he embodied sentiments that were real and widely felt.”

The conclusive way in which Kousop’s resistance, and that of Gasibonwe of the Trans-Vaal, were suppressed and, more specifically, the alleged murder of the prisoners of Kousop’s gang, “made a profound impression upon the indigenous people, and did much to discourage future resistance and to consolidate the position of the farmers in the two republics.”^[2]

A century and a half after his death near what would become Kimberley, Kousop is judged a champion for indigenous rights. As a leader Kousop was able, remarkably, to mobilize multi-ethnic opposition to colonial encroachment. But the odds were ultimately stacked against him and his people, and their resistance was suppressed with considerable violence.

On Sunday 6 July 2008, the 150th anniversary of the battle in which Kousop and about 130 of his followers were killed, the South African San Institute, as part of its ‘Footprints of the San’ project, and in association with the !Xun and Khwe communities, the Friends of Wildebeest Kuil and the Northern Cape Rock Art Trust, hosted the unveiling (by the Revd Mario Mahongo) of an inscribed stone on the edge of the hill at Wildebeest Kuil. One historical reference^[3] speaks of Kousop as living, at some period in his life, at the hill which is now the Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre outside Kimberley. To commemorate the life of this hero of anti-colonial resistance, the programme additionally included the ceremonial lighting of a fire, creation of a memorial cairn, and traditional dancing.^[4] Speakers included the Revd Mario Mahongo and Barend van Wyk.

The memory of Kousop had been reflected in the story line at Wildebeest Kuil since the site opened in 2001. The commemoration of 6 July 2008 placed this story more centre-stage, to initiate a process to grant greater recognition to a significant figure in the resistance to colonial conquest in central South Africa in the mid nineteenth century.