"Sekhukhune was King of the Marota people (commonly called Bapedi) who originated from the Bakgatla of the Western Transvaal. Sekhukhune, like Moshoeshoe King of the Basotho people, was an illegitimate ruler who came to power using military force. As a result, his half brother, and legitimate heir, Mampuru was forced to flee from the Kingdom. As a result of lack of legitimacy, he built his power by entering into diplomatic marriages with various royal dynasties, by incorporating other societies into his empire, and by military conquest. This increased his support base and gave him legitimacy.
To defend his empire from the encroaching European colonization, Sekhukhune sent young men under the authority of 'appointed' headmen to work in white farms and diamonds mines. The money they earned in these employments was taxed and used to buy guns from the Portuguese in Delegoa Bay and cattle to increase the wealth of the Marota people. By the middle of the 19th century the Marota empire had grown to unite all the disparate people in the area under a common Royalty."
Sekhukhune vs the Boers
"When Hendrick Potgieter and the Voortrekkers arrived in the Marota Empire in the middle of the 19th century, Sekhukhune's father, Sekwati (1775-1861), resisted them. In a famous battle at Phiring in 1838 Sekwati defeated the Voortrekkers by the simple tactic of establishing his stronghold on an impenetrable hill. But Phiring was insecure and so Sekwati moved his headquarters to Thaba Mosega (the fighting koppie) in the Lulu Mountains of the Eastern Transvaal from which his people were dislodged only by a series of bitter wars ending in December 1879.
Johannes Dinkoanyane, Sekhukhune's half-brother, at first supported Merensky and became a Lutheran convert. His stay in Botshabelo was short-lived and soon he was back with his followers in Spekboom Hills, in the Tubatse Valley. He assumed a very independent demeanor, which Sekhukhune by no means discouraged. On March 7, 1876, Dinkoanyane detained a wagonload of wood belonging to one Jankowitz, a Boer farmer who had trespassed on Dinkoanyane's land to cut wood. At the same time false rumours of cattle theft spread - also false rumours to the effect that Dinkoanyane had burnt down Rev. Nachtigal's German mission.
When the news reached Pretoria, an enraged President Thomas Francois Burgers decided to set out "to deal with the Sekhukhune menace" himself. Burgers quickly assembled a largest army not seeing before in the Republic. Armed with 7 pounder Krupp guns they marched to Thaba Mosega, which he reached on August 1, 1876. He was supported by African troops hoping the land under Sekhukhune would be given to them after Sekhukhune was defeated. Sekhukhune came to Dinkoanyane's rescue and, although Dinkoanyane himself was killed in action, Sekhukhune inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Boers and President Burgers. This defeat cost him his position(Presidency), and lost it to Paul Kruger.
In response to the humiliating defeat suffered by President Burgers, the Boers sponsored an army of mercenaries (sometimes called the falstaffian gang of filibusters or free booters). Styled the Lydenburg Volunteer Corps. Their leader was "a reckless adventurer of Diamond notoriety" named Conrad Hans Von Schlieckmann, a German ex-officer and soldier of fortune who was closely connected with the German Establishment and who had fought under Otto von Bismarck in the Franco-German War of 1870-71. Other mercenaries were Gunn of Gunn, Alfred Aylward, Knapp, Woodford, Rubus, Adolf Kuhneisen, Dr. James Edward Ashton, Otto von Streitencron, George Eckersley, Bailey, Captain Reidel and others from America, Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria and other European countries. They committed the grossest atrocities in the Tubatse Valley. All acted in total disregard of the British Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870; the American Neutrality or Foreign Enlistment Act, 1818 and similar laws.
They also acted with the connivance of their home countries. Many of these soldiers of fortune were recruited from the diamond diggings in Kimberley where they had gone in a vain search for diamonds. The Lydenburg area attracted them because it was said to hold large deposits of gold, diamonds and other precious minerals. So when Pretoria established the Lydenburg Volunteers Corps, von Schlieckmann's men fell for it. They fought fiercely from behind the rampart to avenge the defeat of President Burgers. They lost, and Von Schlieckmann himself was killed in battle on November 17 1876, to be succeeded by Alfred Aylward, an Irishman. But this was not the end of the war only of a battle, albeit an important one."
