Nongqawuse was an Xhosa orphan living with her uncle in South Africa. One day, after fetching water with a friend Nongqawuse told her uncle Mhlakaza, a Xhosa spiritualist, that she had met the spirits of three of her ancestors. The ancestors had told her that killing the cattle and destroying the crops would end British rule over the Xhosa nation. The sun would turn blood-red and the ancestors would sweep colonizers into the sea. The Xhosa cattle had already been dying of lung disease, possibly introduced by European cattle. Paramount Chief Sarhili heard the prophecy and ordered his followers to obey it. Historians estimate that the Gcaleka killed between 300,000 and 400,000 head of cattle, and razed large swathes of farmland.
But on the appointed day, the sun rose the same white it always was. Initially, Nongqawuse’s followers blamed those who had not obeyed her instructions, but they later turned against her. The British promptly arrested Nogquawuse, but did nothing to ameliorate the famine that followed. Now, if you think about the situation, wonder whether the colonial powers should have helped the people they were in political control over, even though they were passively rebelling against their control. Could their actions be counted as passive murder?
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