Shangani (G 4)

Name: Shangani

A nickel mine located 50 km SW of Gweru in the Shangani greenstone belt (Esmyangene formation).

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The Shangani Patrol was a group of white Rhodesian pioneer police officers killed in battle on the Shangani River in Matabeleland in 1893. The incident achieved a lasting, prominent place in Rhodesian colonial history.

Following the abandonment of Bulawayo, during the First Matabele War, a column of soldiers had been despatched by Leander Starr Jameson to attempt the capture of King Lobengula, leader of the Ndebele nation. The column camped on the south bank of the Shangani River about 40 km north-east of the village of Lupane on the evening of 3 December 1893. Late in the afternoon, a dozen men, under the command of Major Allan Wilson, were sent across the river to reconnoitre. Shortly afterwards, Wilson sent a message back to the laager to say that he had found the king, and was requesting reinforcements.

The commander of the column, Major Patrick Forbes, unwilling to set off across the river in the dark, sent 20 more men under the command of Henry Borrow, intending to send the main body of troops and artillery across the river the following morning. However, on their way to the river the next day, the column was ambushed by Ndebele fighters and delayed. In an act of near desperation, Wilson had sent his two American scouts and George Gooding, an Australian, back for further reinforcements also that morning. In spite of a shower of bullets and spears, the three men set off to find Forbes. When Burnham, Pearl "Pete" Ingram, and Gooding did finally reach the Forbes encampment, the battle raging there was just as intense and there was no hope of anyone reaching Wilson in time. As Burnham loaded his rifle to beat back the Matabele warriors, he quietly said to Forbes, "I think I may say we are the sole survivors of that party."[1] In the meantime, Wilson, Borrow, and their men were surrounded by a large number of Ndebele, and the Shangani River had suddenly risen in flood, making it impossible to cross. All 34 men were killed, but the inaccessibility of the spot and the risk of attack by the Ndebele made it impossible to recover the bodies until February 1894.

Wilson’s Last Stand was produced on the stage as a patriotic play and ran in London for two years. In the play, based on some embellished facts, it is said that in the killing of Wilson and his thirty-one men, Lobengula lost 80 of his royal guard and another 500 Matabele warriors. Wilson was the last to fall and the wounded men of the Shangani Patrol loaded rifles and passed them to him during the final stages of the defense. When their ammunition ran out, the remaining men of the Patrol are said to have risen and sung, God Save the Queen. Once both of Wilson’s arms were broken and he could no longer shoot, he stepped from behind a barricade of dead horses, walked toward the Matabele, and was stabbed with a spear by a young warrior.

The Shangani Patrol entered Rhodesian colonial history as part of the mythology of white conquest, with Wilson and Borrow hailed as national heroes.


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