Marthinus Oosthuizen rides through the impi at Van Rensburg's laager
16 February 1838 · national
[SRC-098, SRC-097] Days after Piet Retief's party was killed and the Bloukrans and Weenen attacks, a small group was holding Van Rensburg's laager and ran out of powder. Marthinus Jacobus Oosthuizen rode through an estimated 1,500 Zulu warriors to a wagon, took powder and ball, and rode back through them. SAG names Paul Naude and Abraham de Beer with him and puts the defenders at nineteen men. A COUSIN LINE, NOT OURS - he is b1c4d7e3, descended from the stamvader's eldest son; Frans descends from the youngest. Included because the two lines are the same family taking opposite roads out of Drakenstein: one east to Uitenhage, the Tarka and Natal, ours west and then north into the Koup.
Who is on record here
Everyone the record names at this occasion. Who stood together is the clearest surviving evidence of which families were close to which, if you know of others who were here, this is the page they belong on.
Sources
Told in
- subject The muster roll
- setting The brother-in-law who founded a town