Thomas Stubbs, 1820 Settler

A Xhosa oral tradition claims that the great warrior, Chief Maqoma, once asked why Thomas Stubbs fought against them, when he had been raised as one of their own? Even Stubbs’ biographer, Robert McGeoch, believed that he spoke the Xhosa language fluently. Yet, on such things, Stubbs remained silent when he wrote up his Reminiscences. He only told the story of the hunting trips in private to close friends. In Stubbs’s published memoirs, the most solid evidence of his special relationship to the Xhosa people is a map that he drew in 1847, showing all the Xhosa trails through the thick Fish River bush. Where else could this knowledge have come from, but those who showed him? Stubbs also mentioned that one time, just as a battle was about to start, his Xhosa adversaries shouted out and called to him by name.