Pieter Mauritz Retief was born on 12 November 1780 on the farm Soetendal, in the Wagenmakersvalley, and was the fourth of 10 children of Jacobus and Debora Retief - born Joubert. His family were Boers of French Huguenot ancestry. His great-grandfather was the 1688 refugee Francois Retif (1663 – 1721) from Mer sur Blois, Province, in France, the progenitor of the name in South Africa.
Piet’s father was a farmer and he grew up on one of the ancestral vineyard farms Welvanpas, established by French wine-making immigrants near Wellington. He worked on this farm until the age of 27, after which he left the farm to settle on the farm Kromme Rhee, near Stellenbosch. He tried his hand at a number of businesses, most of which were unsuccessful. He was constantly involved in lawsuits and financial difficulties. In 1812 he departed from Stellenbosch to the Eastern Frontier as commandant with the burger commando.
On 4 July 1814 Retief was married in Graaff-Reinet to a widow, Magdalene Johanna (Lenie) De Wet. The couple settled in Uitenhage and had four children. Lenie died in Potchefstroom on 31 August 1855.
Retief later moved to the vicinity of Grahamstown in 1818, where he made his fortune, like other Boers, acquiring wealth through livestock, but suffered repeated losses from Xhosa invaders. He was an educated man and because of his involvement in various commandos, he gained good leadership qualities and was appointed field commandant of the Albany district in 1822. These raids eventually prompted the 6th Cape Frontier War in 1835. He assumed command as provincial field commandant of punitive expeditions in response to raiding parties from the adjacent Xhosa territory. His letters indicate that he was a refined and intelligent person who was known for his honesty, moral integrity and benevolence. These factors made him a good candidate for leadership in the Voortrekker community. He was also known for his restless nature and energy.
Retief, however, had a history of financial troubles. According to historians, Retief possessed more than 30 farms during his stay in the Eastern Cape. He is reported to have gone bankrupt at least twice while at the colony and on the frontier. He eventually lost his money in a bad business decision. He accepted contracts for the erection of barracks and a drostdy at Grahamstown. Although he was a rich man at that stage, he experienced significant losses when he left the business operations in the hands of foremen and mercenaries and he was forced to do Commando service at the border to suppress robbery, raiding and murder. After the contracts failed, he excepted defeat, surrended his estate in 1834 for the second time and was forced to return to farming near the Great Winterberg, on the farm Mooimeisjesfontein, district Riebeeck-East, where he lived with his family from 1834-36.
During this time the Cape became a British colony. Great Britain began to introduce a series of reforms that angered many Boers. Reforms that deeply affected many Afrikaners were laws prohibiting the slave trade and later the abolition of slavery at the Cape. This meant that many Dutch farmers at the Cape lost a great deal of their wealth and Retief provided the Voortrekkers with leadership in this period. He became a spokesperson for the frontier farmers who voiced their discontent. He mediated between the Afrikaner farmers and the British government represented by the newly appointed Lieutenant-governor of the Eastern Cape, Andries Stockenström, with the expectation that conditions would change soon. When talks with the latter failed, he helped to organize the migration of farmers to the north of the country, which eventually became known as the Great Trek. Retief became a leader of a group of Voortrekkers who later followed other Voortrekkers who had already decided to leave the Cape Colony in search of a better place far away from British control and domination. His household departed in two wagons from his farm Mooimeisiesfontein in early February 1837 and joined a party of 30 other wagons.
The pioneers crossed the Orange River in March 1837 into independent territory. In April 1837 his group arrived at Thaba Nchu and there it joined a group of 300 Voortrekkers that had converged at the Vet River earlier. They considered Piet Retief to be their leader and on 17 April elected him their "Governor of the United Laagers". This coalition was short-lived. Retief believed that Natal would be the ideal destination for the Trekkers as it offered the convenience of connection with the outside world and to carry on trading business. On 4 July he sent a commission of five men to find a suitable route for the wagons over the Drakensberg. At their return, the scouts announced that they had found no less than 5 passages over the mountain.
On 5 October 1837 Piet Retief established a camp of 54 wagons at Kerkenberg near the Drakensberg ridge. He led his group across the Drakensberg range in the hope of settling in the more fertile Zululand. This area was under the kingship of Dingane, Shaka’s half brother. He proceeded on horseback the next day, with 14 men and 4 wagons, to explore the region between the Drakensberg and Port Natal, now known as kwaZulu Natal. He arrived in Port Natal in middle October and was heartily welcomed by the English merchants trading there.
When he continued his journey alongside the coast to Dingane, he was accompanied by Thomas Halstead as interpreter. Using the missionary, Francis Owen, Retief sent a letter to Dingane telling him that he wished to live in peace with the Zulu people. Due to his favourable impression of the region, Retief started negotiations for land with the Zulu king when he visited Dingane at the Royal Kraal late in October 1837. Retief was in high spirits at the prospect of negotiating a land deal for his people with Dingane. He returned a message to the laager on 2 November, announcing to them that they may enter Natal. In November 1837, about 1000 Voortrekker wagons started the descent down the Drakensberg from the Orange Free State into Natal.
Retief visited Dingane a second time with a delegation of 5 men and an English interpreter, with the purpose to negotiate the purchase of uninhabited territory with the Zulu King. During the negotiations, Dingane accused Retief’s people of the theft of approximately 300 cattle from one of the Zulu kraals. The Zulu King agreed to a Boer settlement in Natal, provided that the Boers retrieve the stolen cattle as a token of their innocence and friendly intentions. Retief however, suspected that the rival Basotho nation, under Chief Sekonyela, was responsible for the theft.
At the end of November Retief was back with his people, who in the meantime had moved nearer to the vicinity of the Drakensberg. He immediately departed for Sekonyela with a party of 70 Boers and succeeded, their reputation and rifles cowing the people into handing over some 700 head of cattle, 63 horses and a few rifles. On their return journey to hand the stolen cattle back to Dingane, the victorious party visited the laager at Doornkop on the 10th January 1838, where he immediately started with preparations to return to Dingane with the retrieved cattle. A meeting was held as to how they would be returned to Dingane. Retief was requested by various parties, including Maritz, not to return to Umgundgundlovu. In his sincerity, but also perhaps he did not have enough knowledge of the mentality of the Zulus, Retief never expected any betrayal. Besides, he did not dare to give Dingane offence or suspicion, as he could then refuse to sign the purchase agreement. Retief rather chose to put his life, and those of his men, in danger.
Dingane sent the trekkers on this mission to test the military capability of Retief's men. He promised them that if they succeeded he would give them land to live on. Their success made Dingane aware that an outright battle with the Voortrekkers would not lead to Zulu victory. These events, together with Retief’s messages that bad kings do not rule forever, was seen as sufficient proof that Retief was planning an attack against Dingane. As a result, Dingane conceived a plot to kill all of them.
Despite warnings, Retief left the Tugela region on 25 January 1838 in the belief that he could negotiate with Dingane on permanent boundaries for the Natal settlement. The party consisting of approximately 60 (some documents say 70) volunteers, including his own son and another 3 minors, as well as 30 mounted servants, arrived back at Umgundgundlovu on 3 February 1838, unaware of Dingane’s distrust towards the Whites in Natal. On the following day, a treaty was signed, whereby Dingane ceded all the land south of the Tugela River, as far as the Umzimvubu River in the Transkei and to the north from the sea as far as they needed to the Voortrekkers.
A total of about 70 Voortrekkers with Piet Retief entered the main cattle kraal and were received by the king. They were to witness a special farewell performance by his Zulu impis. Suddenly, when the dancing had reached a frenzied climax, Dingane leapt to his feet and shouted Bulalani amathakati! “Kill the wizards!”. Dingane's warriors, who had appeared to be unarmed, pulled spears from the cow dung in the kraal and attacked the Voortrekker group. The Voortrekkers made their best attempt at fighting back, using their hunting knives and their fists. The Zulus had to overpower the Voortrekkers without killing them, as it was against Zulu custom for blood to be spilled in the Royal kraal. Some of them actually died in the kraal, but most of the group, Retief, his son, men and coloured servants, about 100 people in total, were overpowered and dragged across the Umkhumbane stream to Kwa-Matiwane, the "place of execution", where Dingane had thousands of enemies who offended or angered him, executed.
The Zulus butchered the entire party to death by clubbing them. They killed Retief last, so as to witness the deaths of his son and comrades. Their bodies were left on the hillside for the vultures. On a hill overlooking Umgundgundlovu, in 1838, the Reverend Francis Owen tried to negotiate the establishment of a permanent mission station. Also from this hill, he was witness to the slaying of Retief and his men on that fateful day.
