The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-09-19
A REMARKABLE HOTTENTOT.
The Career and Last Fight of Smith Pom
mer, the Famous Griqua Chief.

The Career and Last Fight of Smith Pom
| mer, the Famous Griqua Chief.
The London World says: We copied
recently from South African paper a
little paragraph relating to the killing
of Smith Pommer. Some of our readers
may wonder who Smith Pommer is or
rather was. He was remarkable man
Although naturalized Griqua, he was
pure Hottentot in blood and inherited
the craft of his race. His father, who
was one of the Kat River people, was an
industrious man, who did his best to i'm
prove his condition and educate his son.
But the boy, when only fourteen, Joined
the Kat River rebellion, and after its
defeat escaped into Basutoland, and
afterward found himself in Nomansland,
where he and many of his rebel compan-
ions established themselves, surrounded
by hostile neighbors. Smith Pommer
grew into fighter and then into leader.
His dimiputive figure, his droll behavior,
his native wit and his inventive faculties
made him distinctive character, and a
great superior to the ignorant people
around him. He became recognized as
a speech maker and diplomat. His dash,
above all, dazzled the Griquas and Caf-
fres both, and those who distrusted him
for his tricks admired him for his bold
ness. White people who became &C.
quainted with him called it impudence
and bluster; but he was genuinely feared
by the Caffres, and regarded by others
with something like superstition.
The Catfres in time believed that he
bore charmed life, for while notori-
ously miserable shot, and seldom using a
weapon himself in fight, he could show
legs and arms SCARED with wounds
With lofty idea of effect, he always
let those wounds show themselves, and
cultivated the impression that with all
these scars no bullet had ever entered
his skin, which was not true. After some
years of a wandering, vagabond, warning
life, Smith Pommer married the pretty
Griqua girl, Wilhelmina Buruman, and
made compromise of " settling down "
by turning transport rider. While on
one of these trading journeys, the ANA
baoas swooped down upon his place at
Bies river, surrounded those who could
offer resistance, and in the fight Smith
Pommer's young wife was shot dead.
Smiths career then took q predatory
turn again, and for some time he was an
intriguing freebooter.
In Adam Kok's time he again married,
this time into one of the most respect
able and well to do of the settled Griaua
families-the Ulbrechts. 1t is spoken
OF as remarkable wedding. Having
gone through the ceremony at Kokstad,
he took his bride to his home at Bies
river, from which he had sent out invi-
tations to every one in the region, of all
colors and occupations. The bride, a
good-looklng young woman, with but
little dark blood in her veins-was
mounted on rude throne in the open
air, and before her every guest, white
and black, passed separately, bowed his
homage, and laid gift at her feet.
This, to them, unique ceremony was
gone through with by hundreds of peo-
PIE from far and wide, and the wedding
was kept up for two days. The shrewd
and original bridegroom acquired, it is
said, a considerable amount of property
in the shape of wedding gifts. Smith
now returned more steadily to his trans
port riding, but still manifested his
prestige among the people and became a
sort of commandant in Capt. Kok's army,
His ingenuity in laying snare in order
to obtain influence or gain point was
we'll known, and many of the Griquas at
last had learned to hold aIoof from him.
The part he took in the outbreak which
brought his reckless life to a close has
been told in the colonial papers since
the Kokstad disturbance. His excuse
for being among the rebels-which NAV
or may not have had foundation-was
that his name had been falsely mixed up
with the discomfort, and he was on his
way to bring in Adam Muis to prove him.
self innocent. 1t is said, however, that
he entrapped numbers into rebellion by
telling them to come to certain meet
ing armed, and when they got there
made them believe their act had already
committed them to rebellion. 1t is also
said that he led on other men of influence
who he knew, would draw MANY after
them, by writing fictitious letters to
Capt. Blyth and reading out imaginary
replies. The fight in which he and
Adam Kok's son were routed from the
old lager near Kokstad ended in the
death of the latter, and Smith himself.
with few attached followers, fed at
dusk to the mountains toward Pondo-
land.
1t was weird place that Smith Pom.
| H4St e'hN Aio Ohii,t ildi CuOSSu W Ul6 Ill
High up in the thunder beaten peaks OF
the Ingeli, where the last bluff in that
rugged range stands out like terrible
battlement, where the beacon waves on
the crag that looks down over three coun-
tr'es-through the deep valleys of Natal
on one side the bushy hills of Pondoland
in front, and still over the upland slopes
of Griqualand on the other side-here in
a steep ravine Smith and his followers
hid through the day. Toward night the
sound of guns was heard in the krantzes
and some of his men fell at the hands of
his Caffre pursuers. A Caffre shot at
Pommer, but missing was shot in re-
turn, and fell down rock out of sight
as if wounded. Watching his chance
this Caffre again shot where he saw
bush stirred, and the next morning the
body of Smith Pommer was brought out
with bullet through the hip. Smith
Pommer met his death by the hand of
one of race against whom his enmity
had been nurtured from infancy.
The Banks of the United States.
The following statement exhibits the