Daniel Charles Toohey

Dictionary of South African Biography - Volume V

Toohey, Daniel Charles (Born England, circa 1800 - Died Lebombo Mountains, Swaziland 29.8.1868) was an adventurer, hunter, explorer, authority on Zulu customs, and a self styled diplomat. Nothing is known about his parentage or his early life except that he was said to have been employed in Grahamstown and to have fought in the Sixth Frontier War (1834-35). In 1835 he came to Natal in the cutter Circe with the object of accompanying Captain Alexander to explore and hunt in Central Africa.
Soon after his arrival he joined R Biggar and J Cane on an expedition to Zululand and through his medicinal quackery got on good terms with Dingane with whom he negotiated hunting and trading rights for himself. From an early date he farmed on the Amanzimtoti River and with H Ogle, J King, HF Fynn and others became a white chief of refugee Zulus near Port Natal. As one of the first settlers T. urged that the territory be taken over as a British colony and in late 1837 became 'Superintendent of Works' for the defense of Durban against the Zulus. He was antagonistic to A.Gardiner in the early days and after Gardiner had departed acted as president of the 'land committee' at Port Natal.
T. was a 'persona non grata' with the Voortrekker authorities and by special resolution of the Volksraad was prohibited from owning land at Port Natal. In February 1841 he went to Grahamstown to report to the authorities there on the political situation and racial issues in Natal and because of his anti-trekker activities he was imprisoned by the Boers before the battle of Congella in May 1842. With the arrival in Natal of the British Special Commissioner H Cloete T. came back into his own and went with him to visit Mpande (with whom he was on better terms than with Dingane), to arrange the signing of a treaty with the Zulu chief about the boundaries of Natal and the cession of St Lucia Bay to the British. In this connection his work was rated as of much importance.
After firm British rule had been established in Natal (December 1845) T. continued his hunting and trading activities in association with men such as J Proudfoot, but when the amount of ivory diminished he concentrated upon trading in cattle. T. had an argumentative nature and this characteristic brought him into constant bad odour with both Mpande and the British authorities, it being generally suspected that he was playing off one against the other in order to derive the best advantage for himself.
Over the decade 1835 to 1845 T. accumulated a vast store of knowledge about Zulu life, customs, and, more especially, politics. On this account he tried to pose as an authority on Zululand public affairs in the eyes of the Natal government. He continually pressed for the appointment of a British agent on the Tugela to supervise the interests of Natalians trading with Zululand, but the authorities at both Pietermaritzburg and Cape Town regarded his professional help more as meddling (possibly through misrepresentations, and downright falsehoods) in affairs which did not concern him. that he was well informed, however, was shown by the fact that it was he who first brought to the notice of the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal the proposed rebellion of A Spies at the Klip River in 1847. T. was continually reporting the trade in guns which went on between Natal and Zulus. After the 1850s T's influence over border affairs declined considerably.
T. Shepstone had a good opinion of T's knowledge of the Zulus and Zululand and some have conjectured that Shepstone derived a great deal of information on the subject from him. The evidence T. gave before the Natal Native Commission of 1852 reveals the real depth of his knowledge: he advocated that Zulus in Natal be allowed to purchase land on the quitrent system and that the power of the chiefs be drastically reduced. He ardently supported Shepstone's dictum that the Blacks should be ruled through their own laws and customs.
T. was interested in all aspects of science. The introduction of the cotton plant to Natal i 1838 is attributed to him and he was one of the first to report the existence of coal in the interior of Natal. On many of his trading trips he took the opportunity of exploring for gold, copper, lead and tin, and at the time of his death he was prospecting for gold on the Pongola River. There is no record of any legal marriage.
Written by - B.J.T Leverton

Sources - Natal Arch., Pmbg. Pap. of the Secretary for Native Affairs 1843-1853; - Obituary: The Natal Mercury, 22.9.1868; J. Brid (ed.), Annals of Natal. Pmbg., 1888; - AF Hattersley, The Natalians. Pmbg., 1940; The British settlement of Natal. Camb., 1950; J Stuart and D Mck. Malcolm, The diary of Henry Francis Fynn. Pmbg., 1950; - TV Bulpin, To the shores of Natal. CT., 1953; SA Archival Records. Natal no 1-3 (1838-52). Pta., 1958-62; - Private information: Local History Museum, Dbn.; Cory Lib., Ghstn

DC Toohey, a ship’s cook, who liked to be addressed as ‘Doctor,’ who arrived at Port Natal early in 1835 aboard the ‘Circe’. Within 4 years he had established himself as the acknowledged chief of around 2000 Zulu refugees, and along with another English settler, Henry Ogle, had considerable territory extending down the coast from the Mgeni River. He worked as a trader for a Grahamstown firm, travelling up and down the country with two other traders – Robert Biggar and John Cane. He had at least one son, Tshali (The Zulu version of Toohey’s name, Charles) by a Zulu woman who lived at the Thukela. DC is thought to have married as well, a daughter of Minna - the Grosvenor castaway

Crampton, Hazel. ‘The Sunburnt Queen’. Johannesburg: Jacana. 2004. Print. Contact Sharon Doubell

Minna was possibly Mary Wilmot, the 7yr old survivor of the wreck of the East Indiaman, the Grosvenor in 1782. In 1907 William Bazley describes how, “after the women and children were abandoned by Capt. Cox and his officers, one little girl, who he calls Minna, was carried across the Mzimvubu River by a Lascar man. … Bazley calls her maMolo [so] she was probably raised by the amaMolo.” [Crampton, p299.]

Said to have married a soldier who had deserted from the Cape. Crampton speculates that it might have been one of the four Englishmen deserters who associated with the rebel boers: John Madder, Thomas Bentley; Harry Obry; Coves Bork associated with Willem & Nicholas Lochenburg (the old boer who guided the first missionaries to Bessie’s son, Mdepa in 1827) [Crampton, p299.]

Minna – or Minnie – as Bazley sometimes calls her, is said to have had children with this man, before he died. He says that she then married an escaped slave (or one of the Lascars who survived the Grosvenor) – ‘Domosi’. Crampton suggests the name could be a corruption of ‘Damin’ – a runaway Bengalese slave, who spoke Dutch and acted as Ngqika’s mother’s interpreter, and who is known to have lived alongside the boers.

A missionary, van der Kemp, at Ngqiuka’s Great place, taught Damin – who he called a ‘Mahometan Hindoo’ to read and write. Another of van der Kemp’s pupils was the Khoi woman Sarah, who later married Nicholas Lochenberg, and a ‘Heathen’ woman called Mary… As Minna, like Sarah, eventually settled at the Butterworth mission station, it seems like to Compton, that Minna – the child survivor of the Grosvenor, Mary, the convert, and Mary Wilmot – the 7 year old Grosvenor survivor were the same person. [Crampton p300]

Minna and Damin had several children. One, a son – May Jong (Eastern name?) is said to have lived for many years at the Ibisi in East Griqualand and died there, an old man. Bazley says at least two of her daughters married white men – one becoming Mrs ‘Toughy’ and the other Mrs ‘Piarse’ – with a daughter, Catherine, who marries John Dunn.

Mr ‘Toughy was probably DC Toohey, a ship’s cook, who liked to be addressed as ‘Doctor,’ who arrived at Port Natal early in 1835 aboard the ‘Circe’. Within 4 years he had established himself as the acknowledged chief of around 2000 Zulu refugees, and along with another English settler, Henry Ogle, had considerable territory extending down the coast from the Mgeni River. He worked as a trader for a Grahamstown firm, travelling up and down the countrybwith two other traders – Robert Biggar and John Cane. He had at least one son, Tshali (The Zulu version of Toohey’s name, Charles) by a Zulu woman who lived at the Thukela.

Crampton, Hazel. ‘The Sunburnt Queen’. Johannesburg: Jacana. 2004. Print. Contact Sharon Doubell