In the article below, researcher and journalist Lucille Davie, tells the story of Nongoloza, the mythic figure who established the infamous Ninevites gang. The piece was first published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 9 January 2008. Click here to view more of Davie's work.
It all started with a horse back in 1886 - a horse that went missing and had to be found or paid for by somebody. That somebody was Nongoloza, and he felt he was being treated badly, so badly that he moved from KwaZulu-Natal to Johannesburg, where he started his career as a crime king.
"On informing my master of this [the missing horse] he accused me of being negligent and blamed me for it and told me to go and look for it," recounted Nongoloza in a statement many years later. "I told him that as I was working in the garden on that day and he could not hold me responsible for the loss, as all the horses were out grazing alone."
Nongoloza described how his "master" threatened to put him in jail if he didn't go and look for the horse, so he went and looked but did not find the horse.
"He [Tom J] then told me to go back to my kraal and work for Mr Tom P again, and added that Tom P would then bring to him the value of the horse that was lost. This amount would represent my wages for about two years."
It was this...
