 From his leadership of the frontier settlers' attacks on Stockenstrom's treaty system, Godlonton had acquired a very prominent and powerful position in the Eastern Cape.In the 1840s he thus began to take on the role of self-appointed leader of the Eastern Cape separatist movement.This movement accused the Cape Town-based government of being overly lenient in its frontier policy, and called for the political capital to be moved to a city nearer the frontier or, barring that, for the white Eastern Cape to be allowed to secede as a separate state.