​He reshaped the motley band of robbers into a miniature army, what Van Onselen refers to in New Nineveh as the "Witwatersrand's lumpenproletarian army", appointing himself as Inkoos Nkulu or king. "Then I had an Induna Inkulu, styled lord and corresponding to the governor-general. Then I had another lord who was looked upon as father of us all and styled Nonsala.

Then I had my government who were known by numbers, number one to number four. I also had my fighting general on the model of the boer vecht generaal. The administration of justice was confided to a judge for serious causes and a landdrost for petty cases. The medical side was entrusted to a chief doctor or inyanga."

He also appointed colonels, captains, sergeant-majors and sergeants in charge. "This reorganisation took place in the hills of Johannesburg several years before the 1899 war was dreamed of."

Note then decided on a name for "my gang of robbers". He wrote: "I read in the Bible about the great state Nineveh which rebelled against the Lord and I selected that name for my gang as rebels against the government's law." They were called the Ninevites or Umkosi Wezintaba - the Regiment of the Hills.

And so, says Van Onselen, the Ninevites emerged as a "tightly structured organisation" with a "certain amount of ideological cohesion and social purpose".

Then Note made another move to consolidate his empire. He banished the women living in the hills, attributing venereal diseases among his men to them. His inyangas were unable to clear his men of the diseases so this seemed the next obvious step. The older men were to take the younger men as "boy-wives", he decreed.

Van Onselen records that to some extent the Ninevites were involved in "social justice", redressing any injustices that fellow black workers experienced at the hands of their white employers.