Zululand

I

Introduction

Zululand, historic region in eastern South Africa, comprising the northeastern portion of what is today KwaZulu-Natal province. It is the traditional homeland of the Zulu people and was the site of a powerful Zulu kingdom in the 19th century. The region extends from the Thukela (Tugela) River in the southwest and the Indian Ocean in the southeast to the Phongolo (Pongola) River in the north. At its furthest extent in the 1820s, the Zulu kingdom comprised most of present-day KwaZulu-Natal.

II

Pre-19th-Century History

Zululand was first settled by Iron Age people from East Africa who migrated into the region by the 3rd century ad. By about 1500, the inhabitants were physically, linguistically, and culturally similar to the African population in Zululand today. Each family lived in a circle of thatched, beehive-shaped huts surrounding a central cattle enclosure, and supported itself with the produce of its small fields and livestock. A family’s wealth was measured by how many heads of cattle it owned. Chiefs ruled over constantly shifting territories, as rivals competed for cattle, land, and followers.

Chiefdoms in the region were small until the late 18th century, when some began to expand. Why they did so is unclear. Sharpening competition for resources in a time of prolonged drought and an increasing need to defend against European slave and ivory traders may well have forced the small chiefdoms to undertake major changes to survive. The most significant of these changes was the development of the amabutho system, in which all of a chiefdom’s young men were grouped by age into military regiments (amabutho). The chiefs used the amabutho to control their own subjects and to protect them against outside enemies. Keeping the amabutho fed and properly rewarded required constant raids against neighboring chiefdoms, and this added to a growing cycle of regional violence.

III

Impact of the Mfecane

By the end of the 18th century two main rival chiefdoms had emerged in the region: the Ndwandwe and the Mthethwa. The Zulu chiefdom was allied with the Mthethwa as a subordinate state. Starting in the 1810s, intensifying conflict between the rival groups caused their weaker neighbors to move out of their way, dislodging other chiefdoms in their path. This period of turmoil and subsequent migrations, lasting in the region through the 1820s, is often referred to as the mfecane, meaning “the crushing” in Nguni languages.

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In 1817 the Ndwandwe defeated the Mthethwa, leaving only the Zulu chiefdom to stand against them. When the Zulu chiefdom was a subordinate state, the Mthethwa chief Dingiswayo had encouraged Shaka, the Zulu chief, to build up his military power. Shaka had perfected the highly successful Zulu battle tactics. In battle, the Zulu army was meant to resemble a charging bull, and was therefore divided into three groups: the bull’s chest, horns, and loins. The chest, featuring the strongest warriors, was meant to hold down the enemy while the horns, two divisions containing the fastest warriors, surrounded the enemy. When the horns completely encircled the enemy, the chest would finish it off in hand-to-hand fighting with a stabbing spear. The loins were held in reserve to reinforce divisions and to pursue the enemy as it fled.

In 1818, through a combination of diplomacy and military aggression, Shaka consolidated Zulu power over the entire region once dominated by the Mthethwa. Chiefdoms that submitted to Zulu overlordship were given protection in return for providing manpower for the amabutho. Shaka further developed the amabutho system, making it central to social and economic life of his growing state, and extended it to include women as well. The system remained the basis of the Zulu leader’s power until the fall of the Zulu state in the late 19th century.

In 1819 Shaka defeated the Ndwandwe, taking over their territory to the north, and also defeated and dispersed lesser chiefdoms to the west and southwest. Shaka was now the preeminent ruler of what came to be known as the Zulu kingdom. The Zulu were not strong enough to establish a permanent presence in the more distant regions, however, and had to be satisfied with constant raids and with the payment of tribute. Defeated or terrified chiefdoms who attempted to move out of the range of the Zulu armies added to the general confusion and devastation of southeastern Africa.

In 1824 a small British trading settlement was established at Port Natal (later Durban), which fatefully connected Zululand to the colonial world. Shaka welcomed the British hunters and traders as suppliers of exotic goods and, because they had firearms, as mercenaries in his wars. In return he permitted them to live peacefully at Port Natal like chiefs living in his kingdom under his overlordship.

IV

Arrival of the Afrikaners

Resistance to Shaka’s unending military campaigns and high-handed style of rule grew in the 1820s. In 1828 a trusted adviser and two of Shaka’s half-brothers assassinated him. One of the conspirators, Shaka’s half-brother Dingane, swiftly killed almost all of his rivals in the royal house and brutally established his authority. Unlike Shaka, Dingane was suspicious of the British presence in Port Natal, which was growing in size and independence. However, the greater threat came from over the Drakensberg Mountains to the west.

In October 1837 Dutch-speaking Afrikaners (or Boers, Dutch for “farmers”) began emigrating across the Drakensberg Mountains into the Zulu kingdom. These emigrants, known as Voortrekkers, requested permission from Dingane to settle in Zulu territory south of the Thukela River. Aware that the same group of Voortrekkers had recently defeated a powerful nearby state, Dingane feared that the Afrikaners would overrun Zululand. In February 1838 Dingane invited their leader, Pieter Retief, and a party of his followers to his homestead to negotiate. There, Dingane had the Voortrekker party massacred. He simultaneously sent his armies to attack the Voortrekkers’ encampments. After an indecisive series of battles, the Voortrekkers avenged the massacre by defeating the Zulu army on December 16, 1838, at the Battle of Blood River, also known as the Battle of Ncome River.

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