Natal (South Africa)

Natal (South Africa), former province in eastern South Africa, located on the Indian Ocean. The region of Natal is now contained by the province of KwaZulu-Natal, one of nine provinces established in April 1994, at the time of South Africa's first free elections.

At the beginning of the 19th century, many groups of the Nguni, a Bantu-speaking people, lived in the Natal area. Shaka—chief of the Zulu group, a branch of the Nguni—conquered the surrounding Nguni groups and incorporated them into the Zulu empire. Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sighted the northeastern coast of what is now South Africa on December 25 (Christmas Day), 1497. He called the region Natal, from the Portuguese word for Christmas. European settlement began in 1824 when the British established a trading post at Port Natal (now Durban). They acquired the site from Shaka. Soon thereafter, fighting erupted with the Zulu. The Zulu were finally defeated by the Afrikaners, or Boers (descendants of Dutch and French Huguenot settlers), who traveled north during the Great Trek from the Cape Colony, a British colony in the southern and western part of what is now South Africa (see Cape Province). Afrikaners then controlled Natal from 1837 to 1843. Many Afrikaners left when Natal came under British control in 1843.

In 1845 Natal was annexed to the Cape Colony, but it was reestablished as a separate colony in 1856. During the second half of the 19th century, many British immigrated to Natal. Starting in 1860, the British brought indentured laborers from India to work on the sugar plantations in Natal. Later, many free Indians immigrated to Natal; the region continues to have the largest Indian population in South Africa.

In 1879 another war between the British and the Zulu in Natal ended with a British victory. Natal gained limited self-government in 1893, and four years later Zululand was officially incorporated into the colony. Natal was invaded by Afrikaners in 1899 at the outbreak of the Boer War, but the Afrikaners were driven out by the British in 1900. Ten years later Natal became one of the original provinces of the Union of South Africa. The Union of South Africa became the Republic of South Africa in 1961.

From 1948 until 1994, South Africa was racially segregated under a system known as apartheid (Afrikaans for “separateness”). In the 1950s all black South Africans were divided according to ethnicity and assigned to certain territories called bantustans, or black homelands. The bantustan of KwaZulu was created in Natal and designated as a supposed homeland for the Zulu. KwaZulu consisted of many small fragments of land scattered throughout the province. In 1994 Natal and the bantustan of KwaZulu were recombined to form the new province of KwaZulu-Natal.