Crossing the Buffalo

by Adrian Greaves

  I have no fears myself that Natal will be overrun by hostile Zulus, but much fear that Zululand should be overrun by hostile Britons.1

  Following the British defeat at Isandlwana, there was one question being asked across Britain that could not be answered: ‘Who were the Zulus?’

  Like the first Dutch settlers and now the assembling British soldiers, the Zulus had also invaded southern Africa by migrating down the east coast. One Bantu tribe, the Nguni, settled the area known today as Natal, while the remaining Bantu, the Xhosa tribe, continued south, eventually reaching the Great Fish river only 500 miles from the Cape.

  The beginning of the nineteenth century had seen the more northerly Nguni chiefdoms immune from the effects of the Cape Frontier Wars. They were, however, not immune from pressure created by their own growing populations, and, resources being limited, internecine violence resulted. Four chiefs, Dingiswayo, Zwide, Matiwane and Mtimkulu, were principally responsible for the resultant catastrophic intertribal warfare and economic destruction that followed as each chief waged war on his neighbour in order to become the paramount chief. This warfare degenerated into virtual genocide of those tribes that suffered defeat and has often, but incorrectly, been attributed to Shaka; it resulted in vast tracts of land being depopulated.

  The situation changed between 1816 and 1824 when the Zulu people, whose traditional lands lay on the southern bank of the White Mfolozi river and far beyond the reach of either Boer or British influence, came to dominate their neighbours; their success being due to a powerful combination of astute diplomacy and ruthless military force applied by their legendary leader, Shaka kaSenzangakona. Indeed, by the 1820s, many of the groups south of the Tugela had survived the threat of Zulu attack or of being scattered as refugees only by pledging their allegiance to Shaka. The repercussions from Shaka’s autocratic reign spread far and wide. With each Zulu purge or victory, a fresh wave of refugees would fall upon their neighbouring tribe; some would blend to form new kingdoms while others fought for ascendancy. Chief Sobhuza consolidated what became the Swazi kingdom, the Ngwane and Hlubi people encroached upon the Sotho peoples while Chief Sikonyela settled his people along the Orange river; instead of finding peace, these tribes suffered raids by the growing bands of Bastaards, themselves refugees from the Cape. Things were no better to the north; Prince Mzilikazi took his tribe across the Vaal river and established the Ndebele kingdom until his people were forced by Shaka’s army to move northwards where Mzilikazi occupied the Tswana chiefdom.

  The Zulus were highly civilized; they enjoyed complex social structures, were competent cattle farmers and were able to make implements out of metal which was virtually equal to steel. One of these items, the throwing spear, ensured their ascendancy over any San and Khoikhoi they encountered, and would soon seriously inconvenience the whites. Their social structure valued marriage, a concept orientated more towards property than the values of conventional European marriage; its complex system of dowry payments for a wife, known as ilobolo, ensured that a man could not marry until he was established in society and possessed sufficient cattle to pay the required ilobolo. The more cattle a man had, the more wives he could buy. It was this Zulu dependency on cattle for the vital ilobolo, for social prestige and their subsequent wealth, which was to bring them into permanent conflict with the trekkers. To the Zulus, the Boers had more than sufficient cattle ‘for the taking’ and cattle-raiding was, after all, a traditional and popular Zulu activity.

  Another Zulu ritual that was later to be feared, misunderstood, and which tended to give many a British soldier in southern Africa sleepless nights, was the Zulu post-battle cleansing tradition of disembowelling the enemy, usually with a knife-like weapon – rarely the assegai. To the Zulus it was essential that those slain in battle be ritually disembowelled to free any incarcerated spirit and to protect the victor from absorbing any bad spirits previously possessed by their victim. As a final cleansing rite the victor then had to have intercourse with a woman, not his wife, before returning to his clan. This practice ensured that any remaining trace of evil spirits would be left with the woman, leaving the victor clean and whole to return home. It also ensured that after battle the impi would rapidly and enthusiastically disperse from the battlefield for the purpose of religious cleansing.2 Zulu warriors were only accorded any real status when they had ‘washed’ their spears in the blood of a defeated enemy. Both medicine and superstition played an important part in Zulu life to the extent that each clan chief was able to maintain complete control through fear by utilizing his witch doctor’s ability to ‘smell out’ dissenters, dissension being a crime punishable with immediate execution of the offender or, in serious cases, his whole family or homestead; there was no possible appeal. Every adult male was a warrior who, on the call from his chief, would join his amabutho, a guild or regiment of warriors; collectively, this was a remarkably successful form of national service and bonded each age group to its chief. Zulu military tactics were in their infancy and interclan differences were traditionally resolved by each side engaging in giya, a process of hurling threats and some throwing of spears for an hour or two until one side felt they were in ascendancy. Such disputes rarely resulted in more than casual bloodshed but this relatively harmless system of challenge was to be short-lived.

  At the time of the Xhosa’s first encounter with the Boers, an insignificantly small group of between 100 and 200 Nguni people lived some 300 miles away along the banks of the White Mfolozi river. Their chief, named Zulu, was succeeded by his two brothers who then gave way to Senzangakona. During this embryonic stage of their development the group adopted the title ‘Zulu’ and had grown in size to well over 1,000. In about 1787 Senzangakona fathered the child of a neighbouring eLangeni chief’s daughter, Nandi. Under pressure from her father, Senzangakona reluctantly appointed Nandi as his unofficial third wife but refused to recognize her son, iShaka. When the Zulus were hit by famine Nandi and her children were evicted back to the unwelcoming eLangeni, who responded by treating the family as outcasts.

  In 1802 Nandi was forced to flee and sought refuge with the Qwabe clan where she had previously given birth to a son by a Qwabe warrior named Gendeyana. Under Gendeyana’s patronage the family again received shelter and the young Shaka developed into such a skilled warrior that Senzangakona eventually sought his return. Shaka’s reputation increased and legend records both his fearlessness when hunting wild animals and great prowess with the spear. At the age of 24 Shaka was called to join King Dingiswayo’s iziCwe ibutho. During the next five years he closely studied the king’s strategy of control over other tribes by the use of brutal and aggressive tactics, a policy frequently but incorrectly attributed to Shaka.

  Now nearly 30 years of age, Shaka was appointed to lead the iziCwe regiment; he taught his warriors the close combat for which he became famous and caused the ineffective throwing spears to be melted down and recast as the long and sharp, flat-bladed stabbing spear3 or ikwa, the onomatopoeic term for the sucking sound of the blade being withdrawn from a body. He ordered his regiment’s traditional large shields to be cut down in size and strengthened, so that in close combat the new shield could be hooked under that of an opponent and, when twisted sideways, revealed the opponent’s body exposed and vulnerable to the deadly ikwa thrust.

  His retrained regiment was soon pitched against the nearby Buthelezi tribe and in due course both regiments lined up for the traditional giya. The unsuspecting Buthelezi, led by Shaka’s half-brother, Bakaza, commenced to giya in expectation of the usual bloodless confrontation. But Shaka rushed upon and instantly killed Bakaza whereupon the iziCwe fell upon the hapless and unsuspecting Buthelezi warriors who fled for their lives. Not content with his victory, Shaka led his warriors into the Buthelezi homestead, firing huts and killing everyone they could find, including women and children.

  Shaka then turned his attention to the eLangeni tribe who had treated his mother so severely. On seeing Shaka’s approaching force, many of the eLa
ngeni people fled in terror. The tribal elders remained in an attempt to placate Shaka. They failed and were all savagely put to death; the surviving eLangeni people were absorbed into Shaka’s alliance of compliant tribes. It was Shaka’s ruthlessness that gave him the reputation he enjoyed; in battle he was merciless, to the survivors and their families he was equally pitiless – surviving men were killed, the women and children taken and absorbed into the growing Zulu tribe; other tribes swiftly sought alliance with the Zulus rather than risk being attacked. Impressed by his success, Dingiswayo appointed Shaka to lead the northern Zulu tribe. On Senzangakona’s death Shaka learned that another son, Sigujana kaSenzangakona, had been nominated as heir to the Zulu clan; Shaka immediately dealt with the matter by having Sigujana assassinated. Shaka annexed the Zulu clan and disposed of his half-brothers Mhlangana and Mpande; the most threatening half-brother, Dingane, was sent back to his own distant clan, an offshoot of the Qwabe tribe.

  Shaka was in his early thirties when he commenced his ruthless reign. Any opponents or dissenters were mercilessly executed, as were warriors who did not reach the exacting physical standards required for a Zulu regiment or impi. He perfected the ikwa stabbing spear and developed the impondo zankomo, the encircling technique known as the ‘horns of the bull’. This was a technique formerly used for hunting large herds, whereby the fast-running horns, the umuva, of the two flanks encircled an enemy. The main Zulu body, the isiFuba, would then engage the surrounded enemy at close quarters with their shields and stabbing spears. Shaka drilled his Zulus remorselessly in order to attack the resurgent and belligerent Buthelezi clan, who appeared to have ignored the lesson of their previous encounter. When the two sides met, Shaka’s warriors encircled the Buthelezi and slaughtered them before their distraught onlookers. Shaka then ordered the mass slaughter of the Buthelezi non-combatants. Meanwhile, Dingiswayo was captured in battle by a neighbouring chief, Zwide, and put to death; the defeated tribe fled to Shaka for protection.

  By 1818 Shaka’s fearsome army had grown to more than 2,000 warriors and his sphere of influence was steadily increasing. The struggle for power now focused on Chief Zwide. Zwide’s overwhelming force attacked Shaka at Gqokli hill but the battle was inconclusive and both sides withdrew to their own territory. Shaka’s army was still intact and warriors from other clans immediately flocked to swell his ranks. Zwide attacked the Zulus again in the summer of 1819 with a massive army of nearly 20,000 warriors but this time Shaka was even better prepared. Shaka teased Zwide’s army into following a number of feints across barren terrain; several days later, when Zwide’s men were starving, Shaka attacked and destroyed them.

  Thereafter Shaka ruled unchallenged, albeit with constant guidance from his mother, Nandi. His army grew to over 20,000 trained warriors and was based in a heartland that extended from the Indian Ocean to the Drakensberg and from the Pongola river in the north to the Tugela river in the south. Shaka forced his ruthless influence still further and by 1822 his clan had grown into an empire whose influence extended beyond the Drakensberg mountains into the Kalahari desert, north to the shores of Lake Malawi and south to the northern Cape.

  Shaka knew of the handful of white men who had recently settled at a small coastal enclave known to the whites as Port Natal and in early 1824 he sent them an invitation to visit his kraal at kwaBulawayo, ‘the place of him who kills’. The party consisted of Lieutenant Francis George Farewell RN, Henry Francis Fynn, who was the British Resident in Zululand, and four hardy pioneers, John Cane, Henry Ogle, Joseph Powell and Thomas Halstead, together with a large number of gifts. James King and Nathaniel Isaacs joined the group several weeks later. They were welcomed as a source of exotic trade-goods, including firearms. This meeting was a success and established Farewell’s expedition as a client chiefdom at the Bay. It was to this ramshackle beginning that all subsequent British claims to the region owed their origin. The title ‘king’, as applied to the Zulu leader, appears to have evolved from a spontaneous gesture by Lieutenant Farewell during an early meeting with Shaka. In deference to Shaka, Farewell took a smear of grease from one of his cannon wheel hubs and ceremonially anointed Shaka on his forehead, after which he was referred to as the ‘king’.

  After various displays and feasts, Farewell and Fynn finally met Shaka and during one of their meetings they sought and were granted trading rights for the Farewell Trading Company. The party returned to Port Natal but without Fynn, who remained at Shaka’s request – not as a hostage but to enable Shaka to learn more of the white men. Fynn was residing at the royal amakhanda when an attempt was made on Shaka’s life. Shaka was stabbed through his left arm and ribs by an unknown assailant and was close to death for a week. During this time Fynn cleaned and bandaged the wound and generally watched over Shaka, who quickly recovered. Shaka believed that members of the distant Qwabe tribe were responsible for the attempt; accordingly, two impis were dispatched which captured the Qwabe cattle and destroyed their kraals. The settlers’ position was assured and Shaka allegedly signed an agreement granting Farewell nearly 4,000 square miles of land around Port Natal.

  Two years later Farewell and Fynn accompanied Shaka’s army of over 15,000 warriors on an expedition against the distant Ndwandwe clan that resulted in the total slaughter of the Ndwandwe, an event that distressed even Farewell and Fynn, though Shaka was delighted with the 60,000 captured cattle. Fynn’s horror at the post-battle massacre was recorded in his diary:

  The enemy’s [Ndwandwe] loss had now become more severe. This urged the Zulus to a final charge. The shrieks now became terrific. The remnants of the [Ndwandwe] army sought shelter in an adjoining wood, out of which they were soon driven. Then began a slaughter of the women and children. They were all put to death. The battle from the commencement to the close did not last more than an hour and a half … Early next morning Shaka arrived and each regiment, previous to its inspection by him, had picked out its cowards and put them to death.4

  Shaka’s total disregard for human life was difficult for the Europeans to comprehend; even in peaceful times a dozen or more daily executions were carried out before Shaka – often for minor indiscretions; it was a custom that continued through to King Cetshwayo’s reign. The absolute nature of his power was demonstrated when Nandi suddenly died during 1827. Shaka’s grief was so intense that he required every Zulu to experience his loss and ordered a gathering of some 20,000 souls within the royal homestead. Enforced wailing and summary executions commenced and continued throughout the day until well over 1,000 of the multitude lay dead. Shaka then decreed that during the next twelve months no crops could be grown, children conceived, or milk drunk – all on pain of death.

  Fynn was present and recorded the event in his diary:

  Those who could not force more tears from their eyes, those who were found near the river panting for water, were beaten to death by others who were mad with excitement. Towards the afternoon I calculated that not fewer than seven thousand people had fallen in this frightful indiscriminate massacre. The adjacent stream, to which many had fled exhausted to wet their tongues, became impassable from the corpses which lay on either side of it;while the kraal in which the scene took place was flowing with blood.5

  The situation continued for three months until Shaka tired of mourning, whereupon some normality returned. The damage and carnage was such that Shaka’s half-brothers, Dingane and Mhlangana, clandestinely agreed that Shaka must die. They waited until the army was on campaign and stabbed Shaka to death during a meeting with his remaining advisers. His body was unceremoniously buried in a pit, weighted down with stones.

  Within days the exhausted and anxious Zulu army returned in expectation of Shaka’s wrath, only to be relieved when Dingane welcomed the army back, fed them and then authorized their leave. Dingane thus ensured their loyalty and – having meanwhile murdered Mhlangana – he assumed the mantle of king.

  Between King Shaka’s death in 1828 and the Zulu War, the Zulu kingdom underwent considerable change, as d
id the power of its monarchy. King Dingane settled into a life of luxury and security. At no more than 30 years of age he enjoyed singing, dancing and clearly had an artistic inclination. Unlike Shaka, King Dingane spent most of his time in the isigodlo being entertained with singing and dancing or reviewing parades of warriors and cattle. He reduced the size of the Zulu army and Shaka’s previous policy of random butchery ceased, though offenders were still summarily executed without trial or mercy.

  Having controlled the advancing Boers, King Dingane decided to reestablish his control over the non-Zulu tribes by undertaking a punitive expedition against a younger half-brother, Mpande, who promptly fled to the Boers for protection with nearly 20,000 of his people. The Boers realized the Zulus were in disarray and mounted a massive counter-expedition, which included Mpande’s Zulus in support of the Boers, mainly to recapture their lost cattle and horses. The king sent two ambassadors to plead for a truce with the Boers who were camped at the site of the Blood River battle, but the two were promptly executed out of vengeance for their suspected complicity with Retief’s murder. During the protracted skirmishing that followed, the Boers recovered most of their cattle and King Dingane was forced to flee across the northern Pongola river where Zulus loyal to Prince Mpande murdered him.

  In a matter of days the news of the king’s death swept across Natal and then beyond to the many tribes who had been displaced by Shaka and Dingane. These commenced their own trek back to their homelands, only to discover the Boers were settling on their lands. The Boer Volksraad (Council) decreed that the natives, now starving and homeless, were to be rounded up and moved into a native homeland well away from the Boer sphere of influence. The British at the Cape heard of the plan towards the end of 1841 and forbade the Boer action. British troops reseized Durban and quickly dispatched sufficient administrators to govern the area while the Volksraad endeavoured to regain control over the increasingly contrary Boers, who had even tried, unsuccessfully, to enlist the support of the king of Holland (a wasted exercise, as Holland had no intention of provoking Britain). In 1842 the British formally took control of Natal by force and European immigration into the area thereafter increased which, in turn, resulted in a shortage of good farmland; many newly arrived farmers began to look at the verdant pastures of Zululand.