We must temporarily leave the Boers and their plans and turn our attention across the country to what is now Natal. At the turn of the 19th century, the Nguni people were made up of a number of disparate clans or tribes* including the Ngwane, the Zulu, the Mthethwa, the Pondo, the Tembu, the Xhosa, and the Gona. Dingiswayo, chief of the Mthethwa, had set up a standing army divided into age-regiments, each with its own uniforms and colours, and incorporated conquered tribes into his army as allies, rather than taking them into slavery. The Zulu people — at the time believed to have numbered about 2 000 — were one such tribe. Dingiswayo had taken a liking to Shaka, the illegitimate son of the chief of the Zulu, who had at his father's encouragement joined Dingiswayo's army. From all accounts, Shaka was highly intelligent, extremely strong, and ambitious, earning a reputation as an outstanding soldier. When Shaka's father died, Dingiswayo supported Shaka in overthrowing the latter's half-brother and natural heir to the chiefdom.1
Dingiswayo's methods were refined by Shaka. He split up the age-regiments by district. Warriors were ordered to live in special camps under their Induna (commanders), and were not allowed to marry before turning 40. The traditional throwing spear was replaced by the short stabbing assegai or iklwa as the Zulu called it (from the sound it made when pulled out of the enemy's body). Shaka's soldiers were trained incessantly, becoming so fit that they were able to go into battle after a day's march of 50 miles. The Zulu tribe was being transformed into a new strictly militarized nation. When Dingiswayo was killed in an ambush by his old enemy, Zwide, chief of the Ndwandwe, Shaka emerged as the undisputed successor.** He reorganized the Mthethwa along Zulu lines, and adopted a new policy — conquered tribes would be destroyed with their young men becoming Zulu soldiers, their old people committed to forced labour, and execution for anyone of no use to his plans. Shaka declared the Zulu dialect to be the official language. The advisory role of the old councils of chiefs and elders was done away with. Shaka occasionally took advice from his commanders, but ruled with absolute power.
Having consolidated his rule, Shaka began to look outward. His first task was to rid himself of the Ndwandwe threat which had claimed Dingiswayo's life. This he did in a seven-week campaign which culminated in the routing of the Ndwandwe forces; with Zwide and some of his subjects escaping and settling with some of his subjects on the upper NKomati river where Zwide died in 1825. Meanwhile, in his ten year reign, Shaka's army's overran Natal, occupying it. He then turned his forces further outwards, in pursuit of the clans that had fled. The Basotho were forced to pay him regular tributes. To the north, he did the same with the Swazi. Then in 1828, while Shaka's army had crossed into Delegoa Bay in pursuit of the Soshangane, he was murdered by his half-brother Dingaan.
The terrible reign of one of Africa's mightiest warriors had come to an end, but the effects of his campaigns were to be felt for years to come. The shockwave that accompanied Shaka's reign has come to be called the Mfecane The word can be roughly translated into "forced wanderings" or "crushing" but the translations does no justice to what the word came to mean to Bantu speakers. When Shaka defeated the Ndwandwe, they in turn attacked and routed the Hlubi on the slopes of the Drakensberg. The Hlubi attacked the Tlokwa. When Shaka defeated Zwide's son Sekunyena in 1825, the Ndwandwe had to fight for new lands again, against the Hlubi and the Tlokwa. The Hlubi were defeated by the Ngwane after a bitter five-day battle. When news of the Ngwane victory reached Shaka, he sent his forces after them, forcing them south into the Cape Colony where they were defeated by a combined force of Xhosa and white people on the banks of the Mthatha River. The Ngwane survivors became servants of the Xhosa, who called them Mfengu (beggars).2
Details of the effects of the Mfecane are still unclear. What has emerged is the following:
- Almost the whole area from the Orange River to the Lowveld was scorched.
- Over the ten-year period of Shaka's reign, very few crops were grown.
- Many settlements were abandoned, with their inhabitants having to seek survival as hunter-gatherers.
- Many people resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.
- *. These words are used guardedly because of negative connotations that are normally attached to them. Their context here follows the following definitions from Merriam-Webster's 7th Collegiate Dictionary: "tribe: 2: a group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest.", "clan: 2: a group united by a common interest or common characteristics."
- 1. Christopher Danziger, A History of Southern Africa,(Oxford University Press, 1983), p.36.
- **. In Southern Africa since 1800, Donald Denoon and Balam Nyeko suggest that Shaka may have collaborated with Zwide to have Dingiswayo killed. I do not go into the specificity of their claims mainly because the veracity of their claim would not contribute to or detract from our understanding of the Mfecane.
- 2. Danziger, A History..., pp.37-39.