The Zulu

The word Zulu means “Sky” and according to oral history, Zulu was the name of the ancestor who, in about 1670, founded the Zulu royal line.

The Zulu are part of the northern Nguni cultural and linguistic group of Southern Africa. They are the largest of South Africa's ethnic groups. Their home is KwaZulu Natal, formerly the former homeland of KawZulu, comprising lands stretching from the Indian Ocean in the east to the Drakensberg mountains in the west and from the Phongolo River in the north to the Thukela River in the south, with diverse areas located further south in Natal. This whole area now forms the Province of KwaZulu-Natal. IsiZulu is also South Africa’s most widely spoken official language.

Long ago, before they were forged as a nation, they lived as isolated family groups and partly nomadic Bantu-speaking clans who moved about within their loosely defined territories in search of game and good grazing for their cattle. As they accumulated livestock and supporters family leaders tended to divide and disperse in different directions, retaining family networks.

By the late eighteenth century, a process of political consolidation among the clans was already taking place. A number of powerful chiefdoms began to emerge and a transformation from pastoral society to a more organised statehood enabled leaders to wield more authority over their own supporters, and to compel allegiance from conquered chiefdoms. Changes took place in the nature of political, social, and economic links between chiefs of these emerging power blocs and their subjects. This culminated early in the nineteenth century with the warrior-king Shaka conquering all the clans in Zululand and uniting them into a single powerful Zulu nation that made its influence felt over southern and central Africa. Shaka’s military campaign resulted in widespread violence and displacement. This period is referred to as the mfecane.

One of the most significant events in Zulu history was the arrival of Europeans in Natal. They were hunters and traders with a different culture and vastly superior weapons. The first Europeans who contacted landed at Port Natal in 1824 and 1825, and Shaka befriended them, hoping to learn more about White civilisation. Once settled they urged Lord Charles Somerset, Governor of the Cape Colony, to annex the Port Natal region. But Somerset, in line with Colonial Office policy, refused to sanction British claims to the area, and Shaka's attempts to send his envoys to England to meet the British ruler were thwarted by the Cape Government. Soon afterwards Shaka’s half brothers Dingane and Mhlangana, and Mbopa, his guard and household chief murdered him in 1828. Dingane took the Zulu throne and killed most of his half-brothers to secure his position.

Dingane's actions led to refugee groups fleeing to Port Natal where they sought the protection of the White traders. Fearing interference from the Cape, he reluctantly allowed White missionaries to set up a few stations in Zululand. He put up with the small bands of deserters fleeing to Port Natal until about 1834, when an entire Zulu regiment's desertion to Port Natal convinced him the White settlers were trying to undermine his authority. His relations with the white traders deteriorated sharply when their trade in firearms to him ceased.

Dingane also led the Zulu nation against the Voortrekkers because he was aware of what had happened to the Xhosa after the arrival of Whites in the Cape Colony. When the Boers arrived in Natal in 1837 he feared that they wanted to take over his kingdom. He was, however, confident that they would become his allies and supply him with the firearms he desired. The Boer leader, Piet Retief, and his party visited Dingane's royal kraal, where they apparently concluded a deal that Dingane would grant the frontiersmen land in Natal on condition that they recovered Zulu cattle stolen by the Tlokwa chief, Sekonyela. Early in February 1838 Retief, and his party of about one hundred men, returned to Dingane to hand over the cattle. As a matter of etiquette, they were ordered to stack their guns outside the royal kraal. They obeyed and were killed. His massacre of the Voortrekkers led to the devastating defeat of the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1838.

Following Blood River the Zulu nation was plagued by internal leadership struggles and by 1861 Natal's Secretary for Native Affairs, Theophilus Shepstone, visited Zululand to mediate between Mpande and Cetshwayo, the two leaders in conflict. Despite their animosity towards each other both Mpande and Cetshwayo recognised the need to present a united front in the face of growing Boer advance in north-western Zululand. They set their differences aside to resist the Boers, complaining frequently to Shepstone. Shepstone in Natal and Lord Carnarvon, the British Colonial Secretary in London, had their own agenda. They were eyeing the disputed corridor of land as a means of expanding Natal. As diamonds had been discovered in the late 1860s Griqualand West, this strip would become a vital supply route through which migrant labour from the north-east would travel on their way to the mines. At this time the Zulus themselves had no need to labour outside their territory. They were still politically and socially independent, and most of the materials essential to Zulu life were produced in the surroundings in which they lived.

When Mpande died in 1872 Cetshwayo became king. The Natal Government approved his rule, and, although the Zulus had already proclaimed him king, Theophilus Shepstone crowned him a second time on 1 September. Shepstone made recommendations on changing certain Zulu laws. The Boer republics to the west and the British of Natal were uneasy about the powerful Zulu military system on their borders.

The threat to Zululand came from the decision of the British Government to try to unite the various provinces and states of South Africa into a federation so that the newly discovered mineral resources could be developed.

Shepstone was knighted in 1876 and Carnarvon sent him to the Transvaal where, on 12 April 1877, he annexed it by proclamation. A significant change in Shepstone's official attitude to the Zulus then took place. As administrator of the Transvaal, he was in a better position to advance his plans to unite South Africa under the British flag. On 2 January 1878 he informed his superiors that he had discovered irrefutable evidence supporting Boer claims to Zulu territory, but did not produce this evidence.

The British felt that their interests would be better served, and life in Natal and the Transvaal would be more secure, if the Zulus were crushed. Sir Henry Bartle Frere began to pick a quarrel with Cetshwayo. Natal's Sir Henry Bulwer, however, had become increasingly uncomfortable about the expansionist attitude of Shepstone and Frere. He appointed a Boundary Commission to inquire into the dispute between the Boers and the Zulu. Its findings supported the Zulu claim, but Frere was in no hurry to tell the Zulus or the Colonial Office about this as he was already preparing for forceful annexation of Zululand. Cetshwayo was deeply worried that the diplomatic understanding he had reached with Natal through Shepstone no longer seemed to exist. He appealed for moderation and peace.

At the Colonial Office Sir Michael Hicks Beach, who had taken over from Carnarvon as Secretary of State, protested at Frere's aggressive approach. Shepstone and Frere pursued their objectives, knowing that without backing from the Colonial Office they would need a good cause if they were to provoke a war.

Frere referred to the recommendations Shepstone had made at Cetshwayo's coronation, as 'laws' that had been broken. He seized on the news of a massacre of some Zulu girls who had married without permission, but Bulwer brushed this aside. A better chance arose when two Zulu wives ran away and crossed the Thukela River into Natal in July 1878. Irate relatives captured them, hauled them back into Zululand, and put them to death in full view of the border guards. Then even Bulwer insisted that Cetshwayo hand over the murderers to the Natal police. Cetshwayo refused, saying the women were guilty under Zulu law, and had been killed in Zululand, not Natal. Frere saw this as the opportunity for which he had been waiting.

On 11 December 1878, Cetshwayo's councillors assembled on the bank of the Thukela River. Here they were told that the Boundary Commission had found in favour of the Zulu claim. The good news was followed by an ultimatum. This demanded the surrender of the culprits who had murdered the runaway wives, payment of a fine of 600 cattle, readmission of missionaries who had been expelled, the abolition of the Zulu military system within 30 days, and the implementation of the so-called 'coronation laws'. Frere added that, unless a British Resident was stationed at the Zulu court, the British army would invade Zululand.

Knowing that Cetshwayo would resist terms that required the destruction of the social and political structure of the Zulu kingdom, Frere was inviting a war that he thought he would win. He underestimated the determination of the Zulu to defend their independence. In January 1879 General Lord Chelmsford invaded Zululand with an army of 5 000 British and Natal colonials and 8 200 Natal native soldiers.

On 22 January the centre column, encamped near Isandlwana, was overwhelmed and almost every man was killed in one of the worst defeats the British have ever known. That afternoon the Zulu went on to attack the British garrison at Rorke's Drift. For nearly twelve hours the Zulu warriors unsuccessfully tried to overrun the hastily fortified position in a battle so fierce that eleven British soldiers won the Victoria Cross for their gallantry.

Read more about the Anglo Zulu War in the Grade 8 lesson on Resisting British Control.

In 1879, to put an end to the expensive and politically damaging campaign, the British authorities persuaded the Zulus to lay down their arms, promising them that they would be left in full possession of their land and their means of production. On 20 August Cetshwayo was tracked down, captured and exiled to the Cape. The next day Sir Garnet Wolseley, the High Commissioner for South East Africa, assembled the Zulus at Ulundi to tell them about the arrangements he had decided upon for the future government of Zululand.

The 'settlement' sparked civil war between factions within the Zulu nation. Cetshwayo's power was restored in 1883 for the sake of peace, but violent clashes continued to occur. In July 1883 he was attacked and wounded after which he fled to Eshowe, where he died in February 1884.

The Usuthu, who had been supporters of Cetshwayo, were in desperate straits. Faced with the prospect of mass starvation, they turned to the Boers for assistance. With their help, Cetshwayo's heir, Dinuzulu, managed to defeat Zibhebhu, his opponenet, in May 1884. For this, and recognition of Dinuzulu as Zulu king, the Boers were given the present district of Vryheid, which they named the “New Republic”. They were also granted a corridor of land that stretched to Lake St Lucia on the coast. The territorial gains of the Boers stung the British Government into action and it annexed this corridor of land when it formally annexed the rest of Zululand in June 1887.

Under the new administration, the Governor of Natal was vested with the authority of Supreme Chief over the Zulu people. The Zulu were not happy with this loss of independence. In 1888 Dinuzulu led an attack against the Mandlakazi, which the British crushed. He was captured, tried, and banished to St Helena. He was later allowed to return to Zululand, but only as a government employee. Most of the Zulu still regarded him as their king, although Zululand was by then administered as a separate colony under commissioners Sir Melmoth Osborn and Sir Marshal Clarke. Large-scale labour migration from Zululand, which began in 1888, increased when the drought of 1889 caused crops to fail.

Natal received responsible government in 1893. The Zulu people were dissatisfied about being governed by the Colony. A plague of locusts devastated crops in Zululand and Natal in 1894 and 1895, and their cattle were dying of rinderpest, lung sickness and east coast fever. These natural disasters impoverished them and forced more men to seek employment as railway construction workers in northern Natal and on the mines in the Witwatersrand.

At this time the Natal Government, seeking a wider source of revenue, introduced laws that increased Zulu poverty, arousing deep resentment. In particular, the Zulus objected to the handing over of their lands to White settlers and the consequent overcrowding in the Zulu reserves. An increase in rents for Zulu tenant farmers on White farms and harsher labour laws worsened the situation. The migration of male labour also broke family ties and obligations, undermining the Zulu social structure.

In 1897 Zululand was incorporated into Natal. It was divided into magisterial districts, each under a White magistrate, with tribal subdivisions where each chieftain was supposed to assist the magistrate with aspects of Zulu customary law. Settlement of Zululand by Whites, previously prohibited, began in 1905 with the sale of certain crown lands. Stock farming and maize growing were important factors in the reserves. Sugarcane became a major cash crop on the coastal belt where White colonists had settled.

The Bambatha Rebellion of 1906 was a response to harsh and unjust laws and unimaginative actions by the Natal Government. It was sparked off by the imposition of the 1905 poll tax of £1 per head, introduced to increase revenue and to force more Zulus to start working for wages. Dinuzulu was brought to trial on charges of treason in November 1908. He was acquitted of most of the charges, but found guilty of harbouring rebels, and sentenced to four years' imprisonment In the judgment of March 1909. He was released in 1910 on the recommendation of his friend, the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa General Louis Botha. Dinuzulu was settled on a farm in the Transvaal, where he died in 1913.

In 1908-1909 a National Convention where only Whites were represented was held to draw up a draft constitution for the Union. Whites in all the provinces except the Cape voted for separate political, economic, and social arrangements for Whites and Blacks.

By the early 1900s a shortage of labour caused farmers who did not make use of sharecropping to put pressure on the Union Government to legislate against squatters on White lands in order to force them to work on the farms. The 1913 Land Act was passed. It introduced racial separation in the farming areas of South Africa, limited land sales to Blacks, and eliminated squatters. It did not solve the labour problem in Natal because very many Zulus migrated to the towns.

The 1920s saw fundamental changes in the lives of the Zulu nation. Many were drawn towards the mines and fast-growing cities as wage earners, and were separated from the land and urbanised.

The dawn of apartheid in the 1940s marked more changes for all Black South Africans. In 1953 the South African Government introduced homelands. In the 1960s the Government's objective was to form a tribal authority and provide for the gradual development of self-governing Bantu national units. The first Territorial Authority for the Zulu people was established in 1970 and the Zulu homeland of KwaZulu was defined. On 30 March 1972 the first Legislative Assembly of KwaZulu was constituted by South African Parliamentary Proclamation.

Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, a cousin of the king, was elected as Chief Executive. The town of Nongoma was temporarily consolidated as the capital, pending completion of buildings at Ulundi. The 1970s also saw the revival of Inkatha, later the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the ruling and sole party in the self-governing KwaZulu homeland. Led by Chief Minister Mangosutho Buthelezi, Inkatha worked within the system, but it opposed homeland independence, standing for non-racial democracy, federalism, and free enterprise.

Zulu politics. During the 1980s the principal Zulu cultural institution developed as Inkatha YeSizwe. Since 1990 the principal Zulu political party has been the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). After the 1994 elections when the constitution was changed to sustain a non-racial democratic order, boundaries were redrawn and the provinces were renamed. Zululand and Natal were amalgamated as one province named KwaZulu-Natal.

Today it is estimated that there are more than 45 million South Africans. The Zulu people make up about 22% of this number. The largest urban concentrations of Zulus is in the Gauteng Province, and in the corridor of Pietermaritzburg and Durban.

Source: Howcroft