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Abstract
The conventional wisdom concerning Shaka’s invasions of Mpondoland in 1824 and 1828 tends to dismiss these as cattle raids. It likewise dismisses the alignment between the 1828 invasion and Shaka’s embassy to King George of Britain as nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence. Drawing in part on hitherto ignored isiXhosa-language sources, this article seeks to explain Shaka’s invasion of 1828, partly in terms of his long-contemplated revenge for the failed invasion of 1824, and partly as a means to subjugate every African kingdom between himself and the Cape Colony, so that there might be only two kings in the world: King George, the king of the whites, and himself, Shaka, the king of the blacks. Only the abrupt failure of his diplomatic initiatives can explain Shaka’s adverse reaction to the generally successful campaign of 1828 triggering, as it did, the near-insane and utterly disastrous northern campaign against Soshangane which directly provoked his assassination. Fully sensitive to the dangers of a ‘great man’ interpretation of history, the article attempts to differentiate, in Lefebvre’s terms, between the ‘temperament’ of Shaka and the ‘inner necessity’ driving the evolution of the Zulu state.
Author Biography
JEFF PEIRES has taught at the universities of Rhodes, Transkei and Fort Hare. He is the author of The House of Phalo: a History of the Xhosa in the Days of their Indepencence (1981) and The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Greeat Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856-7 (1989).
Notes
1 Praises of Shaka in T. Cope, Izibongo Zulu Praise Poems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 95.
2 A.C. Jordan, Kwezo Mpindo ZeTsitsa (Lovedale: Lovedale Press, n.d.), 78. ‘Magic bowl’ (isigubu) refers to the divination practice called ukuphehlela in isiXhosa, whereby the diviner churns up a foam in which the object of enquiry is magically revealed.
3 J. Omer-Cooper, The Zulu Aftermath (London: Longman, 1966), 7.
4 J.B. Peires, ‘Paradigm Deleted: The Materialist Interpretation of the Mfecane’, Journal of Southern African Studies 19 (1993), 295–313. For a representative collection of papers from this period, see J.B. Peires, Before and After Shaka (Grahamstown: Institute for Social and Economic Research, 1981).
5 J. Cobbing, ‘The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo’, Journal of African History 29, 3 (1988), 487–519; C Hamilton, ed., The Mfecane Aftermath (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1995).
6 C. Hamilton, B.K. Mbenga and R. Ross, ‘The Production of Preindustrial South African History’, in C. Hamilton, B.K. Mbenga and R. Ross, eds, The Cambridge History of South Africa, Vol. I, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), Chapter I: 1–62, esp. 7. Among much else, see J. Wright, ‘Reconstituting Shaka Zulu for the Twenty-First Century’, Southern African Humanities, 18, 2 (2006), 139–53.
7 E.A. Eldredge, The Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, 1815–1828 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), Chapter 9, esp. 208, 224; J. Wright, ‘Political Histories of Southern Africa’s Kingdoms and Chiefdoms’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 42, 6 (2016), 1241–6.
8 This phrase, originally appearing in a Cape newspaper of August 1828, was utilised by Carolyn Hamilton in her seminal critique of the Cobbing hypothesis. See Hamilton, Mfecane Aftermath, Chapter 7.
9 Mbovu in The James Archive of Recorded Oral Evidence Relating to the History of the Zulu and Neighbouring Peoples (6 vols, Pietermaritzburg and Durban: University of Natal Press and Killie Campbell Library, 1976–2014, henceforward JSA) Vol. III: 43; Mcotoyi in JSA III: 66; Makewu in JSA II: 163. Frequently mentioned in Natal historiography, the best account of Hlambamanzi’s Cape origins is J.C. Wells, Rebellion and Uproar (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2007), 15, 32.
10 Nduna in JSA V: 4–5.
11 Maziyana in JSA II: 296; Eldredge, Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, 123–6.
12 Maziyana in JSA II: 272–3 seems the best account; Makewu in JSA II: 163; Mbovu in JSA III: 43–4; Mcotoyi in JSA III: 55; Mkehlengana in JSA III: 217. V.P. Ndamase, AmaMpondo: Ibali ne-Ntlalo (Lovedale Press, n.d.), 8 mentions that, during the first invasion, the Zulu army attacked the Thembu and Xhosa as well as the Mpondo. Maziyana is incorrect in thinking that Madzikane took refuge among the Xhosa. At the time of the 1824 invasion the Bhaca were most probably at the sources of the Mvenyane River in the Khahlamba Mountains.
13 For amaNci, see Maziyana in JSA II: 273. Manci was not, as Maziyana thought, ‘a Pondo induna’, but the name of an autonomous chiefdom, not to be confused with the nearby amaChi. For amaCwerha, Mbovu in JSA III: 43.
14 Faku and the amaMpondo have been poorly served by literate historians, most recently J. Wright, ‘Making Identities in the Thukela–Mzimvubu Region c. 1770–c. 1940’, in C. Hamilton and N. Leibhammer, Tribing and Untribing the Archive (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2016), 198; T.J. Stapleton, ‘“Him Who Destroys All”: Reassessing the Early Career of Faku, King of the Mpondo, c. 1818–1829’, South African Historical Journal 38 (1998), 55–78; and T.J. Stapleton, Faku: Rulership and Colonialism in the Mpondo Kingdom (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001) surprisingly ignores pages 8–9 of Ndamase’s AmaMpondo, which are entirely devoted to the 1824 and 1828 Zulu invasions, and which are extensively quoted in this paper.
15 Ndamase, AmaMpondo, 1–2. The date of Faku’s accession is estimated from the known date of the Bomvana chief Gambushe, who must have fled to Gcalekaland before 1809, when his daughter Nomsa was observed at the Gcaleka Great Place. D. Moodie, The Record (1838; reprint Cape Town: Balkema, 1960), V: 41,43.
16 For ‘khonza’, also known as ‘bheta inkabi’: A. Kropf and R. Godfrey, A Kafir–English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Lovedale: Lovedale Press, 1915), 194; M. Hunter, Reaction to Conquest, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 379; Cape Archives, NA 159, J.M. Orpen–C. Brownlee, 7 November 1874; the same process applied to the Bhaca under Ncaphayi who ‘came under Faku by giving oxen, and took shelter under his wing’, Kaffrarian Watchman, 9 December 1874. For subordinate chiefdoms, A.O. Jackson, The Ethnic Composition of the Ciskei and Transkei (Pretoria: Department of Bantu Administration, 1975), 20, 23, provides a list of eight Mthwa chiefdoms. See also Ndamase, AmaMpondo: 148–50; P.R. Kirby, ed., Andrew Smith and Natal (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1955), 103, 109, for amaNtusi and ameQwane. To these chiefdoms must be added the amaNgcoya and amaNyathi named by Mahaya in JSA II:126, as among four chiefdoms who ‘speak of the other sections as Abambo, and refuse to allow that they are anything else but Pondos’. Mahaya has here confused the locative ‘Emtweni’ with the name of his own chiefdom, the imiTwana. Most of these are now located around the mouth of the Mzimvubu River, Port St Johns district. H. Kuckertz, Creating Order (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press 1990), 27–37. Kuckertz kindly refers to the imifunda as ‘non-royal allies’ but the derogatory connotations of the word are clear from Kropf and Godfrey, Kafir–English Dictionary, 108. The furthest west of the Mpondo chiefdoms was the amaTshomane, for whom see H. Crampton, The Sunburnt Queen (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2004), 42.
17 The abaThembu baseQudeni should not be confused with the Thembu kingdom west of the Mthatha River. For Ngoza, see A.T. Bryant, Olden Times in Zululand and Natal (London: Longmans 1929), 241–58; Lugubu in JSA I: 281–90; Lunguza in JSA I: 298–9; Mahaya in JSA II: 112–4. Details of Faku’s victory over Ngoza are sadly unavailable, even from Ndamase, our only source. The numerous amaZizi of Thembuland recall Ngoza’s defeat as the great catastrophe which led them to seek refuge with the Thembu King Ngubengcuka. Z. Pokwana, AmaZizi: The Dlamini of Southern Africa (Johannesburg: Ada Enup CC, 2009), 92.
18 Not to be confused with the ‘abaMbo, generally called Fingoes’ who wound up in the kingdom of the Gcaleka Xhosa. The terms ‘Mbo’ and ‘Nguni’ have confused many historians, since they have been applied to different chiefdoms in different places at different times and for different purposes. My understanding is that ‘Mbo’ originally referred to the direction east/north while ‘Nguni’, its polar opposite, originally referred to the direction west/south. One person’s ‘Mbo’ was therefore another person’s ‘Nguni’, depending on where the person is standing. When people moved west, they referred to their original home as ‘eMbo’, and sometimes the name stuck, as in this case.
19 Mahaya (JSA II: 110–34) and Maziyana (JSA II: 264–302). These ‘abaMbo’ trace their descent from a common ancestor although they seem never to have recognised a common senior as their head.
20 A figure of 1500–2000 was suggested by King Mqikela, Faku’s successor, in 1874. Kaffrarian Watchman, 14 December 1874; Ndamase, AmaMpondo, 8.
21 Baleka in JSA I: 6; Maziyana in JSA II: 272; Mayinga in JSA II: 249; Mcotoyi in JSA III: 55.
22 Mayinga in JSA II: 249; Maziyana in JSA II: 273. Ngidi in JSA V: 56 ascribes Shaka’s destruction of the Mkandhlu regiment to the 1828 campaign. This must be a mistake, because the Zulu suffered no such defeat in 1828.
23 Baleka in JSA I: 6.
24 Jordan, Kwezo Mpindo ZeTsitsa, 77–8.
25 Information from a Mpondo trader visiting Fort Willshire, December 1825; T. Philipps, Philipps, 1820 Settler, A Keppel-Jones, ed. (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1960), 294–5.
26 H.F. Fynn, “Öccurrences at Shaka's kraal in May, 1826,” in Kirby, Andrew Smith, 69–70.
27 Maziyana in JSA II: 273; Lugubu in JSA I: 287; N. Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (1836; Cape Town: Struik 1970, L. Herman and P.R. Kirby, eds), 77.
28 Ndamase, AmaMpondo, 8. It is interesting to note that, earlier on, Ngoza had likewise reacted to his initial victory over Shaka by flight rather than by celebration. Eldredge, Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, 93–4.
29 W.J. Shrewsbury, The Journal and Selected Letters of Rev. William J. Shrewsbury, 1826–1835, H.H. Fast, ed. (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1994), 82.
30 Mbovu in JSA III: 44. Mbovu’s text conveniently compares the two campaigns.
31 C.R. Maclean, The Natal Papers of ‘John Ross’, S. Gray, ed. (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1992), 71, 124, 135. Maclean was a shipwreck victim who, being only 10 years old when he arrived, spent three years at Shaka’s side ‘like a sort of rare pet animal’. See also H.F. Fynn, The Diary of Henry Francis Fynn, J. Stuart and D. Malcolm, eds (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1950), 76, 141; Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 34, 51, 65, 113; Kirby, Andrew Smith, 78.
32 Philipps, Philipps, 337–8.
33 Refers to the eyobutshinga impi expedition to the Caledon River valley. Eldredge, Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, 169–71; W.M. Mackay-Government, 8 August 1827 in B.J.T. Leverton, Records of Natal: Volume One, 1823–August 1828 (Pretoria: Government Printer, 1984), 133.
34 Letter from J.S. King, printed in The Colonist, 3 January 1828, but dated 2 May 1827. The Colonist was a continuation of the SA Commercial Advertiser after the latter was banned. C. Hamilton, Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention (Cape Town: David Philip, 1998), 230, fn 33. See also King’s ‘Account’ of July 1826, printed as an appendix to G. Thompson, Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa (1827; repr. Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1968), II: 251.
35 Shaka’s messenger Monakali, 8 October 1828 in B.J.T. Leverton, Records of Natal, Volume Two, September 1828–July 1835 (Pretoria: Government Printer, 1989), 19–20.
36 Maclean, Natal Papers, 73.
37 Extract from Cape Town Gazette, 6 January 1826, in Leverton, I: 79–80.
38 It is uncertain when Shaka first became aware that Captain King was building a seagoing vessel, but it is clear that that his announcement of 24 July took King by surprise (Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 106).
39 Shaka instructed the Thuli chief Matubane to expedite the process (Maziyana in JSA II: 267); Maziyana got his information directly from Klaju, who accompanied the embassy as interpreter. The figure of 10,000 men comes from the ambassadors themselves. See also Fynn, Diary, 131, 141; Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 117–8; Maclean, Natal Papers, 73; Philipps, Philipps, 337–8.
40 Philipps, Philipps, 338; Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 117; J.S. King–J.W. van der Riet, 10 May 1828 in Leverton I: 156–7. Cloete–Bell, 27 June 1828 in Leverton I: 185–7.
41 Philipps, Philipps, 338; Bell–Van der Riet, 15 May 1828, in Leverton I: 158–9.
42 According to Bawana, the chief of the Tshatshu Thembu, ‘Chaka is driving these people on, and as long as he does I cannot remain’. Questions put to the chief Powana, 31 August 1827, in Leverton I: 142; also Mackay- Govt Secretary, 8 August 1827, Leverton I: 133; Bourke–Goderich, 15 October 1827, Leverton I: 153.
43 Council of Advice, 21 June 1828. Leverton, I: 177.
44 Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 128–33.
45 Statement of Monagali, 8 October 1828; Statement of John Cane, 10 November 1828; Bell–Aitchison, 11 October 24 November 1828; Also: Farewell–Dundas, 10 September 1828; Campbell–Bell, 10 October 1828; all in Leverton II: 17–43, 64–5, 92–4.
46 W. Shaw, The Journal of William Shaw, W.D. Hammond-Tooke, ed. (Cape Town: Balkema, 1972), 131–2; Shrewsbury in Leverton, I, 173–4; Farewell–Dundas, 10 September 1828 in Leverton II: 10–12; Ndamase, AmaMpondo, 9. Mmemi in JSA III, 268; Ngidi kaMcikaziswa in JSA V: 56; Fynn, Diary, 144; Philipps, Philipps, 294–5, 338. Mnkabi, one of Senzangakona’s greater widows, was taken ill in Mpondoland and died there. Her body was carried back to Zululand and buried there. See Ngidi in JSA V: 41.
47 Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 113.
48 Philipps, Philipps, 337. Philipps, a resident of Grahamstown, never met the ambassadors himself but obtained his information from ‘a person who has spoken with the Ambassadors’.
49 W. Shrewsbury–H. Somerset, 12 June 1812, Leverton, I: 173–4; Philipps, Philipps, 338; Shrewsbury, Journal, 81–2; Shaw, Journal, 132.
50 Fynn, Diary, 144; Philipps, Philipps, 338; Shrewsbury, Journal, 88–9; Vete in F. Brownlee, The Transkeian Native Territories: Historical Records (Lovedale: Lovedale Press, 1923): 114; Shaw, Journal, 132; Lugubu in JSA I: 287; Mahaya in JSA II: 110.
51 For Ngcwanguba, see S. Kay, Travels and Researches in Caffraria (London: John Mason, 1833), 344, 378; Maziyana in JSA II: 274, Shaw, Journal, 127, 132; Shrewsbury, Journal, 81–2; Shrewsbury in Leverton I: 173–4. For Shaka’s intention to turn back after defeating the amaMpondo, see J.S. King–JW van der Riet, 24 May 1828 in Leverton I: 163; Philipps, Philipps, 338.
52 Shaw, Journal, 129, 132.
53 Makewu in JSA II: 163; Ngidi in JSA V: 62; Dundas in Leverton I: 273–4; J.W. Macquarrie, ed., The Reminiscences of Sir Walter Stanford, Vol. II (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1962), 108–9.
54 Dundas in Leverton I: 274. Visiting Bomvanaland, an area occupied only briefly by the Zulu advance guard, missionary William Shaw found all the dwellings burned and at least two women killed. Shaw, Journal, 131.
55 Fynn, Diary, 146; Journal of B. Bowker, in Comdt Holden Bowker, I. Mitford-Barberton, ed. (Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1970), 57.
56 Ndamase, AmaMpondo, 9.
57 JSA I: 282–3. The editors translate idhl’imbuya as ‘an expression meaning to remain settled in one homestead’.
58 Dundas in Leverton, I: 273.
59 Dundas in Leverton, I: 242–3.
60 Isaacs–Cole, 19 December 1828, in Leverton II: 56–8.
61 Mahaya in JSA II: 111.
62 Fynn–Somerset, 28 November 1828; Farewell–Somerset, 15 December 1828 in Leverton II: 49,74. See also Journal of W.B. Boyce, 2 May 1831, in A. Steedman, Wanderings and Adventures in the Interior of Southern Africa (London: Longman, 1835), II, 276.
63 Mqaikana in JSA IV: 7.
64 For the text of the Maitland Treaty, see Brownlee, Transkeian Native Territories, 92–4.
65 John Wright argues that Shaka was dependent on traders, because ‘any attempt to send an unaccompanied embassy to the Cape … would very probably have ended in its destruction by the chiefdoms to the south’. J.B. Wright, ‘The Dynamics of Power and Conflict in the Thukela–Mzimkhulu Region in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries: A Critical Reconstruction’ (PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1989). And yet, as we have seen, at this very time, Shaka was still expecting Faku to provide troops for a renewed assault on Hintsa.
66 Fynn, Diary, 144; Statement of John Cane in Leverton II: 30.
67 R. Aitchison–J. Bell, 20 December 1828, in Leverton II: 64–5.
68 Cloete–Bell, 27 June 1828, in Leverton I: 185; Campbell–Bell, 10 October 1828, in Leverton I: 17.
69 Fynn, Diary, 131.
70 Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 42, 230 fn 39.
71 Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 57, 106, 113–14.
72 R. Aitchison–J. Bell (Colonial Secretary) in Leverton II: 64–5. Aitchison was nominated by the colonial government to open direct negotiations with Shaka, but his embassy was aborted after Shaka’s assassination.
73 Statement of Monagala, Cape Town, 10 November 1828 in Leverton II: 28–9.
74 Estimates of the amount of ivory aboard King’s ship vary from a minimum of 50 to a maximum of 86 tusks. According to Shaka’s messenger, Macamba, it constituted ‘a heap three feet high and six feet broad’. Some of it was the private property of King and Farewell. Leverton II: 10–31 passim; Fynn, Diary, 141.
75 Both King and Hutton, the ship’s captain, died very soon after their return to Port Natal. For the conspiracy theorists amongst us, the evidence could also accommodate the hypothesis that both were poisoned by Nathaniel Isaacs, who returned very quickly to Port Elizabeth, only to be double-crossed by Port Captain D.P. Francis, who kept the entire loot for his own benefit. Fynn, Diary, 154; Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 125, 163–4; Leverton I: 158–9, 163–4, 169, 172; Leverton II: 10–12, 28–31, 43–4, 71–2, 77.
76 Cloete–Bell, 27 June 1828, in Leverton I: 185.
77 Fynn, Diary, 143–6; Dundas in Leverton I: 273–4; Farewell–Barrow, 15 March 1829, in Leverton II: 133.
78 Cobbing, ‘Mfecane as Alibi’, 510; Wright, ‘Dynamics of Power’, 366; J. Laband, The Assassination of King Shaka (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2017), 110; Stapleton, Faku, 20. Fynn alone was named by Faku; Stapleton is incorrect to state that he named Farewell and Ogle as well. Only Eldredge, Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, 259–64, 377, gets this right, although I cannot agree that Fynn joined the Zulu army for the purpose of warning the Mpondo.
79 Leverton I: 273.
80 Melapi in JSA III: 83; Mmemi in JSA III: 245; Mtshapi in JSA IV: 82. The figure of 30,000 cattle captured comes from Fynn. Farewell put it as high as 60,000. Farewell–Dundas, 10 September 1828, in Leverton II: 10–12.
81 Fynn, Diary, 147, 150–1; Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 127.
82 Fynn, Diary, 147–8, 153.
83 Mtshapi in JSA IV: 80. Though unacquainted with isiZulu, I here make bold to question ‘riff-raff’, the editors’ translation of ngoqo, on the strength of J.L. Döhne, A Zulu–Kafir Dictionary (Cape Town: G.J. Pike, 1857), 233 – the point being that those who were called up were old and unfit, mature men with families, hitherto retired from military service on account of age.
84 Dinya in JSA I: 95; Ngidi in JSA V: 75; Bryant, Olden Times, 626; Fynn, Diary, 155–6. For other interpretations of the Bhalule campaign, see N. Etherington, The Great Treks (Harlow: Pearson, 2001), 187–90; D. Wylie, Myth of Iron: Shaka in History (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2006), 484–97; Laband, Assassination, 119–27. None of these have noticed the important evidence of Ngidi which shows that the army was only ordered to Bhalule after its arrival in Swaziland.
85 Jordan, Kwezo Mpindo ZeTsitsa, 78; Fynn, Diary, 155–6; Maziyana in JSA II: 295; Melapi in JSA III 85; Campbell–Government, 19 December 1828, in Leverton II: 52. None of Wylie (Myth of Iron, 484–97), Eldredge (Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, 265–9), or Laband (Assasination, Chapter 14) make any mention of this incident, although it is confirmed by four sources independent of Fynn. Eldredge, Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, 251, mentions it another context, but muddles up Maziyana and Melapi and gets her footnote wrong.
86 Fynn, Diary, 153. According to John Cane, who left the Zulu capital about 6 September 1828, shortly before Shaka’s assassination, ‘Chaka’s people are … dissatisfied and disposed to revolt in consequence of his cruelty and constant wars. Chaka is sensible of the disposition of his people to force themselves from his yoke and has removed his kraal within one day’s journey of Port Natal with the view of taking shelter with Farewell’s party in the event of his people throwing off their allegiance’. Campbell–Bell, 10 October 1828, in Leverton II: 17.
87 J. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (London: James Currey, 1985), 199. Vansina’s pioneering work has been subjected to much criticism, not least by his own former students at the University of Wisconsin. The repeated references to Vansina which follow are not intended to invoke his authority, but simply to provide a common vocabulary, comprehensible by all readers irrespective of other differences. See especially J. Miller, ‘Listening for the African Past’, in J Miller, ed., The African Past Speaks: Essays on Oral Tradition and History (Folkestone: Dawson, 1980), 201–20; D. Newbury, ‘Jan Vansina and the Debate over Oral Historiography in Africa’, History in Africa 34 (2007), 213–54.
88 Eldredge, Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, Chapter 9, esp. 208, 224; J. Wright, ‘Political Histories of Southern Africa’s Kingdoms and Chiefdoms’, Journal of Southern African Studies 42, 6 (2016) 1241–6.
89 Much of the critique of Vansina’s initial formulations revolved around his assumption that one could analyse an oral testimony as if it was a fixed text. In his complete rewrite of 1985, Vansina was therefore forced to incorporate ‘performance’ as a major link in the chain of transmission. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, Chapter 2.
90 Ndamase, AmaMpondo, v. Own translation from isiXhosa.
91 W.D. Cingo, Ibali lamaMpondo (Emfundisweni, c. 1925). This slight work passes lightly over the invasions of 1824 and 1828, adding only the name of Kanya, a half-brother of Faku, killed by the Zulu.
92 Cf. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, 18, 98.
93 For Jordan’s life, see P. Ntantala, A Life’s Mosaic (Cape Town: David Philip, 1992). For a representative sample of his writing, see A.C. Jordan, Towards an African Literature (Berkley: University of California Press, 1973). For some discussion of Kwezo Mpindo ZeTsitsa, see W.M. Kwetana, ‘AC Jordan’s Cosmological Order: Its Relevance in Its Context‘, in A.C. Jordan: Life and Work (Bureau for African Research and Documentation, University of Transkei, March 1992), 37–50.
94 C Hamilton, ‘Backstory, Biography, and the Life of the James Stuart Archive’, History in Africa, 38 (2011), 319–41; J. Wright, ‘Ndukwana kaMbengwana as an Interlocutor in the History of the Zulu Kingdom, 1897–1903’, History in Africa 38 (2011), 343–68; J. Wright, ‘Socwatsha kaPhaphu, James Stuart and Their Conversations on the Past, 1897–1922’, Kronos 41, 1 (2015), 142–65; J. Wright, ‘Thununu kaNonjiya Gcabashe Visits James Stuart in the Big Smoke to Talk about History’, Natalia 49 (2019), 1–12.
95 ‘Verbal testimony is the sum of statements made by any one party, so long as all the statements relate to the same referent. A referent is that of which an account is given’. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, 63–6.
96 The father of Dinya (JSA I: 95) fought in Mpondoland and died at Bhalule; the fathers of Madikane (JSA II:61) and Mtshapi (JSA IV: 82) were seriously wounded; the mother of Mahaya (JSA II: 113) was stabbed and her child killed in 1828.
97 Vansina, Oral Tadition as History, 18–19.
98 D.V. Cohen, ‘Reconstructing Conflict in Bunafu: Seeking Evidence Outside the Narrative Tradition’, in Miller, ed., The African Past Speaks, 201–20.
99 D. Wylie, Savage Delight: White Myths of Shaka (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2000), Chapters 4–5.
100 The massacre of women during the Bhalule campaign, for example: see footnote 85.
101 Extract from Fynn’s lost diary, copied by Andrew Smith in 1832. Kirby, Andrew Smith, 67–8; King’s letter in The Colonist of January 1828; Shaka’s obsession with King George, Maclean, Natal Papers, 71, 135.
102 A point made long ago by Hamilton, Mfecane Aftermath, 186–7.
103 Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 119–23; Cloete, quoted in Leverton I: 185–7, 191–3.
104 Maziyana in JSA II: 267–9; Leverton II: 19–20, 31–2.
105 Quoted in M.R. Mahoney, The Other Zulus (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012), 18.
106 Cobbing, ‘Mfecane as Alibi’, 510–11.
107 Especially C. Hamilton, ‘The Character and Objects of Chaka’: A Reconsideration of the Making of Shaka as Mfecane Motor’, in Hamilton, Mfecane Aftermath, 183–211; Wright, ‘Dynamics’, 363–4.
108 Wright, ‘Dynamics of Power’, 295–6.
109 Wright, ‘Making Identities’, 188–9; J. Wright, ‘Turbulent Times: Political Transformations in the North and East, 1760s–1830s’, in Hamilton, Mbenga and Ross, eds, Cambridge History of South Africa, Vol. I, 233–4.
110 Wright, ‘Dynamics of Power’, 358, 64–5; Etherington, Great Treks, 187, explains Shaka’s motivations in ordering the Bhalule campaign in similar terms.
111 Wylie, Myth of Iron, 447, 451; Laband, Assassination, 102–9; Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 38–46; Stapleton, ‘Him Who Destroys All’, 63–6; Eldredge, Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, 253–65.
112 Etherington, Great Treks, 84–8, 170.
113 For Faku, see Dundas in Leverton, I: 273; for Hintsa, see Philipps, Philipps, 337; for Makhasana, see Mahungane in JSA II: 143; Ndukwana in JSA IV: 285.
114 Wright, ‘Dynamics of Power’, 361; Wylie, Myth of Iron, 447; Laband, Assassination, 107.
115 Jordan, Kwezo Mpindo ZeTsitsa, 77–8. Shaka’s personal examination of the captured cattle is confirmed in Fynn, Diary, 149. Jantshi kaNongila in JSA I: 187 mentions a ‘storage pot’ in his explanation of Shaka’s dissatisfaction, which may be a variant of the same tradition. Lugubu in JSA I: 287 also mentions Shaka’s interest in specific cattle.
116 Fynn, Diary, 146–7. Fynn claims the credit for persuading Shaka to withdraw, but it is unthinkable that the army would have done so without an instruction from the king.
117 Melapi in JSA III: 83; Mmemi in JSA III: 245; Mtshapi in JSA IV: 82. The figure of 30,000 cattle captured comes from Fynn. Farewell put it as high as 60,000. Farewell–Dundas, 10 September 1828, in Leverton II: 10–12.
118 Jojo in Brownlee, Transkeian Native Territories, 105.
119 Wright, ‘Dynamics of Power’, 364–5.
120 Isaacs, Travels and Adventures, 143.
121 ‘-bunguleka’, Melapi in JSA III: 83. See also Baleka in JSA I: 6.
122 J. Laband, Rope of Sand (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1995), 21.
123 Wylie, Myth of Iron, 431.
124 Eldredge, Creation of the Zulu Kingdom, 294.
125 Peires, ‘Paradigm’; see also D. Hedges, ‘Trade and Politics in Southern Mozambique and Zululand in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 1978); J. Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London: Longman, 1979), Chapter 1; P. Bonner, Kings, Commoners and Concessionaires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), Chapters 2–3.
126 G. Lefebvre, Napoleon from 18 Brumaire to Tilsit, 1799–1807 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 60. Those who would like to follow this line of argument are encouraged to read G. Lefebvre, Napoleon: From Tilsit to Waterloo, 1807–1815 (London: Routledge, 1969), 147–8.
127 Baleka in JSA I: 6; Dinya in JSA: I: 95; Jantshi in JSA I: 187; Melapi in JSA III: 83.
128 E.H. Carr, What Is History? (1961; Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1964), 55.