- J D Omer-Cooper. The Zulu Aftermath. A Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Bantu Africa. (London: Longman, Green, 1966).
- This idea is associated with the writing of Julian Cobbing who asserts that the slave trade operating from Delagoa Bay was a major factor. His arguments are important but controversial and require special study. See “The Mfecane as Alibi: thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo”. Journal of African History. (1988: 29) 487–519.
- This interpretation has been developed in greatest detail by David William Hedges. “Trade and politics in Southern Mozambique and Zululand in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries”. (University of London: PhD dissertation, 1978).
- Jeff Guy, “Ecological factors in the rise of Shaka and the Zulu Kingdom”. Economy and society in pre-industrial South Africa. Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore eds. (London: Longman, 1980).
- John Wright, in “The dynamics of Power and Conflict in the Thukela-Mzimkhulu region in the late 18th and early 19th centuries: A Critical Reconstruction”. (University of the Witwatersrand: PhD dissertation, 1989).
- But for a good summary of the debates, up to the late 1960s, see Thompson's assessment in The Oxford History of South Africa. Vol. 1, M. Wilson and L. Thompson eds. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1969). Since then the debate has become even more politically significant, attracted many more scholars, and, in my opinion is more obscure than ever.
- This huge topic which deals with such themes as industrialisation, european expansion, colonial conquest and imperialism must form a major part of a history student's training. There is a vast literature on the topic and serious students should consider building a reading list of their own beginning perhaps with EJ Hobsbawm. Industry and Empire. (Harmondsworth: Pelican books, 1969).
- The discovery by the Portuguese of the sea-route to India was of fundamental importance to the development of European power and it was on the first journey in 1497 that Vasco de Gama is said to have named Natal. See the “Extract from the Decades of Joao de Barros”. J Bird. The Annals of Natal. 1495 to 1845. Vol. 1 (Pietermaritzburg: P. Davis & Sons, 1888), 23
- In these waters, by reason of the strong currents, they continued, now gaining, now losing, in their course, until, on the day of (Natal) the Nativity, they passed by the coast of “Natal”, to which they gave the name.
- We should note however that a historian who has studied the Portuguese documents in great detail believes that Vasco de Gama was further to the south on Christmas day 1497 and Natal in fact referred to the coast of what became Pondoland. See E. Axelson. South-East Africa, 1488–1530. (London: Longman, Green, 1940).
- Some historians disagree with this. See Hedges. “Trade and Politics”.
- For accounts of these contacts see the documents in Bird. Annals. Vol. 1. Anthropologists Monica Wilson and Max Gluckman have analysed these, and other, accounts, identifying words and aspects of social and political life, which show the links between the people of the coastal areas in the 16th and 17th centuries and the modern Zulu and Xhosa populations. See M. Wilson. “The Nguni People”. The Oxford History of South Africa. Vol. 1, and M. Gluckman. “The Individual in a Social Framework: The Rise of King Shaka of Zululand”. Journal of African Studies. (1974, 1:2)
- For the original locality of these groups see the most important source book on the pre-conquest history of the region, A.T. Bryant. Olden Times in Zululand and Natal. (London: Longman, Green, 1929).
- Lineage, clan, chiefdom, kingdom, nation or tribe: the names used in English for African political groupings remains a subject for debate and difference. For Monica Wilson's useful introduction to this complex and controversial topic see Oxford History. Vol. 1. 116–120.
- The most recent work on the pre-Shakan political structure in the region can be found in John Wright and Carolyn Hamilton, “Traditions and transformations: the Phongolo-Mzimkhulu region in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries”. Natal and Zululand from earliest times to 1910. A New History. Andrew Duminy and Bill Guest eds. (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, Shuter and Shooter, 1989) and John Wright, “The dynamics of Power and Conflict”.
- One of the most intense debates taking place in South African historiography at the moment is over the nature of these changes. The historian who started it off is Julian Cobbing from Rhodes University - and the debate is referred to as the “Mfecane debate” and the “Cobbing thesis”. See n.2 above. As I write a very large and impressive book has appeared edited by Carolyn Hamilton and entitled The Mfecane Aftermath.
- W.F.W. Owen. Narrative of voyages to explore the shores of Africa, Arabia and Madagascar: performed in H.M. ships Leven and Barracouta under the direction of Captain W.F.W. Owen, R.N. Heaton Bowstead Robinson ed. (London: Bentley, 1833).
- Records of Natal, Volume One, 1823 - August 1828. B.J.T. Leverton ed. (Pretoria, The Government Printer, 1984) Records of Natal, Volume Two, September 1828 - July 1835. (Pretoria: The Government Printer, 1989). Records of Natal, Volume Three, August 1835 - June 1838 (Pretoria: The Government Printer, 1990). Records of Natal, Volume Four, July 1838 - September 1839. (Pretoria: The Government Printer, 1992).
- [J.S. King]. “Some account of Mr. Farewell's Settlement at Port Natal, and of a visit to Chaka, King of the Zoolas, &c. South African Commercial Advertiser”. 11 and 18 July 1826 These articles were reprinted in G. Thompson. Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa. Reprint of 1827 edition, Vernon Forbes ed. (Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society, 1968), Vol. 49, p. 243 ff and extracts can be found in Bird's Annals, where it is attributed to Farewell.
- Maclean was the boy who appears as John Ross in the records and wrote his account thirty years after the event. These have been collected, edited with an extensive commentary by Stephen Gray as Charles Rawden Maclean. The Natal Papers of John Ross. (Durban and Pietermaritzburg: Killie Campbell Africana Library and University of Natal Press,: Killie Campbell Africana Library and University of Natal Press, 1992).
- Nathaniel Isaacs. Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa, descriptive of the Zoolus, their manners, customs, etc etc. with a Sketch of Natal. reprint (Cape Town: C. Struik, 1970). The original edition was published in London by Edward Churton in 1836 and the Van Riebeeck Society published a reprint in two volumes in 1936 and 1937. It is the Struik reprint that I have used in this paper.
- H.F. Fynn. The Diary of Henry Francis Fynn. J. Stuart and D. McK Malcolm. (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1969). The original papers of Henry Francis Fynn are housed in the Natal Archives Depot, Pietermaritzburg.
- See for example G. Mackeurtan. The Cradle Days of Natal. (London: Longman, Green, 1930) and Chapter III, “The First English Settlers”. E.H. Brookes and C. de B. Webb. A History of Natal. (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1965)
- Brian Roberts. The Zulu Kings. (New York: Charles Scribner, 1974) represents a departure from the conventional history of Natal in that it is critical of the first traders and exposes their plots against Shaka and amongst themselves and their distortions of the evidence. Nonetheless its view of Zulu society remains essentially eurocentric. The most recent assessment in a general history is Charles Ballard. “Traders, Trekkers and colonists”. Natal and Zululand from earliest times. Duminy and Guest eds.
- The documents relating to the initial exploration and claims to the land have been published a number of times. The volumes edited by Leverton (see n. 16 above) contain the most complete set but they can be found in the two nineteenth century compilations of documents relating to early Natal history, John Centrlivres Chase, The Natal Papers. A reprint of all Notices and Public Documents connected with that territory…from 1498 to 1843. Reprint of the 1843 edition. (Cape Town: C. Struik, 1968), and Bird, The Annals of Natal.
- Fynn. Diary. 68.
- See Chaka's grant to F.G Farewell 8 August 1824, and the covering letter Farewell to Lrd Charles Somerset Governor of the Cape Colony, 6 September 1824 in Records of Natal. Vol 4). Also reproduced in Bird. Annals. and Chase. Natal Papers.
- J.S. King to Bathurst, 10 July 1824, Document 23, Annexure 1, Records of Natal. Vol 4. We are not sure what map King offered, but we do know that he was later accused of passing off information obtained by others as his own. Later maps were often stated to be based on information originally obtained by King.
- This statement is from the first public description of Shaka and the traders in The South African Commercial Advertiser. 18 July 1826. It was written by King (see Document 3).
- Chase. Natal Papers. 20 (Document 7).
- C.A. Hamilton. “‘The Character and Objects of Chaka’”: A reconsideration of the making of Shaka as “‘Mfecane’ motor”. Journal of African History. (1992, 33). Hamilton also makes the point that not all the reports of Shaka were unfavourable. This is true, and significant, but doesn't negate the argument I am developing here became she is dealing with a comparatively short time period, whereas I am dealing with a long-term historiographical trend.
- Fynn papers. Natal Archives. A 1382, I, Isaacs to Fynn, 10 December 1832, Cape Town (Document 8).
- See King's account in Isaacs. Travels and Adventures. 29, where Shaka gives him “a present of 107 head of cattle”. Also p. 36 and the entry for February 7 on p. 41 which reads Finding to-day that our cattle began to diminish, and that it was requisite to obtain a further supply, and not having means to purchase it, another visit to Chaka was unavoidable….
- Isaacs. Travels and Adventures. 19 writes of the visit of a chief “who had been commanded by Chaka… to offer protection to white people…” Isaacs continues however to say that Shaka's motive was not in fact protection but “a mere pretext for watching our proceedings…” In fact it was undoubtedly both for protection and observing. See also Ibid. 27
- “Towards white people Chaka issued an especial order, that at all times they should be amply supplied with food, as it could not be expected they knew how to obtain it….”
- Isaacs, Travels and Adventures. 114.
- Isaacs. Travels and Adventures. 46
- For a very different answer to this question, and in my opinion a quite ludicrous one, see the comment by the editors of The Diary of Henry Francis Fynn. 76, n. 1
- For Hlambamanzi see the Illustrated History. 84 and 86. See also Isaacs Travels and Adventures. 276–278
- See for example the extract from Isaacs Travels and Adventures. 34–36. I have also appended an example from Fynn's Diary, the famous account of the death of Nandi, from pp. 132–136
- Evidence to support this can be found in references cited above, but see also Isaacs. Travels and Adventures. 219
- Isaacs. Travels and Adventures. 22, where Farewell instructs his men “to state that we have been despatched by the Government of the Cape….”
- Paragraph 3 of Farewell to Lrd Charles Somerset Governor of the Cape Colony, 6 September 1824 in Records of Natal. Vol 4. See also Isaacs. 106
- Bird. Annals of Natal. Vol 1, 98 and Records of Natal. Vol 5, Document 235 Annexure 1 Enclosure 1 (Document 11).
- Although historians are now beginning to analyse the details of this delegation much work remains to be done on this important event in the history of Shaka.
- See Isaacs. Travels and Adventures. Chapters XVI and XVII, especially 133, 141.
- Records of Natal. Vol. V. No. 15, Commissioner Albany to Colonial Secretary, 10 October 1828.
- Records of Natal. Vol V. Document No. 16, annexure 2 Statement of Monagali, 8 October 1828.
- Ibid. Annexure 3, Message from Shaka. The tracing of this signature is taken from, History of Matiwane and the Amangwane Tribe as told by Msebenzi to his kinsman Albert Hlongwane. N.J. van Warmelo ed. Ethnological Publications, Vol. 7. (Union of South Africa: The Government Printer, 1938).
- See n. 10 above.
- See the example given in of this course.
- There are many versions of this saying (although its historical origins have still to be investigated). This version is taken from H.C. Lugg. Historic Natal and Zululand. (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1949) 83
- Isaacs. Travels and Adventures. 15. And yet after a series of depictions in this vein even Isaacs has to temper his judgement in contradictory terms which seems to me to confirm the argument of this essay:
- He was a monster, a compound of vice and ferocity, without one virtue to redeem his name from that infamy to which history will consign it: I must, however, by way of conclusion, state that if Chaka ever had one redeeming quality, it was this, that the European strangers at Natal received his protection, and were shielded by him against the impositions of his chiefs. (Ibid. 159)
- Isaacs. Travels and Adventures. 142.
Journal of Natal and Zulu History
Volume 16, 1996 - Issue 1