Shaka, the Zulu kingdom and the Mfecane
Shaka builds the Zulu kingdom into a regional power amid a period of wars and migrations across southern Africa, whose causes historians still argue over.
- Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention — Carolyn Hamilton, Harvard University Press (1998)
- The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo — Julian Cobbing, Journal of African History (1988)
- A History of South Africa — Leonard Thompson and Lynn Berat, Yale University Press (2014)
- A Concise History of South Africa — Robert Ross, Cambridge University Press (2008)
In the early nineteenth century, larger and more centralised states were forming among the Nguni peoples between the Drakensberg and the Indian Ocean. Shaka kaSenzangakhona became ruler of the small Zulu chiefdom around 1816 and, through warfare and alliance, made it the dominant power in the region. He organised young men into age-based regiments (amabutho) and is credited, partly by legend, with introducing the short stabbing spear and close-combat tactics. He was assassinated in 1828 by his half-brothers, one of whom, Dingane, succeeded him.
- Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention — Carolyn Hamilton, Harvard University Press (1998)
- A History of South Africa — Leonard Thompson and Lynn Berat, Yale University Press (2014)
The period from about the 1810s to the 1830s saw wars, raids and mass movements of people across the interior, known as the Mfecane in Nguni languages and Difaqane in Sesotho. Out of it grew new states: Moshoeshoe gathered refugees into the Basotho kingdom (later Lesotho), Mzilikazi led the Ndebele north into what is now Zimbabwe, and the Swazi kingdom consolidated.
- A History of South Africa — Leonard Thompson and Lynn Berat, Yale University Press (2014)
- A Concise History of South Africa — Robert Ross, Cambridge University Press (2008)
What caused it, and how destructive it was, is fiercely debated. The older story blamed Zulu militarism. Since Julian Cobbing’s 1988 challenge, historians have weighed other forces: the slave trade at Delagoa Bay, labour raiding from the Cape, drought, and competition over trade. Carolyn Hamilton has shown how the image of Shaka was shaped both by Zulu memory and by colonial writers who wanted a savage tyrant.
- The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo — Julian Cobbing, Journal of African History (1988)
- Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention — Carolyn Hamilton, Harvard University Press (1998)
Shaka was a military and political genius who united many chiefdoms into a great nation, the foundation of the Zulu people's pride and their resistance to colonial conquest.
- Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention — Carolyn Hamilton, Harvard University Press (1998)
The Mfecane ("crushing") was a wave of destruction set off by Zulu militarism that left the interior depopulated, so that Voortrekkers later moved into largely "empty" land.
- A History of South Africa — Leonard Thompson and Lynn Berat, Yale University Press (2014)
In 1988 Julian Cobbing argued that the "Mfecane" was an alibi, invented to hide the role of Portuguese slave-trading from Delagoa Bay and of Cape colonial labour raiding. Most historians now accept that the old picture was exaggerated and that several causes, including drought, trade and competition for land, were at work, though many think Cobbing went too far.
- The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo — Julian Cobbing, Journal of African History (1988)
- Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention — Carolyn Hamilton, Harvard University Press (1998)
- A Concise History of South Africa — Robert Ross, Cambridge University Press (2008)
Why it matters today
Shaka is the founding hero of Zulu identity, celebrated each September and invoked by the Zulu royal house and in KwaZulu-Natal politics. The Mfecane shaped the map of southern Africa, giving rise to the Basotho and Swazi kingdoms and the Ndebele state. The debate over its causes is also a debate over whether apartheid-era history used "Black-on-Black" violence to justify white land claims.