On 10 February, after Pretorius’ men had assisted Nongalaza’s warriors in an attempt to hunt down Dingane and his remaining followers, the Boer leader proclaimed Mpande king of the Zulus. Within days, though, Mpande was told that he was to rule over a substantially reduced domain—all the land below the Black Mfolozi was no longer to be part of the Zulu kingdom. The Boers then withdrew south of the Tugela, driving an enormous herd of cattle, though less than the 40,000 they had demanded from Dingane. But although the Volksraad went on to register claims to farms north of the river in the area of Zululand annexed by the Boers, Mpande was to act as de facto ruler of the territory.
As for Dingane, he had fled across the Pongola and had established a homestead in the territory of the Nyawo people in the Lubombo Mountains. Ndlela was not with him for Dingane had executed his commander in-chief, blaming him for his downfall. After all, had it not been Ndlela who had interceded when Dingane was about to execute Mpande years before? Ndlela was thus strangled after the embittered king declared: ‘You were harbouring a snake for me.’
In March, Dingane likewise met his end. He did so when Nyawo and Swazi warriors combined against him. One night a group of them managed to infiltrate his homestead. As the king, alarmed by the barking of his dog, emerged from his hut spear in hand, he was struck by a throwing spear hurled towards him and received a mortal wound.
Of the king,, F.A. van Jaarsveld has commented: ‘Few historical figures have been depicted in such derogatory terms as Dingane.’ Felix Okoye (who believes that the king has been treated harshly) states: ‘Almost every commentator on this period of Zulu history has portrayed him as a man with hardly a redeeming quality: bloodthirsty, capricious, treacherous, self-indulgent, an absolute despot, an ingrate and an inveterate liar.’
More than anything else, Dingane’s elimination of Piet Retief and his colleagues at uMgungundlovu on 6 February 1838 has blackened his name and consigned his reputation to the realms of iniquity.
It is sometimes said that Retief acted foolishly and was thus partly responsible for what occurred. For instance, in November 1837, upon returning to Port Natal following his first visit to uMgungundlovu, he wrote a letter to Dingane in which he referred to a powerful black potentate called Mzilikazi. On a previous occasion he had alluded to the fact that Boers had recently got the better of Mzilikazi’s warriors on the highveld and he now bluntly informed Dingane: ‘The great Book of God teaches us that kings who conduct themselves as Mzilikazi does are severely punished, and that it is not granted them to live and reign long.’
Dingane had every right to conclude from this letter that Retief was trying to intimidate him. Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that even before it was penned he had decided to murder Retief, for a chief named Silwebana (who fled to Port Natal to escape Dingane’s wrath) maintained that Dingane had instructed him to murder Retief and his companions when they were en route to the port after leaving uMgungundlovu.
In short, it seems reasonable to conclude that under strong pressure from his advisers and amabutho, Dingane determined on a pre-emptive strike, entailing the elimination of Retief and his followers, fearing that sooner or later they would seek to destroy him and his kingdom. As has been noted, this plan backfired, for after wiping out Retief and his companions at uMgungundlovu Dingane’s warriors failed to eliminate all the trekker parties in the foothills of the Drakensberg. Hence, once reinforced, the Boers exacted bitter revenge, inflicting upon the Zulu people the most crushing defeat they had ever known, thereby undermining Dingane’s position and ultimately sending him to his grave.
3. CONSOLIDATION AND CIVIL WAR
‘The whole air was tainted with dead bodies for the last twelve miles, which I walked against a head wind. They were lying in every possible attitude along the road, men, women, and children of all possible sizes and ages; the warriors untouched, with their war-dresses on, but all in a dreadful state of decomposition . . . . I saw many instances of mothers with babies on their backs, with assegais through both.’ W.C. Baldwin
Mpande was born in the latter half of the 1790s and has often been described as the Zulu Claudius. For much of his life before he ascended the throne, he was viewed as an insignificant weakling, an indolent and feeble-minded character who posed little or no threat. He was undoubtedly lazy—something that contributed to his enormous bulk— but his mind was far from that of an imbecile for he was a prudent, calculating figure and a born survivor. Moreover, he was not bloodthirsty—Delegorgue for instance relates that a missionary described Mpande as ‘a Caffir gentleman.’
As king, Mpande desired to reconcile his own supporters with those who had lately stood by Dingane and ordered his followers to refrain from ridiculing and ostracising warriors who had recently fought on his half-brother’s behalf.
As Charles Ballard comments:
Mpande had become king because he had won the support of the leading chiefs of the kingdom, who sought an alternative to the murderous absolutism of Dingane. These chiefs had no intention of allowing the new king to impose the same degree of centralised control over them or their followings.
Nonetheless, it would be wrong to regard Mpande as a mere puppet of powerful subordinates. Furthermore it is erroneous to state, as is sometimes done, that the days of arbitrary killings were over. Mpande’s prime minister, Masiphula kaMamba (who had come to power by the 1850s), had a fearsome reputation and was quick to execute people guilty of even trivial misdemeanours.
For obvious reasons, Mpande was anxious to live harmoniously with his white neighbours and in this respect the tension between Boer and Briton proved beneficial. In 1840 the growing Boer community in Natal sought British recognition of its independence, and for a while there was a strong possibility that this would occur, but subsequent actions by the republic prevented this. One such was a decision in August 1841 to move ‘surplus’ natives from Natal southward to between the Mthamvuna and Mzimvubu Rivers (territory claimed by the Pondo chief, Faku) with the aim of reducing Natal’s vast and numerically dominant black population. Consequently, the Governor of the Cape, Sir George Napier, ordered the reoccupation of Durban, and so early in May 1842, Captain Thomas Smith and 237 men marched into the port after making their way up from Pondoland.
Conflict erupted with the Boers, whose population in Natal numbered 6,000, although the Afrikaners did not rise as one against the British presence. Pretorius was in command of the Boer forces and proceeded to besiege Durban. The garrison found itself in dire straits until reinforcements under Colonel Josias Cloete arrived by sea in June, 34 days after the investment began. Pretorius’ force then suffered from desertion and he withdrew and subsequently asked for terms.
On the day that Pretorius’ flag of truce arrived at the British camp, messengers from Zululand appeared with a dramatic report. Mpande had decided to assemble an impi with the aim of descending on Natal and marching against Pietermaritzburg, having transferred his allegiance from the republic to the ascendant British. But Cloete promptly instructed him not to do so and the king complied.
The question of whether Britain should annex Natal was now in the air. By the close of the year the Colonial Secretary, Lord Stanley, had decided in favour of doing so. A special commissioner, Henry Cloete Josias’ brother), was thus sent to Natal in 1843 to negotiate with the Boers. While some of the Afrikaners wished to oppose British authority, others were prepared to deal with the commissioner, and in 1844— events moved slowly—the Boer republic ceased to exist and Natal became a detached district of the Cape Colony: the first lieutenant-governor duly assumed duty in December 1845.
By this time the number of Boers had dwindled to about 3,000, for the remainder had set off for the highveld, a process which was to continue. By the end of 1848 the overwhelming majority of Boers had left, though the arrival of British settlers from 1849 onward reversed the decline of Natal’s white population, which was to become some 18,000 strong by 1870.
Bloodshed, missionaries and Boers
When Cloete visited Mpande in 1843, the king was resident at an ikhanda in the emaKhosini Valley, but shortly thereafter he built a homestead called Nodwengu, north of the White Mfolozi on the Mahlabathini plain, that was to serve as his principal place of residence.
Meanwhile, in 1842 Mpande had killed the small number of Zulus in his kingdom who had converted to Christianity, deeming that they had compromised their allegiance to him, and had put an end to missionary activity. Moreover, some months before Cloete’s arrival, Mpande’s policy of consolidating his position led him to get rid of his closest rival for the throne, for a dissident party seems to have been forming around the person of his only surviving brother, Gqugqu. Hence, in mid 1843, Mpande sent a force to wipe out him and his household. The deaths were followed by the flight to Natal of one of Mpande’s aunts called Mawa, and several thousand followers who feared that they too would be struck down. The haemorrhage continued. A significant but indeterminate number of other Zulus subsequently made their way into Natal. Some were fugitives, but many headed for Natal in quest of a life that they felt would offer more freedom: they migrated to find work and to marry when they chose.
Mpande reviewing his warriors at Nodwengu, by George Angas. ©Museum Africa
Although the establishment of British rule in Natal and the presence of Boers on the highveld precluded those areas being used as raiding grounds by Mpande’s army, his amabutho nonetheless campaigned elsewhere. In 1842, for instance, Mpande began raiding a number of tributary kingdoms to the northwest of his domain, while in 1847 he sent his warriors into Swaziland (which was riven by a dynastic dispute) and where he hoped to set up a client chiefdom in the south of the country. Much of southern Swaziland was soon brought under Zulu control, but later in the year Mpande’s warriors pulled out after being subjected to hit-and-run raids by the Swazi, who enjoyed the support of Boer allies from the eastern Transvaal.
The following year, though, Zulu warriors once again invaded Swaziland, which was still split by factionalism, and forced its king, Mswati, to submit. In 1852, however, Mswati attempted to break free of Zulu overlordship and Mpande responded by launching a full-scale invasion that cowed the Swazi and led many of them to flee. Mswati implored the British authorities in Natal to grant asylum to himself and his starving and displaced subjects, and they responded by pressuring Mpande to recall his army, which contributed to the king’s decision to withdraw his forces.
Mpande also used the army to retain Zulu supremacy over the Tsonga chiefdoms and the prized networks of trade and tribute in the Delagoa region. In the early 1850s, for instance, he intervened in a succession dispute in Maputoland and thereafter enjoyed the homage of the man whom he helped install. Laband comments: ‘By the early 1850s, Mpande was firmly in the saddle, assured in his relations with his new white neighbours, unchallenged at home, and militarily dominant over the black polities along his northern marches.’
In 1850 he had felt sufficiently secure to allow missionaries to set to work once again in his kingdom. The most notable missionary active in Zululand during Mpande’s reign was Hans Schreuder of the Norwegian Missionary Society, who, following his arrival in 1850, proceeded to establish seven mission stations during the next two decades. Moreover, he tended Mpande medically and acted as his principal conduit with the colonial world. From the mid 1850s onward, Mpande also permitted other missionary bodies to operate in Zululand. It must not be supposed, however, that he was anxious to see his people converted to Christianity. Rather, he wished to create a favourable impression with the authorities in Natal and used the missionaries as advisers and intermediaries with colonial officials, while actively discouraging conversions.
The 1850s also witnessed the increasing presence of white traders in Zululand. Furthermore, on sufferance, from 1852 onward Mpande also permitted Boers to settle on the relatively empty land between the Mzinyathi and Ncome Rivers in the north-western part of his domain. Indeed, in 1854, by which time the Afrikaners numbered nearly 200 families, he ceded the territory to them and they proclaimed the territory the Republic of Utrecht.
The return of civil war
The essential tranquillity of Mpande’s reign was marred in the mid-1850s by a short but bloody civil war fought between the supporters of two of his own numerous children—Cetshwayo, (Mpande’s eldest son by his first wife) and Cetshwayo’s half-brother, Mbuyazi. The former, born in about 1832, was a handsome and imposing figure over six feet tall whom Mpande had proclaimed as his successor in Natal in 1839. But in the early 1850s Mpande began to favour Mbuyazi, who we are told was even more prepossessing than his half-brother, and a man whom Mpande viewed with deep affection. He had inducted both princes into the newly formed uThulwana regiment in 1850 or 1851.
Cetshwayo became increasingly sidelined. Indeed, when Mpande was challenged by an induna that he appeared to be renouncing his eldest son, the king responded by stating that when he was a commoner he had intended Cetshwayo to be his heir but had decided, now that he was king, that Mbuyazi was to be his successor. Many in the kingdom felt otherwise. Factions began forming around the princes, with Cetshwayo enjoying the greater degree of support, and by the mid-1850s this included many of the kingdom’s most senior figures such as Masiphula kaMamba and Mnyamana kaNgqengelele of the Buthelezi, commander of the uThulwana ibutho. Cetshwayo’s faction was known as the uSuthu, while Mbuyazi’s was called the iziGqoza.
Civil war erupted in late 1856 after Mpande granted Mbuyazi a tract of land in the southeast bordering Natal, the region where the king’s own influence had been at its greatest before the downfall of Dingane. Mpande hoped that Mbuyazi would be able to widen his own power-base at Cetshwayo’s expense, and would also manage to obtain support from Natal, which could serve, if need be, as a safe haven.
In November, Mbuyazi and his followers settled in the region. Cetshwayo’s homestead was in the vicinity and he reacted angrily. Messengers were sent out to raise the uSuthu, and men from all the king’s regiments rallied to Cetshwayo, who was soon at the head of a potent force, which grew as he marched through southern Zululand.
Outnumbered, Mbuyazi retreated towards the Tugela, and in a desperate attempt to increase his support, crossed the river with two of his brothers and asked for British assistance. An official called Joshua Walmsley responded by allowing his young, fluent Zulu-speaking administrative assistant, John Dunn, to cross into Zululand with a small force that included 35 frontier policemen. Dunn crossed the Tugela on 28 November and proceeded to join Mbuyazi’s host encamped on high ground above a tributary of the river. Mbuyazi had approximately 7,000 warriors and about twice as many dependents.
Early on 2 December, by which time heavy rains had transformed the Tugela into a raging torrent, Cetshwayo and between 15,000 and 20,000 warriors moved against Mbuyazi. They did so from an encampment to the northwest. Mbuyazi deployed to meet the threat and battle was joined near the Nwaku stream, a short distance to the west of Mbuyazi’s camp. Cetshwayo’s right horn endeavoured to outflank their opponents, but despite their numerical superiority they were repulsed by Mbuyazi’s left horn, which enjoyed the support of Dunn and his gunmen. In contrast, the uSuthu left proceeded to push back Mbuyazi’s right horn, and this undermined the morale of the prince’s left horn which likewise began to give ground. Seeing this, the iziGqoza centre also commenced retiring in a south-easterly direction towards the Tugela,
only to find it impassable.
The uSuthu gave chase and terrible slaughter ensued. Many of the fugitives were cut down beside the Tugela while others plunged into the raging river and were either drowned there or swept out to sea. For his part, Dunn managed to save himself by clambering on to a ferryboat in mid-stream and thus lived to tell the tale. Few of the iziGqoza did so, and among the dead were thousands of women and children, for Dunn tells us that Cetshwayo’s warriors had acted ‘with terrible earnestness, hard at work with the deadly assegai, in some cases pinning babies to their mother’s quivering forms’, a point corroborated by William Baldwin (a hunter who had been permitted to enter Zululand) in the statement quoted at the head of this chapter.
Mpande’s later years
Following the Battle of Ndondakusuka (so named after the most prominent hill in the vicinity), Cetshwayo headed triumphantly towards the capital, driving with him captured cattle. He intended to present the livestock to his father, whose position had inevitably been weakened. Mpande, however, was grief-stricken by the news of Mbuyazi’s death, and those of five of his other sons in the encounter, and refused to receive the tribute, whereupon Cetshwayo set off for his own homestead.
Although Mbuyazi was now out of the picture, Cetshwayo was not without potential rivals. One such was a full brother of Mbuyazi, a 13-year-old called Mkhungo. Mpande placed him for safekeeping among the uMcijo ibutho, but in mid-1857 when Cetshwayo moved towards their ikhanda with a strong force, they abandoned the youngster. Nonetheless, the prince managed to elude Cetshwayo by escaping to Natal where he was taken under the wing of Theophilus Shepstone, the Natal Secretary for Native Affairs, who enrolled him in an Anglican mission school near Pietermaritzburg with the ultimate aim of seeing him become a compliant king of the Zulus.
The Zulus and Matabele: Warrior Nations Page 8