In April 1881 Osborn met Sir Evelyn Wood, the newly appointed Governor of Natal, to discuss the situation in Zululand. As a result, Wood sought authorisation from London for Osborn to ‘inquire judicially’ into matters. This was duly granted, although of course Osborn had already acted of his own volition.
It would be a mistake to conclude that Osborn’s stance was impartial. His sympathies were with the two appointed chiefs. Indeed, he informed Wood, at their meeting, that when the time came to announce the findings Wood should ‘support Usibebu and give modified support to Uhamu.’ Moreover, on 1 June, Osborn sent word to the High Commissioner that certain Zulus in the northern districts were becoming defiant as a result of the actions of uSuthu leaders. He recommended that when Wood announced the conclusions of the inquiries, Ndabuko and Ziwedu should be forced from their homes and ordered to move to Dunn’s southern chiefdom.
On 31 August, the moment the uSuthu leaders had been expectantly awaiting finally came. They were part of a large gathering that assembled at Osborn’s residence at Nhlazatshe to hear what had been concluded following their complaints. Wood arrived with Redvers Buller (now a general) and an escort consisting of squadrons of the 14th and 15th Hussars, as well as a military band.
The high hopes of the uSuthu soon turned to despair. Ndabuko, Ziwedu and Dinuzulu heard that they had to leave their imizi and move to the territory of Dunn. Moreover, although Mnyamana was told that Hamu would have to return some of the cattle that had been taken from him, he was likewise treated curtly.
The meeting raised the political temperature. The uSuthu felt humiliated and betrayed—justice had not been done. Violence resulted. Within a couple of days of the assembly, clashes occurred when Zibhebhu’s forces moved against Ndabuko’s people. Together with Ziwedu’s followers, they fled across the Vuna River to Mnyamana, who gave them sanctuary.
Shortly thereafter, skirmishes ensued between Hamu and the fiercely royalist Qulusi, and on 1 October Hamu gave orders for the Qulusi to be driven from his territory. Early the next morning, Hamu’s impi, which numbered about 3,200 warriors supported by a band of mounted men with rifles, clashed with the Qulusi, whom they greatly outnumbered. For a while Hamu’s men were held at bay, but when the horsemen intervened, the 1,000 or so Qulusi broke and most of them were cut down as they fled.
Northern Zululand seemed to be sliding inexorably into full-scale civil war. On 7 October, Osborn informed Wood that the ‘country from within a mile or two of [Nhlazatshe] right on, is in such a disturbed state, that even native messengers have to make large circuits round to avoid contact with those within the pale of disturbance.’
But all-out conflict did not materialise. Evidently, neither side wished matters to degenerate that far. Instead of trying to bring about change through rebellion, the uSuthu leaders hoped that at last Cetshwayo would be allowed to return and play a role in the administration of his former kingdom.
Cetshwayo visits England
By this date the king had been a prisoner for two years. He was, however, no longer incarcerated in the castle at Cape Town. For in early 1881, he had been moved a short distance to Oude Moulen, a farm on the Cape Flats where he was not held in close confinement.
Since being exiled, Cetshwayo had impressed many of the people with whom he had come into contact by the nobility of his bearing and conduct, and had endeavoured to secure permission to return home. But although he enjoyed a significant degree of sympathy both in southern Africa and Britain, his requests had been turned down. Nonetheless, at Oude Moulen—where he enjoyed the services of a trusted young interpreter and secretary called Robert Samuelson—he spent much of his time continuing to seek a pardon by composing petitions and letters that were sent to people who could further his cause. He declared that the documents were ‘now his only assegais.’ On 2 May 1881, for instance, acting on a suggestion by Colenso, he formally requested that he be allowed to journey to England to state his case before Queen Victoria.
Subsequently, on 14 September, the Colonial Secretary, Lord Kimberley, sent a telegraph to the High Commissioner in South Africa, Sir Hercules Robinson, stating that ‘Her Majesty’s government was disposed to entertain [Cetshwayo’s] request to visit England.’
Nevertheless, it was not until 12 July 1882 that Cetshwayo set sail for London, partly because the Governor of Natal, Sir Henry Bulwer, who was less sympathetic to the king, had persuaded Kimberley to postpone the visit. Furthermore, like many Natal whites, Bulwer was also unenthusiastic about the idea of allowing Cetshwayo to return to Zululand. He believed that the requests of the uSuthu (notably from a large delegation which had arrived at Pietermaritzburg in April) that Cetshwayo should be allowed to do so did not represent the views of the Zulu nation as a whole.
Cetshwayo landed in England in early August, and in London found himself feted and the subject of intense public interest. Cheering crowds, for example, gathered outside the Kensington house in which he was resident.
On 15 August—the day after Cetshwayo had visited Queen Victoria at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight—he met Kimberley and other senior figures. He was told that the government had ‘determined to consider the possibility of making arrangements for his return to Zululand.’ There were, however, certain conditions. The foremost was that a portion of the country, to be defined by the government, would not be placed under his rule but would be reserved for other purposes. Cetshwayo found the condition objectionable. At another meeting two days later, the king (who suspected that the section of land in question was that which had been given to Dunn under the settlement) told Kimberley that the land which had belonged to his father ‘is now very small . . . and the idea of another piece . . . being taken from that little country’ had ‘buried him up to his knees again.’ On 1 September, Cetshwayo sailed for Cape Town to await the announcement of the details of the conditions under which he could return to Zululand.
These were declared to Cetshwayo at Cape Town on 7 December. He was shocked by what Sir Hercules Robinson told him, for the conditions differed from those mentioned in London. It had been decided that two vast tracts of territory would not be returned. One, consisting of the former chiefdoms granted to Dunn and Hlubi, was henceforth to be known as the Zulu Native Reserve where Zulus unwilling to live under Cetshwayo could reside under a Resident Commissioner. Moreover, as recommended by Bulwer with Osborn’s strong backing, Kimberley had accepted that Zibhebhu, unlike the rest of the chiefs appointed in 1879, should retain his chiefdom. The governor had a high opinion of Zibhebhu, who had told him that he could ‘never come again’ under Cetshwayo’s rule, and believed that he would act as a ‘check’ on the king.
On 11 December, Cetshwayo reluctantly signed the conditions. Consequently, on 10 January 1883, he came ashore at Port Durnford and was met by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had been brought out of retirement to supervise the king’s restoration to a tract of land between the Mhlatuze, the upper reaches of the Pongola, and the lower reaches of the Black Mfolozi. Cetshwayo was then taken inland by Shepstone and a detachment of British soldiers up on to the Mthonjaneni Heights. The journey took a week.
On 29 January, Ndabuko, Ziwedu and Mnyamana arrived at the camp at Mthonjaneni, along with many other notable Zulus sympathetic to their king. That afternoon, Cetshwayo was installed as the chief of the central territory and during the proceedings he once again acknowledged, reluctantly, that he agreed to abide by the conditions he had first heard at Cape Town. Some 5,000 to 6,000 Zulus were present—to limit the number Shepstone had ordered that only married men should attend. In a planned protest that Cetshwayo and the uSuthu leaders had organised since his arrival on the coast, over 40 individuals, including some of the leading men in the Zulu nation such as Mnyamana and Dabulamanzi, took it in turns to voice their grievances about the conditions under which their ruler had returned.
That evening, Shepstone, who had been angered by what he heard, left for Natal, leaving Henry F
ynn, a son of the famous settler of the same name, to serve as Cetshwayo’s new British Resident. Sir Theophilus subsequently sent a distorted report to London. For one thing, he maintained that almost all the inhabitants of the Zulu Native Reserve were pleased that they had not been placed under Cetshwayo.
After the installation ceremony, the king moved on to the Mahlabathini Plain, with the aim of rebuilding oNdini, accompanied by his wives, attendants and a large number of supporters who included many men of the highest rank.
Violence soon erupted. Shepstone had informed London that if this were to occur, Cetshwayo and his supporters would be responsible, but of course the deep-rooted antagonisms present in Zululand and the manner of the country’s partition meant that future conflict was well-nigh inevitable. For instance, although Zibhebhu’s borders had been modified, many uSuthu homesteads were still in his territory and thus clashes occurred.
The situation was also tense in the Reserve. Here, much to the embarrassment of the authorities, it had become apparent even before the installation ceremony that there was much loyalty to Cetshwayo. The official stance was that the Zulus in question were reluctant to accept the authority of the Resident Commissioner, John Shepstone, because of uSuthu intimidation. Hence the Colonial Office, at Bulwer’s request, sanctioned Shepstone to exercise ‘paramount authority’ in the Reserve and to impose a hut tax as an indication of white power. In February, Shepstone (who had been provided with a detachment of British troops) toured the Reserve to coerce chiefs and headmen into accepting his authority. Their choice was stark. Continued adherence to Cetshwayo would result in eviction, while submission would enable them to retain possession of their lands.
The most serious violence since 1879 broke out in late March when Zibhebhu’s forces plundered growing crops in an area that, as a result of the modified borders, had just come under his authority. The region in involved was between the Mkuze and Pongola Rivers—staunch uSuthu country.
The Battle of Msebe
This incident was the final straw. Ndabuko and other uSuthu leaders such as Mnyamana raised an impi to deal with Zibhebhu once and for all. The authorities would maintain that Cetshwayo was responsible for their actions. This is not certain. Cetshwayo asserted, probably correctly, that they acted on their own accord, for since his return to Zululand he had sent letters and petitions in the hope of redressing his grievances on the partition issue without resorting to bloodshed.
The uSuthu eagerly gathered in the vicinity of Mnyamana’s homesteads along the Sikhwebezi River on the afternoon of 28 March 1883. The impi numbered some 5,000 warriors, significantly more than the force Zibhebhu could muster, which may not have exceeded 1,500 men. The following day it set off. The army crossed the Vuna River, climbed the Nongoma Heights, and moved northeast until well within enemy territory. Adherents of Zibhebhu fled with their cattle, leaving behind their homesteads and grain stores which were burnt and plundered by the invaders. Late in the afternoon the uSuthu halted and encamped.
The following morning, small groups of horsemen were sighted—some of Zibhebhu’s men had been trained by a European to fight while mounted—and the uSuthu set off in pursuit. The horsemen fled towards the valley of the Msebe stream, where Zibhebhu had laid an ambush. In the broken and eroded sides of the valley, his infantry were lying in wait. As the disorderly pursuing uSuthu swarmed into the valley, they found themselves under attack by the concealed warriors, while Zibhebhu and his squad of horsemen, equipped with firearms, moved against the emGazini, who were on the left of the invading force. They broke, as did in turn the Buthelezi. Soon the shaken uSuthu were in retreat, pursued by Zibhebhu’s infantry, supported by rifle fire from his mounted troops who dispersed any groups that endeavoured to rally.
As the uSuthu fled across the open ground they suffered severe losses. Zibhebhu himself, a skilled marksman, accounted for some of the dead. Eventually, as the day drew to a close, the survivors reached Nongoma, leaving scattered behind them the bodies of hundreds, indeed thousands, of their comrades. In his book, The Story of the Zulus, J.Y. Gibson, who worked in the vicinity several years later, commented that ‘probably in no battle had the Zulus ever suffered greater loss of life.’ Among those who perished were five sons of Ndabuko and ten of Mnyamana’s. In marked contrast, only ten of Zibhebhu’s followers were killed.
Word of what had occurred reached Hamu that night, and he rose to arms. Many of his Ngenetsheni made their way towards the Black Mfolozi, attacking uSuthu en route. Other warriors headed north against Buthelezi living, or retiring, in the direction of the Pongola. Hence, within a short time of setting out to deal with Zibhebhu, the uSuthu had suffered an immense reverse. Thousands of their number had been killed, homesteads had been burnt, livestock seized and grain stores and growing crops destroyed, leaving many of them homeless and facing starvation.
The Buthelezi and other uSuthu from northern Zululand, such as the Qulusi, sought sanctuary in the Ngome Forest or in mountainous terrain such as the Hlobane range—the Mandlakazi and Ngenetsheni proceeded to attack them, with the aim of dislodging their quarry or seizing livestock—while other fugitives left Zululand or moved south towards oNdini or the Reserve. Then, in mid April, the forces of Zibhebhu and Hamu swept through the northern districts once again, burning and plundering whatever had eluded them previously. On 30 April, an editorial in the Natal Mercury sang Zibhebhu’s praises: he was the Napoleon of the North who was ‘really fighting the battle of South Africa, and championing the cause of civilisation and order, in the stubborn and so far successful resistance he has offered to the hostility and intrigues of Cetshwayo.’
Following Msebe, Cetshwayo informed the authorities that he would no longer endeavour to abide by the conditions under which he had been allowed to return to Zululand. Moreover he called upon Zulus to rally to his side, and from the end of April thousands of warriors could be seen at oNdini, training and undergoing military ceremonies. Other uSuthu warriors were massed around Mnyamana’s homesteads on the upper reaches of the Sikhwebezi.
The uSuthu leadership devised a strategy that they hoped would enable them to reverse the situation. Central to their plans was the aim of ensuring that Zibhebhu and Hamu, both of whom were receiving supplies of modern rifles and ammunition, could not launch a combined assault. It was decided to strike against Hamu first, before dealing with his more formidable ally. In early May, the uSuthu attacked. Hamu and his followers were thrown on to the defensive and forced to shelter in fortified caves, leaving their homesteads and stock to be plundered. Nonetheless, things did not all go in favour of the uSuthu. They failed to dislodge the Ngenetsheni from their fastnesses and, in addition, suffered from retaliatory attacks and raids.
June proved a disappointing time for Cetshwayo. In the middle of the month, Mnyamana, whose warriors included men from oNdini, attempted to finish off Hamu. But Hamu’s men—reportedly supported by about ten companies of Mandlakazi who had managed to make their way through the uSuthu cordon to assist their allies—inflicted such casualties on their opponents that the assault was abandoned. Then, as June drew to a close, Cetshwayo’s half-brother Dabulamanzi attempted to relieve the pressure on Mnyamana by advancing from oNdini against Zibhebhu. However, when Dabulamanzi’s impi of three regiments was confronted by the redoubtable chief they refused to fight and withdrew.
It was now midwinter and both sides were eager to settle matters before preparing their lands for the spring rains. The uSuthu decided to concentrate their forces in a major offensive against Zibhebhu, thereby compelling him to fight on several fronts against vastly superior numbers.
‘I don’t want more niggers’
Zibhebhu’s intelligence network, though, alerted him to what was afoot and he prepared a counter-stroke. On 20 July, several days after a group of Buthelezi had raided his territory and killed a number of his supporters, he met with his allies in the southwest of his chiefdom. Some 3,000 warriors were present, of whom about a
quarter were followers of Hamu. That evening, Zibhebhu set off towards oNdini. After crossing the Black Mfolozi, he marched through the night and arrived around dawn on low hills to the east of Cetshwayo’s homestead.
News of Zibhebhu’s proximity threw oNdini into confusion and the disconcerted uSuthu hurriedly prepared to fight. As Cetshwayo himself was to recall, warriors began moving out to meet the oncoming enemy ‘in a most disorganised state, they were only just awake, and in no state for fighting.’ Consequently, the uSuthu were soon running for their lives. ‘There was no real fighting,’ stated Cetshwayo, ‘for my men at once began to run.’ Most fled past oNdini before heading southward towards the White Mfolozi. They left behind them in the royal homestead Cetshwayo, his most senior officers, the women of the royal household, and a small number of warriors. Just in time, though, Cetshwayo was persuaded to flee. He escaped through a gate at the rear, mounted on a small horse led by Sihayo. oNdini was soon well alight.
The Mahlabathini Plain became a killing field. Fleeing uSuthu were cut down, including three of Cetshwayo’s wives and his youngest son, who was speared in his mother’s arms. The number who perished was high— though many young warriors managed to escape—and included numerous men of rank such as Ntshingwayo and Sihayo. On 23 August, the British Resident, Fynn, was to send Bulwer a list of the names of 59 ‘important men’ who had been slain. Moreover, when subsequently questioned on the matter, Cetshwayo (who had himself had a narrow escape), was stopped after naming 52 such individuals: ‘Every name I have given you,’ he said, ‘is that of a man of influence, a man with a following; men who say let it be so, Zulu, and it is so in accordance.’ The heart had been largely ripped out of the uSuthu faction. It was the end of an era.
The Zulus and Matabele: Warrior Nations Page 18