‘First came the trader, then the missionary, then the red soldier.’ Such was the remark attributed to Cetshwayo kaMpande, king of the Zulu nation, as he attempted to grasp the implications of an ultimatum that the British High Commissioner for southern Africa had served upon him in December 1878. It was an ultimatum so outrageous in what it demanded, that it was quite clear it had been designed to be totally beyond the compliance of the Zulu king. Now there would be war: Cetshwayo’s army, medieval in terms of weapons, versus the red soldiers of Queen Victoria, armed with the breech-loading rifle.
A British concept of dealing with Zululand, 1879
Although the Zulu, who call themselves the People of Heaven, had held sway in south-eastern Africa ever since King Shaka had forged numerous Nguni clans into a single realm, they had only encountered white men some fifty years earlier. Now, in less than a man’s lifetime, the red soldiers were coming to enforce the White Queen’s rule.
For centuries there had been rare appearances of Europeans along this south-eastern coast of Zululand but they had been castaways, the survivors of tragic shipwrecks. Perhaps the first white men to set eyes on the rolling green hills and forested valleys, fringed with a shoreline of crashing breakers, were Vasco Da Gama and his Portuguese sailors. They did not set foot ashore – in fact, for the next 300 years no one would deliberately do so – but Da Gama nevertheless gave the land a European name, Natal, having sighted it on Christmas Day 1497.
Tides and winds ensured that unseaworthy ships, or ships with incompetent crews, were wrecked on a particular 500-mile-long stretch of the South African coast. It was as if a magnet drew the ships ashore there instead of elsewhere on a coastline over 2,000 miles in length. Many of the passengers and crew survived the numerous shipwrecks and got ashore – some desperately injured but many unscathed. However, all were as one in their desperate plight. Their only hope of succour and rescue was to reach the Portuguese base of Lourenço Marques, no more than a toehold on the African coast but blessed with a natural harbour, if little else, where Portuguese ships called at infrequent intervals.
The Nguni/Zulu people, far to the north, were amongst the last of the tribes to witness the tragic human remnants of the shipwrecks. By the time the survivors reached Nguni territory their numbers would have been decimated again and again by injury, murder, cannibalism, disease, starvation and despair. As few reached so far north, records of encounters with the Nguni/Zulu are rare; the survivors of the San Alberto, wrecked in 1593, were most likely the first white men to encounter them.
The San Alberto castaways also recorded that as they made their way further north, so the local people became increasingly friendly. On crossing the ‘Uchugla River’ – the present-day Thukela – the Nguni/Zulu became so impressed with the fervour the Portuguese displayed during their religious devotions that they naively joined in with great abandon and rejoicing, ‘kissing and embracing the Portuguese’ and ‘treating them with the utmost familiarity’. The Portuguese also found that mutual beard-stroking – an affable form of greeting that they had encountered during their march north – was also practised by the Nguni/Zulu.
1. Cetshwayo kaMpande, king of the amaZulu
In 1755 a handful of Englishmen, the first of what would become a massive invasion of Britons over the next 200 years, was thrown upon the shores of Zululand. Unlike the Portuguese ships that had met disaster on the return journey from India, the Doddington, a British East Indiaman, was wrecked on its outward voyage, three months after setting sail from England. She went aground near Algoa Bay (present-day Port Elizabeth) and so quickly did she sink that only twenty-three of the total ship’s company of almost 300 men and women survived.
Sixty years later, in preparation of a survey of the coast between Port Natal and Delagoa Bay, three ships of the Royal Navy dropped anchor off what is now Zululand. In 1819 Shaka, the illegitimate son of Senzangakhona, the ruler of the Zulu clan, had defeated the numerically superior Ndwandwe army of Chief Zwide kaLanga. It was the first of many victories that Shaka would win with a ruthlessness of purpose that, within a few short years, would establish the kingdom of the Zulu. Shaka saw to it that what had been an insignificant Nguni clan, would become the Zulu nation. He introduced a new form of warfare: instead of the opposing sides standing back, throwing spears at each other, Shaka invented a short, broad-bladed stabbing spear – similar to the Roman sword of ancient times – that was to be used hand-to-hand and thus retained. It was never to be thrown, on pain of death. The Zulus named this weapon ‘iklwa’, derived from the sucking sound made when the blade was withdrawn from a victim, but the Europeans used the term ‘assegai’ for both this and the lighter throwing spear.
As clans were conquered one after the other, the captured youths were formed into age-group regiments. Thus the defeated clans lost their former identities and became ‘Zulu’. On one occasion Shaka was taken to task by an old comrade in arms who asked how it was that a warrior of a newly-conquered clan could be given rapid promotion in the Zulu army. He replied: ‘A man who fights in the Zulu army becomes a Zulu as if he had been born a Zulu.’ Shaka ruled over a kingdom that stretched from the borders of Swaziland and Mozambique, south for 450 miles and inland as far as the Drakensberg Mountains.
In 1822 Captain William Fitzwilliam Owen, RN, with the crews of his three Royal Navy ships HMS Leven, Barracouta and Cockburn, appeared to be unaware of the momentous upheaval that was taking place in the green hills beyond the pounding breakers. No doubt he was more concerned with the decimation of his officers and men. Having been assailed by swarms of mosquitoes along the Mozambique coast, men were dying of malaria at an alarming rate. Captain Owen was to lament that there was hardly a landmark named by the survey south of Delagoa Bay that did not record the fate of some crew member. The one exception was Point Durnford, named after the young officer who had delineated it. But even his name bore connotations of ill omen, for the young officer’s nephew, Colonel Anthony Durnford to be, would be killed by the Zulus fifty-seven years later at the Battle of Isandlwana. The only contact that the sailors had with the Zulu people was a sharp skirmish with one Soshangene, a renegade Zulu commander who, having fallen foul of Shaka, had left the Zulu kingdom with some of his warriors and was now freebooting in Mozambique. One of Owen’s officers, Captain Lechmere RN, described Soshangene as ‘wearing full military attire with a crane feather headdress atop his shaven head, monk style, and with a false beard made from oxtail hair’ (here again the Zulu fascination with beards). Captain Lechmere’s description was the first of fully-fledged Zulu warriors:
. . . tall, robust, and warlike, in their persons open, frank, and pleasing in their manners with a certain appearance of independence in their carriage . . . , infinitely above the natives of Lourenço Marques . . . their appearance was warlike, and had a striking affect as the extensive line moved through the various windings of the path. The grass being wet, they were observed taking particular care to keep their shields above it, as the damp would render them unserviceable; the spears attached to them, being thus elevated, were often seen glittering in the sun above the brow of the hill.
A fine description and one that any British redcoat would recognise half a century later as being that of a Zulu warrior. Although Soshangene appeared to be friendly, one night he led an attack on a survey party, but was sent packing in disarray by a volley of naval musketry. Thus, it would seem, the first British engagement with the Zulus was fought by bluejackets rather than by redcoats.
Captain Owen, and what remained of his decimated crews, finally sailed south to Cape Town to replenish stores and recruit more men and it was not long before he was again heading for Zululand to complete his survey. Calling in at Algoa Bay, he made the acquaintance of two ex-Royal Navy officers, Francis George Farewell and James Saunders King, both of whom had been forced to retire from the Navy due to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. They were now, like Owen, headed for Zululand, not to survey the coast but in two chartered ships, the Salisbury and the Julia, to make contact with the powerful and mysterious King Shaka, of whom much was spoken but of whom little was known. It was Farewell’s belief that all the gold and ivory that was exported by the Portuguese from Lourenço Marques originated in Shaka’s kingdom. To fulfil their purpose, Farewell and King required an interpreter and it was their good fortune that Captain Owen had just such a man – Jacob, a former convict of mixed blood who was, perhaps, due to return to jail. In any event, Jacob, willing or otherwise, went aboard the Salisbury, the first step in a long and eventful journey that would raise him from the status of felon to that of interpreter and advisor to the Zulu monarch: a most influential position.
On reaching Zululand they found every attempt to anchor and row a boat ashore thwarted by the crashing surf. During the final attempt to land, the ship’s boat was overturned, the cargo lost, three men drowned, and several more were marooned for five weeks. However, Jacob, who was amongst the landing party, was not to be found when rescue came: he had departed inland to his destiny with Shaka.
Turning their vessels south, Farewell and King decided to try their luck at what became known as Port Natal (known later still as Durban), a fine harbour, the only one for hundreds of miles in either direction, but a haven that was guarded by a sandbar across its entrance. The Salisbury stood just off shore being of too deep a draft to cross the bar, while the Julia managed to enter harbour at high tide. So the traders’ enthusiasm, despite the dangers and hardships, soared.
Back in Algoa Bay, Farewell and King, now believing a rumour that the Zulu king’s great cattle kraal was fenced entirely of elephant tusks, obtained financial backing from the local merchants for a more ambitious expedition. Amongst the recruits was an Englishman of effervescent disposition by the name of Henry Francis Fynn and, although only twenty-one, a trader and traveller of considerable experience. He would purchase all the commodities that the expedition would offer in trade for ivory and gold, it being firmly believed that gold was to be had in abundance. It was decided to send Fynn on ahead, with twenty-five men aboard the little Julia.
Again the vessel was successful in crossing the bar, and on 10 March 1824 Fynn and others went ashore to make contact with the local inhabitants, spending a fearful night being attacked by ‘wolves’ (wild dogs or hyenas?) that persistently dragged away every item of bedding and clothing that they could fasten their teeth to. Having travelled twelve miles (to probably present-day Umhloti), Fynn was taking a rest when his attention was drawn to a frightening spectacle. Coming along the beach, seemingly following in Fynn’s tracks was a massive force of warriors:
I immediately concluded they had come in pursuit of me after having already destroyed the party I had left building. The bush along the beach was dense and, as I was sure they had seen me, flight appeared inadvisable. On the approach of the head of the column I was struck with astonishment at their appearance, for it was sufficient to terrify. Evidently they were equally surprised at mine, and looked at me with a kind of horror. The leaders talked much among themselves, but at length passed on along the beach. This dense mass of natives continued to pass by me until sunset, all staring at me with amazement, none interfering with me.
For many days Fynn and his followers stayed in the nearby village of a local Zulu headman while news was sent to Shaka that the white visitor awaited his permission to proceed. Word came that Fynn must wait and that, in the meantime, he would be attended by an officer named Msigali and twenty warriors. When Msigali arrived Fynn was appalled at his evil appearance and wanted to get rid of him at all costs. He wrote: ‘There was something so frightfully forbidding in this man’s countenance that in addition to the conviction that one of his duties was to spy and report on my every action, I felt he looked as much like a murderer as it was possible to infer from his countenance.’
Word also came to Fynn that Farewell had arrived at Port Natal aboard another chartered vessel, the Antelope, bringing with him eight horses, the first to be seen by the Zulu people. Fynn immediately returned to Port Natal and shortly thereafter news came that the visitors had permission to proceed on the 200-mile journey to Shaka’s capital. During their travels Fynn and Farewell were struck by the cleanliness and order that prevailed.
It took Fynn and his party two weeks to reach Shaka’s residence at Dukuza (present-day Stanger) which they first saw from a distance of fifteen miles. When closer Fynn estimated that the capital was two miles in circumference and that there were 80,000 warriors, all dressed in war attire, on parade. Before meeting Shaka he was requested to gallop around the perimeter of the capital and then again, accompanied by the rest of the party who were mounted. Finally, leaving their mounts behind, Farewell, Fynn and their companions were ushered into the royal enclosure where eventually, from the midst of many Zulu dignitaries, Shaka revealed himself and the white men were formally presented with elephant tusks. Then, at a gesture from the Zulu monarch, the whole mass of warriors fell back, making way for their king. What followed must have been an awe-inspiring spectacle, the like of which no white man had ever seen and few would ever see again.
2. Henry Francis Fynn, the first white man to visit the Zulu Kingdom, later became a confidant of King Shaka. (KZN Archives, Pietermaritzburg)
Despite Fynn’s apparent composure, he and his companions must have been gripped with apprehension. During their journey from the coast it had become abundantly clear that human life was accorded little value and that their fate depended solely on Shaka’s whim: a smashed skull and instant death could be the result of royal displeasure.
Fynn continued in his diary:
A portion of each of these [regiments] rushed to the river and the surrounding hills, while the remainder, forming themselves into a circle, commenced dancing with Shaka in their midst. It was a most exciting scene, surprising to us, who could not have imagined that a nation termed ‘savages’ could be so disciplined and kept in order.
Regiments of girls, headed by officers of their own sex, then entered the centre of the arena to the number of 8,000 – 10,000, each holding a slight staff in her hand. They joined in the dance, which continued for about two hours.
The King came up to us and told us not be afraid of his people, who were now coming up to us in small divisions, each division driving cattle before it. The men were singing and dancing and whilst so doing advancing and receding even as one sees the surf do on a seashore.
The following morning the white men were ordered to the royal presence where they witnessed Shaka, surrounded by 200 people, being attired for the day. His headdress was a circlet of otter skin adorned with scarlet feathers of the lourie bird and a single crane feather, over two feet long. A servant held a war shield above the king’s head, sheltering him from the sun. Ornaments protruded from his earlobes, which had been cut and stretched to hold them; around his shoulders hung tresses of monkey and genet skins, twisted into the shape of animal tails; tufts of white ox-tail decorated his arms and legs; about his waist was a kilt of twisted monkey tails; he was armed with a white ox-hide shield and stabbing spear.
Shortly after their arrival, the formal presentation of Farewell’s gifts occurred. This was the first time that white men had approached the Zulu people as traders, and on somewhat of an equal footing, rather than as castaways seeking succour. Farewell and Fynn’s gifts to the king were opulent, and had been well chosen: every description of beads to be had; woollen blankets; brass bars; sheets of copper and a variety of animals including cats and dogs. However, the king betrayed no sign of appreciation.
After a week had passed at the king’s great kraal, the white men decided to return to Port Natal and their anchored vessels. However, on hearing of their intention Shaka refused to let Fynn go, insisting that he remain behind. Farewell was full of apprehension and greatly distressed at having to impart this news to Fynn, who had not been present when Shaka had issued his decree, yet, Fynn, far from being anguished at the news was happy to remain and learn more about these intriguing people and their king.
In a good mood, Shaka presented Fynn with five elephant tusks and promised to send his soldiers to hunt for more ivory: the first of the traders to encounter the Zulu people were off to a good start, mainly due to the rapport that Fynn had established with Shaka. Yet, had Shaka the slightest premonition of the part these traders and others who would follow, would play in the downfall of his nation, he would have been justified in destroying them on the spot. Fynn himself provides a cameo of the traders’ involvement in the demise of the Zulu Empire as fifty years later, Lieutenant General Lord Chelmsford, at the head of a column of 15,000 soldiers, would especially request that Fynn’s son, also Henry Francis, be attached to his staff as advisor and interpreter.
Shaka was as good as his word and shortly sent his soldiers scouting for elephant and it is an indication of the multitude of game that roamed Zululand at the time that a herd was encountered within an hour or so’s march from the capital. The soldiers, rather than attack the herd, sent word back in order that the white men could join in the sport. Now Fynn was in trouble, for during his verbal sparring with Shaka the previous evening, he had extolled the power and superiority of the white man’s firearms yet the only weapons he had to hand were some old muskets and fowling pieces suitable for little else than bringing down a duck in flight. Fynn’s attempts to explain the technical limitations of his weapons and the need for a gun of larger calibre were greeted with derision. It was obvious that if Fynn was to retain any esteem – even his life – he would have to sally forth and do his best. So, gathering together a little force of half a dozen sailors who had volunteered to remain behind at Dukuza, Fynn set off to do battle with the elephants followed by Shaka and a throng of jeering warriors. Shortly, the scouts up ahead called for silence and, lest the herd should take off and deprive the king of gloating over the white man’s humiliation, the assembly proceeded with the utmost stealth – Fynn in the lead with the rumbling of the great beasts’ stomachs giving a guide to their exact location.
Fynn, after due consideration, decided the only thing he could do was to advance his men in line abreast and at his whispered command, all fire at once, scattering the herd every which way and bearing the mocking levity that would inevitably follow. Standing like the tattered remnants of a military piquet, Fynn and his men, at forty yards, fired a volley and a great tusker fell dead with a thud that shook the ground. Shaka and his warriors, with a derisive howl frozen on their lips, stood staring at the fallen beast, while the equally astonished Fynn doing his best to appear that the demise of the tusker was no more than it should have been. It was as though they expected it to jump up at any moment. Finally Fynn went forward and with some difficulty traced the cause of death: a musket ball, fired by a sailor who previously had neither seen an elephant nor fired a musket, had penetrated the ear straight into the brain.
By evening, Shaka had recovered his composure and proceeded to elaborate the many advantages nature had bestowed on the Zulu people, citing for instance how superior a black skin was to a white one which was so ugly it was kept covered by clothes. And despite the sensational killing of the elephant, Shaka was in no doubt that if it came to a pitched battle between his warriors and European soldiers with muskets, his men would inevitably win. He argued that when a shield was dipped in water previous to an attack, it would deflect a musket ball and, as the solder attempted to reload, his warriors would close; and should the soldiers attempt to run, his warriors, fleet of foot, would inevitably overtake and destroy them. It was not only the King’s conjecture of what the result would be if his warriors did battle with the red soldiers, it was, unbeknown to either Shaka or Fynn, an accurate foretelling of the Battle of Isandlwana, fifty-six years in the future.
Fynn spent much of his time reading – perhaps compiling a store of knowledge with which to confound the king in future. Then one evening as dusk approached, he made his way to the great kraal where Shaka was dancing with his warriors. (These were not dance routines given over to frivolous pleasure, but extremely athletic and disciplined movements designed as exercise for war.) Flaming bundles of dried reeds illuminated the spectacle but hardly had Fynn arrived than there was a sudden cry from the midst of the throng followed by confusion and instant darkness as the torches were extinguished. Shaka had been stabbed, the assegai passing through his left arm, on through his ribs and up under his left breast. Fynn was in imminent danger. The attempt on the king’s life could well have been construed by the gathering as the work of Fynn, the white wizard – it could well have been deliberately planned to appear so. Fynn eventually found Shaka lying in a hut surrounded by some of his ministers. His own doctor had also arrived.
The night had become a turmoil of anguish, fear and revenge as the whole population vied with one another in performing exhibitions of hysterical remorse. Those unable to express grief – for instance those who could no longer produce tears of sorrow – were immediately put to death. Later it was discovered that the would-be assassins were a small raiding party from Shaka’s rival, King Zwide of the amaNdwandwe. Two regiments were immediately stood-to and despatched on the trail of the raiders. By noon the warriors had returned, bringing with them the bodies of three men, the supposed assassins.
During the days of the king’s recovery Farewell, accompanied by another trader, a Mr Davis, had arrived at the royal kraal, bringing gifts for the king. However, from what transpired the gifts were clearly items of barter. Fynn usually provides a detailed description of the items presented to Shaka, but on this occasion he was silent – perhaps too embarrassed to mention what Farewell and Company were offering in exchange for 2,500 square miles of prime African real estate, rich in grazing, fertile of soil, teeming with animals bearing valuable hides and ivory and the finest harbour between the Cape and Delagoa Bay. Not a bad deal in exchange for beads, blankets, brass bangles and the like. If Shaka didn’t realise what he was doing, the white men certainly did. And, for what it was worth – and as it turned out later, very little – it was all tied up in a legal contract, prepared in advance by Farewell and Company, that is quite remarkable, and worth reading in full:
I, Inguos Shaka, King of the Zulus and of the country of Natal, as well as the whole of the land from Natal to Delagoa Bay, which I have inherited from my father, for myself and heirs, do hereby, on the seventh day of August in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and twenty four, and in the presence of my chiefs and of my own free will, and in consideration of divers goods received – grant, make over and sell unto F.G. Farewell and Company, the entire and full possession in perpetuity to themselves, heirs and executors, of the Port or Harbour of Natal, known by the name of ‘Bubolongo,’ together with the Islands therein and surrounding country, as herein described, viz: The whole of the neck of land or peninsula in the south-west entrance, and all the country ten miles to the southern side of Port Natal, as pointed out, and extending along the sea coast to the northward and eastward as far as the river known by the native name ‘Gumgelote,’ and now called ‘Farewell’s River,’ being about twenty-five miles of sea coast to the north-east of Port Natal, together with all the country inland as far as the nation called by the Zulus ‘Gowagnewkos,’ extending about one hundred miles backward from the sea shore, with all rights to the rivers, woods, mines, and articles of all denominations contained therein, the said land and appurtenances to be from this date for the sole use of said Farewell and Company, their heirs and executors, and to be by them disposed of in any manner they think best calculated for their interests, free from any molestation or hindrance from myself or subjects. In witness thereof, I have placed my hand, being fully aware that the so doing is intended to bind me to all the articles and conditions that I, of my own free will and consent, do hereby in the presence of the undermentioned witnesses, acknowledge to have fully consented and agreed to on behalf of F.G. Farewell as aforesaid, and perfectly understand all the purport of this document, the same having been carefully explained to me by my interpreter, Clambamaruze, and in the presence of two interpreters, Coliat and Frederick, before the said F.G. Farewell, whom I hereby acknowledge as the Chief of the said country, with full power and authority over such natives that like to remain there after this public grant, promising to supply him with cattle and corn, when required, sufficient for his consumption, as a reward for his kind attention to me in my illness from a wound.
SHAKA, his X mark.
King of the Zulus.
Thus Farewell and Company, within a few months, had acquired thousands of square miles of the Zulu kingdom ... well, temporarily at any rate.
A few days later, back at Port Natal, the traders celebrated their good fortune by firing a salute of twenty rounds and declaring that possession had been taken in the name of His Britannic Majesty King George IV. However, Zwide, the rival king who had instigated the attack on Shaka’s life, had still to be dealt with. An army of four regiments, totalling 7,000 warriors, was assembled, each regiment complete with its own individual uniform and regalia: headdresses of otter skin, crane and eagle feathers; kilts of genet skins; ox-hide shields of different regimental colours – white, red-spotted, black and grey; trappings of ox tails covering the chest and shoulders. Each man carried a club (knobkerrie) and a single stabbing spear – no cowardly throwing spears, it will be noted: ‘They held their shields down at the left side – and, at a distance, very much resembled a body of cavalry. The first and third divisions marched off making a shrill noise, while the second and fourth made a dreadful howl.’
3. Fully equipped for war, a warrior carries his large shield, spear and knobkerrie. (Local History Museum, Durban)