Shepstone, on his return from Cetshwayo’s coronation, had hoped that, as colonial kingmaker, and by persuading Cetshwayo to accept the ‘new laws’ he had foisted on him, he had achieved the pacification of colony and kingdom for the foreseeable future or, that is, for so long as it suited him. However, that essential element ‘trust’ that may well have existed between black and white as Shepstone, with his escort of Carbineers and gunners, had marched back to Natal, would have largely been dispelled by the treatment since meted out to the amaHlubi. What had been done to them, could with a great army of redcoats, be inflicted on the Zulu. Cetshwayo therefore concluded the Zulu army must be emboldened and the regiments increased to parallel those of King Shaka’s day. However, the Colony did not see this as a Zulu precaution against attack but rather as an indication of their own plans to do so.
Cetshwayo was not far wrong in gauging his neighbour’s intent: Natal, in the form of various interested parties, had long contemplated the conquest of Zululand in one way or another. For instance, John William Colenso, the Bishop of Natal, who had fiercely defended Langalibalele, had for many years been hoping for a Christian conquest of Zululand by deposing the reigning monarch and installing in his stead the Christianised pretender Mthungu, Cetshwayo’s half-brother, who was Colenso’s pupil and who resided under his roof. Now that Cetshwayo, who was plainly anti-missionary, reigned it was a high priority amongst all the churchmen that Cetshwayo be removed – or, better still, that Zululand be annexed by Britain.
By 1873 there were numerous missionaries from a variety of nations within the kingdom, all having been permitted to set up shop by King Mpande. However, their frustration must have been great – and, no doubt, regarded as a bad investment by the various philanthropic institutions who financed them – for they had hardly a convert to boast of; and now that Cetshwayo was on the throne their task would be doubly difficult. In fact, it was Cetshwayo’s immediate intention to expel all the missionaries but was persuaded by Shepstone to allow those currently resident to remain. Mpande had regarded the missionaries as the source of all the white man’s knowledge and the conduit through which white man’s possessions could be obtained. Cetshwayo on the other hand, preferred to shun the missionaries and obtain his wants through the white traders. In 1877, F. B. Finney, the border agent, and a man as knowledgeable of the Zulu kingdom as any, appraised the Governor of Natal of the new king’s attitude:
During the reign of the late king umPande [sic], the missionaries were considered almost as a necessity in Zululand . . . Bishop Schreuder especially enjoyed the friendship of umPande, and for many years had great influence over him. That state of things now has entirely altered. Cetshwayo’s disposition differs greatly from that of his father, he is more self-reliant, arrogant, and conservative. If he wants anything, he can find many traders ready and willing to supply his wants, and he, together with his chiefs, can see no good in either the missionaries or their work. He does not believe in their doctrines, and looks on any Zulu who professes so to do as a Zulu spoiled. He feels that each mission station is a separate power, set up in his land, which to a great extent is calculated to rob him of his influence over the people he governs and forms a place of refuge for all the abatakati [witches] and those who wish to throw off their allegiance to him. This is no new idea on his part, as from the first, he wished to get rid of the missionaries. I have good reason for believing that some of the missionaries have very unwisely interfered in Zulu politics.
How right Finney was. The Reverend Robertson, a prominent old hand amongst the British missionary contingent, was deeply involved in political intrigue. He not only kept up a stream of alarmist correspondence to the outside world, he was also the anonymous authority on Zululand for the Natal Mercury. Robertson, in common with his fellow missionaries, irrespective of nationality or denomination, was hoping and angling for the British annexation of Zululand. The missionaries would have Cetshwayo seen as a bloodthirsty and ruthless monarch whose subjects would delight in his demise, yet Robertson, the most virulent of Cetshwayo’s accusers, secretly held an entirely different and benign opinion of the king. In 1877 he wrote to his bishop:
Regarding the king, you have nothing to fear if you do not interfere with him . . . Lately the king said to me, ‘I love the English. I am not umPande’s son. I am the child of Queen Victoria. But I am also a King in my own country and must be treated as such. Somseu [Shepstone] must speak gently to me. I shall not hear dictation. I shall perish first.’
Just as the missionaries were determined to have full rein inside Zululand, so Shepstone was equally anxious to have unrestricted right-of-way through the kingdom for the passage of migrant labour who were fast becoming an essential factor in the booming agriculture and mining activities in Natal and the Cape. In both areas labour was scarce but plentiful beyond Zululand. Shepstone had once credited Shaka and his military state for saving south-east Africa from the ravages of slavery, thus, within Natal, there was no pool of recently freed slaves to draw upon for labour, nor was there a people with a tradition of manual work, the Zulu warriors scorning the very thought of exchanging the spear for a spade. The Kimberley diamond diggings alone were gobbling up any potential workers as fast as they appeared and had even managed to attract a few young bucks of the warrior class when it became known that the mines would pay for their labour with firearms. Shepstone wanted right of passage for amaTsonga labour through the Zulu kingdom, by way of a coastal route. This he managed to achieve with John Dunn securing the lucrative appointment of government agent. Yet Tsonga labour would not fill Natal’s needs and another route to the west was essential, a route that would give access to the limitless supply of manpower in Central Africa that had been created by the recent cessation of the slave trade in Zanzibar.
Such a route was possible, not through Zululand proper, but via an adjacent stretch of land known, for good reason, as the Disputed Territory. In the early days of the Boer alliance with Mpande, and after the British occupation of Natal in 1842, many Boers trekked north to create what became the Transvaal Republic whilst others put down roots in a triangle of land that had its southern tip situated at present-day Rorke’s Drift, and its northern boundary parallel with the Pongolo River, an area of some 3,000 square miles. The Boer settlers held that, in one way or another, they had acquired ownership which the Zulus, who had been the previous occupants, heartily contested. Hence the name the Disputed Territory. Later, the Natal government would offer to act as referee in the dispute but, in the meantime, shortly after Cetshwayo’s coronation, Shepstone was contemplating the acquisition of the Disputed Territory for Natal, as was the current governor, Sir Garnet Wolseley, who confided to his diary in May 1875:
I hear from Mr. Shepstone that Cetshwayo the King of the Zulus is now ready for war and means to begin by fighting the native tribes on his frontier. I wish his attention could be directed to the Transvaal; he hates the Dutch [the Boer settlers] who have always cheated and dealt unfairly with him; a war between these two parties would be very useful to us. It would reduce the King’s power immensely, perhaps break it up altogether, and it would prevent the Transvaal from obtaining money to make the Delagoa Bay Railroad and make it more keenly anxious to gave us the strip of disputed territory lying between them and the Zulu Kingdom, a piece of land that we want very badly . . . I have only to give the King the slightest hint, and he would pitch into the Transvaal there and then. I wish I could do so without compromising the Government at home. When his messengers arrive I will see what can be done. It is a glorious opportunity for England, for we ought to try and force the Transvaal into our arms.
The war that Wolseley believed Cetshwayo to be contemplating was undoubtedly the one against the amaSwazi that he had already decided to abandon, but it served the purpose of the colonial schemers to have the Zulu nation seen as permanently poised for war. Shortly after his coronation, Cetshwayo believed it necessary, by established tradition, to embark upon a war. Let John Dunn, who acted as go-between for Cetshwayo and the then Governor of Natal, Sir Benjamin Pine, explain:
All now remained quiet until he [Cetshwayo] took it into his head that he ought to establish his supremacy by following out an ancient custom of washing the spears of the nation in the blood of some neighbouring tribe. When he conceived this idea, he sent for me to write a letter to the Natal Government, stating his wish to go against the amaSwazi. To this he received the following reply, on the margin of the despatch (now in my possession) containing the reply, the autograph of Sir Benjamin Chilley Campbell Pine, is affixed:
‘Reply of His Excellency Sir Benjamin Chilley Campbell Pine, K.C.M.G., Lieut.-Governor of Natal, to Cetywayo, Chief of the Zulu Nation.
Office of Secretary for Native Affairs,
October 22, 1874.
‘The Lieutenant-Governor has received the letter sent by Cetywayo, and the reasons given for making war upon the amaSwazi.
‘The Lieutenant-Governor sees no cause whatever for making war, and informs Cetywayo that such an intention on the part of the Zulus meets with his entire disapproval.
‘Cetywayo must also remember that the amaSwazi are almost entirely surrounded by white people who have settled in the country, and it will be impossible for the Zulus, if war is made, to avoid getting into difficulties with them.
‘Many years ago the Lieutenant-Governor sent a letter to the late King M’Pande, requesting him to allow the amaSwazi to live in peace from any further attacks from the Zulus, he promised to do so, and kept his word. [Pine had served as Lieutenant Governor on a previous occasion.]
‘The Lieutenant-Governor trusts that what he has said will be sufficient to deter Cetywayo and the Zulu Nation from entertaining such a project.
‘By command of His Excellency,
‘(Signed) J. W. SHEPSTONE,
‘Acting Secretary for Native Affairs.’
Dunn comments further: ‘The above letter made the King change his plans, although it enraged him, as I could plainly see.’ (Especially, no doubt, in view of Pine’s recent decimation of the amaHlubi.) It is also ironic that the colonial government should prevent the king making war against the Swazis when, only three years later the same government would strive to get the amaSwazi to attack the Zulus: ‘. . . Offer the Swazi king fifty horses with saddles and bridles and 200 cows if his men moved to Pongola and keep the Zulus out of the Transvaal. Try to get this done for half the price.’
There can be no doubt that the British intent, either that of the home government, the colonial government, or both, was the conquest of a great deal more of southern Africa than that over which the Union Jack flew at the time of Cetshwayo’s coronation; and in order to accomplish that ambition the Zulu kingdom must come under British control. Only six weeks prior to Shepstone putting the tailor-made crown on Cetshwayo’s head, the Natal Mercury thundered: ‘Natal must consequently carry out a Monroe doctrine of its own, and insist that the Anglo-Saxon race shall hold undisputed sway from Cape Town to the Zambezi . . .’ The greatest fear of the thinly-scattered population of white settlers was that of a general uprising, a fear that was fed by the realisation that a network of intelligence and collaboration existed amongst the tribes of southern Africa and, of even greater dread, the Zulu Army of 40,000 warriors.
It seems then, that all Britain needed in order to invade Zululand was a good excuse. By late 1878 Cetshwayo was aware that it was Britain’s intention to take his Kingdom, for he remarked to John Dunn: ‘I am not a child; I see the English wish to have my country; but if they come in I will fight.’
There were great expectations amongst the British military that there might be a campaign in the offing. As far back as 1877 it had been regarded as a certainty by Sir Garnet Wolseley who, when at Aldershot, was asked whether or not he thought there might be an immediate war, replied: ‘No, Shepstone will keep him [Cetshwayo] quiet until we are ready’, to which a colleague, Colonel Butler replied: ‘When we fight the Zulus, we shall want 10,000 men . . .’. A serious under-estimate as it turned out but none would have thought so at the time.
Lieutenant-General Frederic Augustus Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford, the new general-officer-commanding Her Majesty’s Forces in southern Africa, who, by mid-1878 had successfully brought to an end the Ninth Frontier War in the Eastern Cape, and was looking for further military laurels, got more to the point when writing to, recently knighted, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, in July of the same year:
The Zulus have been very kind to us in abstaining from any hostile movements during the time we were so bitterly engaged [with the Ninth Frontier War] in this colony [the Cape]. If they will only wait until next month, I hope to have the troops better prepared than they are at present . . . If we are to have a fight with the Zulus, I am anxious that our arrangements should be as complete as it is possible to make them – half measures do not answer with natives – they must be thoroughly crushed to make them believe in our superiority.
And, during the same month, despite contending that ‘my reports from Natal breathe nothing but peace’, Chelmsford wrote to the War Office in London saying: ‘It is more than probable that steps will have to be taken to check the arrogance of Ketywayo [Cetshwayo], Chief of the Zulus.’
So, looking around for an excuse, the best on offer seemed to be Cetshwayo’s disregard of the ‘laws’ that Shepstone had proclaimed. Executions were still a not uncommon occurrence in Zululand, as indeed they were elsewhere in the world. John Dunn tells of the first after Cetshwayo had been crowned: ‘One of the Royal household servants had stolen several tins of “Chlorodyne” from the King and taken them off to his house with the idea of giving his brew-potted beer more punch. The unfortunate man was tracked down and arrested.’
Dunn witnessed him being brought in:
One morning, about eight o’clock, I was sitting in front of one of my wagons talking to some of my men when I saw a gathering of the Indunas at the gate of the King’s kraal. I remarked that there was some mischief brewing. After they had been talking for some little while, I saw all at once a scrimmage, and a man knocked down and pounced on. Seeing me in view, the Indunas sent to tell me that they had been trying the thief, and that he was to be killed. The poor fellow lay on the ground for a short time, for he had only been stunned: His arms had been twisted right round behind his head and tied together straight over his head. As soon as he recovered his senses he prepared to march. Having often witnessed a similar scene he knew, from terrible experience, the routine. So he got up of his own accord, and without being told, took the path to the place of execution, and was followed by about half-a-dozen men, who had been told off to go and finish him.
This was the first man killed after the coronation of Cetywayo, almost before Sir Theo. Shepstone could have reached Maritzburg. But it served the fellow right, as he was guilty of a great breach of trust. The Zulu is only to be ruled by fear of death, or the confiscation of his entire property.’
Cetshwayo, of course, denied that he had agreed to abide by Shepstone’s ‘laws’, maintaining that they were merely part of Shepstone’s ritual, and that he would not forsake his kingly prerogative of executing of his subjects as he saw fit. “‘Did I ever tell Mr. Shepstone I would not kill?” he enquired. “Did he tell the white people I made such an agreement because if he did, he has deceived them . . . Why does the Governor of Natal speak to me about my laws? Do I come to Natal and dictate to him about his laws?”’
So, the Colonial authorities waited; Cetshwayo’s breaking of the ‘laws’ could hardly justify war – and then two incidents occurred that, had they been stage-managed, could not have served the colonial government better.
One of Cetshwayo’s favourite subjects, Sihayo kaXongo, occupied a chiefdom on the north bank of the Buffalo River opposite the Rorke’s Drift Mission Station. Sihayo possessed a number of wives, two of whom decided to quit their husband and, with their respective lovers, flee across the river and take up residence in Natal where they would be safe from Sihayo’s wrath – or so they thought. But they had reckoned without Sihayo’s sons who were resentful of the shame brought upon their father and, led by the eldest boy, Mehlokazulu kaSihayo, an officer of the iNgobamakhosi Regiment, a group of thirty mounted warriors in war attire crossed into Natal. There they found one of the adulteresses, and took her back to Zulu soil where, in plain sight of the Natal natives across the river – who were suitably terrified by this time – they killed her. The following day, Mehlokazulu sallied forth again, with a much larger war party, and apprehended the other wife, dragged her back across the river, and, as with the first adulteress, put her to death.
The Colony of Natal was outraged and clamoured for retribution. The Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Henry Bulwer, demanded that Sihayo’s sons and the rest of the war party be handed over for trial under British law. Cetshwayo protested, saying in reply, that adultery was punishable by death in Zululand and that the young men were merely protecting their father’s name and honour. With this incident being far from resolved, in September there was a further ‘outrage’. Two officials of the Colonial Engineer’s Department, Messrs. W. H. Deighton and D. Smith, were supervising work on the ford across the Tugela at Middle Drift (a chosen invasion route into Zululand), when they were apprehended by a party of warriors after they had crossed the river to survey the Zulu bank. Not only were the two white men apprehended, they were partly stripped and manhandled although they were then released otherwise unharmed. This affair caused a fury of colonial indignation for which recompense would also be demanded. (A few months later, after a British army had crossed into Zululand to avenge these affronts, a Natal newspaper gloating thundered: ‘I have seen . . . the red and blue uniforms of men who have gathered . . . to vindicate the just cause of an offended civilisation, and to assert the outraged authority of the British Crown; I have seen the climax of a policy which must end in the undisputed supremacy of British rule over all the native tribes that live south of the Limpopo.’) Similarly there were incidents in the Disputed Territories seen as Zulu harassment, mainly directed at native Christian converts. Thus, in the latter months of 1878 there had been sufficient incidents to thoroughly alarm the settlers, sending them to bed with the thought that a vast Zulu army might descend upon the colony at any moment.
There were, however, some good tidings for King Cetshwayo that the Governor-General of the Cape Colony and Her Majesty’s High Commissioner for Southern Africa, Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, was keeping up his sleeve for the moment: the Boundary Commission had reached a conclusion and had awarded more than half the disputed territory to Zululand. Frere had decided to disclose the award coupled with an ultimatum the terms of which he believed King Cetshwayo would find it impossible to comply. However, in the invitation sent to Cetshwayo to meet with the colonial government, there was no hint of the bombshell that was about to be delivered. Consequently, on 11 December 1878, the highest ministers of the Zulu realm (including John Dunn), met with a galaxy of colonial top brass on the south bank of the Tugela River, under the shade of a majestic Natal fig tree.
The ceremony opened by stipulating the awards of the Boundary Commission: a gratifying slice of the disputed territory would once again come under Zulu rule. The Zulu deputation were delighted. But they were directed not to go away as the indaba was not yet over. Then, with the Secretary of Native Affairs, reading from a 5,ooo-word document, the bombshell was dropped. The proclamation began:
Message from his Excellency the Lieutenant–Governor of Natal to Cetywayo King of the Zulus and Chief Men of the Zulu Nation.
The Lieutenant-Governor of Natal sends, in the name of the Queen’s High Commissioner, these further words to the Zulu King and Nation.
Then began a strident tirade of scolding accusations and demands, that went on for half an hour, finally ending in:
It is necessary that the Zulu army shall be disbanded, and that the men shall return to their homes.
Let every man then be free to remain at his home, and let him plant and sow, and reap and tend his cattle and let him live in peace with his family.
Let him not be called out for war or fighting, or assembling in regiments, except with the permission of the great council of the nation assembled, and with the consent also of the British Government.
Let every man, when it comes to man’s estate, be free to marry. Let him not wait for years before he gets permission to do this for oftentimes the King forgets to give permission and the years pass . . .
. . . in future it will be necessary that promises be kept, for the British Government holds itself bound to see that this is so, and in order that they may be kept and that the laws regarding them may be duly carried out, the Queen’s High Commissioner, will appoint an officer as his deputy to reside in the Zulu country, or on its immediate borders, who will be the eyes and ears and mouth of the British Government towards the Zulu King and the Great Council of the nation . . .
If any case of dispute occurs in which any of the missionaries, or in which any European is concerned, such dispute should be heard by the King in public and in the presence of the British Resident; and no sentence of expulsion from Zululand shall be carried out until it has been communicated by the King to the Resident, and, until it has been approved by the Resident.
So there it was. The Zulu army to be disbanded and only to reassemble with the consent of a British Resident – a euphemism for governor or overlord – an official who, as can be seen, was to have considerable authority over the affairs of the Zulu kingdom. The ultimatum also reiterated that the culprits responsible for the ‘outrages’ be handed over for trial; that the various fines in cattle be paid; that the coronation ‘laws’ be obeyed; that missionaries be allowed to return; that all Zulu subjects be free to accept Christianity if they so wished.
Whether the king may or may not have accepted some of the demands is immaterial as all were insignificant in comparison to the British insistence for an all powerful colonial overlord and the disbanding of the Zulu Army. Cetshwayo could no more consider these two demands than could he contemplate destroying the national harvest. It was exactly what was expected. Had not the king emphatically stated: ‘I am also a king in my own country and must be treated as such. I shall not hear dictation. I shall perish first.’ War, as anticipated, was inevitable.