The unjust war was over, leaving Zululand destitute. But Britain would not be satisfied until Cetshwayo was captured. What his fate would be when that was achieved was uncertain but his capture was imperative. And so, only days after the Battle of Ulundi had been fought, British patrols, often comprising of little more than a couple of officers, an interpreter and a small escort, were roaming Zululand, miles from any reinforcements, and would find themselves received with good-natured curiosity. But none, it seemed, were willing to betray their king.
An interpreter, Henry Longcast, recalled:
We could get nothing from the Zulus. We were treated the same at every kraal. I had been a long time in Zululand, I knew the people and their habits, and, although I believed that they would be true to their king, I never expected such devotion. Nothing would move them. Neither the loss of cattle, the fear of death, nor the offering of large bribes would make them false to their king.
Lieutenant Henry Harford accompanied one of the many ‘seek-search-and-capture’ patrols and, on one occasion when the questioning was over and curiosity satisfied, Harford recalled:
. . . One of Somkele’s warriors came up and asked if any of us had been at Isandlwana, and on telling him that I was out with the Contingent [NNC] at Isipezi at the time of the fight, he caught hold of my hands and shook them firmly in a great state of delight, saying it was a splendid fight. ‘You fought well, and we fought well’, he exclaimed, and then showed me eleven wounds that he had received, bounding off with the greatest ecstasy to show how it all happened . . . I now had a look at his wounds. One bullet had gone through his hand, three had gone through his shoulder and smashed his shoulder blade, two had cut the skin and slightly in to the flesh right down the chest and stomach, and one had gone clean to the fleshy part of the thigh. The others were mere scratches in comparison with these, but there he was as well as ever and ready for another set to. Could anything more clearly show the splendid spirit in which the Zulu fought us? No animosity, no revengeful feeling, but just sheer love of a good fight in which the courage of both sides could be tested . . .
39. The Zulu were not alone in taking gruesome trophies. Amongst the bric-a-brac of a British officer’s tent, there can be seen a human skull. (Local History Museum, Durban)
All the warriors throughout the kingdom were required to surrender their firearms which they did reluctantly, but with good grace. Later Captain W. E. Montague, whose job it had been to collect the old muskets, wrote of his experiences:
. . . Walking magnificently, upright and springing, with skins like satin, their faces far above the usual Negro-type and their figures pictures of grace and activity. They came on without the slightest show of fear, straight into the camp, and were taken at once to their quarters where they all squatted in a semi-circle while their fire-arms were collected, each man in turn being called by name, when he advanced and deposited the arms he carried, he received in return a pass to secure him from being molested. One day came Mahanana, a brother of Cetshwayo’s, and not unlike him in face and form. He was enormously fat, standing over six feet in stature, perfectly naked all but for the kilt he wore, and came forty miles to surrender to us, on foot. His bodyguard consisted of six rough-looking Zulus, who squatted with their master opposite the tent door, as though they were equals. But there was no mistaking the chief; his composure was intense, the indifference with which he treated everything about so delightful, and his whole attitude truly royal. An officer wishing to possess something of his as a memento, asked him to give him the rough stick he carried. Mahanana raised his eyes for a second and replied in his low, soft voice: ‘That stick has touched my hand, and there may be some of my own royal sweat upon it. I am a king, and nothing of a king’s can touch a stranger and not be defiled!’ . . . And yet the man was a prisoner, and beaten. It was amusing to talk to the Zulus; they are so magnificent in their ignorance and so full of themselves.
And so the British army suddenly felt affection and a camaraderie for their former foe. Later, a report published by the Intelligence Division of the War Office pondered:
There can be no doubt that the Zulu is a born soldier. No one who knows the Zulu nation can doubt their high military qualities, and it may be taken as admitted that better rough military material could scarcely be found. A Zulu by birth, by tradition and from the earliest training is a soldier. He is brave, hardy and enduring.
And a young officer speculated how with a Zulu army, Britain could have conquered much of Africa: ‘With a remodelled system, and an army led by Englishmen, these men would have followed us anywhere. We might have had Southern Africa up to the Zambezi and beyond it . . .’
But as time wore on with the king still at large, it was not all ‘Hail fellow well met’ between the searchers and the searched. Cornelius Vijn, the young Dutch trader who it will be remembered had been caught up in Zululand at the beginning of hostilities and had remained there throughout the war, had now been eagerly employed by the British as a guide who, it was hoped, would lead them to the king. On the orders of Sir Garnet Wolseley, Vijn at first went alone, found the king and tried to persuade him to surrender. But Cetshwayo was apprehensive, believing he would be shot. Vijn returned to Wolseley who immediately ordered 500 mounted men, under the command of Major Percy Barrow, to set out in pursuit. But the king had fled. After floundering around in the bush for two days, and with tempers raw, the party approached a village. Vijn remembered: ‘We off-saddled and sent out scouts, who by noon had collected forty Zulus . . . Major Barrow required them to tell whither the king had gone, and said he would shoot one of them if they did not tell him but they could not or would not.’
After a further three days of fruitless search they returned to Ulundi only to sally forth again a day or so later. But now Barrow had sensibly streamlined his force to only twenty-five men. Vijn continues the tale:
The next day we went as far as the first kraal belonging to Sibebu, where we off-saddled. We found here some guns which we smashed, but no Martini-Henry’s. Then we made the owners of the kraal give their stored mealies for our horses, which they did very unwillingly, being afraid of starvation, and one actually cried, saying that they ‘would have nothing now to eat’. The officer took only half the mealies from the kraal, and took the rest from another kraal. He then sent for the headman of the second kraal, and sent him with a message to Sibebu, that he must surrender, and bring in his guns and royal cattle, and if he did not come in two days’ time, they would burn all the kraals in his country and take all his cattle.
40. After the final shots were fired, Cetshwayo evaded his enemies for over two months.
However, Barrow was not destined to have the kudos of capturing the king. Quite by chance, it would fall to Major Richard Marter of the 1st Dragoon Guards.
The king had now evaded capture for over two months during which time dozens and dozens of patrols had set forth with high hopes but, as was the case with Captain Barrow, the terrain, the climate and the antagonistic disdain of most Zulus saw patrol after patrol return to camp exhausted, crestfallen and empty-handed. Barrow, in fact, had handed over command of his particular search party to Captain Lord Gifford who, by diligently following every clue, was soon hot on the trail of the king. By 28 August, Gifford was confident that the king was his. Having stealthily deployed his men about the approaches to a village, Gifford was waiting for dusk before pouncing on his quarry. However, unbeknown to him, there was another hunting party approaching the village from the opposite direction. Major Marter’s patrol of the Dragoon Guards were looking down on the back of the village from a mountainous ridge 2,000 feet high. Let Sergeant Smith of the Dragoons describe what happened:
The kraal down at the bottom of the hill, about a stone’s throw off to look at, but it took about three hours to get to it, having to lead our horses all the way through the forest. When we eventually got through and Major says to us, ‘When I say Gallop, I want you to gallop’, which we did up one hill, down another, and then on the level with stones as big as wheelbarrows to get over, through, or any way we liked. I heard one man and then another calling out ‘Stop that horse’ as the horse had fallen down with them, but it was every one for himself until we surrounded the kraal. The inmates were quite surprised, as none of them knew where we had sprung from. The king was a long time before he would surrender to us, but he was told that if he did not come out, we should burn him out, so he quietly came out, and looked as stately as a General coming to review a few thousand men on parade.
Major Marter also described what happened. Having descended through the forest, the Dragoons were still faced with some rugged terrain which they had to cross as fast as they could go:
Accustomed as our horses had become to following us over very difficult ground, the sheer fall from one ledge of rock in particular so dismayed some of them that there was nothing for it but to have them pushed over and let them take their chances . . . The foot was reached at 3 o’clock, two horses having fallen to rise no more, and one man’s elbow having being dislocated in this part of the run. Here fortune favoured us, for on the lower edge of the forest was a little dell, hidden in which we could mount unobserved. This was a great advantage, and waiting till all were out and on their horses, I gave a low word ‘Gallop, march’ and gallop we did.
In no time the kraal was surrounded and finally Marter called out to the king:
I called on the king to come out which he positively declined to do, insisting that I should go in to him. Being unable to turn him from this, and at the same time quite determined that he should come out and surrender himself, I said that I was very sorry, but, having no time to waste, I was about having a match applied to the hut, when he asked the rank of the officer to whom he must yield – by whose authority I had come – and stipulated that I should not kill him. I then said that I had been especially sent by the High Commissioner to bring him in, under the authority of the Queen of England, and that I would not kill him if he came with me quietly and made no attempt to escape. At last he came out, fine fellow as he is, and throwing his mantle over his shoulder, stood in front of me, and quite ‘the King’. Looking haughtily to the right and left and seeing the helmets of the mounted Dragoons surrounding the kraal he asked ‘How did they get here?’ And on the chief pointing to the mountain behind him, added, ‘I never thought troops could come down the mountain through the forest, or I should not have been taken.’ . . . The king was by no means, as has been represented, ‘worn to a shadow’, or ‘foot-sore and weary’, but in splendid condition, and as fresh as could be, showing not the smallest sign of having fallen away. His weight must be enormous, but he is not over burthened with superfluous fat, or out of proportion in girth – a noble specimen of a man in form, without, a bad or cruel expression, and, as I have said before, ‘the King’ all over in appearance and bearing.
During the long journey back to Ulundi, Cetshwayo let it be known by word and gesture that he was king, often infuriating Marter and trying his patience to breaking point. A number of his courtiers had accompanied their king and on one occasion four attempted to escape. Having been previously warned that any attempted flight would be met by shooting, two were gunned down while the other two got away. After this incident the cavalcade moved with more alacrity, Cetshwayo completing the last leg of the journey in a mule cart that had been acquired by Marter especially for the king’s comfort. But, on drawing close to Ulundi and the crowds of military spectators who had assembled to witness the spectacle of his arrival, Cetshwayo alighted:
41. The king, carefully guarded, on the way to Lord Wolseley’s camp.
. . . The king was evidently much dejected, and just before reaching the top of the hill overlooking Ulundi, he stopped, and placing his hands upon the top of his long staff, rested his forehead upon them for about a minute – then, raising his head, he threw off all signs of depression, and marched onwards and into camp with the most perfect dignity, the troops having all turned out to see him come in.
Wolseley wasted no time and hardly had Cetshwayo set foot in the British camp than he was about-turned and marched off to the coast. On 4 September, two months to the day after the Battle of Ulundi, he was embarked upon a coasting vessel, the Natal, that, over an eleven day voyage, took him to the Cape and thereafter to confinement in Cape Town Castle.
So Cetshwayo had not been betrayed by the Zulu people as the white politicos had predicted; he was not, it would appear, the infamous despotic ruler, feared and hated by his people, as Sir Bartle Frere would have the world believe – nor was he a grotesque black savage as had been portrayed by more than one English pictorial. He was, as the curious white population of the Cape soon discovered as they crowded for a glimpse, not a bad-looking fellow. In fact, his description as appeared in The Times was positively flattering:
Cetshwayo’s personal appearance is quite unlike any of the so-called portraits, which have appeared in the pictorial press. He is an exceptionally fine specimen of the noble savage, of well-proportioned and fully developed frame, a good-natured, broad, open-face, of the prominent Zulu-type.
Despite of his immense proportions I never saw a finer specimen of the races of South Africa or amongst them so intelligent a face. Those who have seen the photograph ‘from a painting’ are made to believe that he is monstrous in face and form – a huge carcass with a fiendish countenance. He is nothing of the sort . . . The face is massive, open, and good-natured, and lights up quickly at a pleasant thought or a humorous suggestion . . . The eyes, large and lustrous, would – in the glance I had – indicate a restless energy and quickness of comprehension. All those who see the king will be astonished that one in such good condition and with so good a face, had ever been the great war-spirit of the land.
42. It was popular to portray Cetshwayo as a fearsome monster as painted ‘from life’.
(Local History Museum, Durban)
Meanwhile in Zululand, Wolseley had been busy imposing upon the Zulu people a classic example of divide and rule; and thus the reason for the unseemly haste with which Cetshwayo had been marched out of Ulundi becomes clear. On the day he was triumphantly brought into camp as a prisoner, some of the great chiefs of the nation, those specifically selected by Wolseley himself, were beginning to assemble at the British camp. They were to hear on the morrow what the future of their land would be and what part they might play in its administration; and the last thing that Wolseley wanted was the presence of the king.
The British authorities, or rather Wolseley, had decided not to annex Zululand after all as that would require direct rule and enormous expense to the government. Rather, let the Zulus get on with it themselves, with a minimum of British supervision, no more than just a Resident. There would be no influx of white settlers (those colonial soldiers to whom Lord Chelmsford had promised farms in Zululand would have to be disappointed). If the Zulus didn’t like the way he had proposed to cut up the kingdom they could fight amongst themselves and being busy on that score, the bogey of a Zulu invasion would be laid once and for all. And the Colony of Natal would at last sleep soundly.
Wolseley had decided to divide the kingdom into thirteen self-ruling chiefdoms, leaving no door by which, at a later date, Cetshwayo may be able to return and enter his former realm. In addition Wolseley’s choice of his thirteen rulers was not only astonishing but outrageous. Two were not Zulus at all: One was John Dunn and the other Sergeant-Major Hlubi, a former NCO of the Natal Native Horse and Durnford’s chief scout at the Langalibalele affray. Nevertheless, all were required to take an oath. The Narrative of the Field Operations Connected With the Anglo-Zulu War, compiled by the Intelligence Branch of the War Office, records what they were required to say:
I recognise the victory of the British Arms over the Zulu Nation, and the full right and title of her Majesty Queen Victoria, Queen of England and Empress of India, to deal as she may think fit with the Zulu chiefs and people, and with the Zulu country; and I agree, and I hereby sign my agreement, to accept from Sir Garnet Joseph Wolseley, GCMG, KCB, as the representative of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, the Chieftainship of a territory of Zululand . . .
There followed a long list of further conditions which the future rulers swore to obey, such as the banning of the Zulu military system, that men be allowed to marry at will, that no firearms be permitted, that any fugitives from British justice be arrested and delivered to the authorities, and that no British subject be brought to trial or sentenced without the approval of the British Resident.
So a Resident was duly appointed and the thirteen chiefs sworn in on the following day, 2 September 1879, then, with breathtaking haste, the British evacuation of Zululand began. The War Office Narrative records: ‘The stores which had been collected in the various posts having being consumed or removed, all these posts were abandoned, and by the end of September, 1879, the last attachment of British troops had left Zululand’, leaving behind a ravaged land rife for civil war. What had it all been about?
Of all these happenings, and the destruction of his kingdom, Cetshwayo knew nothing. He was accompanied to his incarceration by his head gaoler, Captain J. R. Poole of the Royal Artillery, his interpreter, Henry Longcast and nine Zulu companions. On his way to Cape Town Castle he witnessed the first instance of a strange phenomena. People of British stock, now represented by the citizens of Cape Town, always sympathetic with the underdog and quick to applaud celebrities and those unjustly vilified, now saw a mixture of all those traits in Cetshwayo and, much to his amazement, the crowds began to cheer him. Where he had expected loathing and hostility, he received acclaim and admiration. Soon everyone who was anyone was requesting permission to visit the king in his sparsely-furnished quarters which, nevertheless, commanded panoramic views of Cape Town. One such visitor who would have significant influence on his future, was a Lady Florence Dixie, who arrived in Natal in March 1881. A newly-married twenty-year-old aristocrat, richly endowed with looks, wealth and good fortune, she was also a superb horsewoman, a first-class shot and as tough as they come. In addition she had recently been appointed the London Morning Post Special Correspondent to cover the war that had recently broken out between Britain and the Transvaal. It was a war merely of days with Britain suffering an ignominious defeat at Majuba Hill, the like of which it had not experienced in all its long history, so the war was over before Lady Florence could put her descriptive pen to paper. Instead she began to take an interest in the affairs of Zululand, soon becoming a stalwart advocate for the release and restoration of the Zulu king.
In the meantime, while Cetshwayo was transferred to less formal confinement, a farm on the Cape Flats called Oude Moulen, Zululand was fast becoming a cauldron boiling with resentment and revenge. The royal family, Cetshwayo’s brothers and kin, had been placed under the gloating authority of Zibhebhu kaMapita of the Mandhlakazi clan and it was now his pleasure to treat them as though they were serfs, robbing them of their cattle and forcing them into a state of destitution. John Dunn and Hamu, in their respective domains, were no less brutal in their dealings with their ‘subjects’ who might have provoked their displeasure. Such was the state of unrest throughout Zululand that by August 1881, less than two years since Cetshwayo’s capture, the British thought it wise to listen to a deputation made up of notable chiefs and thousands of followers, all of whom wished to express their discontent and plea for the return of their monarch.
Colonel Sir Evelyn Wood, the victor of the Battle of Kambula, now a Brigadier-General, had been chosen as the strong man to represent the British government. His Zulu name was Kuni, which he self flatteringly wished to believe meant ‘a man who was as hard as ironwood’; but it was merely a direct translation of his surname, Wood, into Zulu: Kuni or firewood. It had been arranged to meet the Zulu deputation at Inhlazatshe Mountain.
Foul and bitter cold weather delayed the proceedings and it was not until 31 August 1881 that the Zulu delegation began to state its case. The indefatigable Lady Florence Dixie had let neither pouring rain, nor the mud and the misery, deter her in her quest to find the true state of Zululand and its people. What she discovered that day would change her life forever. She arrived a jingoistic imperialist and left a staunch crusader for the underdog.
The delay caused by the weather had given Lady Florence the opportunity to wander freely amongst those drenched delegates who had already arrived. She was to write: ‘Many a wholesome truth I learnt that day from the lips of the chiefs, indunas and common people.’ Though previously she had admired Sir Bartle Frere and his handling of the Anglo-Zulu War, she now derided him: Where was the fear, the hate and the terror for this tyrant [Cetshwayo], this despotic savage, this manslaying machine of Sir Bartle Frere’s, which we in England had been taught and encouraged to believe existed?’ She found that the majority of those present desired above all the return of their king. But there were also the dissenting voices of John Dunn and Chief Zibhebhu (attended by his white advisor, twenty-five year-old Johannes Colenbrander) both of whom feared that the return of Cetshwayo would be the end of their own fiefdoms. And, in promoting a case for their vested interests, they were voicing exactly what the British wished to hear: that the Zulu people did not want their king back.
Wood, surrounded by a bevy of staff officers, armed troops, officials, a military band and with the damp royal standard hanging limply from a hastily-erected flagpole, opened the proceedings by describing the new demarcations of Zululand, demarcations that once again saw the former kingdom diminish in size: that portion of the Disputed Territories that two years earlier the Boundary Commission had awarded to Zululand, Wood now told the assembly Wolseley had, after all, given all of it to the Boers. Also, Wolseley had not only demarcated the borders of Swaziland, which Zululand must now recognise, but had declared that particular kingdom to be an independent state. Perhaps Wolseley’s surprising generosity towards the amaSwazi was a reward for the assistance that the kingdom had given him in his recent war against the baPedi: at a crucial moment 6,000 Swazi mercenaries had tipped the scales in Wolseley’s favour when it seemed that the baPedi had the upper hand.
Having described the relocation of Zululand’s boundaries, Wood then revealed Britain’s plans for the future administration of the former kingdom: an annual tax of ten shillings per hut was to paid to the British Resident; chiefs desiring the services of a white assistant (they would need one in order to comprehend what was going on) would require the appointment to be approved by the Resident; the Resident’s expenses and those of sub-Residents would be paid from the proceeds of the hut tax as would the cost of sustaining a police force; chiefs were to establish and maintain roads and schools; white man’s liquor was to be banned; and all chiefs were to unite in order to suppress rebellion and conflict.
43. All the swank and polish of a military band has gone but, nevertheless, the band played on keeping up the spirits of officers and men alike. 13th Light Infantry, Zululand 1879. (Africana Museum, Johannesburg)
Yes, but how about the return of our king, they asked, and the tyranny of Sibebu, Hamu and John Dunn? They were told, in so many words, that the purpose of the indaba was to ensure that Wolseley’s stipulations were adhered to – it was not for the submission of complaints. The assembly dispersed, leaving most Zulu delegates bitterly resentful. It seemed that Zibhebhu, Hamu and Dunn had been given the nod to carry on as before which they did forthwith, with Sibebu in particular fulfilling a tyrant’s role in his domain. Zululand was fast descending into a state of anarchy.
Down in the Cape prospects were improving. Robert Samuelson, whose father had been a life-long friend of Cetshwayo, had been appointed interpreter. In addition, Cetshwayo had been offered his freedom, provided he did not return to Zululand. Rather than accept such condition – and although desperate for his release – he replied: ‘You warn me not to return to Zululand . . . I was the King of the Zulus, had my country invaded by the Queen’s troops, tried to defend my country, but was beaten, taken captive and brought down here by the Queen’s orders. Here I intend to remain until the Queen restores me to Zululand.’
However, due to the efforts of, among others, Lady Florence, the Colenso family and Robert Samuelson, there were now strong political forces in England demanding that Cetshwayo be restored. So it was with great joy that Cetshwayo received the news that the Earl of Kimberley the Colonial Secretary, was to make arrangements for him to visit London in order to state his case.
There were inevitable delays and bureaucratic shilly-shallying and it was not until July 1882 that Cetshwayo sailed from Cape Town. On his arrival in London he created a sensation, not only amongst the common crowds, but amongst all classes. Lady Wolseley, whose husband had been the architect of the king’s destitution, wrote:
Fancy my waiting at Grivy’s balcony in Bond Street for an hour to see Cetshwayo come out of the Bassano’s. The crowd was so great I was afraid to venture out into the street. I saw him capitally. He rolled majestically across the pavement . . . They had to send for more police and hustled him off through Benson’s shop to dodge the mob at the former’s door.
A Miss Luxmore had been more bold: she gave the king a gift: ‘A beautiful gold locket on a ribbon of blue velvet’ which she accompanied with a compliment: ‘Tell him it is the gift of an English Lady to a brave man.’
The king, in fact, received a considerable number of letters that today would be called ‘fan mail’. All were addressed in the most respectful forms: ‘Dear King Cetshwayo’, ‘Your Majesty’ and ‘Most Gracious Sovereign’. One or two hinted at romance; another, through a newspaper ad in The Standard, suggested some sort of risqué rendezvous: ‘Meet me at the Grosvenor Turkish Baths, any day this week at 4 ’o clock.’ Sir Bartle Frere’s shirtmaker asked for an appointment. Many requesting employment, professed themselves to be the King’s ‘most humble servant’, and one lady beseeched Cetshwayo, on his return to Zululand, ‘. . . to be kind to all the cows and other animals’. Yet, not one letter contained any animosity.
Had there been such a thing as paparazzi, Cetshwayo would have been pursued relentlessly. H. B. Finney, an old acquaintance, who was acting as an additional interpreter and diplomatic advisor, recorded:
Every day’s occupation was all arranged for him and was, as a rule, an exhausting program to get through. He had to receive people who flocked in upon him by hundreds; receive deputations from this or that society; go here, there, and everywhere; and generally perform the arduous duties of a ‘lion’ of English society, and this continuous condition of excitement appeared to have paled upon him for he used to say, ‘I like the scenes I have to visit well enough, but I do not care to be made a show of; if the English people have never seen a black man before, I am sorry. I am not a wild beast, I did not come here to be looked at.’ It appeared to make him uncomfortable when his every action was noticed and commented upon and for this reason he refused a great many of the invitations he received.
Shortly after his arrival in London Cetshwayo had the first of three interviews with the Colonial Secretary, Lord Kimberley. The upshot of these meetings was a proposal from Kimberley that Cetshwayo be restored to his kingdom – provided he accepted conditions similar to those that Wolseley had imposed on the thirteen chiefs prior to their receiving authority: that he accept the appointment of a British Resident and that a portion of the Zulu kingdom be reserved for those who did not wish to accept his rule, the boundaries of such reserve to be defined later, once the number of dissenting Zulus became known. Kimberley gave his assurance that no more land would be reserved than was, in the opinion of the British government, absolutely necessary. Cetshwayo formally objected to this last proposal, stating that Sir Garnet Wolseley had already considerably diminished the size of his kingdom. Nevertheless, the possibility of being re-united with his beloved Zululand was too tempting a prospect to jeopardise and, with a soaring heart, he accepted Kimberley’s conditions.
A combination of the British people’s adulation, the forthcoming restoration to his kingdom and a visit, only days away, to Queen Victoria at her summer residence on the Isle of Wight, caused a gush of gratitude from Cetshwayo who, through his interpreter, remarked: ‘The English I know are just and they have been good to me. I shall never forget their kindness. They are a great nation and deserve to prosper.’ Within a matter of months these words would be as dust in his mouth.
Queen Victoria was initially reluctant to receive Cetshwayo but the visit was a great success with the queen presenting her visitor with a large engraved three-handled silver beer mug: one handle to be held by the royal butler and the other two for the king to grasp as he imbibed deeply. The queen graciously informed Cetshwayo that she respected him as a brave enemy and that he would now be a firm friend. Cetshwayo in return remarked that Queen Victoria was ‘. . . a good and gracious lady and like myself born to rule men. We are alike.’
Discreetly, he enquired of his interpreter, as to how many generations Queen Victoria could trace her royal line and, on being informed, Cetshwayo smugly asserted it was not up to the standard of the House of Zulu that could name a lineage of no less than forty generations but, nevertheless, he would acknowledge her family as royalty and she as a sister royal. Thereafter, when describing or mentioning Victoria, Cetshwayo always referred to her as his udadewethu (sister).
There followed visits to Windsor Castle, the Woolwich Arsenal, Portsmouth Naval Dockyard and other impressive establishments. All in all, King Cetshwayo’s visit, brief as it was, seemed to have been an unqualified success. His departure from Southampton was witnessed by cheering crowds with Cetshwayo, delighted as ever by the warmth of his reception, bowing to the mob in return. He took with him, in addition to a mountain of luggage, ‘a little bit of England’ in the form of a bulldog, two greyhounds and a spaniel.
But he did not return directly to Zululand as he had hoped. First it was back to Cape Town and another stint at Oude Moulen where the euphoria of his restoration soon began to evaporate into disillusion and despair. The commitments given by Lord Kimberley could, it seemed, be undermined and, indeed, usurped by colonial officials without rousing the British government’s wrath or condemnation. It was as though, with the larger-than-life presence of Cetshwayo now far away back in Africa, the attitude of the British government had drastically changed: Zululand was a place which it would rather be rid of. Let the colonials sort it out themselves.
Having landed at Cape Town on 24 September 1882, Cetshwayo was kept waiting there until early January while one excuse after another was proffered as the reason for the delay. In the meantime, Zululand had split into two factions: those wishing Cetshwayo’s return such as his uSuthu faction, those loyal to the royal family, and those like John Dunn and especially Chief Zibhebhu of the Mandhlakazi who were violently opposed. And it would soon be a fight to the finish between the uSuthu faction and the Mandhlakazi. It is easy to imagine the degree of resentment that must have been aroused amongst the rulers of Wolseley’s thirteen chiefdoms when they were deposed of their short-lived fiefdoms.
Nevertheless, there was little opposition from most chiefs who, it seemed, would be happy to once again have Zululand ruled by one central power rather than the anarchy of thirteen squabbling ‘barons’. It was Zibhebhu, Hamu and Dunn who were the steadfast opponents of Cetshwayo’s return with Sibebu being particularly favoured by the colonial government. Overriding the agreement struck in London, it was proposed that Zibhebhu alone of the thirteen barons be allowed to retain and rule his territory. In addition, all the land south of the uMhlatuzi River was to be given up as a Reserve Territory, controlled by a British-officered police force, in which those who preferred to live there could reside. Cetshwayo now found the Governor of the Cape, Sir Hercules Robinson, holding a pistol to his head: accept the new conditions or remain in exile. There was to be no discussion. Later, in Zululand, Cetshwayo confided to W. Y. Campbell, a special correspondent for the Natal Advertiser, that the conditions imposed by Robinson were:
44. While Cetshwayo was in London and the Cape, many of his senior ministers formed deputations demanding their King’s return. (KZN Archives, Pietermaritzburg)
45. This delegation to the Natal Government was led by Ndabuko (No. 1 centre), the king’s brother. (KZN Archives, Pietermaritzburg)
. . . Quite new to me and I attributed them to Bulwer [the Natal Governor] acted on by Misjan [J W Shepstone] who bears no love to either me or my people. We, myself and companions, were astonished at the new proposal and we cried out to Robinson against them . . . But when Robinson told me that south of the uMhlatuzi River was taken from me and that Sibebu was confirmed in his command, I cried out and asked ‘Wence these laws? They were never given in London. You say you will take all my south lands; you will also give Sibebu lands in the north. Where then is the country I am being returned to? . . . We had a long discussion about the land and Robinson eventually said ‘Well we must end this matter. We must accept the conditions laid before you.’ I then said I wished him clearly to understand that I protested against these conditions and if mischief arose in the country it would not be my fault.
46. Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of the Cape
Finally, pining to return, Cetshwayo agreed, under protest, and with his retinue was put aboard a coasting vessel bound for Zululand. However, the place of disembarkation would not be the calm, safe waters of Durban harbour but a surf-pounded stretch of beach on an open bay.
What could have been the reason for subjecting the king and his aged dignitaries in his retinue to such obvious danger when it was far from necessary? One cannot help but muse it was hoped that they all – or Cetshwayo at least – would perish. For the colonial government his death would be most convenient. And it would not be the first occasion that the prospect of Cetshwayo’s demise had been contemplated as a solution to the administration of Zululand. Robert Samuelson later wrote of an incident that had occurred during Cetshwayo’s time in Cape Town:
The King was invited to the Highland Sports as the guest of the Governor of the Cape, Sir Hercules Robinson, which were held on the sports ground, in the village of Rondebosch, on the 16th September 1881: part of the sports consisted of throwing the caber by the Highlanders – the King sat to my left and the Governor to my right, and I kept interpreting between the Governor and the King. We were seated very near to where the caber was being pitched, the King often remarked what fine men the Highlanders were and what fine attire they wore, and he enjoyed the sports very much; but an incident occurred which merely made the King anything but happy and satisfied. A brawny big and powerful Highlander pitched the caber so forcefully that it fell quite near to the King, whereupon the Governor remarked, ‘Had it fallen on the King’s head a great problem would have been settled.’
Nevertheless, the king and all his followers completed the perilous landing and on 10 January 1883, wet but safe, at last set foot in Zululand, soldiers and sailors having formed a chain out into the waves to assist them to the shore.
But the king’s homecoming was far from being a triumphant spectacle. His return had been kept secret for fear that it might excite his loyal followers into punitive action. Therefore, most of the welcoming committee, to the king’s great disappointment, were white men with the foremost being none other than his old enemy Sir Theophilus Shepstone, escorted by a detachment of the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, who, having farcically proclaimed Cetshwayo king ten years earlier, was now about to reinstate him in that role. But now it would be Cetshwayo’s lot to rule not only a vastly diminished kingdom, but one ravished by invasion and civil war, all of which had been brought about, to some degree, by the intrigue of Sir Theophilus himself.
It had been decided in advance that Cetshwayo’s restoration ceremony would take place at Mthonjaneni, the very windswept location, high above the eMakhosini Valley, the ancient burial place of the Zulu kings where, ten years earlier, Shepstone had been kept waiting impatiently prior to Cetshwayo’s coronation. Shepstone was equally impatient now, wanting to get on with it and hasten back to Pietermaritzburg. However, an essential and revered personage, Mnyamana, Cetshwayo’s Prime Minister, had not yet arrived.
Cetshwayo was also impatient and agitated: a day or so earlier, while the cavalcade had briefly paused at St. Paul’s Mission, Shepstone had reiterated the British terms permitting Cetshwayo’s installation to which the king had agreed, one by one, until the final two: those of Zibhebhu’s private fiefdom and of the slice of Zululand to be set aside as a British-administered reserve. To these he had objected strongly as he had done in Cape Town. But Shepstone was in no mood to either listen or compromise. However, it had been agreed between the king-in-waiting and Shepstone that no weapons of any kind would be permitted at the ceremony. It was then a provocative and flagrant gesture of contempt when Zibhebhu, accompanied by a following of armed warriors, all mounted, rode arrogantly into the Mthonjaneni camp, demonstrating his disrespect in the most public way. He and his swaggering troublemakers, having paid their respects to Shepstone, calmly rode away without receiving a single reprimand for carrying arms when all had been strictly forbidden to do so. It seemed clear to the thousands of Cetshwayo’s supporters that there were rules that Zibhebhu could ignore with impunity.
While in London, Cetshwayo had been ‘officially’ dressed, for normal daily wear, in the informal attire reserved for British generals: blue frock-coated uniform with a low-crowned peak cap. It was dressed thus that he had come ashore, in appearance so unlike the king his subjects once knew, that it gave Zibhebhu the opportunity to start a rumour that it was not Cetshwayo at all but only a wooden doll. Consequently many watched in awe, the strangely-attired object, discussing amongst themselves in subdued whispers, whether or not it was human.
47. Cetshwayo made an elegant figure and was lionised by British society during his trip to London.
The following morning, without further delay, Shepstone gave orders to his staff to set in motion the ceremony of installation. The 6th Dragoons were deployed and the massed crowds of supporters marshalled into a huge circle facing the dignitaries who were seated under a flagstaff flying the Union Jack.
Eventually the shuffling and hubbub subsided. Sir Theophilus rose, and began to read the terms of Cetshwayo’s restoration and as he did so there began a low murmur of protest from the throng as one condition followed another, each stripping their monarch of his power and kingship. Cetshwayo attempted to rise to make his own protest but was prevented from doing so. But it was not possible to stop the assembled chiefs, all men of eloquence, and eventually they were able to establish their right to speak. Dabulamanzi, who four years earlier had led the assault against Rorke’s Drift, was undoubtedly the most outspoken. He first gave thanks for the king’s return:
We thank you, Sir, for bringing him back . . . Do you say that you are restoring him, this son of the Queen [Victoria] while all the time you are destroying him just as you did formerly? Sir, you are killing him still as you did before when you first made him King and then killed him. Show us these ‘dissatisfied ones’ for whom you are cutting off our land, who do not wish for the King. Do you say that we are to move? Where will you put us since you are eating up all Cetshwayo’s land? Tell us where you will fix Sibebu’s boundaries? Why do you give the land to the very people who have been killing us? Do you approve of their bloodshedding? You have come to kill him, not to restore him.
The crowd vigorously showed its support, with angry shouts and gestures and it was Cetshwayo himself who restored calm, telling his followers that no good would come of hurling abuse and that time would tell. He was no doubt firm in the hope that, in due course, the queen and Kimberley would put matters right.
Shepstone grasped the silence that followed as an opportunity to go and, wasting no time, he, his officials and the Dragoons departed, leaving the new monarch bewildered, apprehensive, unprotected and unarmed. (It is interesting that British troops in Zululand at this time were officially designated as being on active service.) Even the borders of what was left of Cetshwayo’s scant realm were ill-defined. And there seemed to be enemies on all sides. To the north, the pugnacious Zibhebhu, with white mercenaries to back him up, bided his time, ready to attack; to the west, Hamu, stripped of his fiefdom and in theory once again the monarch’s subject, swore he held no allegiance and to prove the point he had already massacred much of the abaQulusi, a clan fiercely loyal to the king; and to the south the newly-formed ‘Nongqayi’, the Zululand Native Police, protected all fugitives from Cetshwayo’s territory, providing a refuge for his enemies. It was a bitter cup to drink for a king who had believed he would be restored to a realm little diminished in size and one which with authority he would unite. With the hurried departure of Shepstone, the king, accompanied by all his followers, prepared to move off to his old capital of Ulundi.
Samuelson, Cetshwayo’s friend and former interpreter who had not accompanied him to London, had heard of the king’s home-coming and having ridden hard for several days, arrived in time to witness Cetshwayo’s procession of departure; a procession that would be the last pageantry of the old Zulu kingdom; a procession in which ceremony was still evident but of which pomp there was none: the renowned regiments, with their great distinctive war shields were no more; the regalia of otter and leopard skin, and of bobbing ostrich plumes, had long since been abandoned as unnecessary clutter by refugees who had once been warriors; and the scattering of weapons that a few had bravely brought in defiance of Shepstone’s orders, no longer gleamed but were dull with rust. Samuelson described the scene:
48. With the partition of the Zulu Kingdom, a force, given the name Zulu Reserve Territory Carbineers, was raised to police and keep order. Commandant Mansel, its Commander, had been at Isandlwana. (Campbell Collection, Durban)
There was a very large concourse of Zulus camped round about, who were escorting their sovereign . . . and Mnyamana, the King’s Prime Minister, was the head of the concourse. I had a general chat with the King and was introduced to a remarkably fine grey-headed Zulu, who had the proud position of being the chief Bard ‘Imbhongi’ [the praise singer of the King]. At about 3 am. next morning, being awake, I heard a heard a human voice imitating the crowing of a cock, but in such a way that you could just detect that it was a human voice, and not that of a cock, and when the crowing ceased, the human cock commenced to shouting out the praises of the King and those of his ancestors, and well as those of various heroes, off and on, till nearly 7 am. A light morning meal was then partaken of, and somewhere about 8 am. the voice of Mnyamana rang out, loud and clear, giving orders to assemble and fall in for the march forward. In an incredibly short time all the concourse were in their places and ready to move. Mnyamana then ordered an advance guard to proceed, and then halt and wait for the King, while he ordered the rear guard to stand fast, and the out flankers and scouts to take their places. When the King and his staff had taken up their place for marching on, the Prime Minister gave a loud and ringing order to advance, and the whole concourse moved on, arriving and encamping near the site of the Ulundi Kraal which was razed at the time of the Battle of Ulundi in 1879. I may here mention that the above mentioned bard was named Umahlangeni, was the last royal and national bard of the Zulus . . .
It was only a day’s march from Mtonjaneni to the Mahlabathini Plain where stood the burnt-out ruin of the king’s former residence of Ondini, destroyed by the British at the climax of their victory at Ulundi. Samuelson remembered the King’s pleasure in dispensing gifts amongst his family and retainers:
The next day I called on Cetshwayo, about 9 am, and found him seated in a chair, surrounded by many of the Zulu nobility, including his Prime Minister; he was, at the time of my arrival, busy attending to his daughters, giving them presents of shawls, etc., which he had purchased in Cape Town . . . The sight of the King sitting there kindly addressing his daughters and some of his wives and maids of honour, and giving them presents, he had acquired during his captivity, was very touching . . .
No doubt the king’s thoughts were far from magnanimous when at last he surveyed, for the first time, the charred ruin of what had once been the noblest structure in Zululand. W. H. Tomasson, a lieutenant in Baker’s Horse, a colonial unit that had been raised in the Eastern Cape, remembered the excitement with which they had galloped to Ondini to be the first to loot and destroy:
Up to this we raced, and jumping off, rushed through the opening and find ourselves in a sort of labyrinth made of tall stiff wooden fences, over which it is impossible to climb. This was evidently built to guard against a surprise: it stretches all round the royal house, and might be held for a long time by a handful of resolute men against a foe who was not possessed of artillery . . . The floor was of clay hardened like cement and was swept clean. It was a low single-storey house built of mud bricks or mud and wattle. It contained eight rooms, had a steep thatched roof, that the rockets had touched but not burnt. A vigorous kick by Captain Baker to the rude unpainted door and we were inside it . . . On first entering Captain Baker stumbled over two bits of wooden-like substance and kicked them out of the way; Lord William Beresford picks them up and we see they are two elephant tusks . . . A large box or locker stand in the corner and a kick opened it; one does not stand on ceremony when looting. It is found full of old newspapers, ‘Illustrated London News’, ‘Times’, ‘Standard’, ‘Graphics’, and many colonial papers . . . All containing references to the Zulus and Ketchwayo; some where five years old, and they contained all the doings of the Boundary Commission . . . comment on the Zulu Army and war-like contentions of Ketchwayo, everything tending to give him an idea of how frightened the colonials were of him . . . Many others were found, too numerous to mention.
Leaving the house, we found a troop starting off to burn a kraal still further on. The writer was ordered by Colonel Buller to commence to burn the Royal Kraal . . . 10,000 huts which made up Ulundi [Ondini] were burnt, no one else assisting or being near. The huts were nearly a mile round, and were dry and burnt well. The burners rode from hut to hut with flaming torches of grass, and after hard work got everything in flames
Dismayed but resolved to reign, Cetshwayo soon set his subjects about the construction of a new Ondini but peaceful pursuits were soon replaced by conflict. His brothers, other royal relations and loyal subjects, now that their king was returned, sought vengeance on Sibebu and his Mandhlakazi who had treated them so harshly for the last three years. But the British had not left the king to reign unfettered. Their head man in Zululand, with the title of Resident Commissioner, was Melmoth Osborn who had held the post for close on three years and was an administrator of considerable experience but with little military muscle to back up his statutes and decrees. He was to be told in no uncertain terms that the British military presence in Natal, consisting of the 6th Dragoons and three infantry regiments, were there to impress rather than to be deployed. The Governor of Natal, Sir Henry Bulwer, admonished Osborn: ‘You will understand that the detachment of troops is intended solely to support by its presence at Eshowe [the Commissioner’s Administrative Headquarters], your position of authority as Resident Commissioner and to give confidence to the loyal people of the territory, and that it is not to be in any way used for military operations.’
The British overseer of Cetshwayo’s particular part of the country was a colonial-born white man whom the Zulus called ‘Gwalagwala’ after the feather of the Lourie bird which he sported in his cap. He held the appointment of ‘British Resident with Cetshwayo’.
Gwalagwala was an acquaintance of long standing and he did his best to dissuade Cetshwayo from attacking the Mandhlakazi, knowing full well that the colonial authorities favoured Zibhebhu, seeing him as a counterbalance to the possible rebirth of Zulu imperialism influenced by the king’s return. Zibhebhu was well aware of his British backing hence the recent flaunting of his armed warriors before Shepstone without reprimand. He also attired his men with red headbands, the British insignia worn by its native troops throughout the war of 1879.
Gwalagwala had a tented HQ on a hill close by Ondini and believing civil war to be inevitable, attempted to explain the difficulty of his task to his superiors. He stated how he had constantly reminded Cetshwayo that he must hold fast to the conditions of his restoration. ‘. . . And I am doing my duty as his friend and I tell him again and again the Government holds him personally responsible for any breach or breaking of the laws of his restoration, including any disturbance committed in or beyond his district by his adherents.’ So wrote Gwalagwala shortly after Cetshwayo’s return. Indeed the Resident’s position was a difficult one and he was once sternly admonished by a revered chief for Britain’s shortcomings. ‘We thought that this king was now a child of the Queen. [It being believed that Cetshwayo would rule under British protection.] Do you mock us in saying you are restoring him?’
The old chiefs’ thoughts were strangely similar to those of the Earl of Kimberley who had had the power to rectify the confusion surrounding Cetshwayo’s restoration but, for the lack of will it seems, allowed colonial interests to take the helm and steer a different course: ‘Had we left Cetshwayo on the throne, or annexed the country, we should in either case have taken an intelligible course. As it is, we neither control the affairs of Zululand nor or are we free from the responsibilities for them.’
Despite Gwalagwala’s empathy and his friendship with Cetshwayo, one wonders whether the monstrous irony of his appointment to the position of what amounted to the ‘King’s Minder’ had ever occurred to either Gwalagwala or the king, for Gwalagwala was none other than Henry Francis Fynn Junior, the son of he of the same name who, shipwrecked and destitute, had been the first white man to visit Shaka. At that time Shaka was the supreme power; now, fifty-nine years later, the son of the castaway held power over the king.
Nevertheless, Fynn Junior, was unable to prevent the inevitable war of vengeance against Zibhebhu that the uSuthu demanded of their king. Within days of Cetshwayo’s arrival at Ondini, uSuthu elements were raiding old enemies and by late March Cetshwayo’s younger brother, Ndabuko, was ready to lead an army of 5,000 warriors against the Mandhlakazi. Having marched north for fifty miles Ndabuko found his enemy who, though supported by several white mercenaries, fell back in confusion – or so it seemed. But it was a ruse that led the uSuthu into a well-prepared ambush. Over 1,000 warriors were slain for a loss of only ten Mandhlakazi. One uSuthu warrior recalled: ‘We got mixed up in the fight, and were pursued and stabbed and shot down, only one company of the uSuthu made any resistance . . . Both forces had large numbers of guns and Sibebu got possession of the guns and assegais of the fallen men of our force.’ Many of the uSuthu later recalled that their hearts were not in the battle, believing that Ndabuko had launched the raid without Cetshwayo’s blessing.
49. Second from the left, back row, Henry Francis Fynn, son of the first white trader, Lord Chelmsford’s political officer and interpreter. To his left Major Dartnell, who commanded the Natal Mounted Police.
(KZN Archives, Pietermaritzburg)
For the next two months both sides set about recruiting for their armies until by late July both were ready to engage the other. Again Zibhebhu was the master tactician. On 20 July he led a night march of over thirty miles, surprising and confounding the uSuthu by the dawn appearance of his army, 3,000 strong, three miles east of Ondini. Taken completely by surprise, the uSuthu attempted to scramble their bewildered ranks into battle array and to recall 1,800 warriors, a third of their total strength, from their camp over four miles away. The Mandhlakazi advanced rapidly, burning homesteads as they came, denying the uSuthu a moment’s pause in which to assemble and form ranks. Ondini that morning was host to the greatest assembly of royal personages and uSuthu chiefs that had gathered in many years. They had come at Cetshwayo’s bidding to confer, advise, and, no doubt, witness an uSuthu victory over the Mandhlakazi that the king believed he would, within days, inflict upon his enemies. But the Mandhlakazi onslaught was without mercy. Old men, women and children all perished, a number of Cetshwayo’s wives and offspring included. Amongst the chiefs who perished was Ntshingwayo kaMahole, one of the greatest of the Zulu commanders, he who had defeated the British at the Battle of Isandlwana. It is likely that he suffered the ignominious death of being slain by pack of young boys. A white mercenary, by the name of Grosvenor Darke, perhaps witnessing his death: ‘All the principal headmen were killed . . . being all fat and big bellied, they had no chance of escape; and one of them was actually run to death and stabbed to death by my little mat bearers.’ Later, the war correspondent, W. A. Walton, of the Pictorial World, who witnessed the battle sketched the corpse of Ntshingwayo prostrate on the ground, covered in stab wounds but still clutching his shield and war club.
50. Ndabuko kaMpande, another royal brother who fought at Isandlwana. (KZN Archives, Pietermaritzburg)
A few of the uSuthu found sanctuary in Fynn’s hilltop camp a few miles north of Ondini, where Fynn could only protect them, as he courageously did, by his presence alone. However, the King was not amongst the refugees. Wounded in the leg, he had fled to the Nkandla Forest. Zibhebhu had scored another remarkable victory. He would be able to gloat over the 500 uSuthu dead for the loss of only five of the Mandhlakazi.
The colonial authorities, greatly alarmed, decided to send troops to Osborn at Eshowe and soon the Dragoons and five companies of infantry were on the march north. However, Cetshwayo, with his new, half-completed, Ondini having been razed to the ground again and his forces scattered, decided to remain in the sanctuary of the Nkandla Forest until, in October, Fynn persuaded him to seek Osborn’s protection at Eshowe. However, before proceeding, the King begging like a castaway, sent a solicitous request to Osborn that was delivered orally by his royal messenger: ‘Cetshwayo says he wants to come to you, but he cannot walk all the way, he therefore, asks you to give him a horse to ride, also a pair of trousers, a shirt, and a hat.’
Cetshwayo reached Eshowe in mid-October and there he stayed under Osborn’s protection until early February when he died suddenly of what was officially described by the British military doctor who examined his body, as ‘fatty degeneration of the heart’. But many disputed this diagnosis, his loyal subjects believing that he had died of a broken heart while the actual doctor who would eventually make the above diagnosis initially stated that he had been poisoned. However a case of poisoning would require a post-mortem and Cetshwayo’s retainers, having been told that their master must be cut open, replied emphatically: ‘If you cut our chief, we will cut you.’ So said, it was enough to deter the doctor and he took a less perilous route and settled for ‘degeneration of the heart’. There is considerable support for the poisoning theory, the Natal Mercury of 3 April 1884 stating that the British Medical Journal supported the hypothesis that Cetshwayo did not die of heart disease.
51. Mfunzi, the king’s messenger, was sent to Natal in order to arrange peace discussions. He was arrested and held at Fort Buckingham for over three weeks. (Local History Museum, Durban)
Those Zulus who believed that death was caused by other than a broken heart, also supported the theory that their king had been poisoned, the culprit being variously named by them as either Osborn or Zibhebhu. Cetshwayo’s body was eventually loaded onto what was probably little more than a farm cart, drawn by a couple of oxen, and was taken to the Nkandla Forest where, seventy-four days after his death, he was ceremoniously buried in a sitting position accompanied by his ceremonial assegai, sleeping mat and other personal belongings.
With Cetshwayo’s death and the earlier slaughter at Ondini of so many members of the royal family and royal chiefs, the old order of the Zulu nation was gone forever. Cetshwayo’s sixteen-year-old son, Dinuzulu, supported by his royal uncles, now assumed kingship of a defeated realm. Nevertheless, the young monarch was determined to fight for what remained of his kingdom and, perhaps, regain that which had been lost. So civil war continued and while the fortunes of both the uSuthu and the Mandhlakazi rose and fell, Osborn, alarmed at the escalating violence, reinforced the 6th Dragoons stationed in the Reserve Territory with additional British redcoats, their purpose being to support the Mandhlakazi as much as to oppose the uSuthu.
52. Dinuzulu, son of King Cetshwayo. (KZN Archives, Pietermaritzburg)
Dinuzulu, aware that the odds against his faction were overwhelming, decided to approach an enemy of old, the Boers, for assistance and in so doing traded away yet more of his diminished kingdom. However, in June 1884, the combined forces of Dinuzulu and the Boers completely routed the Mandhlakazi, sending them fleeing to find refuge with Osborn in the Reserve Territory.
The Boers, ever-hungry for more land and grazing, encroached still further into what was left of the Zulu kingdom and having done so proclaimed an independent state which they grandly named the New Republic. Furthermore they extended their domain by declaring a protectorate over the remnant of Dinuzulu’s territory. The British government, perhaps wishing to believe that the Boers had solved the Zulu problem, at first acknowledged the Boer proclamation. But Britain quickly changed its mind when it became aware of German aspirations concerning St. Lucia Bay, on the coast of northern Zululand, and the possibility of a future German alliance with the Boers. Britain, therefore, agreed to acknowledge the New Republic subject to Boer renunciation of its protectorate. Thus, the fate of the diminished Kingdom was temporarily decided but, as was inevitable, in May 1887, Britain proclaimed Zululand to be a colony in which missionaries and traders would be freely permitted to pursue their vocations and which, in one area of approximately 275 square miles, white settlement would be permitted:
WHEREAS Zululand came under the Paramount Authority of Her Majesty the Queen as a consequence of the war of 1879:
AND WHEREAS, in the interests of peace, order and good government, it has been deemed expedient that Her Majesty’s Sovereignty should be proclaimed over Zululand as is hereinafter defined:
AND WHEREAS, Her Majesty has been pleased to authorise me to take the necessary steps for giving effect to Her pleasure in the matter:’
And so, in the same pompous language, the Governor of Natal and Special Commissioner, ordered ‘all Her Majesty’s subjects in South Africa to take notice . . . that the whole of Zululand . . . shall be taken to be a British possession.’
Of course, those most affected by the imperious proclamation, the uSuthu, were unable to immediately comprehend what was afoot and aggressively resented the sudden influx of white government officials who diminished traditional authority. And in many areas the establishment of British control was crudely and inimically applied. On 2 June 1888 Dinuzulu attacked a combined punitive force of British cavalry and redcoats accompanied by a contingent of Zululand Police, and put it to flight. It was the last occasion that a Zulu army would do battle with a British force and defeat it.
Further battles and skirmishes between Dinuzulu and colonial forces would follow but, inevitably, the uSuthu were defeated and the young king, like his father before him, was sent into exile. Again, like his father, he would be permitted to return but it was to a Zululand that would have been unrecognisable compared to the realm in which Henry Francis Fynn Snr, fearful and vulnerable, had once found succour and hospitality. There would, of course, continue to be encounters with the Zulu people but they would never again embrace the honour, the kindness, the cruelty, the courage and the spectacle of those early days which, like the old Zulu order, would never return to stir and inspire the spirit of lesser men.
53. The conclusion of the war brought about a time of civil strife and poverty for Zululand. (Local History Museum, Durban)