Cetshwayo

Following Shaka’s assassination by Dingaan on 28 September 1828 and Dingaan’s removal by Mpande in 1839/40, the Zulu nation was fraught with uncertainty over the succession to the throne: Mpande however had legitimate sons. Succession of the Zulu monarchy had always been the first-born son of the great wife. However, in order to maintain his hold on the throne, a Zulu king quite often married his great wife late in life, or assigned the position to an existing wife late on.

Cetshwayo was born in 1826 to the Zulu prince Mpande and his wife Nqumbaz, near Eshowe, at the time the Zulu nation ruled by Mpande’s half brother, Dingaan. Cetshwayo’s name means ‘the Slandered One’ possibly referring to a rumour over his legitimacy spread by Dingaan. Although Dingaan had eliminated all of his brothers, he allowed Mpande to live. Mpande had produced two sons thus ensuring a continuation of the royal line as neither Dingaan nor Shaka his predecessor had produced offspring. 

Mpande became King of the Zulus following his defeat of Dingaan’s army in 1840 and at the same time, he announced his heir at an unusually early stage – even taking the step of introducing his son, Cetshwayo, to the Boer Volksraad at Pietermaritzburg in 1839. Incidentally, the Boers took a nick out of Cetshwayo’s ear to aid identification in later life, in a similar fashion to the tagging of cattle. The Boers were aiding Mpande in his offensive against Dingaan, and the provision of an heir gave him more credibility for continued good relations between Boers and the Zulu nation. 

Shaka Zulu was in conflict with Shoshangane, a leader of a breakaway faction that had fled the Zulu kingdom and established separate kingdom, near Delagoa Bay. Mpande sent warriors to demand tribute and annex the newly established kingdom into the Zulu Kingdom. Mpande’s warriors were defeated by Shoshangane’s men and were forced to retreat. On his retreat, he learned about the assassination of the King Shaka by Dingaan, also a half brother to Shaka. Fearing that the same fate might befall him, he moved to Engakavini where Cetshwayo grew up. 

During his reign, Mpande faced with both British and Afrikaner settlers on his borders, and he continuously tried not to alienate either party, ceding some of the Zulu Kingdom’s land to both. Mpande was often viewed as a weak man, in comparison to his contemporaries and, as a result, Cetshwayo began gaining influence over the Zulu people. 

However, as Mpande aged, he became worried that Cetshwayo was gaining too much influence. Accordingly, Mpande encouraged Cetshwayo’s brother Mbuyazi, with the possibility of him being made heir. This was perhaps justified, since in the resultant civil war (1856) Cetshwayo retained a considerable following amongst Mpande’s izikhulu or council of elders, despite Mpande’s outspoken support for buyazi. 

Drought and famine hit the Zulu nation in the summer of 1852–3 and various factions looked towards civil war as an opportunity to gain cattle. As the situation worsened, Mpande made more of his support for Mbuyazi. In November 1856, Mpande granted Mbuyazi a large tract of land in southeast Zululand and, at the same time, refusing to meet with Cetshwayo to discuss the succession question. Conflict became inevitable when Mbuyazi and his supporters, the iziGqoza, moved to their lands just north of the Thukela River, clearing the area of Cetshwayo’s supporters. 

Cetshwayo mobilised his forces, known as the uSuthu, against Mbuyazi and the two sides met at the Thukela, near the border with Natal. Colonial traders in the area, worried by the impending conflict, sent word to Natal. John Dunn, an administrative assistant to the Natal Border Agent rushed north with 35 Frontier Policemen and a hundred African hunters. John Dunn’s force, known as iziNqobo, the Crushers, moved to ‘negotiate’ between Cetshwayo and Mbuyazi, but motivated by personal gain he offered the services of his heavily armed force to Mbuyazi. 

Despite the advantage of firearms, provided by John Dunn’s iziNqobo, the overwhelming numbers of the uSuthu, between 15,000 and 20,000 warriors, forced the battle held on 2 December, and Mbuyazi’s iziGqoza were driven towards the Thukela. Only about 2,000 of Mbuyazi’s 7,000 warriors survived the crossing, with a similar proportion of losses amongst the accompanying women and children. 

In 1857, Cetshwayo and Mpande came to terms. Cetshwayo would have effective control of the nation whilst Mpande would retain ‘ultimate’ authority and the title of king. That same year, Cetshwayo sought out the Colonial hunter-traders who he had fought against at Ndondakusuka. It is said, that Cetshwayo wanted a white man as a friend to live near him and advise him, someone who could provide modern firearms, the one thing his side lacked in the battle. Cetshwayo settled on Dunn and gave him with a tract of coastal land just north of the Thukela River, where he became an influential chief, and acted as the main means of communication with the British authorities and settlers of Natal. 

However, for the next 15 years Cetshwayo seemed to control the Zulu nation, he re-energized the amabutho system and tried to stem the diffusion of power away from the crown and out to the izikhulu, territorial chiefs. 

Mpande had a third son, Umtonga  who was older than Cetshwayo who Cetshwayo also began to see him as a threat and, in 1861, chased him into Utrecht, land that Mpande had ceded in 1854 to the Boers. Cetshwayo’s army camped on the border of the Boer Republic and promised the Boers a strip of land on the border if they handed his brother over. The Boers were prepared to meet his request if he spared Umtonga’s life and Mpande signed a deed giving the Boers the additional land. The extra territory extended from Rorke’s Drift on the Buffalo River to a point on the Pongola River. Utrecht expanded and this new border was officially marked in 1864. 

When, in 1865, Umtonga fled from Zululand to the Colony of Natal, Cetshwayo felt that part of the agreement he made with the Boers, had not been upheld. He tried to reclaim the land nearly causing a war as a Zulu army under Cetshwayo and a Boer commando, under Paul Kruger, positioned themselves along the border between Utrecht and Zululand. In 1869, the Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Natal, Sir Anthony Musgrave, was called in to solve the argument between the two groups, which he failed to do so. 

Mpande’s died on 19 November 1872, an estimated date by the Colonial administrator, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. Mpande was buried with several of his servants as it was a ancient tradition for servants, wives and girls from the isigodlo, royal enclosure, to be killed and buried with the king in order to serve him in the spirit world. British soldiers desecrated Zulu tradition has it that Mpande’s grave, after the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879 and his bones removed for display in Britain. 

Cetshwayo was crowned king at a gathering at kwaNodwengu on the 22 October. This was an important pre-emptive move to maintain his independent rule of the Zulu nation. Shepstone had let it be known that as part of the British support for Cetshwayo, he would travel north from Natal and carry out a coronation with full pomp and circumstance. Shepstone and his entourage travelled to Ulundi on the Mahlabathini plain for the official event on 1 September 1873.

In 1875, Boers flooded across into Zululand, claiming land south of the Pongola River, as well as attempting to tax Zulu homesteads in the north-west. Several thousand warriors were sent to the border, and the Boers eventually retreated. The situation was finally alleviated, when the British annexed the South African Republic in April 1877. 

As was customary Cetshwayo created a new capital for the nation and called it Ulundi, the high place. He expanded his army, readopting many methods of Shaka, equipped his impis with muskets, banished European missionaries from his land and, it has been suggested, he might have incited other native African peoples to rebel against Boers in Transvaal. 

The arrival in March 1877 of Sir Bartle Frere, British High Commissioner for South Africa and Commander-in-Chief of all British forces, brought a new threat to Zulu independence. The Zulu nation was considered a threat to plans to confederate the whole of southern Africa under the British sphere of influence. Propaganda portrayed Cetshwayo as a military dictator who posed a threat to white-ruled Natal, and who prevented his people from leaving the kingdom to come and work for the whites. Unfortunately, events conspired against Cetshwayo. A raid was carried out across the border into Natal by a small Zulu force, to seize two women, both wives of Cetshwayo’s favourite chief, Sihayo. White settlers were furious. Additionally, a couple of surveyors were assaulted whilst working near the border in Zululand, and hunts by an ibutho, near Rorke’s Drift, panicked settlers across the Buffalo River. 

Without the full backing of the British parliament, Frere went ahead with his war plans. On 11 December 1878, under the flimsy pretext of a few minor border incursions into Natal, the Zulus were given an impossible ultimatum. They were to disarm and Cetshwayo should forsake his sovereignty. King Cetshwayo rejected the ultimatum and war broke out between the two nations.

The Zulus won the Battle of Isandhlwana, but they lost the crucial Battle of Ulundi or oNdini as the Zulus knew it. Although Cetshwayo escaped from Ulundi, he was soon captured and sent into exile in the Cape. Later, he was allowed to travel to London where he met Queen Victoria, who permitted him to return to South Africa to rule a portion of the former Zulu kingdom in 1883. 

By March 1883, Zibhebhu was moving against Cetshwayo’s supporters in his assigned northern territory and Cetshwayo’s uSuthu marched against him. The uSuthu were defeated and driven into Transvaal and back south to Ulundi. The civil war between Cetshwayo and Zibhebhu ranged across the Mahlabathini plain and the uSuthu was once again defeated. Whilst Cetshwayo and his 15-year old heir, Dinizulu, were able to escape, and hide out in the Nkandla forest, Ulundi was decimated. On 15 October 1883, Cetshwayo was escorted to Eshowe by Henry Francis Fynn Junior, the British Resident in Zululand.

By 1882 differences between two Zulu factions, the pro-Cetshwayo uSuthus and three rival chiefs had erupted into a blood feuds and civil war. In 1883, the British tried to restore Cetshwayo to rule at least part of his previous territory but the attempt failed. Chief UZibhebhu started a war contesting the succession and on 22 July 1883, with the aid of Boer cavalry mercenaries, he attacked Cetshwayo’s new kraal in Ulundi. Cetshwayo was wounded but escaped to Nkandla forest however after pleas from the Resident Commissioner, Sir Melmoth Osborne, the king moved to Eshowe., where he died a few months later in February 1884. The doctor who examined him to determine the cause of death, suspected that he was poisoned as he seemed in good health that very morning when he was seen taking his usual early morning walk. However, the doctor was prevented from conducting a post mortem into the cause of the King’s death by the relatives of the King, when he told them that the procedure of this inquiry would involve dissecting his body. As a result, the doctor certified the cause of death as “syncope, the result of disease of the heart,”   

Cetshwayo was buried within sight of the forest and to the south, near the Nkunzane River and, the remains of the wagon which carried his corpse to the site, was placed on the grave. These remains can be seen at Ondini Museum, near Ulundi. 

Cetshwayo’s son Dinizulu, as heir to the throne, was proclaimed king on 20 May 1884, supported by Boer mercenaries.