Battle of Blood River (1838): Voortrekkers Against the Zulu

The Battle of Blood River was fought on 16 December 1838 beside the Ncome River in what is now KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A small Voortrekker commando led by Andries Pretorius, fighting from a fortified circle of ox-wagons, defeated a much larger army of the Zulu king Dingane. The battle shifted the balance of power in Natal and later became one of the most powerful symbols of Afrikaner nationalism.

Background

During the Great Trek, thousands of Boer emigrants left the British Cape Colony. Many crossed the Drakensberg into Natal, part of the area claimed by the Zulu kingdom that had grown powerful under Shaka and was now ruled by his half-brother Dingane.

In February 1838 Dingane had the Voortrekker leader Piet Retief and his party killed at his capital, uMgungundlovu, after talks about land. Zulu regiments then attacked trekker camps, killing an estimated 500 people at the place later called Weenen. A Boer counter-attack failed at Italeni in April 1838. By late 1838 the trekkers in Natal were short of cattle and leaders, until Andries Pretorius arrived from the Cape colony’s frontier districts in November and was chosen as commander.

The vow

As the commando advanced, the trekkers made a solemn vow, led by Pretorius and the lay preacher Sarel Cilliers. If God granted them victory, they promised to keep the day as a sabbath of thanksgiving and to build a church. The vow was repeated on the evenings that followed. Its exact wording is known only from later accounts, which is one reason its meaning was debated in the twentieth century.

The battle

On 15 December Pretorius formed a laager of 64 wagons on a site protected on one side by a deep pool in the Ncome River and on another by a dry ditch. The gaps between wagons were closed with hurdles, and two or three small cannon were placed at openings. The defenders numbered about 470 armed men, accompanied by servants and a small number of African allies.

Early on 16 December the Zulu army, usually estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 warriors under the commanders Ndlela kaSompisi and Dambuza (also called Nzobo), launched repeated attacks on the laager. The narrow approach crowded the regiments together, and musket and cannon fire from behind the wagons caused heavy casualties. After about two hours, mounted Boer parties rode out and pursued the retreating Zulu, many of whom were killed in the river and the ditch.

The Voortrekkers reported about 3,000 Zulu dead. That figure is the one generally cited, though it cannot be checked independently. No Boers were killed; three were wounded, among them Pretorius, who was stabbed in the hand.

Aftermath

The commando moved on to uMgungundlovu, which Dingane had burnt and abandoned. There the Boers found and buried the remains of Retief and his men. A further clash at the White Mfolozi River on 27 December went badly for the Boers, and the war did not end at once.

Dingane’s power was nevertheless broken. In 1839 his half-brother Mpande defected with thousands of followers, and in early 1840 Mpande’s forces, supported by a Boer commando, defeated Dingane, who fled north and was killed soon afterwards. Mpande became king, and the Voortrekkers set up the Republic of Natalia, which Britain annexed in 1843.

Timeline

• 1838, 6 February: Piet Retief and his party are killed at uMgungundlovu.
• 1838, 17 February: Zulu attacks on Voortrekker camps near present-day Weenen.
• 1838, November: Andries Pretorius takes command of the Natal trekkers.
• 1838, December: The commando makes its vow during the advance.
• 1838, 16 December: Battle of Blood River.
• 1838, 27 December: Boer setback at the White Mfolozi River.
• 1840, January-February: Mpande’s forces defeat Dingane.

Legacy

The trekkers built the Church of the Vow in Pietermaritzburg in 1841. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 16 December became a commemoration of Afrikaner identity, known as Dingaan’s Day and from 1952 as the Day of the Covenant (later the Day of the Vow). Nationalist leaders presented the victory as proof of divine favour, and the 1938 centenary celebrations gave Afrikaner nationalism a major boost.

For many black South Africans the date carried very different meanings, and in 1961 the armed wing of the African National Congress launched its first actions on 16 December. Since 1995 the day has been South Africa’s Day of Reconciliation. Today the battlefield has two memorials: a laager of 64 bronze wagons on the western bank and the Ncome Museum, which presents the Zulu perspective, on the eastern bank. Within a few decades the Zulu kingdom would again face a European army in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879.

Why it matters

Blood River decided who would hold power in Natal in the late 1830s and opened the way for Boer settlement there. Its later use as a political symbol, first for Afrikaner nationalism and then for national reconciliation, makes it one of the most debated battles in South African history.