Shaka Zulu and the Rise of the Zulu Kingdom (1816-1828)

Shaka was the founder of the Zulu kingdom, the most powerful state in south-east Africa in the nineteenth century. Between about 1816 and his assassination in 1828, he transformed the Zulu, then a small chiefdom near the White Mfolozi River, into a centralised kingdom with a large standing army. His reign, his military methods and the turmoil known as the Mfecane remain among the most debated subjects in southern African history.

Background

In the late eighteenth century the land between the Drakensberg mountains and the Indian Ocean, in present-day KwaZulu-Natal, was home to many Nguni-speaking chiefdoms. Around 1800 several of them grew into larger rival powers, above all the Mthethwa under Dingiswayo and the Ndwandwe under Zwide. A severe drought and famine in the early 1800s, remembered as the Madlathule, and growing competition for the ivory and cattle trade through Portuguese Delagoa Bay (now Maputo Bay) sharpened these rivalries.

Shaka was born around 1787 (estimates range from about 1781 to 1787), the son of Senzangakhona, chief of the small Zulu clan, and Nandi, a woman of the Langeni. According to tradition his parents’ union was irregular, and Shaka and his mother were driven from the Zulu court. He grew up among the Langeni and later among the Mthethwa, where he served as a warrior in Dingiswayo’s army and won a reputation for courage.

Taking power

When Senzangakhona died around 1816, Shaka, with Dingiswayo’s support, returned to the Zulu, had his half-brother Sigujana killed and took the chieftaincy. At first he ruled as Dingiswayo’s subordinate. His own chiefdom was small, perhaps a few thousand people, but he began at once to reorganise its fighting men.

The turning point came around 1817–1818, when Dingiswayo was captured and killed by Zwide of the Ndwandwe. The Mthethwa alliance collapsed, and Shaka took over leadership of many of its members. In a series of hard-fought campaigns, including a defensive battle at Gqokli Hill and a later victory near the Mhlatuze River around 1819–1820, Shaka defeated the Ndwandwe. Zwide and his followers withdrew northward.

Military reforms

Shaka’s army became famous for several methods, although historians stress that many built on existing practice rather than being entirely new:

• The iklwa: a short, broad-bladed stabbing spear used at close quarters, alongside a large cowhide shield, in place of reliance on thrown spears.
• Age regiments (amabutho): young men of the same age were enrolled in regiments that lived at royal military homesteads (amakhanda) and served the king for years before being allowed to marry.
• The “bull’s horns” formation: a central body (the chest) engaged the enemy while two flanking wings (the horns) encircled it, with a reserve (the loins) held back.
• Discipline and mobility: warriors trained hard, and tradition says Shaka made them discard sandals to move faster over rough ground.

Through these regiments Shaka controlled the young men and the cattle of the kingdom, making the king the centre of economic and political life. By the late 1820s his army is estimated at around 20,000 or more warriors, though figures vary widely.

The Zulu kingdom at its height

From his capital at kwaBulawayo, and later kwaDukuza, Shaka ruled a kingdom that stretched roughly from the Phongolo River in the north to the Thukela River and beyond in the south. Conquered chiefdoms were absorbed, their young men enrolled in Zulu regiments, and their leaders replaced or made dependent on the king. A shared Zulu identity began to form among peoples of very different origins.

In 1824 a small group of British traders led by Francis Farewell settled at Port Natal (now Durban), and Shaka received them at his court. Henry Francis Fynn and Nathaniel Isaacs, who lived among the Zulu, later wrote the earliest written descriptions of his reign.

The death of Shaka’s mother Nandi in October 1827 was followed, according to Fynn, by a period of intense mourning in which many people were killed. Historians are cautious about the scale he described, but by this time discontent with Shaka’s demands and continual campaigns was growing among his own followers.

Assassination in 1828

On 22 September 1828, while most of the army was away on a campaign to the north, Shaka was stabbed to death at kwaDukuza by his half-brothers Dingane and Mhlangana, assisted by his attendant Mbopha. Dingane soon had Mhlangana killed and became king. He ruled until 1840, during which time the Zulu clashed with Voortrekkers of the Great Trek.

Key people

• Shaka kaSenzangakhona (c. 1787–1828): founder and first king of the Zulu kingdom, a gifted military organiser whose rule combined state-building with harsh discipline.
• Nandi (died 1827): Shaka’s mother, a woman of the Langeni, who shared his years of exile and remained highly influential at his court.
• Dingiswayo (died c. 1817–1818): ruler of the Mthethwa, Shaka’s patron and an innovator in his own right, often credited with beginning the move towards larger regiments and states.
• Zwide kaLanga (died c. 1825): king of the Ndwandwe and Shaka’s most dangerous rival, who killed Dingiswayo but was later driven north.
• Dingane kaSenzangakhona (c. 1795–1840): Shaka’s half-brother, assassin and successor, who ruled the Zulu until he was overthrown by another brother, Mpande.

Sources for Shaka’s reign

Almost everything known about Shaka comes from two kinds of evidence. The first is Zulu oral tradition, much of it collected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by the colonial official James Stuart, whose notes were later published as the James Stuart Archive. The second is the writings of the Port Natal traders, above all Fynn and Isaacs. Neither source is neutral, and historians compare them carefully, so many details of Shaka’s life, including his exact birth date and the dates of his battles, remain approximate.

The Mfecane debate

For much of the twentieth century historians described the 1810s–1830s as the Mfecane (“the crushing”), a chain reaction of wars and migrations set off by Zulu expansion. Groups fleeing or imitating the Zulu, including the Ndebele of Mzilikazi, the Ngoni and the Gaza, carried warfare as far as present-day Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania, while Moshoeshoe built the Basotho kingdom in the mountains.

In 1988 the historian Julian Cobbing challenged this picture, arguing that the “Mfecane” was partly a colonial myth that excused European expansion and hid the role of slave raiding from Delagoa Bay and labour raiding from the Cape. Few scholars accept every part of his argument, but most now see the upheavals as having several causes, including drought, trade competition and the rise of other states, with Shaka’s kingdom as one important factor among many.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Shaka single-handedly invented Zulu warfare. Fact: he refined and spread weapons, tactics and regiments that partly existed before him.
• Myth: well-documented death tolls of millions. Fact: there are no reliable figures for deaths in the wars of this period; older claims of one or two million are not supported by evidence.
• Myth: the traders’ accounts are neutral eyewitness records. Fact: Fynn and Isaacs wrote years later and had commercial and political motives; historians such as Carolyn Hamilton have shown how Shaka’s image was shaped by both Zulu tradition and colonial writers.

Timeline

• c. 1787: Shaka is born to Senzangakhona and Nandi.
• c. 1816: Shaka becomes chief of the Zulu after his father’s death.
• c. 1817–1818: Dingiswayo is killed by Zwide; Shaka takes over leadership of the Mthethwa alliance.
• c. 1819–1820: Shaka defeats the Ndwandwe, who withdraw northward.
• 1824: British traders settle at Port Natal and meet Shaka.
• 1827, October: Death of Shaka’s mother Nandi.
• 1828, 22 September: Shaka is assassinated at kwaDukuza; Dingane succeeds him.

Why it matters

Shaka created the Zulu kingdom that later fought the British in the Anglo-Zulu War and whose royal house still exists today. His life shows how a powerful African state was built in a single generation, and how history and legend about a founder can be shaped by the interests of those who tell it.