King Cetshwayo
The oldest son of Mpande and Ngqumbazi of the Zungu royal house was born near where Eshowe is now. His name was Cetshwayo. He lived through all but ten years of Zululand’s independent past. He was the nephew of the first Zulu kings, Shaka and Dingane. Cetshwayo, like all the other Zulu kings, went through rough times.
He was there when the first battles between Zulu armies and European invaders happened when he was a child. He also saw his father attack Dingane in January 1840 and become Zulu king with help from the Boers in exchange for giving up the land south of the Tugela River that became the Afrikaner Republic of Natalia.
As a young man, he saw the British take it over in 1843 and the first British residents move in. Even though Cetshwayo was said to have been introduced to the Boers in 1840 as Mpande’s heir, his real succession was still not certain. The army wasn’t happy with Mpande because he seemed to give in to Boer demands, couldn’t reward his soldiers when raids dropped because of more settlers, and put off demobilizing regiments.
When Cetshwayo showed off his military skills in the last big Zulu war against the Swazi (1852–1853) and young men flocked to join him, Mpande felt like his power was being questioned. Mbuyazi, Cetshwayo’s half-brother, also knew how famous Cetshwayo was. The brothers’ rivalry, which Mpande may have sparked on purpose, resulted in a civil war between their supporters at the end of 1856.
Even though Mpande and John Dunn, a white trader and gunrunner, helped Mbuyazi, he was too sure of himself and had too few soldiers. At Ndondakusuka, near the Tugela River, his army was wiped out. Thousands of people who supported Mbuyazi were killed, along with five of his kids. Cetshwayo was now sure to become king, so Mpande had to share power with him. Even so, when the king started to favor a younger son by a younger wife as his heir, the following of Cetshwayo, called the Usuthu, killed the wife.
First they ran away to Natal, and then they ran away to the Boers, who lived on the northwest edge of Zululand. Cetshwayo talked with the Boers to get them back, and Mpande asked Theophilus Shepstone, who was Natal’s secretary for native affairs, to help settle the matter. In 1861, Shepstone went to Zululand and, for his own reasons, supported Cetshwayo as heir. Now, Cetshwayo had a lot of power over the country.
The Boers moving in made Cetshwayo and Mpande decide to work together, but the dynastic disputes let both Natal and the Boers get involved in Zulu politics, which was bad for Zulu freedom. When Mpande died in 1872, Cetshwayo took over a government that was still very strong, with about 300,000 people living there.
Even so, he had major problems inside and outside of his family. In order to get Natal’s help against the Boers and stop the threat from Natal-based pretenders, Cetshwayo started collecting guns and asked Shepstone to be in charge of his coronation as king in 1873. Cetshwayo was said to not have followed Shepstone’s “guidelines” for the crown, which later became the reason for war.
But the changes in southern Africa caused by the diamond discoveries in Griqualand West in the late 1860s were too much for Cetshwayo’s kingdom to handle, and it lost its freedom. Capitalist development that moved faster and more people encroaching on African land and labor in the race for resource rights, along with the fact that more Africans had guns, made fighting between black and white people worse all over southern Africa.
White settlers all over southern Africa thought that Cetshwayo was working with local chiefs to hurt them. His contact network spread this idea. As secretary of state for the colonies from 1874 to 1878, Lord Carnarvon became sure that the many British colonies, Afrikaner republics, and separate African chiefdoms in southern Africa could only be managed by joining together into one country.
The Pedi’s embarrassment of the South African Republic, which was thought to be working with Cetshwayo, gave Carnarvon his chance. At the end of 1876, Shepstone was told to take over the republic. This changed the Zulu war against the Boers because Shepstone, who had been on the side of the Zulus before, switched sides and convinced Sir Bartle Frere, the new British high commissioner, that Cetshwayo was the main threat to peace in the area.
In order to escape war, Cetshwayo asked the governor of Natal to set up a commission to look into the disputed land. The commission’s report fully backed Zulu claims, but Frere used it to demand that Zulu people who were accused of crossing the border give up, pay a huge fine, and have the Zulu military system disbanded, which meant the end of the Zulu state. It was impossible to follow through, so on January 11, 1879, British troops went into Zululand.
Cetshwayo chose to be defensive because he knew the British army had better weapons and troops stationed overseas, but he failed in his attempts to make peace. After an amazing start at Isandhlwana, the Zulu quickly experienced major setbacks, and after the battle of Ulundi on July 4, Cetshwayo’s tired followers admitted defeat.
Two weeks later, Sir Garnet Wolseley, who was now in charge of the British troops, told the Zulu people that the Zulu kingdom was over and promised them land and cattle if they gave up their weapons and surrendered the king. Cetshwayo was tricked and sent into exile in Cape Town after being tortured and scared for six weeks.
Wolseley quickly broke up the Zulu regiments and put 13 appointed chiefs in charge of the country, who were answerable to a British resident. The Usuthu, who were Cetshwayo’s close family and allies, were put under Zibhebhu and Uhamu. They were the first chiefs to defect and were the most friendly with the British government and the colonial economy. As soon as they took the Usuthu cattle and increased their own political and economic power, fighting broke out. While he was in exile, Cetshwayo was a very good diplomat who won over important allies like Bishop Colenso of Natal, who helped get the word out about Cetshwayo’s case in South Africa and Britain.
In 1882, the new colonial secretary finally let Cetshwayo make his case in person in Britain. He did this after quietly admitting that the war was unfair. People in Britain had heard a lot of stories about how “bloodthirsty” and tyrannical Cetshwayo was, so when there was a lot of chaos in Zululand, the British government chose to bring him back.
When Cetshwayo went back to South Africa in January 1883, he found that his kingdom had been badly cut down, even though he had fought against it. A lot of land in the north was given to his main enemies, Uhamu and Zibhebhu. In the south, people who didn’t want to follow his rule were given a safe place to live.
Now came the real end of the Zulu kingdom’s rule. When the Usuthu complained about losing land, no one listened, and their failed attacks on Zibhebhu only led to more fighting. Zibhebhu’s attack on Ulundi on July 23, 1883, killed some of Cetshwayo’s most valued and experienced councilors. This was the end of the civil wars that followed.
When Cetshwayo had to run away again, he tried to get his followers from the Nkandhla forests, but it didn’t work. On October 17, he gave up and surrendered to the British Resident Commissioner at Eshowe. On February 8, 1884, he died suddenly there. A lot of Zulu people thought someone had poisoned him. His son, Dinuzulu, a 16-year-old boy with little training, took over after him. The Zulu country was no longer free on its own.
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