By tracing the long and turbulent history of the Zulus from their arrival in South Africa and the establishment of Zululand, The Zulus at War is an important and readable addition to this popular subject area. It describes the violent rise of King Shaka and his colorful successors under whose leadership the warrior nation built a fearsome fighting reputation without equal among the native tribes … native tribes of South Africa. It also examines the tactics and weapons employed during the numerous intertribal battles over this period. They then became victims of their own success in that their defeat of the Boers in 1877 and 1878 in the Sekhukhuni War prompted the well-documented British intervention.
Initially the might of the British Empire was humbled as never before by the surprising Zulu victory at Isandlwana but the 1879 war ended with the brutal crushing of the Zulu nation. But, as Adrian Greaves reveals, this was by no means the end of the story. The little known consequences of the division of Zululand, the Boer War, and the 1906 Zulu Rebellion are analyzed in fascinating detail. An added attraction for readers is that this long-awaited history is written not just by a leading authority but also, thanks to the coauthor’s contribution, from the Zulu perspective using much completely fresh material.
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Well researched but perhaps too in depth for most casual readers. I found it very interesting reading.
Well-developed history of British domination of indigenous people.
Many of us in the US have had some exposure to the myths and legends of the Zulus and their fierce warrior kings, begining with the legendary Shaka, who took a small clan living in southern Africa at the time of the great Bantu migrations and used them as a foundation to build a nation of all-counquering warriors. The Zulus were the most powerful military force in the region, and they occuppied the best land where they built their homesteads and grazed their cattle. Unfortunately for th Zulus (and as our own Native Americans discovered), if you occupy the best land, there will eventually come a time when someone more powerful than you will try to take it from you. “The Zulus at War” by British historian and author Adrian Greaves, attempts to present the events and characters of the time (ca. 1820-1920) in a broader perspective with more attention paid to the Zulu point of view. Greaves takes as a co-author a longtime friend and a modern member of the Zulu nation, Xolani Mkize, who is able to tap into the Zulus’ long history of oral story-telling to furnish a counter to the traditional European rendering of this time in the history of the modern Republic of South Africa. While Zulu kings were often perceived as absolute rulers who enforced their will and their whim with summary executions, this book lets the reader know that there was a political aspect behind much of what the Zulus did and that even the great Shaka had to bow to political forces within his nation from time to time.
I mentioned a comparison between the plight of the Zulus and the fate of the Native Americans which I feel is striking. So long as the Zulus had only to deal with their neighboring tribes, they had little difficulty in achieving their maritial, political, and territorial goals. However, as soon as European settlers began to appear on the borders of Zululand, the die appeared to be cast. Through access to contemporary firearms, which neither the Zulus nor the Native Americans had, white settler were able to drive the indigenous tribes from their traditional homelands. Fierce military training and a warrior culture can obly do so much against gunpowder and lead shot. In the Zulus’ case, it was the advent of the Boers who trekked north from the Cape to ecape English control and government who first became a rival for the prime real estate which had been a part of the Zulu homeland. While hardy settler families who venture into the previously unexplored regions of the wildernessand carve out their place in life are often considered brave pioneers whose courage and tenacity are held up to later generations as models, Greaves retellling of this time from the Zulu perspective reveals cheats and liars aplenty both among the white settlers and the colonial power (read federal government in the US) over them all which resorted to prevarication, misinformation, and down-right theft of the indigenous peoples’ territory to manipulate the forces at play to the home country’s advantage. Alternately frustrated by the actions of the Boer trekkers and feeling forced to take action to protect these settlers as they encroached on Zululand, the British began a series of annexations of the various Boer republics which the trekkers founded. Once annexed by the British, the settlers could call for help from the colonial power when those settlers found themselves in danger from the native peoples on whose lands the settlers had trespassed.
Finally, by the end of the decade of the 1870’s, the British colonial administrators had arrived at a plan to provoke a war with the Zulus and, after their inevitable defeat at the hands of the mighty British Army, the “unoccuppied” portions of Zululand could be disposed of in a “proper” fashion between the rival contenders (of course, with the Zulus getting the worst of it). Greaves’ portrayal of the Zulu king Cetswayo as a skilled politician who did everything in his power to avoid a war with the British, is particularly compelling. Cetswayo asked over an over what had he or his countrymen done to deserve the British invasion of his country, and, even after hostilites had commenced and the first battle between the combatants resulted in a shocking Zulu victory over the British invaders, the king sought to negotiate the differences between his people and the Europeans. Despite the Zulus victories in several battles with various elements of the British army, modern weaponry took a dramatic toll of the Zulu impis, and courage and discipline on the part of the Zulus was met in large measure by the British with courage and discipline of their own at places like Isandlawana, Roarke’s Drift, and Ulundi, names as familiar to South Africans as Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee are to Americans.
In the end the Zulu nation was left shattered, divided by the victorious British into 13 separate chieftonships (divide and conquer), each of which was either too weak or too scattered to resist the tide of settler who arrived after the war ended. The colonial administrative which had traditionally sought to avoid having to govern Zululand was forced by the very chaos that it had created to annex it. Even though it had officially been brought under the British flag as part of the empire, the Zulus continued to adhere to many of the old ways, and hostilities would flare up from time to time. Cetswayo who had been captured by the British and exiled from his homeland was dethroned as king, but the British were forced to bring back his son whom they placed on the throne in the hope that some order could be restored. In the 1920’s when the Prince of Wales (who would become Edward VII) toured South Africa, he met privately with the Zulu king, as Greaves descibes it “monarch to monarch”. The Zulus gathered to salute the Prince, many of them dressed in their traditional regimental regalia. It was generally accepted as the last gathering of the old-order Zulus. Their dominationover this part of Africa had lasted approximately 100 years, but their place in history had been assured. Thank you to Messrs, Greaves and Mkize for this more balanced account of “the tribe that washed its spears” in the blood of its enemies.
An interesting and informative narrative covering an area of history much neglected.
Haunting depiction of man’s inhumanity and callous treatment of others.
good book