The Mfecane: Beginning the inquest
Date
1988-09-12
Authors
Wright, John
Cobbing, Julian
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Abstract
In this paper I elaborate on the argument that 'the mfecane' is a
pivotal component of a 'liberal', settler, apartheid-skeletal form a new
analysis. The main assertion of mfecane propaganda is that a
'Zulu-centric' revolution produced an extensive depopulation which
explains in historiographical sequence: the flight of peoples into the
'liberation' of the European economy, the land division of 1913, and,
since the 1950s, the configuration of the Bantustans. In reply, it is
shown that the sub-continental destabilisations and transformations
within black societies sprang from the synchronous and converging impact
of European penetration at Delagoa Bay, the Cape, north of the Orange,
and Natal. In order to disguise what had occurred the whites erased
themselves from their own impact, and retrospectively inserted Shaka and
other victims of the process as initiators in situations where they were
absent. The chronology is lengthened far beyond the (in this context)
irrelevant reign of the Zulu monarch. Particular attention is paid to
the sequences of this extended chronology and to the cross-interactions
between the sectors of the white advance. It is not the intention to
minimise change internal to black societies, but rather to make a call
for this to be researched in its proper context. The huge gaps in our
knowledge revealed by this approach ensure that this task is a
formidable one.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 12 September 1988
Keywords
Africa, Southern. History. Mfecane period, 1816-ca. 1840, South Africa. Historiography