The case against the Mfecane
Date
1984-03
Authors
Cobbing, Julian
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Abstract
By the 1970s the mfecane had become one of the most widely abused
terms in southern African historical literature. Let the reader
attempt a simple definition of the mfecane, for instance. This is not
such an easy task. From one angle the mfecane was the Nguni diaspora
which from the early 1820s took Nguni raiding communities such as the
Ndebele, the Ngoni and the Gaza over a huge region of south-central
Africa reaching as far north as Lake Tanzania. Africanists stress the
positive features of the movement. As Ajayi observed in 1968: 'When we
consider all the implications of the expansions of Bantu-speaking
peoples there can he no doubt that the theory of stagnation has no
basis whatsoever.' A closely related, though different, mfecane
centres on Zululand and the figure of Shaka. It has become a
revolutionary process internal to Nguni society which leads to the
development of the ibutho and the tributary mode of production. Shaka
is a heroic figure providing a positive historical example and some
self-respect for black South Africans today.
But inside these wider definitions another mfecane more specifically
referring to the impact of Nguni raiders (the Nedbele, Hlubi and
Ngwane) on the Sotho west of the Drakensberg. This mfecane encompasses
a great field of African self-destruction extending from the Limpopo
to the Orange. It allegedly depopulated vast areas of what became the
Orange Free State, the Transvaal and, with the aid of the Zulu, Natal,
which thus lay empty for white expansion. Dispersed African survivors
clustered together and in time formed the enclave states of Lesotho,
Swaziland and Botswana. What Omer-Cooper terms the 'general distribution
of white and Bantu landownership' in South Africa was thereby
established. On these African-created foundations rose the so-called
Bantustans or Homelands of twentieth-century South Africa.
These conceptual contradictions coexist within mfecane theory with
contrasting definitions of timing. As an era of history the latter
1trans-orangian' mfecane invariably begins in about 1820 and ends in
either 1828 with the departure of the Ngwane, or in the mid-1830s with
the arrival of the French missionaries and the Boers. The Zulu-centred
mfecane, on the other hand, begins with the career of Dingiswayo
at the end of the eighteenth century and often continues until the end
of the Zulu kingdom in 1879. Subcontinental mfecanes sometimes
continue until the 1890s. In short, there is no one definition of the
mfecane. It can refer to people, to an era, to a process of internal
development. It can be constructive, destructive; pro African, anti
African; geographically narrow, or subcontinental.
Not all of these contradictions can be resolved. Their existence
requires an explanation, since their origins are by now well buried in
the historiography. In the first part of this article my intention is
to unravel the development of mfecane as it has been handed down in
South African historiography. Many writers have had a hand in
creating the mfecane. The poor taste of the dish derives from the poor
quality of the initial ingredients. In the second part, I suggest
some lines of attack on the pillars of mfecane mythology, and leave it
to the reader to decide whether the concept is worth salvaging.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented March, 1984