The dynamics of power and conflict in the Thukela-Mzimkhulu Region in the late 18th and early 19th centuries: a critical reconstruction

Abstract

This dissertation sets out to trace the political history of part of what is now Natal in the period from the third quarter of the 18th century to the late 1820s. After briefly describing the nature of political organization in the region at the beginning of the period, it explains how, in the later 18th century, several large paramountcies emerged among the small-scale chiefdoms which had previously been in exclusive occupation of the area. It traces continuities between the conflicts which brought about the formation of these larger polities and the upheavals which, in the later 1810s and early 1820s, totally transformed the region's political landscape. It argues that the concept of the mfecane, which portrays these upheavals as a product of the violent expansion of the Zulu state, is based on colonial-made myths and is devoid of analytical usefulness. It shows that A.T. Bryant's supposedly authoritative account of the period of the upheavals is very largely plagiarized from two minor publications produced long before by Theophilus Shepstone. It goes on to propose an alternative account which demonstrates that the.Zulu state was simply one among a number of important political actors in the ThukelaMzimkhulu territories in the 1810s and 1820s. Though the Zulu were eventually able to establish domination of the region, they did not 'devastate' it, as conventionally they are supposed to have done, and were unable effectively to occupy more than a small part of it. The Zulu were still in the process of establishing a hold on the region when, in the mid-1820S, its political dynamics began to be transformed by the increasing involvement of British traders from Port Natal in the affairs of the Zulu state. By the end of the 1820s, cape-based commercial and political interests were beginning to contest Zulu hegemony in the region south of the Thukela, and a new era in its history was opening.