History of the Zulu war and its origin

by Frances Ellen Colenso

“Boundaries were laid down either arbitrarily or by unsatisfactorily recorded treaty with savage neighbours. The natives, forced back, acquired the powers of coalition lost by the Boers, and in their turn brought pressure to bear on their invaders and whilom conquerors; farm after farm had to be abandoned, and many of the Boers who remained acknowledged by paying tribute that they retained their lands by the permission of neighbouring chiefs. The full importance of this retrograde movement was not at once felt, as a natural safety-valve was found.”

“A considerable portion of the east of the Transvaal is called the High Veldt, and consists of tableland at a considerable elevation, overlying coal-measures; this district appears bleak and inhospitable, overrun by large herds of game and watered by a series of apparently stagnant ponds which take the place of watercourses.... From various sources, within the last six years, it has been discovered that the High Veldt is most valuable for the grazing of sheep, horses, and cattle; and farms which possess the advantage of water are worth from £1,000 to £1,200, where formerly they could have been bought for as many pence.”

“This discovery has opened a door of escape for many of the native-pressed borderers. The pressure on those that remain increases, and on the north-east and west of the Transvaal is a fringe of farmers who live by the sufferance or in fear of the interlacing natives.”

The phrases which I have italicised seem to indicate that the writer has lost sight of the fact that, if the border farmers are “native-pressed,” it is because they have intruded themselves amongst the natives, from which position a just and wise government would seek to withdraw them, instead of endeavouring to establish and maintain them in it by force. This latter course, however, is the one which Captain Clarke recommends. The remainder of his memorandum is a series of suggestions for this purpose, one of which runs as follows: “To take away the immediate strain on the border farmer, and the risk of collision which the present state of affairs involves, I would suggest the establishment of Government Agents, who should reside on or beyond the border now occupied by the farmers.[70] ... Each Residency should be a fortress, built of stones and prepared for defence against any native force.”

Sir Bartle Frere’s version of Captain Clarke’s account, given to the Secretary of State in a despatch enclosing the above, runs as follows: “Most of the native chiefs now there have gradually crept in, under pressure from the northward, and finding no representatives of the Transvaal Government able to exercise authority on the spot, have gradually set up some sort of government for themselves, before which many of the Boers have retired, leaving only those who were willing to pay a sort of tribute for protection, or to avoid being robbed of their cattle.”

With whatever oblique vision Sir Bartle Frere may have perused the enclosure from which he gathers his facts, no unbiassed mind can fail to detect the singular discrepancy between the account given by Captain Clarke and that drawn from it by the High Commissioner in his enclosing letter.

He makes no mention of the driving out of the natives which preceded their creeping in, and which figures so largely in Captain Clarke’s memorandum, of which he professes to give a sketch. And he introduces, entirely on his own account, the accusation against the natives implied in the phrase “or to avoid being robbed of their cattle,” of which not a single word appears in the memorandum itself.

Properly speaking, there were two disputed boundary lines up to 1879, the one being that between Zululand and the Transvaal, to the south of the Pongolo River; the other that between the Zulus and the Swazis, to the north of, and parallel to, that stream.[71] The Swazis are the hereditary enemies of the Zulus, and there has always been a bitter feeling between the two races, nevertheless the acquisitiveness of the Transvaal Boers was at the bottom of both disputes. They profess to have obtained, by cession from the Swazi king in 1855, a strip of land to the north-east of the Pongolo River and down to the Lebomba Mountains, in order that they might form a barrier between them and the Zulus; but the Swazis deny having ever made such cession.

In addition to the doubt thrown upon the transaction by this denial, and the well-known Boer encroachments already described, it remains considerably open to question whether the Swazis had the power to dispose of the land, which is claimed by the Zulus as their own. The commission which sat upon the southern border question was not permitted to enter upon that to the north of the Pongolo, which therefore remains uncertain. The one fact generally known, however, is undoubtedly favourable to the Zulu claim. The territory in question was occupied until 1848 by two Zulu chiefs, Putini of the Ama-Ngwe, and Langalibalele of the Ama-Hlubi tribe, under the rule of the Zulu king Umpande. These chiefs, having fallen into disgrace with the king, were attacked by him, and fled into Natal. They were ultimately settled in their late locations under the Draakensberg, leaving their former places in Zululand, north and south of the Pongolo, the inNgcaka (Mountain), and inNgcuba (River) vacant.