History of the Zulu war and its origin

by Frances Ellen Colenso

“It will be remembered that this book was handed to the Zulu king by Bishop Schreuder at the request of the Natal Government some time after the coronation took place. The king now returns it, and asks him to cast his eye over its contents, and say in what way he has transgressed its provisions” (ibid. p. 47).

On March 28th Mr. Fannin reports that “three messengers have arrived with a message from Cetywayo. Their names are Johannes (a native of Entumeni), ’Nkisimana, and Umfunzi. On approaching the ferry they were fired on by the Native Contingent.... The message is very short; it is simply to say, Cetywayo sees no reason for the war which is being waged against him, and he asks the Government to appoint a place at which a conference could be held with a view to the conclusion of peace.” They further brought a message from Dabulamanzi, that “a few days ago he sent a white flag with two messengers to Ekhowe, to ask for a suspension of hostilities, until the result of this mission was known, but the men have not returned. He asks that the men may be released.” Mr. Fannin says: “Four other Entumeni men have arrived with these messengers,” and he suggests, “that the Entumeni men should not be allowed to return to Zululand” (ibid. pp. 44, 45).

“Owing,” says Sir B. Frere, on June 17th, “to some misunderstanding between the various civil and military authorities, these messengers also were detained for several weeks, and have only lately been sent back.”

“I do not for a moment suppose,” he continues, “that either the civil or military authorities were aware of this, or could have prevented it by bringing their detention to notice at an earlier period, but it shows the difficulties of intercourse on such subjects with the Zulus, where such things could occur without the slightest ground for suspicion of bad faith on the part of either the civil or military authorities.”[164]

It is not easy to discover what unusual and mysterious difficulties the civil and military authorities can have found in communicating with the Zulu messengers (men who had been employed for many years in carrying the “words” of Government and the Zulu king to each other), and it is still more inexplicable to whose notice the said authorities could have brought their detention. The whole matter is about as comprehensible as the statement which appeared at the time in the Natal papers, that when these same messengers—a small party—approached our camp, bearing a white flag, “we fired upon it (i.e. the flag) to test its sincerity.”

The detention of these messengers as prisoners at Kranz Kop came to the knowledge of the Bishop of Natal about the middle of April, and he at once brought the fact to the notice of the civil and military authorities. On the 20th April he saw Lord Chelmsford in Pietermaritzburg, and spoke to him on the subject. The General informed him that he had already ordered them to go back to Cetshwayo, and to say that he must send indunas to meet him (Lord Chelmsford) at General Wood’s camp, to which he was then bound. Nevertheless the General’s message, which would take but two days on the road, had not reached Kranz Kop on the 29th, nor were the men actually released until the 9th of May. When finally set at liberty they carried with them a message calculated to discourage any further attempts on the Zulu king’s part at bringing about a peaceful issue to the war, being merely that if “Cetywayo sends any more messengers he must send them to the Upper Column (Dundee).”

Nevertheless on the 12th of June the same two old men appeared again, brought down, bearing a white flag, to ’Maritzburg by policemen from Mr. Fynn, resident magistrate at the Umsinga. Apparently they had been afraid to cross at Kranz Kop, where the “sincerity” of their white flag had been “tested” before, and were sent, not to the military authorities, but to the civil magistrate, who sent them down to Sir Henry Bulwer. He would have nothing to say to them, and transferred them to General Clifford, who examined them on the 13th, and sent them off on the following day to Lord Chelmsford. They had already walked one hundred and fifty miles from Ulundi to ’Maritzburg with their message of peace, and had then still further to go in order to reach the General, before they could get any kind of answer. Meanwhile the campaign was prosecuted without a pause.

General Clifford’s account of this is as follows:

“I began by informing them that I was only going to ask them such questions as would enable me to judge whether I should be justified in sending them on to my Chief, Lord Chelmsford, now in Zululand carrying on the war. The headman, Umfundi, then made the following statement: ‘We are Umfundi and Umkismana, Zulu messengers from Cetywayo. I am sent here by Cetywayo to ask for time to arrange a meeting of Chiefs with a view to arranging peace. We did not go to the head white Chief, because Fynn at Rorke’s Drift, whom I knew, told me the Great White Chief was in Zululand, and we had better see Shepstone and the second White Chief, who were at Pietermaritzburg, so we came on here advised by Fynn. I have been here about twice a year for the last six years as King’s messenger, but not as Chief. I am nothing but a messenger, and I have no authority from the King to treat for peace, or to do anything besides delivering my message, asking if time will be given to assemble a meeting of Chiefs. I know Mr. Shepstone, Mr. Gallway, and Bishop Colenso, and I have seen Bishop Colenso in this town, and also at his place in the country, but I do not wish to see him now, and I have not asked to see him.’ (This, according to their custom, merely implied that they had no message for him.) ‘I want to see the Great Chief, as the King ordered me to do. I only came here to deliver my message and because Fynn told me. This is the seventeenth day since I left the King’s kraal. Am an old man and cannot go so fast as I could when I was young, and heavy rain detained me three days. The King told me to hurry on and return quickly. It will take us seven days to get from here to Ibabamango Mountain if we go by Rorke’s Drift. We only know of two other messengers sent by the King; one is Sintwango, the name of the other we do not know. They have been sent to the lower column because Cetywayo thinks there are two Chiefs of equal power, one with the upper column and the other with the lower column. They are sent like us to ask for time to get out by the door. The King does not know the name of your big Chief, and we do not either. We are the same messengers the King sent to Fort Buckingham with the same message we have now. Only then our orders were not to go to your Chief as now, but to go to Fort Buckingham and wait for the answer there. We delivered our message to the military Chief there, and he sent the message on. The Chief was at Etshowe fighting, and the answer did not come for two months; when it came it was that the great Chief was surprised we were still there. He thought we had gone back to the King long ago. The officer at Fort Buckingham advised us to go to the great white Chief, but we said: “No, those are not the King’s orders; our orders are to come here, and now we will return and tell the King;” and it was half of the third month when we got back to him. We told him what had taken place. He consulted his great Chiefs, and then sent us with the orders we now have to go and see the great white Chief, and that is now what we are trying to do. I have no power given me but to ask for time. The King sends his messengers first, because it is the custom of the country to do so, and not to send a great Chief till arrangements have been made where the Chiefs are to assemble to talk about peace. We have no power to talk about terms of peace. None but messengers have yet been sent. The messengers sent to the lower column went before the fighting began; they were detained and did not return to the King’s kraal till we did.’ I said I was satisfied they ought to be sent on at once to Lord Chelmsford.