A history of the Zulu Rebellion, 1906, and of Dinuzulu's arrest, trial, and expatriation

by James Stuart

The first, elementary, and most striking fact in connection with the upheaval is the profound and natural differences that existed between the contending races. Their civilizations were widely different. They had different creeds; different social systems; different habits and customs; different languages, history and traditions; a different physical, moral and intellectual nature and equipment; different tastes, ideals and outlooks on life, and countless other differences. Although the causes of any general conflict between a higher and a lower race are not, perhaps, necessarily deep-seated, in this particular instance we believe they arose out of the all-round radical differences referred to, and were as fundamental as it was possible for them to be.

Because of being a different race, the Natives, as has been seen, were governed by a set of laws different to those of the Europeans. This they strongly approved. It was, indeed, after their heart's desire. But, with the introduction of Responsible Government and development of European towns, commerce, industries, institutions, etc., Native Affairs received a gradually diminishing amount of attention on the part of the European community. As the Europeans progressed and became more engrossed in their own affairs, necessity for safeguarding purely Native interests seemed to recede further into the background. This was, to some extent, due to Members of the Legislative Assembly being invariably elected by a purely European electorate. When, as a result of the Boer War, severe financial depression came about, and Parliament was compelled to raise money, the Poll Tax Act was passed, though without being specially referred to the Natives. Theoretically there was no necessity for reference, for they were represented by Members of both Houses. The fault was not really attributable to the Government, still less to the colonists, but was rather one of the inevitable results of Responsible Government, and especially of Western Civilization, of which such Government was a natural outcome. In the Constitution Act,[352] elaborate provision was made for the protection of European interests, but no other than general provision on behalf of the Natives. That the action taken in respect of the latter was indefinite, was owing to their being barbarians, and in a very backward state of civilization. Nothing, therefore, was more natural than that the pendulum should eventually swing unduly in favour of the Europeans. As, however, the grant of Responsible Government came from the Imperial Government, such Government cannot be absolved from a share of the blame for the one-sided—and perhaps, for the time being, necessarily one-sided—tendencies inherent in the Constitution Act.

The specific grievances date, for the most part, from this granting of Responsible Government. Prior to that time, the Natives were under the immediate control of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, or officers who managed their affairs on more or less similar lines. On such regime, all still look back with affection and gratitude. But the seeds of friction and discord were nevertheless latent, only time being needed for them to develop into actual antagonism.

Apart from the system of Responsible Government, another disturbing cause was the immigration of Europeans and Indians. This had gone on steadily before 1893 and since. These increases, combined with a greatly-augmented Native population, seriously affected the conditions of living and, on account of the keener struggle for existence in a changing environment, the easy-going and comparatively indolent Native was obliged to go more and more to the wall.

It was, therefore, impossible to prevent the impression gaining ground, especially in later times, with an accelerated spreading of enlightenment, that the Natives were being discriminated against and, with such impression, accentuated by the sinister Ethiopian propaganda disseminated throughout the country since 1892, loss of confidence in the white man's rule became inevitable.

That Natives arrived at the conclusion that they were being discriminated against must be taken as fact. Dinuzulu's interview with the Governor proves that he personally had arrived at the same conclusion. Instances of like views will be found throughout the Evidence given before the Native Affairs Commission. We are not prepared to deny that this view is to a large extent correct, though cannot go the length of condemning Natal Native policy in such unmeasured terms as some are inclined to do. The clashing that occurred seems to have arisen more out of the innate character of Western Civilization than out of specific injustice, repression or inordinate self-seeking on the part of the colonists.

When once a people begins to feel that it is accorded no particularly definite status in the country, that its welfare is of no special concern to the rulers, except as a means to the latter's material advancement, that its members, in short, are pariahs in what, but a few years before, was their own country, then the time is not far distant when they may be expected to make a bid for liberty. It is beside the question to set about to defend the principles of any policy when such impression is abroad and the country in a ferment; if people believe they are being down-trodden, the belief, justifiable or not, is what has to be reckoned with. In Natal, it was a fact that many Natives believed themselves to be a down-trodden race, and it was this general fact which seems to us to have been a main underlying cause of their rebelliousness. But, whilst being a cause, one thing must be borne clearly in mind. The insurrection was partial, not universal. Had various Natal governments shown no regard whatever for the people's interests and welfare, and been content merely to exploit them for the benefit of the white race, no one will deny that such feelings of hatred would have been engendered as to have caused the rising to be far more extensive and formidable than it was. That there should have been warfare at all is bad enough, but it is at least fair to Natal to remember that the great mass of the people did not feel that provocation, sufficient for taking up arms, had been given. This testimony is manifestly in favour of successive governments not having been quite so callous as some have endeavoured to make out. Of course, the comparatively few who actually armed—between 10,000 and 12,000—wished to organize a general insurrection or rebellion; of that there is abundant evidence; and such plan might have succeeded had the rising not been sternly met and speedily repressed. The malcontents, knowing that the effects of European rule were felt as more or less oppressive by the majority of their kinsmen—just as the majority would, in time, have regarded as oppressive the rule of the highest type of British or any other rulers that could possibly have been selected—and knowing that the poll tax had still further embittered their race against European rule, calculated that the time was ripe for general rebellion. They reckoned that far greater numbers would have joined than actually did. But they were disappointed. They failed to allow sufficiently for the inertia of those who, though not particularly enamoured of European rule, saw nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, by resort to arms. Even Dinuzulu, in spite of his promise, and after exerting his influence on Sigananda, Mehlokazulu and others, failed at the critical moment to afford active support. The fact is that the Natal Government had not become altogether intolerable, except to such recognized renegades as Bambata. In every State of the world, numbers of malcontents are ever ready to rise against any government that happens to be in power. Natal was no exception to the rule. And when her day of trial came, she had perforce to depend on the loyalty of the remainder of the people, and the strength of her own right hand. If the management of the Native races by Natal was worse than is here made out, how comes it that her entire Native population throughout the Boer War, which began but six, and ended four, years before the Rebellion, was as consistently loyal as it was throughout that protracted war; that Dinuzulu assisted as he did with scouts and levies (though not for the purpose of actual fighting); that, so far from wanting to rebel, the Chiefs offered their services, which, however, could not be accepted on the ground that the war was 'a white man's war'—and all this notwithstanding that the Colony had been invaded, and one of its principal towns besieged by the enemy for upwards of three months? Clearly, Natal's rule had not, at that time, become so unbearable as to cause the people to prefer a regime set up by Dinuzulu, or some other Zulu despot.

Under the circumstances, we come to the conclusion that the fundamental cause was the introduction and imposition on the aborigines of a type of civilization radically different from their own. The Government, first Imperial, latterly Colonial, was necessarily the instrument whereby such civilization was introduced and imposed. Responsibility for all that occurred must, therefore, be thrown, as it was thrown by Natives, on the Government, even the breaking down of their social system through the unremitting effects of Missionary teaching, the undermining of the tribal system by European landlordism, the innumerable deleterious effects caused by degraded or dishonest classes of Europeans, and in other ways.