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

by James Stuart

There are, it has been held, but two forms of direct taxation applicable to all sections of the community without discriminating between classes, namely a poll tax and a house tax. A house tax had been attempted, but, owing to loud and universal protest by the European community, it was not introduced.

Though difficult to justify a poll tax as an equitable mode of taxation among civilized people, it is not inappropriate when applied to Native races. If imposed on all sections of the community, it would, if standing alone, be an unfair tax; accompanied, however, by an income tax, which the Government proposed to bring forward during the following session, the unfairness would have ceased to exist.

There was strong feeling among many in the Colony that Natives were not bearing a fair share of taxation. The choice lay between increasing the hut tax payable by kraal-owners, or leaving the tax on them as before and imposing a fresh one on the younger men. It is a matter of opinion which was the better course to pursue, but, in any case, the poll tax of £1 per head on the unmarried man, and the hut tax of 14s. on the married man, cannot be regarded as unduly burdensome, especially when compared with the taxes imposed in the adjoining Colonies, Transvaal and Orange Free State. In the former, £2 was payable yearly by every adult male Native, and a further £2 by those having more than one wife for each additional wife;[79] in the latter, a poll tax of £1 was payable by all Natives. In neither of these cases, however, was there a hut tax as in Natal.

The poll tax was imposed on all sections, Europeans, Asiatics and Natives, but, in respect of the last, those already liable for hut tax were specially excepted. It accordingly fell on the young men, so many of whom, as we have seen, went to work at Johannesburg and were becoming more and more independent of their parents. Thus a class was taxed which had, to a large extent, escaped taxation, though generally speaking, assisting their fathers in finding money for hut tax and other purposes. Had the tax been imposed on the Natives alone, the bill would have had to be reserved for the King's approval. That would have meant delay; but the country could not afford to delay. Through adopting the course above indicated, the royal assent was unnecessary.

Before considering the manner in which the new law was received by the Natives, reference should be made to an incident, normal in civilized communities, but quite abnormal in those of barbarians. The Government resolved to take the census. Up to that time, no actual enumeration of the Natives had ever been attempted. Estimates only had been prepared from time to time, without any intimation of such fact being given to the Natives. These had been based primarily on the hut tax returns. The reason for not requiring coloured races to conform to the same law as Europeans in this respect was because of their suspicious temperament. There is nothing a Zulu will take umbrage at more quickly than when he, his family and belongings, are being counted. It appears to him tantamount to placing himself entirely in the hands of another, and of being "surrounded." This instinctive dread is deeply rooted, and its raison d'être is seen in the mode of attack practised by him in actual warfare, whereby a force moves forward, theoretically in half-moon formation, with the object of encircling the enemy.

It is, of course, absurd to think that the Natal Government, under which the Natives had lived peacefully for half a century, could have had any inimical motive in taking a census, but that the Natives felt some such motive was latent, is borne out by what happened when the regulations were explained by a Magistrate at a gathering of Chiefs and their followers near Greytown. A Native present put the question: "What guarantee have we that, in being enumerated in the fashion proposed, it is not in the mind of the Government, making use of the information gained, to do us an injury in the future?" The reply was: "The Government has no evil intentions whatever, the sun will sooner fall from the heavens than any evil come upon you, as a result of this census-taking. Europeans, including myself, will be counted along with you." This assurance which, from a European point of view, the official was fully justified in giving, was, however, soon made to bear an interpretation extremely difficult to reply to, and this in the very district where the Insurrection proper afterwards began. The census was taken in due course in 1904, meeting with murmuring here and there among the Natives in parts of the Colony. In the year following, the Poll Tax Act was passed and proclaimed. What was more natural than that they should associate that time-honoured practice of Western Civilization with the introduction of a form of taxation which, in their view, did them injury by imposing an additional financial burden, and, what was worse, accentuating and even legalizing the independence of children towards their fathers, an independence the sons themselves (free from control as many of them had become), veering round in their resentment, also condemned as subversive of their whole system of life. From the parents' point of view, it appeared as if their sons, already too independent, were being rendered still more so. And yet, in passing the Act, the Government was of the belief that one of the correctives above referred to was being provided, and would operate in favour of the parents. Had liability been laid on the father rather than on the son, the protests raised would probably not have been as loud as they were.

Early in the summer of the same year a curious phenomenon was observed in connection with the Kaffir corn or mabele crops, particularly in those portions of the Colony that abutted on Zululand. The ears of corn were attacked by the aphis insect in such way as to give an impression of having been oiled. Whole fields glittered in the sun. Although the phenomenon was capable of complete explanation by scientists, it appeared mysterious to European laymen and still more so to Natives, who could recall nothing of the kind in previous years. As a result of inability to explain, the idea got about that Dinuzulu was the cause. The phenomenon was, therefore, taken as a sign that that Chief had something in mind which called for co-operation on their part. This impression became current also among a number of Natal tribes, notwithstanding that two generations had elapsed since the severance of their connection with the Zulu royal house. The crops in question are universally regarded by Natives as the most important, for it is of this grain that the national beverage and food tshwala is made. As the corn-fields were attacked over wide areas in a manner at once mysterious and harmless, the characteristics accorded well with the supposition that Dinuzulu was the cause, for it was believed he had potent drugs of which he alone, assisted by various witch-doctors from afar, understood the use. The disease, for such it was, was widely talked of, and Dinuzulu was said to have brought it on for some inscrutable purpose to be revealed or not in the near future as he might choose.

Here again, we have an incident of no significance whatever among Europeans and yet regarded by numberless Natives as a sign of something important to come. The disease existed until after the Rebellion, when, strange to say, it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.