With the arrival overland from the Cape Colony of the Boer voortrekkers, however, a great change came over the scene. Momentous events followed one another in quick succession. Here was a well-armed, mounted and efficient force, extremely small in numbers as compared with the Zulus, and very desirous of occupying the land they found vacant in the northern portions of Natal. Although in no way intending to be aggressors, the entirely amicable and co-operative spirit in which they entered upon negotiations with Dingana being evidence of this fact, they were undoubtedly regarded ab initio in that light by the Zulus. The Boers, however, had arrived in these practically unexplored regions prepared for all contingencies, war included; Dingana saw this, and war they were compelled to enter upon forthwith. The treacherous and brutal massacre of Piet Retief, along with some sixty followers and forty Hottentot and Native servants, at the principal royal kraal, Mgungundhlovu, on the 6th February, 1838, followed almost immediately by the cold-blooded murders of 281 Boer men, women and children, together with 250 of their coloured servants, at Bushman's and Blauwkrantz Rivers in Natal, were the initial acts of that wholly unprovoked war. The valiant manner in which 460 voortrekkers subsequently went forth to oppose an army outnumbering them by at least 40 to 1; the readiness with which they moved about the roadless country with cumbersome transport, notwithstanding the traps occasionally laid by a crafty foe; their crushing victory over some 9,500 Zulus at Blood River on 16th December, 1838; and their further expedition of January-February, 1840, when, as the result of a battle between Dingana and their ally Mpande, the former's power was finally shattered, will always stand to their credit, and be a lesson as to how operations can be conducted with success against a race of barbarians.
Subsequently to the death of Dingana, probably from poisoning, in January, 1840, his brother, Mpande, who, towards the end of 1839, had crossed over into Natal with a vast concourse of adherents to seek the protection of the Boers, was later on formally installed by the latter as Paramount Chief of the Zulus.
Between 1840 and 1843, the relations between the English settlers on the coast and the Boers, who had taken up their residence further inland,[8] unhappily became so strained that open hostilities broke out between them in the winter of 1843, the former having been strengthened by a regiment sent overland to Durban in 1842. This regrettable conflict resulted in the formal annexation of Natal by the British Government, the majority of the Boers falling back to establish themselves in territory across the Vaal, then already partly occupied by their own countrymen, and now known as the Transvaal.
After being invested by the Boers, as already stated, Mpande maintained and even elaborated the Zulu military system. This system continued to exist, not only to the end of his reign in 1872, but throughout that of his son Cetshwayo, that is, until the Zulu War of 1879.
During this long period, notwithstanding that numerous immigrants arrived in Natal, nothing in the shape of regular military organization took place among the white settlers, beyond the formation, from time to time, of volunteer corps[9] (this, however, does not apply to the Boers who, between 1837 and 1843, were well organized). Lagers[10] were erected in various parts of the Colony, as well as a few magazines for arms and ammunition. Where magazines existed, rifle associations soon began to be formed.
If it was never possible to determine how long it might be before trouble arose, the Government was aware that a general rising could originate only in Zululand. From the time the first colonists arrived in Natal, up to the end of the Zulu War, August, 1879, the principal arbiter of savage warfare in South Africa was the Zulu sovereign. It was to him that the whole of the tribes of Zululand—the real storm-centre of South Africa—looked, including those of Natal, who were without any hereditary King. The latter were, indeed, only too glad to place themselves under the protection of the British Government, and even actively assist against their former King in the campaign of 1879. The majority of the Natives of Natal then, and the same is still the case, consisted of people who, at various times, had fled from Zululand, fearing lest they should be put to death on some bogus charge of practising witchcraft, of infringing the very stringent and remarkable marriage regulations, or of neglecting to conform to a hundred and one instructions or directions. Ever since the days of Dingana, the King became exceedingly incensed on hearing of any of his subjects breaking away to place himself under the notoriously milder European rule south of the Tugela. Any neglect to conform to his pleasure, where, in former days, similar desires would have been carried out with alacrity and without the least demur, appeared to be no less than outrageous defiance, and, as such, punishable with the utmost rigour. The tendency of fleeing to Natal from the despotic laws, which became even more arbitrary as the possibility of infringing any of them with impunity appeared greater, grew to such formidable proportions, that special regulations were introduced in Natal to cope with the situation. Refugees, for instance, were required to indenture themselves as labourers to European house-holders, farmers, etc., for a period of three years. But, by the time Cetshwayo, long the de facto ruler of Zululand, actually began to reign (October, 1872), the prestige of the Imperial Government had become so firmly established in Natal, and to such numbers had the farmers and other Europeans grown, backed up by an Imperial garrison at Fort Napier, Pietermaritzburg, that the King perceived that any attack was not only destined to fail, but must result in the prompt dispatch of irresistible forces to bring an end to his rule. The fact, however, remained that the relations between Cetshwayo and the representatives of Imperial authority in Natal became more and more strained, and the outbreak of war between the two races sooner or later inevitable.
No one appreciated better the position than did the Natives in Natal. Because, in most cases, their having come to the Colony was tantamount to flagrant defiance of the royal will, so, no one knew better than they, that, in having placed themselves under alien protection, they had thereby burnt their boats behind them and incurred the unappeasable wrath of the Zulu dynasty. It is for this reason that Natal Natives were, formerly, at all times only too eager to co-operate with their protectors in the direct or indirect destruction of the Zulu power.