Episode 295 - Dabulamanzi’s Murder roils northern Zululand and Dinuzulu Rebels
History of South Africa podcastShow Notes
On 27 April 1994, South Africa inaugurated a new constitutional democracy which embraced the freedom and equality of all sectors of the South African society. The Preamble of the Constitution states one of its aims was to “heal divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights”. This goal was to be realised by, among others, section 211 which recognised the institution, status and role of traditional leadership and entrenches indigenous African law as a source of South African law alongside the common law.
Ironically, on the very same day, 27 April, in 1889, the British Administration rejected the time-honoured institution of traditional leadership in Africa and decided finally to remove the hereditary traditional leaders from Zulu society. This is generally regarded as the final act which caused irreparable harm to Zulu solidarity and has resonated down the ages.
The British had tired of the constant warring, the tension amongst the descendants of Senzangakhona. But more importantly, they were seeking to shore up their northern marches against both the Boers and the increasingly aggressive European nations like Germany who were also seeking colonies in Africa. It has perhaps been forgotten just how active Germany was in Mozambique. German companies were buying up land in Lourenzo Marques by the late 1880s, in order to gain a foothold over south eastern Africa. Nine-tenths of the transit business along the Mozambique coast into Tanzania and even further north was in the hands of German companies, and the press in Germany were as jingoistic as any other European nation of the time.
So as we consider what was going to happen from here on in, we must keep an eye on the global effect.
When we last heard about Dinizulu was back in episode 281 where the Boers and induna’s had annointed him as King of the Zulu.
Ever since the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879, the territory had been in turmoil and from the time that Dinizulu succeeded his father Cetshwayo he was caught up in a series of conflicts which eventually destroyed him. Dinizulu fought three major contests, against Usibebu the British government sponsored chief of the Amandhlakazi, against the Transvaal Boers who were eager to make use of the Zulu civil wars to appropriate land and cattle in Zululand - eventually claiming what they called the New Republic. Dinizulu fought a third battle against the Natal colonists and government which history has described in various ways, including as a rebellion.
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297 dear listener, is what’s known as a Kaprekar Number - if you square 297 the resulting digits can be split into two parts - right side and left side. If you add up those two parts you get the original number 297 squared is 88, 209.
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The Ndebele chief said the Rudd concession document did not reflect his verbal agreements. His induna’s who’d negotiated the concession disputed the terms as well, along with missionary Charles Helms who’d translated for Lobengula.
We’re in Bulawayo, just over the border from the Limpopo, and very much part of South Africa’s story — the Ndebele Chief Lobengula ruled what was known generally as Matabeleland, in a territory that the British colonial office called Zambesia, which we now call, Zimbabwe.
If you have access to Google Maps, or preferably, an original wall map of Africa, stand back for a moment to savour the grand vista which is southern Africa. Living on the tip looking upwards creates a culture of outwardness, a mental and psychological state of eternal expansion. Despite this grandiosity, for many, it is a place of entrapment, they express sentiments of being stuck at the end of Africa, peering outwards to the continents of Europe, or America, Australasia with a sense of longing.