Mfecane: The wars that shaped Southern and Eastern Africa

Mfecane refers to the numerous wars that were started by the Ndwandwe king Zwide and spread to the rest of the African societies in Southern Africa at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Therefore, the statement that the mfecane was largely a Zulu affair is not true considering that their activities were mainly concentrated in the Natal area while the Mfecane itself occurred in a far wider range than that. Furthermore, most evidence points to the fact that the Zulu only got involved in the mfecane when it was at its climax. The mfecane began in the later part of the eighteenth century when the process of nation building among the Nguni of the northern Natal region began. The larger political units that came from this development were partly due to the competition for the control over the lucrative trade in ivory with the Portuguese based in the Delagoa Bay. 

Moreover, the population pressure among the Northern Nguni people led to the increased competition for resources because the effect of white pressure on the frontier of the Cape colony had, by the end of the eighteenth century, made expansion in a westerly direction impossible. In the years around 1803, there was a long and severe drought which sparked the unprecedented competition between the emerging states for control over good pastureland and other essential resources. The conflict between three main groups of the northern Nguni namely the Ndwandwe, the Ngwane, and the Mthethwa brought about the mfecane, the first of which was between the Ndwandwe of Zwide and the Ngwane of Sobhuza , the latter who after being defeated, moved further north where the Swazi nation was to be eventually established. Contrary to the popular opinion among the proponents of the old paradigm concerning the mfecane, it was the Ndwandwe rather than the Zulu who initiated the climax of the mfecane by attacking the Ngwane of Matiwane. When the Matiwane and his Ngwane were driven from their home by the Ndwandwe, they began a career of conquest and terror against the communities they encountered. They surprised and defeated the Hlubi, killing their chief Mpangazitha, defeated the Tlokwa, and forced Moshoeshoe of the Sotho to pay tribute to them.

It should be noted that the first known recorded history of the mfecane was written, not by the Africans themselves, but by Afrikaans and English speaking writers. Most of these histories were written with the idea of European superiority in mind hence the portrayal of Africans as savages. The Zulu serve as an example of this mindset with their portrayal as the originators of the mfecane despite overwhelming evidence on the contrary. One would agree with Julian Cobbing’s argument that the role played by the Zulu in the events known as the mfecane were minimal at best and that the emergence of the Zulu kingdom was a result rather than a cause of this period of upheavals. The Zulu kingdom was one of the defensive states such as the Sotho, the Swazi, and the Pedi kingdoms that emerged due to the mfecane. The so called acts of aggression by the Zulu against other groups were merely measures of defence; attacks to defend themselves against future aggression. If the states surrounding the Zulu had been allowed to become too powerful, then the nation would have been destroyed.

Although the Zulu were not responsible for the mfecane, their military innovations like the use of the short broad bladed stabbing spear which allowed them to close in on their enemies instead of standing off from them, as well as their discarding of their ox hide sandals in battle, gave them superior speed making the mfecane wars even more devastating. The rise of the Zulu came at a time when large states were necessary to protect people from enemy attack. An example of these is the Mthethwa who, after their defeat by the Ndwandwe, turned to the only person in the region who had the ability to defend them against their enemies, and this was Shaka. It was this choice which brought about the ascendancy of the once insignificant Zulu. The Zulu, therefore, did not contribute to the chaos surrounding them but instead brought order in the Natal region with the creation of their state, the forceful absorption of weaker groups, as well as the destruction of the more aggressive ones like the Ndwandwe state.