A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in
fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation sets out to trace the political history
of part of what is now Natal in the period from the third
quarter of the 18th century to the late 1820s. After
briefly describing the nature of political organization in
the region at the beginning of the period, it explains
how, in the later 18th century, several large
paramountcies emerged among the small-scale chiefdoms
which had previously been in exclusive occupation of the
area. It traces continuities between the conflicts which
brought about the formation of these larger polities and
the upheavals which, in the later 1810s and early 1820s,
totally transformed the region's political landscape. It
argues that the concept of the mfecane, which portrays
these upheavals as a product of the violent expansion of
the Zulu state, is based on colonial-made myths and is
devoid of analytical usefulness. It shows that A.T.
Bryant's supposedly authoritative account of the period of
the upheavals is very largely plagiarized from two minor
publications produced long before by Theophilus Shepstone.
It goes on to propose an alternative account which
demonstrates that the.Zulu state was simply one among a
number of important political actors in the ThukelaMzimkhulu
territories in the 1810s and 1820s. Though the
Zulu were eventually able to establish domination of the
region, they did not 'devastate' it, as conventionally
they are supposed to have done, and were unable
effectively to occupy more than a small part of it. The
Zulu were still in the process of establishing a hold on
the region when, in the mid-1820S, its political dynamics
began to be transformed by the increasing involvement of
British traders from Port Natal in the affairs of the Zulu
state. By the end of the 1820s, cape-based commercial and
political interests were beginning to contest Zulu
hegemony in the region south of the Thukela, and a new era
in its history was opening. / AC2017
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/22294 |
| Date | January 1989 |
| Creators | Wright, John |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (418 leaves), application/pdf |
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