The Quagga and Colonialism

This article was first published by Retrospect Journal on 02/12/2019, and can be read here.

On 12 August 1883 the last known quagga died in captivity in Amsterdam Zoo, surveys could find no traces of quagga in the wild confirming its extinction. Long thought to be a species of zebra, DNA tests in the 1980s found it to be a subspecies, it was once common across the plains of what would become South Africa. Unlike other infamous cases of animals being driven to extinction by human activity, most notably the moa of New Zealand and dodo of Mauritius, quagga had lived alongside humans for millennia. In fact, the name ‘quagga’ partially comes from the local Khoikhoi name. Instead the extinction of the quagga was deeply entwined with imperial culture and the formation of settler rule in South Africa.

From the early-1600s Dutch settlers created colonies on the southern coast of what would become South Africa. From 1795 the British took over the colony to secure shipping routes to India, and clashes began between the Dutch and British settlers. To avoid British rule the Dutch farmers began what has since been known as the ‘Great Trek’ after 1836; these ‘voortrekkers’ would later become a key part of Afrikaner national identity, especially as British rule tried to reassert itself over the voortrekkers. The white settlers claimed they were pushing into ‘free’ land where they could make a new start, however, this claim was at the expense of Africans. Although there was no intensive sedentary farming, that did not mean that the land was actually unclaimed. Various African peoples made claim to the lands hosting a range of different states and economic structures ranging from pastoralists to small-scale farming to the expansionist Zulu Empire. These voortrekkers enslaved or displaced Africans from their land, and helped destabilise the Zulu Empire to prevent them from being a threat. 

The arrival of Europeans changed how the environment was treated. Although it is important not to fetishize pre-colonial land usage, wide-scale pastoralism had caused increased pressure on the land in Zulu and Xhosa communities, but it is important to stress how land usage shifted dramatically. Just as in the American West, land areas of the southern African land were divided between individual farms – of varying sizes – which limited where wild animals could move. For herding animals, like the quagga, wide areas are needed so they have plenty of food to eat without destroying the local area – millions of zebra and wildebeest make the trek from the Serengeti in Tanzania to the Masai Mara in Kenya for this reason every year. Herds of quagga, therefore, tried to go on their regular grazing grounds but were faced with Boer farms. To prevent the quagga from competing with their own grazing herds, or from eating their own crops, farmers resorted to shooting stray herds of quagga. Quagga meat was also a good way to get quick food without killing off a possibly prized animal, and their skins could be sold for extra funds.

At the same time, the quagga became a prized animal for menageries back in the metropole. The quagga’s unique skin made it an interesting addition for any wealthy elite’s personal collection – Cusworth Hall in my own town of Doncaster even had quagga grazing on its grounds in the 1700s. When the first zoological gardens started emerging in the 1820s, such as London Zoo, quaggas were in high demand for their appearance and for colonial experiments. Naturalists hoped to breed quaggas with horses to create a new species that could be used in both Europe and Africa. There is also an underlying colonial ideology about why exotic animals were in demand for zoos and menageries. As argued by Harriet Ratvo, having a seemingly rare, unique, or exotic animal was part of a wider imperial power dynamic – if you could have an animal from a colonised region it showed by the power of empire and your own wealth. It showed Britain’s power to move an animal across the world, and the owner’s importance by engaging in this power play.

However, many zoos were unequipped to look after exotic animals initially, and it was not uncommon for new animals to die within a year. London Zoo’s A.D. Bartlett, who oversaw the animal population during the late-nineteenth century, wrote how they had to invest a lot to look after elephants and rhinos because they were hard to get, but as monkeys were cheap to obtain, they did not have to worry in case they died. Initially the quagga was viewed this way. Their large herd sizes and apparent abundancy meant that they were seen as dispensable, but still sought after, animals. Furthermore, brutal capture and transport of animals meant that many more had to be caught than what was needed due to high mortality.

These factors mentioned are what drove the quagga to extinction. Demand to fill zoos in Europe, and policies of extermination to preserve farms in Africa, meant that quagga numbers quickly dwindled. As they were only found in southern Africa it meant that the population rapidly went extinct – although common, they were only common in one area. London Zoo’s single mare was photographed five times between the 1860s and 1870s before she died by the zoo’s chief photographer Frederick York. The rapid extinction of the quagga meant that they are the only photos of a living quagga. The last known wild quagga was shot in 1878, and when the last one died in captivity in 1883 the zoo requested hunters find another one not realising how quickly it had gone extinct. Albeit, locally all zebras were referred to as ‘quaggas’ which may have caused the confusion. Thanks to colonial settlement and exploitation the quagga had gone extinct.

Studying the quagga shows the various ways colonialism impacted colonised societies. Unfortunately, the quagga was not the only case of settler colonialism driving animals to extinction – passenger pigeons, thylacines, and almost the bison suffered the same fate. The quagga offers a warning for the future. Neo-colonialism means the natural world is being destroyed in order to fund the economies of the global north threatening both humans and nature. Colonialism very likely will drive orang-utans, macaws, and caimans, just to name a few, to extinction.

1990s Africa and the Limits of Community

This was first published by Retrospect Journal in their Autumn/Winter 2017 issue, Individuals and Communities. This can be found here.

A pro-Biafra protester in the 2000s

During the 1990s national and community identities drastically shifted. National resurgence was shown in a variety of ways ranging from the peaceful referendums on Quebec’s independence and the creation of a Scottish parliament in 1995 and 1997 respectively, to the bloody genocides in the Balkans following the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Africa too saw the reshaping of community. For example, a more inclusive community was created in South Africa following the first multi-racial election in 1994 formally ending Apartheid, but in other areas this change became increasingly exclusive. European powers at the 1884 Berlin Conference carved Africa between themselves disregarding ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, and initiated divide-and-rule policies in the colonised regions. The legacies of this are still felt today. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the end of the Cold War, and the IMF’s adoption of neo-liberal and free market ideologies caused dramatic changes in Africa, and the world, which brought ideas of identity and community into question. In particular, this article will focus on Rwanda, Nigeria, and Somalia showing the shifts in communal identity in these regions.

     The Rwandan Genocide is perhaps the most infamous post-war genocide costing the lives of up to a million people in a month long massacre. Before colonial rule the idea of ‘Tutsis’ and ‘Hutus’ had become class distinctions, but the arrival of German, and later Belgian colonisers had made this distinction firmly racially based. In 1916 Belgian colonial authorities handed out identity cards making someone either a Hutu or Tutsi with the Tutsis in a dominant role. Years later this would lead to moderate Hutus, the Tutsi and Twa populations were murdered en masse in 1994 although it was not the first ethnic violence to strike the ‘land of a thousand hills.’ During the Rwandan Revolution – the revolution to overthrow the Tutsi monarchy and Belgian rule – 130,000 Tutsis fled abroad where exiles formed insurgent groups called inyenzi (cockroaches) to raid Rwanda which led the new president, Grégoire Kayibanda, to seek reprisal on the Tutsi community with the World Council of Churches estimating that 10,000 were killed by the end of 1962. The fear of Tutsis increased when a Tutsi extremist seized power via a military coup in neighbouring Burundi in 1965, causing the massacre of 200,000 and another 200,000 to flee to Rwanda. For thirty years Tutsis and Twa faced discriminated which reached fever pitch in the 1990s.

     The Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) had been formed in exile by largely Tutsis and invaded Rwanda in 1990, ostensibly to allow exiled Tutsis, (and political exiles), to return home and to potentially end the one-party rule of President Habyarimana initiating the Rwandan Civil War. Under French pressure Habyarimana had been softening his hard-line stance towards multi-party democracy allowing newly forming Hutu opposition groups, like the Social Democratic Party (PSD), to court the RPF. Fighting led to the signing of the Arusha Accords in 1993 which aimed to create a coalition government with Habyarimana’s Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Dévelopment (MRND), the RPF and other opposition parties. Hutus were also allowed to remain in power, being the largest ethnic group, where 60 per cent of upper ranks in the army would be given to Hutus. However, here the limits of community in Rwanda were shown. ‘Hutu Power’ had become a dominant force in Rwandan society and viewed the Arusha Accords as a betrayal. They viewed it as giving too much to Tutsis who they viewed as traitors and not even being human. The Coalition pour le Défence de la Republique (CDR) and the militia Impuzamugambi were formed with the aim to ‘rid’ Rwanda of Tutsis, Twa and Hutu ibyitso. Editor of the paper Kangura, Hassan Ngeze, laid out ‘The Hutu Ten Commandments’ calling any Hutu who worked with, married, or were friends with a traitor, and that only Hutus should have positions in government, administration and the army. Meanwhile, 500,000 machetes were being imported into Rwanda to initiate genocide. On 8 April 1994 Habyarimana and the new president of Burundi were killed when their plane was shot down over Kigali, possibly by Hutu Power ideologues, which initiated the genocide. Willingly or not neighbours killed neighbours, husbands killed wives, and families tore each other apart. For example, several Tutsi pastors wrote to the church president in Mugonero asking for help to receive the reply, ‘There is nothing that I can do for you. All you can do us prepare to die, for your time has come.’ The fear of different communities overshadowed familial, communal and even religious links. Only when the RPF captured Kigali did the genocide stop.

Biafrans in the 1960s

     Like Rwanda, Nigeria has been unable to create a united national community in the same way in which Tanzania or Botswana has. Unlike Ghana, Tanganyika or Algeria, which mostly had one independence movement, what would become Nigeria had several. The British conquest of Nigeria was through ‘colonial violence and metropolitan arbitrariness’ where divide-and-rule policies were most drastically seen. The north was given autonomy due to fierce resistance from the Sokoto Caliphate with an autarkic economy; the west had a cocoa cash-crop economy dependent on foreign markets; and the east had intense British economic penetration with market firms dominating the region. After independence in 1960 Nigeria’s fledgling system was beset by problems of identity. The three main parties were split along regional, and by default ethnic and religious lines. In 1967 this led to the secession of Biafra who feared northern domination following several coups and counter-coups in a civil war made infamous by images of the famine which it caused. In 1999 elected civilian rule returned following over twenty years of military rule, excluding a brief five year period of elected civilian rule, with prospects seeming bright. However, the changing government brought uncertainty with it. The new constitution left many regional groups feeling unrepresented and the new president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was accused of showing favouritism towards his own ethnic group, the Yoruba. Figures pointed to how Nigerian Telecommunications, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company were at one point ran by Yoruba under Obasanjo. Across Nigeria new ethnic and religious groups have formed in response to state corruption or underrepresentation. Even before this period protests in Ogoniland in 1990 against Shell's destruction of the environment were perceived entirely in separatist terms, and the peaceful protests were harshly crushed. Even when civilian government returned the government continued with executions of Ogoni protesters. Since then Nigeria has seen increased regionalism due to central government misrule. The Igbo People’s Congress in the early 2000s started flying the Biafran flag, and most disturbingly is the rise of the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in the north which bases its identity on Hausa-Fulani and Wahhabism.

Siyad Barre

     Somalia is a unique case. Unlike Rwanda and Nigeria Somalia had a very strong sense of national identity upon independence possessing a strong communal identity based on a shared culture. In 1969 a military coup brought to power Mohammad Siyad Barre who proclaimed Somalia to be a Marxist republic. However, he made a mistake by invading Ogaden, a region in Ethiopia populated largely by Somalis, as the USSR switched to supporting Ethiopia. Revolutionary groups, many of them Marxist, rose up to oppose Barre, and when the Cold War ended US ceased sending funds to Somalia in 1988. With a bleak situation the army split into factions, guerrilla groups took control of Somalia’s regions, and Barre became a glorified ‘Mayor of Mogadishu.’ Following the failed US-led UN mission, glamorised in Black Hawk Down, Somalia became a failed state. To this day Somalia still lacks a true central government. However, when the national government failed people created local communities. For centuries Somalia has had a strong clan-family society which Somali scholar Ioan Lewis described as, ‘No other bond of mutual interest had so many far-reaching ramifications in all aspects of private and public life.’ As described by Stephen Ellis, the collapse of the state caused people to turn to clans to recreate the community. Although this has contributed to the rise of Al-Shabaab it has allowed Somalians to continue to have a community to rely on. Colonial rule failed to destroy the Somali clan system which has prevented a total collapse of society.

     Rwanda, Nigeria, and Somalia faced dramatic changes in society in the 1990s following either democratisation or the collapse of the state changing the idea of the community. Each case highlights the legacies of colonial rule on these societies – Somalia relying on clan ties which were not destroyed by colonial rule, while Nigeria and Rwanda saw ethnic conflict caused by the legacy of European divide-and-rule. Like the challenges to community shown throughout the rest of the world in the 1990s challenges to community in Africa were shaped by legacies of the past.

Bibliography:

-‘Rwanda: How the Genocide Happened,’ 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13431486; accessed 07 November 2017

-Lucky E. Asuelime, Ojochenemi J. David, Hakeem Onapajo, Boko Haram: The Socio-Economic Drivers, (Cham: Springer, 2015)

-Stephen Ellis, ‘Africa after the Cold War: New Patterns of Government and Politics,’ Development and Change, 27:1, (1996), 1-28

-Patricia Daley, ‘Rwanda and Burundi since 1994: An end to the Discriminatory State?’, in Lindsey Whitfield and Abdul Raufu Mustapha (eds.), Turning Points in African Democracy, (Oxford: Boydell & Brewer, 2009)

-Martin Meredith, The State of Africa, (London: Simon & Schuster, 2005)

-Abdul Raufu Mustapha, ‘Nigeria since 1999: A Revolving Door Syndrome or the Consolidation of Democracy?’, in Whitfield and Mustapha (eds.), Turning Points in African Democracy, (Oxford: Boydell & Brewer, 2009)

-Charles Ukeje and Wale Adebanwi, ‘Ethno-Nationalist Claims in southern Nigeria: insights from Yoruba and Ijaw nationalisms since the 1990s,’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31:3, (2008), 563-591

Thank you for reading. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

The Fall of Apartheid - A Brief Overview

Nelson and Winnie Mandela when Nelson was released from prison

Originally published in the Spring/Summer 2018 of Retrospect Journal, 'Justice and Persecution'. This version contains slight edits to expand on certain points.

By the late-1960s Apartheid seemed to be consolidated in South Africa. Following the Rivonia Trial from 1962 to 1964 leading anti-Apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela and Ahmed Kathrada, had been sentenced to lifelong imprisonment; leading anti-Apartheid groups like the African National Congress (ANC), Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), and South African Communist Party (SACP) were made illegal; and the economy was seemingly booming. In 1970 the Apartheid regime felt so confident that they passed the Homelands Act granting ‘independence’ to larger tribes in order to allow the state to strip urban black Africans of their citizenship. Apartheid had become official state policy after the 1948 electoral victory of D.F. Malan’s National Party amplifying the segregationist and racist laws dating from the end of the nineteenth century. In 1994 formal Apartheid came to an end with Nelson Mandela’s electoral victory in South Africa’s first multiracial elections. After such a success in the 1960s and 1970s Apartheid came crashing down but the main question is why? Christopher Saunders has argued that economic decline, domestic grassroots opposition, and foreign hostility helped end Apartheid.

A SASO protest

     Writing in the 1970s an Afrikaner critic of Apartheid said ‘Opposing Apartheid is worse than murder to some Afrikaners…You endanger the nation by refusing to conform’ but this is when the seeds of Apartheid’s collapse began. Despite throttling the free press and banning anti-Apartheid organisations resistance to Apartheid remained. Banned groups continued underground and the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), continued its armed resistance. Meanwhile, new grassroots organisations rose to fill the vacuum left by the ANC and PAC, such as the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO), under charismatic figures like Steve Biko and Winnie Mandela. Even the extrajudicial killing of Biko in 1977 did not stem the growing resistance. Guerrilla activity also increased in South West Africa, (modern Namibia), under the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) which wanted independence from South Africa. Terence Moll has also presented evidence showing that the economic growth of the 1960s was more mediocre than initially thought so the world recession of the 1970s dented the economy. Furthermore, technological change in factories started requiring semi-skilled permanent workers instead of menial labourers which threatened the segregated system set up by the Nationalists.

One of the few photos of Mandela on Robben Island

     Meanwhile, the international situation in the 1970s had started to turn against South Africa. The Apartheid regime was intensely anti-communist and used the 1950 Suppression of Communism Act to silence the PAC, ANC, and Freedom Charter – Mandela even reported that in prison he could not read Little Red Riding Hood due to ‘red’ being in the title. As a result South Africa had garnered much support from the US and UK. South Africa was also surrounded by the ‘White Dominoes’ – according to Martin Meredith – that were the Portuguese colonies and the white minority state of Rhodesia. All this started to change in the 1970s. As early as 1959 the Anti-Apartheid Movement had been active in the UK and after the Rivonia Trial the ANC under Oliver Tambo had been garnering support from both the West and East. From 1977 MK guerrillas began a sabotage campaign after exile in Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho while the UN put an arms embargo on South Africa. At the same time white rule in southern Africa was starting to collapse. Since the 1960s Portugal had been waging war against leftist guerrillas wanting independence for Angola and Mozambique, and after the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974 independence came the following year. While this was happening a guerrilla war against white rule in Rhodesia fired up in the 1970s led by black African nationalists including Robert Mugabe. Throughout this period South Africa had been sending military and economic aid, as well as soldiers, to white minority states, or anti-communist groups in post-colonial states, to ensure neighbours existed who would not aid anti-Apartheid activists.

     In 1978 P.W. Botha became prime minister; he was an ardent white supremacist but he was pragmatic. He said ‘We are moving in a changing world. We must adapt otherwise we shall die’. Botha planned to grant limited reform to undermine opposition; use the police to break opposition; and increase intervention in Angola, Mozambique and Rhodesia. Botha viewed the 1979 OPEC oil embargo, the ANC, and the black guerrilla movements as being organised by the USSR in order to achieve global dominance. He was adamant to preserve white rule by any means necessary. His limited reforms and emphasis on the homelands were seen by anti-Apartheid activists as a clear attempt to preserve white rule; in 1983 his ‘trimeral constitution’ granting Indian and ‘coloured’ (mixed race) citizens their own chambers in parliament was boycotted. Opponents of Apartheid saw through the policy, it was fairly clear that by granting some form of emancipation to Indians and mixed-race communities it would stop them from trying to help tackle Apartheid. Meanwhile, the right-wing of the Nationalists was angered by Botha’s limited reforms and broke off in 1982 to form the Conservative Party.

Police using dogs on protesters who opposed an Apartheid politician being given 'freedom of the city' to Soweto, primarily a black African city, in 1980 

     South Africa’s economic situation began to collapse, affecting poor urban black Africans the most. Embargos on South African gold, diamonds, wine and other goods dented exports as imports of oil and arms dried up. Even when leaders supported South Africa, like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the populace did not and took it on themselves to avoid buying any South African goods not affected by sanctions. Tambo had turned Mandela into a figure to focus foreign anti-Apartheid activism on: The Specials releasing ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ being a particularly notable example of this. Rigorous policing and military spending decimated money reserves. Botha recruited vigilantes called kitskonstabel to harass activists or even attack squatter camps like in Cape Town in the May and June of 1986. Nigel Worden has even argued that Botha supported the Inkatha Freedom Party – a right-wing Zulu nationalist group – due to their opposition to the ANC and support for the homelands. Meanwhile, millions had been spent propping up Rhodesia and funding more compliant African nationalists in Angola and Mozambique. By 1985 20 percent of the budget was spent on military expenditure. In 1988 the military faced a crushing defeat at the hands of an expeditionary force made of Cuban volunteers and a Marxist Angolan group at Cuito Cuanavale which helped bring an end to the Angolan Civil War.

     Domestically opposition to Apartheid rapidly grew at a grassroots level. The ANC saw a resurgence with the party’s flag being draped over the coffins of activists and Mandela – as well as other imprisoned activists – gaining an almost mythic status. With a new generation a new wave of activism grew to prominence including the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) being two notable examples. Inspired by the Freedom Charter they wanted: an end to Apartheid; a multiracial democracy; and black advancement. A new wave of boycotts and protests against the Apartheid state attracting millions of supporters started seriously damaging the state economically and politically. While this was happening MK continued their armed campaign. Desperate, Botha in 1985 asked Mandela to renounce armed conflict in return for freedom – he refused in a speech read out by his daughter at a UDF rally. However, negotiations between Botha, Mandela, and other activists began in secret which brings us to the final chapter in Apartheid’s fall.

The AWB high command

     Following a stroke Botha resigned in 1989 and, to his surprise, his chosen successor, Barend du Plessis, lost to the far less hard-line F.W. de Klerk. De Klerk was eager to bring stability to South Africa so in February 1990 he lifted the ban on the ANC, PAC, and SACP to be followed a few weeks later by the release of political prisoners – including Mandela. Such was Mandela’s popularity that in his autobiography he stated that in the car from prison crowds of both white and black Africans crowded eagerly to see him. Mandela had a natural charisma to him and could, as argued by William Beinart, appear as a ‘communal patriarch, working-class hero, and liberal democrat’. He even started to put less emphasis on socialism and more on human rights to avoid frightening the white middle-class. However, Mandela’s release did not end Apartheid. For four years bitter struggles between de Klerk, Mandela and others began about the future. The 1989 election had allowed the Conservative Party to replace the moderate Democratic Party as the opposition and racist white opposition started to grow. The overtly fascist Afrikaner Weerstandbeweging (AWB) – a party which even adopted Nazi imagery – began attacks on government buildings and activists. Meanwhile, in Pietermaritsburg clashes between the ANC and Inkatha (with possible government support) killed 14,000 from 1991-1994. After the assassination of MK leader and SACP activist Chris Hani by two white supremacists – one a Polish anti-communist, the other an English-speaking Conservative MP – the country became horrified. With South Africa tired of violence the end was nigh.

Mandela voting in South Africa's first true democratic election

     Starting on 26 April 1994 South Africa’s first election based on universal suffrage took place; in some areas people queued for four days they were so eager to finally vote. Mandela swept the board with 62 percent of the vote becoming South Africa’s president. Legally, equality had come, but in reality equality was still far over the horizon, and in 2019 still seems to be. Mandela hoped to bring economic equality for black Africans, and to reconcile the formerly separated communities. He only succeeded in reconciliation. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee under Desmond Tutu began addressing the abuses committed by both state and anti-state activists, and Mandela publicly embraced the South African rugby team to bring black and white South Africans together. The Apartheid government had created a veneer of wealth tricking the ANC into believing that they had a large treasury to implement their social reforms. Instead they faced an empty treasury so an irate Mandela could not fully implement his reforms. His successors made this worse through corruption or outright ineptitude - while Mandela was slow to tackle AIDS thanks to a lack of money, his successor Thabo Mbeki chose to ignore it. The Reconciliation Committee faced intense controversy. White South Africans saw it as an attack, while anti-Apartheid activists found it insulting that their abuses were being treated the same as that of the state. If you voluntarily came before the committee you were exempt from prosecution, so several key figures in the Apartheid state avoided prosecution due to this. Steve Biko's murderers managed to avoid jailtime to domestic outrage thanks to this. These issues continue to persist to this day - black South Africans remain subject to police brutality, poverty and segregation. The forty years of Apartheid are certainly felt to this day.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-William Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa, Second Edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

-Saul Dubow, Apartheid: 1948-1994, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)

-Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, (London: Abacus, 1994)

-Martin Meredith, The State of Africa: A History of the Continent since Independence, (London: Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2005)

-Terence Moll, ‘Did the Apartheid Economy “Fail”?’, Journal of South African Studies, 17, (1991), 271-291

-Christopher Saunders, ‘Perspective on the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa’, South African Historical Journal, 51:1, (2004), 159-166

-Nigel Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa: Conquest, Segregation and Apartheid, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994)  

Thank you for reading. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

World History: Colonialism and Imperialism

One of the most influential aspect of history which shaped the present day was the rise of European, and later American and Japanese, empires in Africa and Asia. We briefly looked at colonialism when we discussed Britain in India and the rise of modern capitalism, but today, we will look at this in greater detail - especially the European empires in Africa. One of my specialities is colonialism in Africa, which I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on, so this post will primarily look at the impact of colonialism and imperialism on Africa. However, we shall still look at other regions as a means of cross-comparison - such as India and southeast Asia. Colonialism would greatly shape the history of the world, and its impact is definitely felt today; especially as in many areas colonialism continues.

Origins

The EIC logo

We saw the origins of nineteenth century imperialism taking root centuries prior when we looked at earlier colonialism. Europeans, initially Spanish and Portuguese, formed trading alliances in Asia and Africa in order to benefit from new resources. In 1510 Portugal captured the city of Goa in India, and formed a 'factory' - an armed fortification where trade could take place. They were later joined by the English, later British, East Indian Company (EIC), French East Indian Company, and the Dutch Vereenigte Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC). These trading companies formed alliances with local rulers in order to better monopolise trade in regions - when the British edged France out of India during the Seven Years' War in 1765 the Mughal Emperor granted the EIC the legal claim to collect tax in Bengal. These alliances were not limited to India - the VOC made alliances with Indonesian rulers to monopolise spice, and the Portuguese made alliances with the Kongo Kingdom to gain access to gold, slaves, and rubber. The Atlantic Slave Trade emerged due to this formation of trade-based alliances - the kingdoms of Dahomey and Asante traded slaves, ivory, and gold in vast quantities in return for firearms and textiles. In turn, they would use the slave trade to give them the edge over states further from the coast. Walter Rodney argued that this would begin the underdevelopment of Africa - the African economy would be devoted to supplying slaves for the benefit of Europeans limiting their ability to develop their own economy. As the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth mercantilism gave way to industrial capitalism and modern capitalism. Industrial production required large quantities of raw materials which slavery and empire offered. As described by Shashi Tharoor: Britain's Industrial Revolution was built on the destruction of India's thriving manufacturing industries. The Bengal textile exports were estimated to be worth over 6.5 million rupees until 1753 amounting to a quarter of global trade in textiles; a sizeable rival to Britain's growing industrial economy. Imposing duties and tariffs of up to 80% (according to Tharoor) was designed to wipe out the competing industry. 

Empire in Africa developed for similar reasons. After the decline of the slave trade in the early-1800s European powers tried to develop 'legitimate commerce' in order to replace the now illegal profits from slavery. As in India and southeast Asia, imperial rule in Africa began not from formal agents of power (like colonial bureaucrats and the military), but by informal agents of power like traders, scientists, and especially missionaries. We shall discuss some of this later, but traders and missionaries were vital in the development of colonialism. A concept of Africa being a 'land of darkness' requiring salvation mixed with growing secularism in Europe and America, so Christian missions ventured inland to 'save' Africa. Often Christian missions claimed to be doing more than just spreading the gospel - aiding trade, spreading medicine, or even fighting slavery. The topic of my dissertation, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) was formed in 1857 with the purpose to 'fight slavery' and 'spread the Light of Christ'. Antislavery, often mixed with anti-Arab racism, was a prominent feature of UMCA reports. Industrial steamships allowed better transport by the 1850s, and better medicines allowed some form of protection against diseases like malaria. This would pave the way for the 'Scramble for Africa'. The 'Scramble' was sparked thanks to the Berlin Conference of 1884/5. Wanting to enrich his small nation, and himself, King Leopold II of Belgium founded the International African Association, and hired explorer-missionary Henry Stanley to traverse the Congo in 1876. Along the river, Stanley would form treaties with local leaders and form trade depots so Leopold could claim sovereignty over the region and the lucrative production of ivory and rubber. However, France found out so began their own project by sending out Pierre de Brazza in 1881. Often these treaties left out that African leaders had to cede their land - when Tio chief Makobo signed one with Brazza in 1880 he thought it was a defence pact against the Belgians. Fearing being left out German chancellor Otto von Bismarck called a conference in Berlin inviting the major European powers, and the US, who would then carve up Africa.

Orientalism

The Snake Charmer (1880), an Orientalist painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904

In this post I want to look at a socio-cultural history of colonialism, but in order to do so we have to look at an important idea - Orientalism. In 1978, Palestinian theorist Edward Said published his groundbreaking work Orientalism. He argued that Occidental perceptions of the Middle East were subjected to power relations - 'The Orient was Orientalized not only because it was discovered to be “Oriental” …but because it could be…made Oriental'. Colonialists came to the Middle East with preconceived notions, and a belief that their own culture was superior. Misunderstanding of colonised culture made it appear decadent and barbaric. Said's theory has been highly influential - my own writing has been inspired by his. However, it does have its flaws. For one, Said wrote about the Middle East only - it does not map neatly onto other areas of the world. Gayatri Spivak has also identified an important critique in her landmark work, Can the Subaltern Speak?. Post-colonial theorists had focused on indigenous sources to break out of imperial narratives, but these sources were written by indigenous elites so sidelined the voices of 'subalterns' - those excluded from hegemonic power. Lebanese Marxist Mahdi Amal further critiqued Said by arguing that there is little class analysis of Orientalism; Said largely discusses high culture sources, and pays little account to how class came into colonialism. Nevertheless, Orientalist theory is important, and as we shall see, Orientalist views influenced how colonised regions are seen to this day.

Forging Identities

Ganesh became widely worshipped thanks to British rule in India

As argued by Jean and John Comaroff, 'Colonialism was simultaneously, equally, and inseparable a process in political economy and culture'. Ideas of culture, faith, and even ethnic identity were subjected to change under colonial rule. Informal agents of power, especially missionaries and anthropologists, were integral to the formation of these ideas. Moreover, local elites were deeply involved in this - elites had to manage both local ideas and the wants of colonial officials. For example, Nicholas Dirks has discussed how modern caste developed under British rule. Pre-colonial caste was subject to change, and although Brahmans were supposed to supersede Kshatriyas, in reality Kshatriyas held greater power. Kshatriyas worked with the British, according to Dirks, to place themselves in power. This is further prevalent in Africa. In East Africa identity was subject to change - in what would become Kenya the only difference between a Kikuyu and Maasai in certain areas was due to how you were circumcised, it was possibly for a parent to have one Maasai child and one Kikuyu child. Missionaries and anthropologists were important in reifying and categorising identity. Helen Tilly has discussed how Africa became a 'living laboratory' for anthropologists where they could debate the lives of local peoples. Links between ideas which they knew were forced onto indigenous culture, and ideas of one group could be forced onto a different group. An example can show this well. Leading UMCA bishop Edward Steere in 1869 when in Magila, northern Tanzania tried to convert the local peoples to Christianity. Steere argued that they had no concept of a soul, despite belief in spirits, but disliked a local idea of 'kizuli' which was seen as an immortal breath. He found it 'a puzzle...how the breath could be immortal' and that kizuli was 'thoroughly and hopelessly heathenism'. He instead used an idea from Mbweni, Zanzibar for the soul writing that 'the people understood "Roho" to mean 'the heart'. I did not know it before. However, I suppose that the heart is a very fair analogue for the soul. It is a very great deal better than "Kizuli"'. Despite 'Roho' being from an entirely different culture, it was applied to mean the 'soul' and today local languages, and Swahili, uses 'roho' to mean this.

Anthropologists built upon what earlier informal agents of power had started, especially after the First World War in Africa, and used local peoples to formulate their ideas. At times colonial officials acted as amateur anthropologists as it would directly benefit themselves. How better to govern people than to 'study' them. Of course, this was heavily dehumanising and intrusive to the peoples being subjected to these anthropological studies. C.W. Hobley was an administrator in Kenya and wrote about the Kikuyu in Bantu Beliefs and Magic (1922), while Charles Dundas around Kilimanjaro wrote about the Chagga in Kilimanjaro and Its People (1924). We see these Orientalist depictions of African culture in these works. Dundas wrote that Chagga creation stories resembling Christian creation stories had to be due to an 'ancient Semitic connection' as Christian missionaries had only been in the region for a few decades; a perception that Africans were rooted in tradition meant that they surely could not have belief subjected to change from recent influences. Not only does Dundas ignore the presence of Islam along the coast and centuries of trade with the Middle East possibly introducing these ideas, but he contradicts himself by stating that white Europeans are ruling in the Chagga afterlife. Similarly, Hobley exhibits these views. He lists over sixty 'curses' called thahu, which he compares to sin, which the Kikuyu rigidly live by - one of the things which can implement a thahu is a dog knocking over a pot - with the worst being a man seeing a girl undergoing circumcision during irua, the ceremonial rite of passage. However, African-American anthropologist Ralph J. Bunche was allowed to see it in 1941, and local chief, Koinange, even threatened to take his daughters from the ceremony if Bunche was barred from seeing it. 

Forms of Colonial Rule

Colonial rule took many different forms across even the same empires. Rule by companies often predated formal rule - the EIC in India until 1857, the VOC in Indonesia until 1799, and the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (ABIR) until 1906 in the Congo. As we have already looked at, capitalism and imperialism marched hand-in-hand so they positioned themselves as a way to extract resources from colonised regions. Formal rule which replaced company rule built upon these institutions - these companies attempted to 'reform' indigenous cultures at the same time trying to make a profit. Company rule could end due to loss of profit (with the VOC), mismanagement (the VOC and the EIC's inability to deal with the 1857 Indian Rising), or brutality (with the ABIR). The Belgian Congo became synonymous with colonial brutality. To maximise rubber production (from 100 tons in 1890 to 6,000 in 1901) Leopold oversaw long work hours in poor conditions enforced through violence. Individuals, including pregnant women and children, were forced to work over 80 hours a week with the viboko (hippo-hide whip) hanging over them. In 1904 Roger Casement issued a report called King Leopold's Rule in Africa detailing the atrocities, such as the depopulation of the Bolobo mission station which saw its community decimated from 40,000 to 1,000, and the brutal mutilations as punishment for fleeing forced labour. Casement's book featured the infamous photo by Alice Seeley Harris of a man called Nsala in Wala district mournfully looking at a severed hand and foot, the only remains of his five-year-old daughter. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902) depicts an ivory collector, Marlow, working for ABIR going insane with greed and power.

Nsala looking at his daughter's foot and hand

'Indirect rule' was a common form of colonial rule. This was coined by Frederick Lugard in The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa to describe a form of rule where the British, and other colonial powers, would rule through local elites. Lugard would govern in Nigeria operating through local leaders, like the former Sokoto rulers. This was not limited to Africa - France ruled through Vietnamese and Cambodian kings and the Dutch ruled through Indonesian sultans as well. This was a cost effective way to rule large areas cheaply - Britain barely had a few dozen individuals operating in Nigeria. Settler colonialism saw large communities of white settlers displace indigenous peoples from their land in order to establish their own communities. We saw this in South Africa, Rhodesia, Algeria, Australia, the American West, Taiwan, and Hokkaido to name a few notable examples. Today, white families still hold the majority of land in Zimbabwe and South Africa. African settler colonies saw indigenous Africans being reduced to tenant farmers who had to find work on white farms. Indirect rule could be mixed with settler colonialism - Kenya is a good example of this. The colonial government seized over 7 million acres of land to form the White Highlands while, simultaneously, implementing indirect rule for larger ethnic groups - like the Kikuyu. A further form of colonialism, which still exists today, is informal empire; foreign powers could exert varying economic and political power over weaker states. At times this paved the way for formal colonial rule - Britain and France used Egypt's debts to build the Suez Canal to exert control, the US used American plantations in Hawaii to overthrow the monarchy, and Japan used railways and political influence to informally control Korea and north China before formally annexing them. China is the perfect example of informal empire. British opium imports were used to justify a war in 1839 resulting in Britain taking 'treaty ports', like Hong Kong, where Britain could exert free control. Other powers including France, Russia, Germany, and Japan similarly carved up China forming their own treaties granting them political and economic influence.

Adaptation to Empire

The Masasi Church

Empire greatly shaped the demographics and cultures of the colonised peoples. Indentured servitude created a significant Indian diaspora across the world. Regular famines under British rule put incredible strain on communities, so Indians - especially Bengalis, Tamils, and Gujaratis - engaged in indentured servitude to escape famine despite the brutality of the labour system. As a result, South Africa, east Africa, the Caribbean, and Oceania developed significant Indian populations. The Uganda Railway, constructed in 1895, was primarily built with Indian labourers. Eventually, thriving and successful Indian communities, over 84,000 in Uganda by 1940, emerged. White farmers in Kenya, after 1929, became angered that Indians, like Mohamed Ahmed, were gaining enough wealth to own land, so campaigned the colonial office to prevent their land ownership. Those from wealthier families, or in the right circumstances, could use imperial structures to become deeply involved in the colonial project. The UMCA heavily relied on Leonard Pesa and Cecil Majaliwa to convert Africans, and they too infused racism to Africa in their rhetoric; Pesa said that 'evils would tend to disappear' under European rule. Meanwhile, Mohandas Gandhi became a lawyer and travelled to both South Africa and Britain; future president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, was educated at Makerere College; and Senegalese president Leopold Senghor managed to attend university in Paris. Work and demographics shifted thanks to imperialism. Increased urbanisation meant that primarily rural cultures became involved in urban economies, or economies geared towards industrial consumption. For example, industrial peanut production became important to Senegal, so much so that women began singing folk songs about how peanuts were more dependable than men. Koreans moved to cities like Tokyo and Osaka to work in industry forming vibrant Korean communities. While in the metropole there were discussions of reforming work this was not the case in colonial states. Corporal punishment and forced labour remained common - the Congo Free State was only targeted as it went beyond 'acceptability'. 

As we saw when we looked at India, reforms were subject to being contested. Ostensibly benevolent reforms - like medicine and education - were often used to increase colonial power. Frantz Fanon in A Dying Colonialism would explain how colonial medicine was distrusted as it was linked to colonial powers, and the fact that colonial doctors ignored the needs of colonial patients. Censuses in India to prevent female infanticide were used to keep tract of peoples, bringing women into education were used to reinforce female domesticity, and medical programmes, while healing patients physically, could cause major mental damage. Janice Boddy has discussed how the Wolff sisters in 1930s Sudan tried to reform female circumcision and midwifery. Part of their reforms placed more emphasis on the midwife to make birth safer; by doing so they inadvertently took agency away from the mother. Colonised peoples did adapt colonial changes, everything from faith to language. In Singapore 'Singlish' emerged combining English, Malay, Tamil, Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese is a notable example. As France placed emphasis on making Africans citoyens noirs formally educated Africans could use French courts to improve their own rights. 

Race and Sex

An infamous Pears' Soap ad depicting The White Man's Burden

Our next post will be about racism so we'll discuss it more there, but it is vital to understand empire. Race thinking was integral to how empire was structured. Certain ethnicities, called 'races' or 'tribes', were deemed superior so colonial powers chose to rule through them - in Rwanda and Burundi Germany, and later Belgium, declared the Tutsi to be 'natural rulers' so had to rule over the Hutu. In India, the Public Service Commission in 1886 declared that the British Raj was made up of 'passive' Hindus, 'lawless' Muslims, 'manly' Punjabis, and 'effeminate' Bengalis. As early as the 1810s a woman called Saartjie Baartman was kidnapped from South Africa and forced to perform in a freak show, shaking her hips to accentuate her large buttocks. When she died she was even put on display in a museum. Racial scientists would use Saartjie Baartman to formulate their eugenics and social Darwinist theories. Human zoos emerged across the worlds including at the 1878, 1889, and 1900 Parisian World's Fair which featured a 'Negro Village', and a Japanese exhibition depicted 'savage' Ryukyuans, Taiwanese, Koreans, and Ainu. Anne McClintock has emphasised the intersection between commodity capitalism and colonial racism. Soap, in particular, was used with it being linked to 'white civilisation' against 'unwashed black savagery'. Pears' Soap regularly featured Africans becoming white thanks to soap, proudly proclaiming that it was doing its part in 'The White Man's Burden'. Ann Stoler has linked racism to the fragility of white identity, especially with the idea of interracial relations. Originally, concubinage had been allowed in Dutch Indonesia, however, this changed by the early-twentieth century for fears of 'racial impurity' and mixed race children, the 'fruits of a regrettable weakness'. White women were seen as tempting non-white men, due to white male fears of racial mixing. In 1926 in Dutch New Guinea rape or attempted rape of a white woman by a non-white man would result in the death penalty. The rape of a non-white woman by a white man would not result in death, however, indicating a fear of white prestige being challenged.

Resistance to Empire

A colonial depiction of the death of Major-General Gordon during the Mahdist War

Empire was never simply accepted by colonised peoples. Many of those who resisted colonialism have since become icons of national history since independence. For example, the queen mother of the Asante Kingdom, Yee Asantewaa, in 1900 led a rebellion against British rule in what would become Ghana laying siege to Kumasi. When we looked at India we discussed the 1857 Indian Uprising - growing anger over over-reach by British rule and mismanagement sparked a rebellion. However, British divide-and-rule policy, divisions among the rebels, and British armaments meant it was crushed. Violent resistance to colonial rule could vary in different ways. Some, like the Anglo-Zulu War, was a clear-cut case of trying to prevent colonial rule. Some was due to political misrule. In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad declared himself to be the Mahdi in Sudan calling for a restoration of Islam and the purging of the corrupt Ottoman and Egyptian rulers. In 1884 the Mahdi defeated the British, and it took until 1899 for British rule to be re-established. Putting down rebellion was incredibly destructive. In German South-West Africa, modern Namibia, the German settlers and soldiers dispossessed and abused the Herero and Nama communities. In January 1904, a hundred Herero horsemen arrived at Okahandja to solve an inheritance dispute, but the local commander, Lieutenant Ralph Zurn, declared an uprising was underway. What followed was the German colonial army under General Lothar von Trotha issuing an extermination order resulting in the massacre of the Herero and Nama peoples. In January 1904 the Herero population was around 80,000 - by December 1905 it was about 15,000. It was to be the first genocide of the twentieth century, and sadly it would not be the last. Non-violent resistance could also take place. Gandhi and other Indians began non-violent protest against South African segregationist policies, something which would pave the way for his satyagraha protests against British rule in India. Japan tried to replace Korean with Japanese, so Koreans formed Korean language societies in the cities. The destructive schooling system for Native Americans and First Nations in the US and Canada aimed to destroy indigenous culture by taking them from their families, and raising them in abusive boarding schools. They were taught Christianity, and were beaten if they spoke their own languages. Children managed to resist by fleeing back home, and the Ghost Dance movement emerged in the 1880s to revitalise Lakota culture. It took a massacre by the US army to crush this movement. All these aspects of resistance would pave the way for future anti-colonial resistance and decolonisation.

Legacies and Conclusion

The legacies of colonialism is intrinsically felt today. Racism and Orientalist views of the former colonised world still persists today - from movies like Aladdin to how the news presents events in Africa and the Middle East. The political boundaries formed by colonial rule, and what happened in them, touches every country to this day. Divide-and-rule policies has caused deep ethnic and religious divides in Nigeria, India, and Pakistan to name a few. The legacies of German and Belgian rule in Rwanda regularly led to massacres after independence resulting in genocide in 1994. With colonies geared towards supplying the metropole with raw materials this ensured that after independence this is still the case. Zambia's economy was geared towards the export of copper, but when copper prices plummeted in the 1970s it devastated the Zambian economy. For this reason, former colonies, or informal colonies, remain tethered to their old colonial overlords, or new powers. Even now, former French African colonies have to pay a tax to France as 'gratitude' for bringing them 'civilisation'. One of the reasons why liberal democracy has largely failed to take root in most of Africa, as well as other colonies, is that there was no history of democracy before independence, and they simply have not been allowed to. We shouldn't really discuss the legacies of colonialism and imperialism, instead we should discuss how it evolved thanks to decolonisation.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavour, (London: Simon & Schuster, 2015)

-Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India, (London: Hurst & Company, 2017)

-Edward Said, Orientalism, (London: Penguin, 1978)

-Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, (New York, NY: Routledge, 1995)

-Richard Reid, A History of Modern Africa, 1800 to the Present, Second Edition, (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)

-Jean and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997)

-A.E.M. Anderson-Morshead, The History of the UMCA, 1859-1896, (London: Office of the UMCA, 1897)

-Charles Dundas, Kilimanjaro and Its People, (London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 1924)

-C.W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, (London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 1922)

-Ralph J. Bunche, 'The Irua Ceremnony among the Kikuyu of Kiamba District, Kenya', The Journal of Negro History, 26:1, (1941), 46-65

-Thomas Spear, 'Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa', The Journal of African History, 44:1, (2003), 3-27

-Helen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011)

-Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late-Nineteenth Century, (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1995)

-Ann Stoler, 'Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Cultures', American Ethnologist, 16:4, (1989), 634-660

-Kwasi Kwarteng, Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World, (London: Bloomsbury, 2011)

-Nicholas Dirks, Castes of the Mind, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001)

-Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, Trans. by Haakon Chevalier, (London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1959/1980)

-Marius Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, (Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002)

-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, (London: Penguin, 1902/1956)

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. The next World History post will look at the origins of modern racism. For other World History posts please see our list. For other blog posts please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

World History: The Zulu Kingdom

A depiction of Shaka

One of the mythologised part of pre-colonial African history is that of the Zulu kingdom. In 1879 Zulu forces defeated the British at Isandlwana first brought the Zulu into the European imagination, and since a pervasive myth of feather clad warriors has persisted. Even among modern Zulus the old kingdom, and its famous leader Shaka, has been used in nationalist rhetoric - the semi-independent KwaZulu bantustan under Apartheid saw some support by hearkening back to the Zulu Kingdom. Today we will be looking about what is fact, and fiction, about the Zulu.

Who and Where, and Problems of Sources

What would become 'Zululand' originated in what is now South Africa in a vibrant region. Nestled between the Phongolo and Thukela rivers, and the Drakensberg mountains to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east, it provided fertile grasslands for various cultures. The names of the various peoples are often retroactively given to them - it is important when reading about these cultures and ethnicities that at the time they did not refer to themselves as that. For example, many of the local linguistic groups belong to the 'Bantu' family - a term coined by German ethnologist W.H.I. Bleek in 1862 - and, specifically, the Zulu now belong to the 'Nguni' language group - a term coined in 1929 by A.T. Bryant. When we look at imperialism and colonialism we will expand on this concept, but before rigidity introduced by colonial officials ethnic identities were often fluid. One could hold several different ethnic identities at once. For example, the Nguni linguistic group shows a lot of overlap with the San linguistic group; Nguni languages like Zulu and Xhosa contain clicks, something not seen in other Bantu languages like Swahili. A variety of cultures in the region had different social structures and organisations. One common important point of similarity is the importance of cows and cattle in society - cattle went beyond simple prestige and held great symbolic value for Zulu communities. Although milk was was staple of diet, cattle slaughter for food was done reluctantly.

The region today

We often encounter a troubling aspect of pre-colonial African history which we will see when discussing the Zulu. Until a paradigm shift beginning in the 1980s, historians really only focused on written sources, especially those from official archives. However, as many African languages and cultures had no written sources, this meant that many initial sources were written by European colonialists. Africans did influence these narratives - most of the initial sources about Shaka's life was written by Natal administrator James Stuart who used oral testimonies from informants - but is is important to understand that African voices were filtered through colonialist ones. There are also other issues. Stuart was writing between 50 to 80 years after Shaka's death, and many other primary material, like Nathaniel Isaacs' Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa, contain fabrications or holes in their stories. Since the 1980s historians have been engaging increasingly with alternate forms of primary material. By focusing on archaeological material and oral sources from Africans have started dispelling prior held notions about various pre-colonial, and colonial, societies.

Before the Rise

A stereotype that has emerged was that, before the rise of Shaka, 'total war' did not exist and warfare was 'negotiable' and 'gentlemanly' in the Thukela-Phongolo region. This narrative was even adopted by Zulu peoples themselves, one of James Stuart's informants called Lugubu said:

In the fights that took place in former days, the men would hurl assegais at one another. They did not approach closely. If one side was defeated and a man was left exhausted, he would say, 'Mo! I am defenceless!' He would be taken captive, but never killed... Chiefs had not yet begun putting people to death, even if they had done wrong.

However, historians now believe that this is an exaggeration. According to Martin Meredith, 'As the population of northern Nguniland expanded, however, the character of the chiefdoms began to change'. Dan Wylie disagrees about overpopulation leading to an escalation of violence - he agrees that it did help, but was not the most important factor. Instead, he places increased presence of Europeans at Delagoa Bay to the north, and the voortrekkers, Dutch/Afrikaan farmers, moving up from the south. As early as 1780 Xhosa and Boer clashes were taking place over land use, and slavery and the ivory trade at Delagoa aided escalations of violence. Eagerness to access lucrative Portuguese trade at Delagoa meant that local leaders were willing to use violence to solidify their access to it. Delagoa Bay was not an intensive site of the slave trade, as it was in West Africa, so slavery was part of a series of larger factors - such as the arrival of voortrekkers, growing population, and the ivory trade - which increased violence. In 1810, the eruption of Krakatoa caused crops to fail worldwide as global temperatures dropped - this aided in the violence as land for food became more heavily contested. Shaka's reforms had their origins in this time period as well; the armed regiments known as ambutho and strict control over customary initiation rites began in this period. It was not all violence. Regularly different communities, of various ethnicities, intermarried - a war around 1795 the Swazi 'queen mother' and the Ndwandwe ruler were siblings. In the 1810s two Nguni 'kingdoms' had emerged in the region: the Ndwandwe under Zwide in the north-west, and the Mthethwa under Dingiswayo in the south-east. In 1817, Ndwandwe defeated the Mthethwa army killing Dingiswayo, but then Shaka came around.

Shaka and the Rise of the Zulu

A European depiction of a dance at Shaka's kraal, c.1827

The figure of Shaka has become heavily mythologised over the almost two centuries after his death - partly by colonialists, partly by nationalists. Oral histories have started to shed greater light on the life of Shaka, and the rise of the Zulu, as many of the original primary sources were written fifty years after his death. Shaka's father, Senzangakhona, was sworn to Dingiswayo, and, possibly, had an illegitimate son with a woman called Nandi - Shaka. Nandi was a skilled negotiator, and could have aided in getting the young Shaka the leadership of his own regiment aged 23 to serve Dingiswayo, so much so that when Senzangakhona died in 1816 Dingiswayo organised for Shaka to replace him in a coup. This was not done alone - Nandi was an influential figure in organising the coup, and the reigning Queen Regent Mnkabayi kaJama eagerly aided in Shaka's rise to power. Dingiswayo's policy of aggression, and war against the Ndwandwe, created ample opportunities for combat which allowed Shaka the opportunity the distinguish himself, and the iziCwe regiment which he served. Aged 28 Shaka's coup ousted his brother, Sigujana, and soon enough the Ndwandwe killed Dingiswayo. Despite leading a small clan of just a few thousand Shaka managed to expand Zulu rule quickly. Skilful diplomacy forged alliances with smaller clans who were brought under his rule, and the vacuum left by the destruction of the Mthethwa allowed quick conquest. A big reason for this was the amabutho regimental system - this existed before Shaka and has often been referred to as simple military regiments. The amabutho were segregated based on sex and age to foster a central bond and identity, each one was meant to have its own song, war cry, and sign of identification, so they would enforce Shaka's rule. Very strictly disciplined they were trained in new fighting styles in order to streamline battle - short spears called iklwa replaced traditional throwing issegai as the primary weapon, shields were made thicker but more manoeuvrable, light runners were used for resupply, and a 'bull formation' used to battle. This involved senior veterans serving as the 'chest' directly engaging in frontal melee; the 'horns' would flank the opposing forces; and the 'loins' who would sit with their back to the battle (as to not get demoralised) until the enemy possibly broke out of their encirclement. Through this Shaka managed to build up conquests quickly.

Initially, the Zulu Empire's main opponent was the Ndwandwe who had conquered their former rulers, the Mthethwa. The small Zulu clan within two years managed to conquer the Ndwandwe by using Shaka's military reforms. It is, however, heavily debated how much Shaka borrowed, and how much he invented, but, regardless, it proved incredibly effective. From the capital of kwaBulawayo conquests went out with a relentless fury, and impis (armed warriors) were sent out on raids. They were done to seize cattle, booty, and to destabilise possible opponents. As mentioned earlier, cattle was a major sign of prestige in Zulu society, so the loss of cattle could potentially delegitimise rival rulers. Impis raided south of the Tegela River, and to the west forced the Hlubi under Mpangazitha to retreat from the Drakensberg foothills. These, in turn, could cause a ripple effect - in 1822 the Hlubi attacked Sotho clans in order to enrich their own lost herds. Sometimes these raids could lead to the creation of new polities. Mzilikazi of the Khumalo near the Black Mfolozi River, and happened to be the grandson of Ndwandwe's ruler Zwide, had joined Shaka in 1818. However, Shaka was angered when Mzilikazi kept the booty from a raid on the Sotho in 1820, so he moved and conquered a region between the Vaal and Limpopo rivers. To gain legitimacy he even called his people 'Zulu', but became known as the Matabele, or later the Ndebele, meaning 'strangers', who are now one of the largest ethnic groups in Zimbabwe.

Ruling an Empire

A depiction of a Zulu kraal

Unlike other conquerors, like Alexander the Great, the sudden death of Shaka in 1828 did not see the immediate collapse of the empire - Dan Wylie placed more emphasis on European encroachment half a century later for the empire's collapse. A big reason why the empire had such cohesion was the amabutho. Young men, and some women, were conscripted into the army in order to both conquer and rule. At times Shaka's brutality has been exaggerated, but it was well earned at times. The amabutho were rigidly disciplined and were used to hunt down opponents, at times entire villages could be wiped out, and Donald Morris alleges that up to 7,000 were executed for showing disrespect to the deceased Nandi after 1827. Prohibited from marriage, segregated from the rest of society, prevented from disbanding, and with a familial bond forged between members of each amabutho it ensured that an efficient force was formed. John Omer-Cooper has argued that this was a part of the building of a new state. They were also not only used for the enforcement of power. Women were tasked with cultivating the king's fields while men hunted for ivory or herded the cattle. With up to 40,000 at one's service it ensured that more attention could be devoted to other means whenever the king needed. What would become important over the next century is the forging of a Zulu identity. Although never complete, competing identities continued to exist, the implementation of one language and the forging of the amabutho allowed populations to see themselves as being one. Increasingly, those within the empire saw themselves as 'Zulu' - the People of the Heaven - and, therefore, Zulu identity was the most reified. Shaka, in particular, was keen to present himself as the father of the Zulu. His sentencing of 'kill the wizards' was to eliminated potential threats, and he was keen in 1825 to purchase Rowland's Macassar Oil from Port Natal traders as it could hide grey hairs - to him, a king 'must never have wrinkles, nor grey hairs, as they are distinguishing marks of disqualification for becoming a monarch of warlike people'. That does not mean that Shaka's rule went unchallenged - rivals at times came close to assassinating him, and his half-brothers, Dingane and Mhlangana, assassinated him on September 24, 1828. 

Women and Power

A depiction of Queen Nandi

It is undeniable that the Zulu kingdom/empire was patriarchal - contemporary misogyny and patriarchy can find its roots to pre-colonial culture. Sifiso Ndlovu while praising traditional feminist ideas, argues that it does obscure the possibilities where traditional gender relations could offer channels of influence and power. Of course, women were subjugated to men - adult women were seen as possessing ritual impurity so were barred from cattle ownership and, therefore, the marker of prestige in society. However, there were opportunities for women to exert influence. Zulu patriarch Ndukwana kaMbengwana in 1897 explained that children performed the same tasks regardless of sex, and girls could be 'be in charge of the calves if the father is going to the royal kraal'. As we have already seen, female amabutho regiments were used by Zulu kings - in 1827 incursions into amaMpondo territory was done by women and a former attendant to Dingane in 1904 stated that Shaka had launched campaigns with married women. Zulu oral tradition also gives insight to the agency of elite women in ruling the kingdom. Traditionally, an institution named the izigodhlo has been described as a harem, but Ndlovu has argued that the women of the izigodhlo could have great influence in deciding who were members of other institutes. Furthermore, post-menopausal women were not seen as 'unclean' so could serve in the very influential amakhanda which helped decide important rituals and policies. Queen Mkabayi, the paternal aunt of Shaka and his brothers, held incredible sway in the empire, it was largely thanks to her influence that Shaka could become king, and possibly influenced his brothers in assassinating him when his reign became too despotic after his mother's death. However, it must be stated that this was largely an elite aspect of Zulu life - your average woman was likely unable to benefit from the same benefits which elite women did.

The mfecane debate

Throughout the period of the Zulu conquests the bloodshed and war caused mass displacement of peoples in southern Africa which has become known as the mfecane. From one conquest figures like Mzilikazi went on to conquer more regions, who would move and conquer new regions, and all the while displacing people wanting to escape the war. Traditionally, this has been seen as being due to the Zulu conquests, and John Omer-Cooper even argued this was essential for the build up of a Zulu state. However, in the 1980s Julian Cobbing rejected this notion of the mfecane arguing that it was an 'alibi' and oversimplified. As we have seen, the wars and displacement occurred before the rise of the Zulu, so if we do use the term the Zulu were just part of a wider series of violent displacements. Cobbing has argued that more emphasis should be placed on European slaving at Delagoa Bay instead, although this has been debated as well. Cobbing argued that the need for slaves influenced displacement, although archaeological evidence has revealed the absence of large-scale slaving as seen in West Africa. However, Cobbing's other argument has become increasingly part of historiography - the influence of Europeans in mfecane. Voortrekkers helped place greater pressure on the land influencing displacements and violence, and white narratives helped forge a 'myth'. Early narratives, such as by Nathaniel Isaacs, tried to paint Shaka's rule as being barbaric as possible in order to justify annexation of African land by the British, or Boers. A myth which existed in Apartheid narratives, and among current white nationalist narratives, was that the land was 'empty' thanks to the mfecane, so white farmers were not displacing Africans from their land. Of course, this is wrong - lands were never 'emptied' - but the mfecane became a convenient myth for Europeans to ignore their own actions and justify disappropriation of African.

Cracks in the Empire

Cetshwayo

Before the complete fall of the Zulu Empire cracks emerged, however, these cracks were not entirely the reason for the downfall of the empire as what happened with most others in history. A key reason why these cracks emerged was due to power and accountability. Shaka's brutality has been exaggerated for various reasons, but that does not mean that he wasn't brutal. This brutality led to his assassination, and his successors had to resort to harsh means to solidify their own rule. Dingane's defeat by the Swazi in 1839 caused Mpande to flee to the Boers, and he later returned in 1840 routing Dingane's forces at the Maqongo Hills - the defeated king would die as a fugitive. We will shortly get to why this became an issue, but the next crack in Zulu power came thanks to succession. Shaka and Dingane solved this by having no legitimate offspring, but Mpande's many wives had given him many legitimate sons. Before he died he played several against one another - principally Mbuyazi and Cetshwayo - who battled at Ndondakusuka in 1856. Cetshwayo came out on top forcing Mpande to share power with him until his death in 1872. Meanwhile, the most important reason why Zulu power cracked was growing stronger: Europeans. Decades prior to the Zulu's rise white settlers had clashed with African polities, particularly the Xhosa, and in 1824 the Zulu came into contact with British traders and hunters at Port Natal (now Durban). Originally, they had been welcomed. They offered better goods than the Portuguese at Delagoa Bay, and Shaka was eager to access European goods - especially firearms. For decades southern African elites used European goods as a marker of prestige - the Comaroffs write about this very well among the Tswana at the end of the century. Shaka had hoped to use the British as intermediaries, but Boer settlers developing contacts with Port Natal settlers would deeply affect the Zulu. In October 1837, Boer settlers, armed with firearms, started seizing land threatening Dingane's rule. Clashing with Boer settlers Dingane was initially defeated leading to the formation of the Republiek Natalia, and the Zulu Civil War between Mpande and Dingane. Mpande had used Boer alliances to take control of the kingdom, and in return he ceded all the land between the Thukela and the Black Mfolozi to the new Natal Republic. The rise of white presence in the region would spell the end of the Zulu Kingdom.

The Anglo-Zulu War and an End of a Kingdom

Isandlwana today

As Boers formed their own republic the British proceeded to annex them. At the same time, in the 1870s there was a series of uprisings against British rule among black African polities - the ninth Xhosa War saw Gcaleka Xhosa and Ngqika Xhosa resist the British for seven months from September 1877, and a rising by Griqua in Griqualand East in February 1878 quickly spread to other ethnic groups. The new high commissioner, Sir Bartle Frere, saw the risings as being part of a 'black conspiracy', as long as independent black policies existed he saw them as encouraging uprisings. Mpande had maintained cordial relations with Britain after they annexed Natal in 1856, particularly with Theophilius Shepstone, the Natal secretary of native affairs. Cetshwayo continued these relations with Shepstone describing him as 'a man of considerable ability, much force of character, and has a dignified manner'. Cetshwayo feared British annexationist policies, and their placating of Boer land claims; to diffuse the situation Cetshwayo said that 'I love the English. I am not Mpande's son. I am the child of Queen Victoria. But I am also a king in my own country and must be treated as such...I shall not hear dictation...I shall perish first'. The British were eager to oblige. When Cetshwayo refused to abolish the amabutho the British invaded on January 11, 1879 beginning the Anglo-Zulu War. This war has gone down in British, South African, and Zulu memory as a decisive war. 20,000 Zulu warriors swept into the British camp at Islndlwana annihilating six companies of the 24th regiment - out of a garrison of 1,760 troops only 450 survived to just 1,000 Zulu deaths. This battle has remained a key focal point in Zulu nationalism, and even caused Lord Chelmsford to be disgraced back in Britain. However, the Zulu's attempt to wipe out the British at the thinly defended base at Rorke's Drift. Despite British victory at Rorke's Drift the Zulu army made Natal's white community terrified, and Britain was angered that an unsanctioned war was humiliating them. Ignoring Cetshwayo's call for peace the British captured him after the Battle of Ulundi on July 4, and annexed Zululand, abolished the monarchy and the amabutho system. In 1882 Cethswayo was allowed to rule some of his land as 'a flea in the blanket of Britain', but Zulu formal power had been broken. His son, Dinuzulu, made an alliance with a newly formed Republic of South Africa in 1881 after Boer victory in the First Anglo-Boer War, but like the British the Boers continued to chip away at his land. Eventually, Zululand was annexed by the British and opened to white settlement by 1897.

Conclusion 

The Zulu Kingdom forged a myth and lasting legacy for Zulu populations to this day. Zulu identity was one of the few somewhat centralised identity before the rise of European rule, and this identity proved to be a lasting beacon of resistance to white rule after initial annexation in 1879. When Apartheid South Africa forged the batustans in the 1970s a Zulu batustan was created, and Zulu elites hearkened back to the Zulu Empire to justify their co-operation with the Apartheid regime. The far-right Inkatha party would brutally implement a patriarchal, ethno-nationalist regime in the region, and openly ally with white nationalists against anti-Apartheid groups in the 1990s. Myths of the Zulu Empire has been shaped continuously. White settlers justifying land expropriation or Apartheid exaggerated or created stories of Zulu barbarity - it's not appalling if you were doing it to brutal peoples. Meanwhile, Dan Wylie has discussed how the rise of African nationalism inspired white writers to create a series of literature fawning over Shaka in particular - E.A. Ritter's 1955 novel Shaka Zulu is a good example of this. Zulu nationalists, for better or ill, later adopted this rhetoric. Oral histories from Africans have been shedding light on new narratives concerning the Zulu. Speaking as a white European, white historians have too long ignored African voices in the writing of their own history - Zulu history shows that white voices need to step back to show a fairer depiction of the past of colonised cultures.

Thank you for reading and our next World History post will be about the rise of capitalism and socialism. The sources I have used are as follows:

-Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavour, (London: Simon & Schuster, 2014)

-Dan Wylie, Myth of Iron: Shaka in History, (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2006)

-Donald Morris, The Washing of the Spears: The History of the Rise of the Zulu Nation under Shaka and Its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1966)

-Benedict Carton, John Laband, and Jabulini Sithole, (eds.), Zulu Identities: Being Zulu, Past and Present, (London: Hurst & Company, 2008)

-Julian Cobbing, 'The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo', The Journal of African History, 29:3, (1988), 487-519

-Fred Fynner, Zululand and the Zulus: being an enlargement upon two lectures delivered by Fred. B.

Fynney ... under the titles of The rise & fall of the Zulu nation and Our native tribes:

their customs, superstitions and beliefs, (Manchester: Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection, 1885)

-John Omer-Cooper, The Zulu Revolution: A Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Bantu Africa, (London: Longmans, 1966)

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