Last week, we saw the fall of Shaka
We saw Dingane meet his end at the hands of his half-brother map on day
And we saw the Zulu and the Dutch come to an uneasy truce when map on day allied with them to overthrow his brother
This week we'll see how European and native relations evolved as the 19th century moves on, but before we can talk about how the
Europeans and the indigenous peoples of South Africa interacted we have to take a closer look at the
Europeans who were there. Who were they? Why were they there?
What relation did they have to one another well this isn't quite as straightforward as you might think
The two principal powers at play [here] were the English and the dutch
But why they're both there, and who they're loyal to is about to get complicated you see back in
1652 the Dutch under the Dutch East India Company first settled Cape Town and sort of lay claim to South Africa
But that was like a hundred and fifty years before our story started. We're looking at the late 18th and early 19th century here
And what was happening in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th century?
Right
Napoleon
During the French revolution, French armies conquered the Dutch republic and the ruler of the Dutch republic, the Prince of Orange
fled to Britain and asked them to take over his colonies
so they wouldn't fall into the hands of the rampaging French. This left the Dutch in South Africa in a strange state of limbo
They were now ruled by the British
But were citizens of a nation which no longer existed and might never come back for them many of the Dutch
Colonists chafed under British Rule and as the British began to expand their colonial efforts far more actively than the Dutch ever had, Dutch settlers
Began to move into the previously uncolonized
Interior of the country to Escape British expansion and in doing so they started to see themselves as independent neither British nor Dutch
but rather as a part of their own south African nation who I'm going to refer to as the Boers from now on since that's
How they referred to themselves as they moved inland the boers began to set up their own republic's on native territory often Zulu territory
This created tension in the region that would eventually escalate to the extremity of violence but for right now European politics in South Africa
Really was a matter of the british wanting to limit the power and influence of the Boers and the Boers wanting to assert their independence
And ensure that the British didn't eventually assimilate all South Africa, but the boers were limited in number
They weren't exactly getting a large influx of immigrants from the country they declared independence from and South Africa wasn't a primary British concern
So who did the boers try to use as both pawns and proxies for their struggle the local people the Zulus?
Okay so back to the Zulus Mpande is usually considered a weak King
I think this might be a little unfair, but he was certainly less warlike than his relatives
He negotiated a treaty defining borders with the british and then gave additional lands to the Boers
But the British weren't just going to let the Boers expand, so this is where the British really started to encroach on Zulu sovereignty
They claimed that the land given to the Boers
Was in violation of the treaty the zulus had made with them and pressured map on day into retaking the area
Thereafter Mpande attempted to navigate the tightrope of keeping both the Boers and the British happy
but he knew he'd need a buffer between him and the Europeans so in the
1850s he decided to launch an invasion into Swaziland to secure himself from Boer encroachment the British though
Saw this expansion as a threat and once again forced him out of his gains compelling him to abandon the territory
He'd just won during this campaign in Swaziland
It became very clear that Mpande's son Tetsuo was a vigorous and capable leader and here's something strange happens
Tetsuo just sort of slides into power without killing map on day
that's not to say that there was no violence after all one of map on days other sons was also jockeying for power as the
Zulus became less content with him upon day's concessions to the British
Tetsuo invaded the other sons territory and defeated both him and a small contingent of his British allies
Remarkably he let the british go and began a new diplomatic
policy that aimed at keeping peace with both the colonial powers while giving far less away to the Europeans than map and I had then
Somebody discovered diamonds in the area this always screws things up
European Miners started pouring into South Africa and with them shopkeepers tool traders
Geologists and all the other support personnel that a major mineral rush needs
But it was never enough
the demand for Labour
Outpaced even the flood of fortune seekers coming to South Africa and so the European mining firms began to look hungrily at the native population
For the most part the zulus and the surrounding tribes were content working a diamond mine is unpleasant [the] Zoo
Already had all they needed with their farms in their cattle and now with all these essentially
Unproductive Europeans flooding in the zulu could get a pretty good price [for] any surplus food they grew
this led mining conglomerates
To offer guns for labour and the British government to start taking more drastic steps toward expansion the British wanted to secure any
potential Diamond mines they could which meant pushing into native and for
territory at an unheard-of rate at the same time the British also wanted to start consolidating their hold over South Africa in General and to
integrate the outlying tribes with the growing Diamond economy
Doing this basically meant destroying the traditional south African way of life and stepping on agreements made with the boers
But the funny thing is while the British government wanted to make all this happen their local South African ruling government
Especially in cape town wanted nothing to do with it britain needed to bring them in line Thus enters Sir Henry Bartle Frere
Frere had once been an ardent Civil Servant for the British in India
he had done notable service during the Indian rebellion and had risen to be Governor of Bombay he'd been noticed by the
conservative secretary of state for the Colonies, Lord Carnarvon
Whose big project was to confederate many of the British colonies
Carnarvon had just successfully done so with Canada and now he was dead set on doing the same with South Africa
Carnarvon Had Frere appointed high commissioner of South Africa and promised that he would become the first governor-general
There a position that almost certainly came with a peerage if he could bring the entire area under British control and set up an effective
Government Frere agreed and began to assess what he would need to do in order to achieve this his solution was basically annex and suppress
everybody
But he especially noted the need to break the power of the zulus
The local political elite tried to warn him that with the recent british
Expansion tensions were high and any minor event might fur the whole region into war
but Frere was having none of that and began looking for an opportunity to expand his first chance came from a minor tribal skirmish between
two outlying tribes
How minor well it started as a bar fight that?
Didn't stop Frere from using the incident as cause to declare war on one of the tribes against the vociferous
Objections of the local cape colony government the cape government succeeded in at least making sure that their local fast slight commando troops
prosecuted the war
Other than the might of the British Royal army the war was Swift and decisive
But the cape government had no interest in annexation, and so returned the lands to the native people, Frere
Furious over this basically used this act of insubordination to have them effectively removed from power and have himself
granted Total Governmental Control over South Africa
Shortly after this he enacted a law that demanded that all native Africans had to give up their guns
Not Europeans mind. You just the native Africans well
Nobody was falling for that one the native tribes were far smarter than free
I gave them credit for and rose in [revolt] rather than give up their arms this time, Frere unleashed the mighty British Imperial Army
But being unfamiliar with the terrain not accustomed to the weather and burdened by their heavier armaments the British army couldn't even find the rebels
Much less beat them finally Frere called back in the local Frontier commando troops of the cape colony government
He'd just overthrown and the commandos managed to engage and defeat some of the rebelling tribesmen while this allowed
Frere to Annex their land it sent much of the rest of South Africa into a guerilla war that would nearly bankrupt cape colony
But this wouldn't stop Sir Bartle Frere
he saw the
escalating conflict simply as an expedient
Now the British government as a whole didn't actually want a war with the native peoples of South Africa
But Carnarvon who had appointed Frere was an opponent of the current government?
And he did if the tribes rose up it made going to war with them and eventually
Annexing their land much simpler politically and so with that in mind Frere finally went after the crown Jewel of South Africa
Zulu Land on December 11th
1878 free Ascent and Ultimatum to Tetsuo the Zulu King
Demanding that he disband his armies entirely and accept a British observer into his court
He gave Tetsuo one month to comply these demands were impossible needless to say on January 11th
1879 the British and The Zulu Empire were at War
join us next time for the Anglo Zulu war the battle that raised the Zulu to an almost mythic status in Western Lore and the
final fates of both Tetsuo and Sir Bartle Frere