The Origin of the Angolo-Zulu War of 1879

ABSTRACTThis thesis provides a detailed account of the event leading up the war between Britain and the Zulu kingdom in 1879, and undertake to explain why the war came about. Theophilus Shepstone, Natal's secretary for Native affairs, had long aspired to bring Zululand under British control. When king Mpande died in 1872, his hier, Catshwayo, was anxious for British support against rival climates, and against the South African Republic, with which he had a boarder dispute. He therefore invited Shepstone to preside over a ceremony recognging him as king. Shepstone's hope that his ‘coronarion’of cetshwayo would lead to a greater control over Zululand were disappointed, but it did serve as a precedent for British intervention. The war of 1879, in the event, did not arise out of purely local causes, but was more the result of British imperial policy. Lord Carnarvon, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, aspired to confederate' the various territories of southern Africa into a 'self-governing (that is, settlergoverned) dominion under the British flag. To this end Shepstone annexed the Transvaal in 1877.The border dispute now became a dispute between Britain and the Zulu kingdom, and relations deteriorated sharply. Sir Bartle Frere, the High Commissioner entrusted by Carnarvon with the taskof implementing his confederation policy, decided that the continued independence of the Zulukingdom was an insuperable obstacle to confederation. He therefore took advantage of certain border incidents (and of the warlike reputation of the Zulu) to send an ultimatum calculated to bring about war. The question this thesis particularly addresses is whether the war was an incidental by-productof a confederation policy carried out for other reasons, or whether bringing Zululand under Britishcontrol was inherent in the policy itself. It argues that the latter was the case. The purpose ofconfederation was neither retrenchment not to safeguard naval bases, as some have argued, but acomprehensive political and economic reconstruction of South Afrlcan society Which independent Zulu kingdom could have no place. On the other hand. to argue that Zululand was invaded to facilitate the advance of capitalist production in South African as others have done, is to state the case too. The desirability and mevitability of capitalist production was assumed railierihan consciously striven fot by those who believed that the invasion of Zululand was necessary to facilitate the progress and civilization of South Africa.