Mfecane Aftermath. John Wright
THE
MFECANE
AFTERMATH
THE
MFECANE
AFTERMATH
Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History
EDITED BY
CAROLYN HAMILTON
The Mfecane Aftermath is a joint publication of
Witwatersrand University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
2001 Johannesburg, South Africa
and
University of Natal Press
Private Bag X01
3209 Scottsville
Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
© Witwatersrand University Press 1995
ISBN 1 86814 252 3
ISBN 978 1 86814 252 1 (Print)
ISBN 978 1 86814 699 4 (PDF)
ISBN 978 1 77614 296 5 (EPUB)
ISBN 978 1 77614 297 2 (MOBI)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
Cover design Thea Soggot
Typesetting by University of Natal Press
Printed and bound by Creda Communications
The front cover picture depicts the historic remains of the underground settlement at Lepalong, dated by oral records to the 1820s and 1830s.
Photograph courtesy of the Department of Archaeology, University of the Witwatersrand
Contents
Notes on Orthography and Names
Carolyn Hamilton
Part One: Historiography and Methodology
Putting the Mfecane Controversy into Historiographical Context
Norman Etherington
1.Pre-Cobbing Mfecane Historiography
Christopher Saunders
The Persistence of Narrative Structures in the Historiography of the Mfecane and the Great Trek
Norman Etherington
3.Hunter-Gatherers, Traders and Slaves
The 'Mfecane' Impact on Bushmen, Their Ritual and Their Art
Thomas A. Dowson
Cultural Negations in White Writers' Portrayal of Shaka and the Zulu
Dan Wylie
Part Two: The South-Eastern Coastal Region
Beyond the Concept of the 'Zulu Explosion'
Comments on the Current Debate
John Wright
5.Sources of Conflict in Southern Africa c.1800–1830
The 'Mfecane' Reconsidered
Elizabeth A. Eldredge
6.Political Transformations in the Thukela–Mzimkhulu
Region in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
John Wright
7.'The Character and Objects of Chaka'
A Reconsideration of the Making of Shaka as Mfecane Motor
Carolyn Hamilton
8.Matiwane's Road to Mbholompo
A Reprieve for the Mfecane?
Jeff Peires
The War of 1835 Revisited
Alan Webster
10.The Mfecane Survives its Critics
John Omer-Cooper
Difaqane in the Interior
Neil Parsons
11.Archaeological Indicators for Stress in the Western
Transvaal Region between the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Centuries