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Cetshwayo

In 1873, Theophilus Shepstone, Natal Secretary for Native Affairs, crowned Cetshwayo king of the Zulu, not, as Cetshwayo thought, to conf1rm his independe

royal authority but, on the contrary, because the sovereignty of the Zulu king was seen to be inconsistent with British colonial rule

When the Zulu king did not conform to these demands, a succession of bloody confrontations between the Zulu and the British ultimately led to the Anglo-Zulu war

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Zulu territory was declared a British protectorate, and in 1897 it became part of Natal.

Zulu kings indeed enjoyed such a powerful sociopolitical role.

Cetshwayo

The main objective was to occupy the Zulu royal kraal at Ulundi by advancing on it from three directions.

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Already under stress from the imposition of the hut tax, many more Zulu men were forced into the Witwatersrand labour market to make ends meet and pay taxes.

nineteenth century when 1,500 men armed with the most modern weapons then available were wiped out at the battle of Isandlwana by a Zulu army—an impi—of 25,000 warriors armed

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By 1876, Britain was without doubt the strongest power in the region, but both the Zulus and the Boers were unwilling to recognize that and were determined to resist British in

around the Cape.7 The idea that the conquest of Zululand would bring enough economic gain to justify the expense would have required a very large measure of op

In the absence of any identifiable economic motive for a British invasion of Zu

bsence of any identifiable economic motive for a British invasion of Zululand, the strategic control of the Cape route to India assumes greater signifi can

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of a telegraph, who did not think that war with Russia could be avoided by negotiation (as indeed it was). Zululand was invaded, and, despite Isandlwana, the impis were shot down against the express wishes of the government in London because Frere feared something much worse: a Zulu invasion coinciding with a Boer rising and a Russian naval attack which would result in burning ports, razed farms, the route to India severed, and the destruction of British prestige. As a committed imperialist, Frere would never let this happen on his watch, whatever orders to the contrary the politicians gave. He paid with humiliation and disgrace at the end of an otherwise glittering career. Ironically, the victory at Isandlwana ultimately made things worse for the Zulus because it brought such a storm of political irritation down on Frere that he was unable to carry through his plans for a workable postwar settlement for Zululand. Removed from control of the war, he was unable to prevent the Zulu kingdom from being broken up into thirteen separate entities, which then promptly dissolved into the miseries of a civil war which would tear apart Zululand and leave most of its lands in the hands of Boer freebooters.97 It would take until 1887 for it to be formally annexed to the British Empire.