Mfecane Aftermath. John Wright

      

       THE

       MFECANE

       AFTERMATH

       THE

       MFECANE

       AFTERMATH

      Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History

       EDITED BY

       CAROLYN HAMILTON

       WITWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY PRESS

       UNIVERSITY OF NATAL PRESS

      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

       Preface

       Acknowledgements

       Notes on Orthography and Names

       Contributors

       Introduction

       Carolyn Hamilton

       Part One: Historiography and Methodology

       Putting the Mfecane Controversy into Historiographical Context

       Norman Etherington

       1.Pre-Cobbing Mfecane Historiography

       Christopher Saunders

       2.Old Wine in New Bottles

       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

       4.Language and Assassination

       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

       9.Unmasking the Fingo

       The War of 1835 Revisited

       Alan Webster

       10.The Mfecane Survives its Critics

       John Omer-Cooper

       Part Three: The Interior

       'The time of troubles'

      Difaqane in the Interior

       Neil Parsons

       11.Archaeological Indicators for Stress in the Western

       Transvaal Region between the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Centuries