The Historiographical Development of the Concept “mfecane” and ...

the information came from oral African sources only has been brought into
question by Wright, who shows that the Shepstone papers in the Natal Archives
contain evidence of only fourteen informants being interviewed. 80 As it is
unlikely that accurate information could be obtained on ninety-three chiefdoms
from so few informants, it has to be concluded that the author also drew on
European sources. Fynn’s influence in particular is easily detectable.
‘Inhabitants’, which was eventually published in Bird’s The Annals of Natal in
1888, 81 contained ninety-three short historical sketches of the Natal chiefdoms.
It detailed the areas they occupied in Natal before 1812, followed by a short
summary of their experiences during the years 1812 to 1824 and where they
subsequently settled. Shepstone’s innovation was that he attributed the
destruction of only fifty-four of these chiefdoms to the Zulu state, making little or
no reference to Zulu atrocities and exterminations. The annihilation of the
remaining thirty-nine chiefdoms were attributed to the Ngwane, Thembu, Chunu
and Bhaca. It was never an influential work due to its format, a long list of very
short historical sketches. In a sense, ‘Inhabitants’ was the raw material for the
other section of the 1864 government report entitled ‘Historic Sketch’. In this
history of Zulu state-building, Shepstone introduced two new ideas contradictory
to the dominant discourse at the time. He asserted that only the ruling elite of
those chiefdoms defeated by Shaka were killed, whereafter the people
submitted to incorporation into the Zulu state. 82 And he developed a four-wave
theory of the destruction of Natal, maintaining that each of the four chiefdoms
referred to in “Inhabitants” attacked the Natal chiefdoms that were fleeing south-
east through Natal ahead of the Zulu amaButho. 83 A possible inspiration for this
theory might have been Ayliff, whom he knew personally during the 1834-35
war, and his 1835 articles in which he claimed that the Fingo were the remnants
Colony Parliamentary Papers: 1883, (G.4.-'83). Rept. of Government Com. on Native Laws and
Customs, 1883. in Brownlee, F. The Transkeian Native Territories: Historical Records
([originally Lovedale, 1923], reprinted, Westport, 1970).
80 Wright, ‘Bryant and "The Wars of Shaka"', 6-7. Shepstone, 'The Zulus', 95.
81 [Shepstone], 'Inhabitants’, 1, 124-53.
82 Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 90-92.
83 Shepstone, ‘Historic Sketch', reprinted, 1923, 85.
97