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

worse for Africans than no civilization at all, became topical in European
writings in the first third of the twentieth century. The third period saw the
introduction of British rule and Christianity as the means to counter barbarism,
with Africans being taught the full meaning of civilization. Shepstone used this
view of the African past as a means of legitimising the colonisation of Natal in
general, and the paternalistic Shepstone system of administering Natal Africans
in particular. He preferred the ‘simple, primitive, unalloyed barbarism’ of the
Natal Africans to the ‘barbarism [with] a dash of civilization’ of those Africans
that had been instructed by missionaries or who had received a school
education. 88 This tripartite structure of the history of Natal and Zululand was
widely espoused in later historical literature, and was applied to the mfecane
narrative not only of the eastern seaboard area but in the whole of southern
Africa. 89
Also in this article was Shepstone’s version of Dingiswayo’s return to the
Mthethwa state after his exile. Shooter had him arriving with a mounted
European, but Shepstone had him returning by himself on a horse in 1792. It
seems that Shepstone was also not able to conceive of an African chief
introducing military innovations without European influence. 90 Both versions
have been repeated in subsequent writings. As already mentioned, the 1875
article stands in contradiction to ‘Inhabitants’ and ‘Historic Sketch’ by laying the
blame for the depopulation of Natal at the doors of the Zulu state alone.
Shepstone’s description of Shaka’s state-building also failed to include the
information that only the ruling elite of the defeated chiefdoms were
exterminated. It is clear that Shepstone chose to discard this sub-discourse and
emphasise only the dominant discourse in this prominently published article. As
it was generally accepted in Natal that Shepstone had a great knowledge of “the
88 Ibid., 97-99, 102-4. Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 88-89.
89 W.T. Brownlee, Reminiscences of Kafir Life and History and Other Papers of the Late Hon.
Charles Brownlee, Gaika Commissioner (Lovedale, 1896), 81-83. J. A. Farrer, Zululand and the
Zulus (London, 1879), 14-15. J. Bird, 'Introductionary Remarks on the Compilation of the Annals
of Natal', in Bird, Annals of Natal, I, 5-7.
90 Shepstone, 'The Zulus', 95-96, 99-102, 104. See also A. Koopman, 'Dingiswayo Rides Again',
Journal of Natal and Zulu History, 2 (1979), 1-12.
99