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

identical with the Mantatees. Theal even depicted Zulu amaButho joining in the
destruction of the Transgariep. He maintained that the carnage wrought by
these Zulu-like states on their expulsion from Zululand resulted in up to two
million deaths, leaving the land ‘covered with skeletons’. 95
In order to demonstrate the above visually, Theal published a map of south
Africa in the first series of his History of South Africa, which he entitled the
‘Territory almost Depopulated by the Zulu Wars before 1834’. 96 The boundary of
the “almost depopulated area” included most land occupied by Africans in south
Africa at that time, with the exception of the Transkei, those lands occupied by
the Zulu, Gaza and Swazi states, and the western Free State, as well as the
extreme western Transvaal. The depopulated area contained the land taken by
the trekkers during the Great Trek period. The implication was that the intra-
African violence had opened the land up for European settlement, with colonists
being able to occupy it unopposed. By the time the second series of History of
South Africa was published, Theal had read a great many publications and
documents, and introduced several more minor structural elements to the
mfecane skeleton. In particular he inserted into the history of northern Natal the
chiefdoms of the Gaza and Ngoni, and he described how they fled to the north
of Delagoa Bay to escape Shaka. There they came into competition with each
other until the Gaza state expelled the Ngoni, who in turn carved a path of
destruction as far as Lake Malawi and the southern end of Lake Victoria.
Furthermore, he also included the history of the Swazi chiefdom under inKosi
Sobhuza I, which successfully resisted the Zulu and remained in situ,
consolidating its position. 97
Theal’s description of the destruction in the greater Caledon Valley area owed
much to the oral accounts of the four previously mentioned African sources
published by European authors. Thus, despite his claims to have used a
detached scientific methodology, Theal was also guilty of blurring the distinction
95 Theal, History of Boers, 31-59. Theal, History of South Africa, Second Series, III, 389.
96 Theal, History of South Africa, First Series, III, 328.
97 Theal, History of South Africa, Second Series, III, 379, 424-6.
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