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

states in pre-colonial African’. 74 Omer-Cooper’s Zulu Aftermath, published in
1966, was the first reworked mfecane history since Theal and was clearly
influenced by the above developments, even though he retained Theal’s Zulu-
centric, geographically-integrated mfecane narrative, which, like Theal and
Walker, he regarded as a singe, interconnected, historical phenomenon.
However, as Wright commented,
in sharp contrast to Theal who had emphasized the violence and
bloodshed that had accompanied the upheavals in order to
portray them as an indication of African barbarism and savagery,
Omer-Cooper depicted them in positive terms as marking “one of
the great formative events of African history” and an episode of
“nation-building” on the part of “a galaxy of great leaders. 75
In this way Omer-Cooper presented the mfecane as a creative and constructive
process, with both the destructive aspects as well as European influences being
either downplayed or ignored. Since Walker, the term “Mfecane” had been
given various meanings by different authors. Omer-Cooper standardised its
meaning as ‘the wars and disturbances which accompanied the rise of the
Zulu’ 76 and more than anyone else promoted mfecane as a clearly defined
historical label. He projected his single set of events leading to African nation-
building in southern Africa firmly into common usage in both academic and
popular works in the English-speaking world. Omer-Cooper influenced
Thompson at UCLA to include this new version of the mfecane into his very
influential Oxford History of South Africa, the first general text to integrate
colonial and African history as equals. 77
74 Wright, ‘Political Mythology', 283.
75 Ibid., 284. Omer-Cooper, Zulu Aftermath, 4-7.
76 Ibid., p.5, n.1.
77 Wright, ‘Political Mythology', 284-86. Saunders, ‘Pre-Cobbing Mfecane', 28-29. C.C.
Saunders, The Making of the South African Past: Major Historian on Race and Class (Cape
Town, 1988), 154. L.M. Thompson and Wilson, M. (eds), The Oxford History of South Africa
(London, 1969). Its 2nd. edition is Wilson et al., South Africa to 1870. Tisani, ‘Xhosa
Historiography', ii. See also F.A. Van Jaarsveld, Van Van Riebeeck tot Verwoerd, 1652-1966
(Johannesburg, 1971). C.C. Saunders, and R. Derricourt (eds), Beyond the Cape Frontier
(London, 1974). C. de B. Webb, The Mfecane' (1979), Centre for African Studies (University of
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