User:Pliny the Elderberry/sandbox

An early painting of the first migration of the Fengu, one of the affected peoples of the Mfecane

The Mfecane (Nguni, Zulu pronunciation: [m̩fɛˈkǀaːne]), also known by the Sesotho names Difaqane or Lifaqane (all meaning "crushing, scattering, forced dispersal, forced migration), is a historical period of heightened military conflict and migration associated with state formation and expansion in Southern Africa. The exact range of dates that comprise the Mfecane varies between sources. At its broadest, the period lasted from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, but scholars often focus on an intensive period from the 1810s to the 1840s. The Mfecane as a historical concept first emerged in the 1830s and blamed the disruption on the actions of Shaka Zulu, who was alleged to have waged near-genocidal wars that depopulated the land and sparked a chain reaction of violence as fleeing groups sought to conquer new lands. Since the latter half of the 20th century, this interpretation has fallen out of favor among scholars due to a lack of historical evidence.

Traditional estimates for the Mfecane's death toll range from 1 million to 2 million; however, these numbers are controversial, and some recent scholars revise the mortality figure significantly downward and attribute the root causes to complex political, economic, and environmental developments. The Mfecane is significant in that it saw the formation of new states, institutions, and ethnic identities in southeastern Africa. The Mfecane's historiography itself is also historically significant, with different narrative versions having been employed to serve a range of political purposes since its inception as a historical concept.

Causes

The Mfecane resulted from the complex interplay of preexisting trends of political centralization with the effects of international trade, environmental instability, and European colonization. State formation and expansion had already been intensifying in Southeastern African as of at least the late 1700s, but these processes were greatly accelerated after the international ivory trade opened. The trade allowed leaders to amass unprecedented amounts of wealth, which they could then use to cultivate greater political power. Wealth and power became mutually reinforcing, as wealth enabled leaders to develop state instruments of control and expropriation, which they used to extract further wealth through taxation and military action. The consequence of this cycle was an increasing political and wealth disparity within and between polities, particularly as concerned access to productive land and food stores.

Political centralization became problematic in the early 1800s when deep drought (aggravated by the atmospheric effects of volcanic eruptions in 1809 and 1815) struck Southeastern Africa. Whereas previous droughts hadn't caused serious famine, the unequal distribution of land and food stores lessened the ability of average people to meet their needs. Though far less susceptible to famine, leaders faced threats to their power as (taxable) agricultural production dropped and ivory became scarcer due to overhunting. Faced with the challenges of fighting famine and maintaining wealth flows, leaders were incentivized to turn to raiding and conquest. Conquest protected conquering peoples against famine by providing immediate access to the conquered peoples's livestock and grain stores and, in the long term, by securing choice arable land and the people (particularly women) to farm it at greater intensities than before. Here another self-reinforcing cycle set in as famine and warfare promoted insecurity and militarism, which promoted political centralization and more warfare as strong leaders expanded their authority by offering a desperately-needed escape from famine to loyal followers.

A second stage of turmoil from the 1820s to the 1830s was driven in large part by slave and cattle raiding by Griqua, Basters, and other Khoekhoe-European groups armed and mounted by European settlers, who benefitted from trading for the plunder. The increasing economic pull of the international slave trade also incentivized greater warfare and disruption between polities close to international ports such as Delagoa Bay.

The Mfecane in the East

The Mfecane began in eastern Southern Africa with increasing competition and political consolidation as chiefdoms vied for control over trade routes and grazing land.

Delagoa Bay and its international port saw increasing regional conflict in the mid-to-late 1700s. The local Tembe and Mabhudu competed for for control, absorbing or expelling some of their neighboring polities. The abakwaDlamini were one such group put to flight by the conflict.

The mid-to-late 1700s also saw the rise of the Nxumalo and Nyambose chiefdoms between the Phongolo and Thukela rivers, which would eventually become the Ndwandwe and Mthethwa Paramountcy.

The Mfecane in the Interior

The Mfecane began in the interior regions of Central Southern Africa in the late 18th century with the displacement of Khoekhoe and San peoples by slave and cattle raiders from the expanding Dutch Cape Colony. Arriving in the middle and lower Orange River regions, they competed with local Batwsana peoples, beginning a period of social breakdown and recombination. Further bolstered in number by escaped slaves, bandits, and people of all races from the Cape Colony, some of these peoples would eventually become the Korana. Their power increased as trade with and raids upon colonists provided guns and horses, and by the 1780s they began raiding northwards against Tswana polities.

From the 1780s to the turn of the century, the southern Tswana chiefdoms underwent fragmentations and consolidations as raids and counter-raids proliferated. The powerful Bahurutshe Chiefdom of the upper Marico River region had their control of the lucrative trade with the Cape Colony eroded by the Bangwaketse to the northwest, the Batlhaping to the southwest, and the emerging Pedi Kingdom to the east. Meanwhile, the region of the modern north and central Free State was increasingly coming under the control of the Bataung.

In the late 1790s, expansion by the Cape Colony to the lower Orange River region displaced the mixed-race Griqua peoples to the confluence of the Vaal and Orange River. There, they absorbed some of their San and Korana neighbors as clients. The Griqua, like other ethnic groups, were not politically unified and differed in their livelihood strategies, which ranged from raiding to agriculture to controlling trade between Batswana and the Cape Colony.

By the turn of the century amaXhosa groups also began arriving in the middle Orange River region, fleeing instability along the eastern Cape Colony frontier. There they absorbed Korana, San, and others and engaged in extensive raiding along the Orange and lower Vaal rivers. This proved particularly damaging to the trade activities of their Batlhaping victims.

By the 1810s, Boer expansion brought increasing destabilization to the middle Orange River region, not least in that it brought an increased flow of firearms. The Caledon Valley was now sustaining raids by Boer, Griqua, and Korana parties.

disruptions of the Mfecane came to the Southern African interior in 1822 when AmaHlubi under the command of Mpangazita crossed the Drakensberg mountains and attacked Queen MmaNthatisi's Batlôkwa people. Put to flight, MmaNthatisi's followers survived off of pillage before resettling west of the Caledon River in 1824. The Sotho polities of this area sometimes held conflictual relations with these Batlôkwa newcomers, and they began coalescing in 1824 under the leadership of Moshoeshoe.

Separately, facing violence and starvation, Sebetoane's BaFokeng, Tsooane's MaPhuting, and Nkarahanye's BaHlakoana fled their homes. The three joined forces in 1823 to take the BaThlaping town of Dithakong, whose access to water kept it rich in grain and cattle despite the overall drought. The BaThlaping repelled the invasion on 24 June with the aid of a mounted force of Griqua, inflicting heavy casualties and killing Tsooane and Nkarahanye.

In 1825, Mpangazita's followers dispersed after he was killed in a war against Matiwane's AmaNgwane. The AmaNgwane controlled much of the Caledon River environs, raiding and displacing Sotho and Tswana neighbors before collapsing in 1827.

Rise of the Zulu Kingdom

In about 1817, Chief Dingiswayo of the Mthethwa group in the south near the Tugela River, entered into an alliance with the Tsongas, who controlled the trade routes to Delagoa Bay (now Maputo). This alliance encroached on the routes used by the Ndwandwe alliance, who occupied the region in the north, near the Pongola River. Battles between the allied forces of Chief Dingiswayo and of Chief Zwide, and the Ndwandwe probably mark the start of what became the Mfecane.

Zwide defeated the Mthethwa and executed Chief Dingiswayo. Dingiswayo was a mentor to King Shaka. He took him in together with his mother Queen Nandi and gave them refuge. Many of the Mthethwa leaders formed a confederation with the Zulu clan, under the leadership of Shaka. The Zulus conquered and assimilated smaller clans in the area. Zwide attacked King Shaka and was defeated at the Battle of Gqokli Hill, which marked the start of Shaka's conquest of the Ndwandwe. The Zulu practice was to absorb only the women and young men of a clan or village. They killed the elderly and men of fighting age; the lucky ones escaped. Having learned Zulu tactics, the escapees in turn descended upon more distant clans unfamiliar with the new order.

Consequences for Nguni societies

This map illustrates the rise of the Zulu Empire under Shaka (1816–1828) in present-day South Africa. The rise of the Zulu Empire   under Shaka forced other chiefdoms and clans to flee across a wide area of southern Africa. Clans fleeing the Zulu war zone   included the Soshangane, Zwangendaba, Ndebele, Hlubi, Ngwane, and the Mfengu.  .

Around 1821, the Zulu general Mzilikazi of the Khumalo clan defied Shaka, and set up his own kingdom. He quickly made many enemies: not only the Zulu king, but also the Boers, and the Griqua and Tswana. Defeats in several clashes convinced Mzilikazi to move north towards Swaziland. Going north and then inland westward along the watershed between the Vaal and the Limpopo rivers, Mzilikazi and his followers, the AmaNdebele, (called Matebele in English) established a Ndebele state northwest of the city of Pretoria.

During this period, the Matebele left a trail of destruction in their wake. From 1837 to 1838, the arrival of Boer settlers and the subsequent battles of Vegtkop and Mosega, drove the Matebele north of the Limpopo. They settled in the area now known as Matabeleland, in present-day southern Zimbabwe. Mzilikazi set up his new capital in Bulawayo. The AmaNdebele drove the AmaShona of the region northward and forced them to pay tribute. This caused resentment that has continued to the current day in modern Zimbabwe.

At the Battle of Mhlatuze River in 1818, the Ndwandwe were defeated by a Zulu force under the direct command of Shaka. Soshangane, one of Zwide's generals, fled to Mozambique with the remainder of the Ndwandwe. There, they established the Gaza kingdom. They oppressed the Tsonga people living there, some of whom fled over the Lebombo Mountains into the Northern Transvaal. In 1833, Soshangane invaded various Portuguese settlements, and was initially successful. But a combination of internal disputes and war against the Swazi caused the downfall of the Gaza kingdom.

The Ngwane people lived in present-day Eswatini (Swaziland), where they had settled in the southwest. They warred periodically with the Ndwandwe.

Zwangendaba, a commander of the Ndwandwe army, fled north with Soshangane after his defeat in 1819. Zwangendaba's followers were henceforth called Ngoni. Continuing north of the Zambezi River, they formed a state in the region between lakes Malawi and Tanganyika. Maseko, who led another part of the Ngoni people, founded another state to the east of Zwangendaba's kingdom.

To the east, refugee clans and tribes from the Mfecane fled to the lands of the Xhosa people. Some of them such as the amaNgwane were driven back by force and defeated. Those who were accepted were obliged to be tributary to the Xhosas and lived under their protection. They were assimilated into the Xhosa cultural way of life, becoming part of the Xhosa people. After years of oppression by the Xhosas, they later formed an alliance with the Cape Colony.

Consequences for the Sotho-Tswana peoples

Southern Tswana populations had experienced an increase in conflict as early as the 1780s. There was significant population growth in the region which lead to more competition for resources. There was an increasing amount of trade with the Cape colony and the Portuguese; this had the consequence of separate chiefdoms becoming more eager to conquer land for themselves in order to control trade routes. Dutch settlers from the Cape Colony encroaching upon the Khoikhoi and San into regions where Tswana people live resulted in the formation of the Korana who started to launch raids on other communities by the 1780s. The fact that many of them had access to firearms and horses likely exacerbated the devastation caused by their raiders. Xhosa who were escaping the already violent region of the Eastern Cape often launched their own raids as well. All of these events led to making the region progressively more unstable. Missionary interference, internal politics, and raids by Dutch settlers also impacted the region. By the start of the 19th century, the most powerful Tswana chiefdom, the Bahurutse, were increasingly being challenged by the Bangwaketse.

Moshoeshoe I gathered the mountain clans together in an alliance against the Zulus. Fortifying the easily defended hills and expanding his reach with cavalry raids, he fought against his enemies with some success, despite not adopting the Zulu tactics, as many clans had done. The territory of Moshoeshoe I became the kingdom of Lesotho.

The Tswana were pillaged by two large invading forces set on the move by the Mfecane. Sebitwane gathered the Kololo ethnic groups near modern Lesotho and wandered north across what is now Botswana, plundering and killing many of the Tswana people in the way. They also took large numbers of captives north with them, finally settling north of the Zambezi River in Barotseland, where they conquered the Lozi people. The next force was the Mzilikazi and the Matebele who moved across Tswana territory in 1837. Both of these invading forces continued to travel north across Tswana territory without establishing any sort of state. In addition to these major kingdoms, a number of smaller groups also moved north into Tswana territory, where they met with defeat and ultimately vanished from history. Among those involved in these invasions were European adventurers such as Nathaniel Isaacs (who was later accused of slave trading).

Controversy

In 1988, Rhodes University professor Julian Cobbing advanced a different hypothesis on the rise of the Zulu state; he contended the accounts of the Mfecane were a self-serving, constructed product of apartheid-era politicians and historians. According to Cobbing, apartheid-era historians had mischaracterised the Mfecane as a period of internally induced Black-on-Black destruction. Instead, Cobbing argued that the roots of the conflicts laid in the labour needs of Portuguese slave traders operating out of Delagoa Bay, Mozambique and European settlers in the Cape Colony. The resulting pressures led to forced displacement, famine, and war in the interior, allowing waves of Afrikaner settlers to colonize large swaths of the region. Cobbing's views were echoed by historian Dan Wylie, who argued that colonial-era white writers such as Isaacs had exaggerated the brutality of the Mfecane to justify European colonialism.

Cobbing's hypothesis generated an immense volume of polemics among historians; the discussions were termed the "Cobbing Controversy". While historians had already embarked upon new approaches to the study of the Mfecane in the 1970s and 1980s, Cobbing's paper was the first major source that overtly defied the hegemonic "Zulu-centric" explanation at the time. This was followed by fierce discourse in the early 1990s prompted by Cobbing's hypothesis. Many agree that Cobbing's analysis offered several key breakthroughs and insights into the nature of early Zulu society. The historian Elizabeth Eldredge challenged Cobbing's thesis on the grounds that there is scant evidence of the resumption of the Portuguese slave trade out of Delagoa Bay before 1823, a finding that undermines Cobbing's thesis that Shaka's early military activities were a response to slave raids. Moreover, Eldredge argues that the Griqua and other groups (rather than European missionaries as asserted by Cobbing) were primarily responsible for the slave raids coming from the Cape. Eldredge also asserts that Cobbing downplays the importance of the ivory trade in Delagoa Bay, and the extent to which African groups and leaders sought to establish more centralised and complex state formations to control ivory routes and the wealth associated with the trade. She suggests these pressures created internal movements, as well as reactions against European activity, that drove the state formations and concomitant violence and displacement. She still agreed with Cobbing's overall sentiment in that the Zulu-centric explanation for the Mfecane is not reliable. By the early 2000s, a new historical consensus had emerged, recognizing the Mfecane to be not simply a series of events resulting from the founding of the Zulu Kingdom but rather a multitude of factors caused before and after Shaka Zulu came into power.

The debate and controversy within Southern African historiography over the Mfecane has been compared to similar debates about the Beaver Wars of the seventeenth century in northeastern North America, due to the alleged similarity of the narratives of indigenous "self-vanishing" that were propagated by apologists for European colonialism about the Mfecane and the Beaver Wars.

References

Further resources

• J.D. Omer-Cooper, The Zulu Aftermath: A Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Bantu Africa, Longmans, 1978: ISBN 0-582-64531-X
• Norman Etherington, The Great Treks: The Transformation of Southern Africa, 1815–1854, Longman, 2001: ISBN 0-582-31567-0
• Carolyn Hamilton, The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History, Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1995: ISBN 1-86814-252-3