About this episode
This is episode 235, and it’s back to high drama circa 1873.
Before that just some news .. unbelievable as it may appear, Apple Podcasts has named The History of South Africa pod as one of their top ten Best so Far podcasts of 2025. They have asked me to say so, so this is saying so.
An irregular musket salute is in order!!
Thanks to my fantastic listeners for helping make this podcast resonate, I am truly grateful.
And thus to our story this episode Cetshwayo Glamped and Crowned, Shepstone Stalled, Masiphula Poisoned, it’s early 1873, and King Mpande kaSenzangakhona of the amaZulu has been buried and the process of selecting a new king has begun
Cetshwayo kaMpande, his son is to be the new regent.
Or is he? This wasn’t a simple matter. Succession disputes had riven the Zulu nation from since Senzangakhona died, the last internal ruction had led to the Zulu Civil War and the shattering battle of Ndondakusuka near the Thukela River in 1856. I dealt with this significant moment in episode 209. Mpande was still king at the time, but Cetshwayo and Mbuyazi, his two eldest sons, were vying to be formally nominated as the king in waiting.
Mbuyazi was defeated in the battle, vanquished and killed, leaving Cetshwayo in de facto control of the kingdom, though his father remained king. Mbuyazi's followers, including five other sons of King Mpande, were massacred in the aftermath of the battle. But some escaped.
Succession had been murky ever since 1816 when Shaka had supplanted his half-brother and presumptive heir Sigujana. Cetshwayo may have been the eldest son of the King Mpande kaSenzangakhona and many of the izikhulu supported Cetshwayo, but Mpande favoured his next-eldest son Mbuyazi.
One of the central characters of our story was John Dunn who had supported Mbuyazi, but switched sides afterwards and was helping Cetshwayo collect firearms by the early 1870s. When Mpande died, Cetshwayo would turn to the British in Natal for recognition, because he faced two major threats. One was the Boers to his north who had taken control over the disputed territory around northern Vryheid, Utrecht, and the foothills of the mountains below Volksrus, and the other threat was internal. Cetshwayo was beholden to some powerful Zulu chiefs in the north, who’d helped him defeat Mbuyazi, and most of these opposed Cetshwayo doing deals with the British. They were traditionalists. The British would disturb the indigenous rituals they said. Cetshwayo saw things differently. He was playing a bigger diplomatic game, aware of the wider powers at play. If he could convince Natal’s commissioner of Native Affairs, Theophilus Shepstone, to ride into his territory and formally crown him king, this would keep the boers at bay, and simultaneously undermine those northern izikhulu who were conducting a whispering campaign against him.
In this geopolitical tango, Shepstone
