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- Convenors:
-
Jan-Bart Gewald
(Leiden University)
Peter Pels (Leiden University)
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- Discussant:
-
Larissa Nordholt
(Leiden University)
Short Abstract:
Far from the "Time of Troubles"/Mfecane being initiated by a single man or ethnicity, we believe that a far more complex history that places South Africa within the context of historical Global interactions has to be examined and described.
Long Abstract:
In Southern African history the Mfecane "Time of Troubles", has come to be understood as a cataclysmic event that entailed a series of inter-related wars that it was believed originated from a single source, Shaka Zulu (founder of the Zulu Kingdom), and raged throughout Southern Africa all the way to Lake Victoria in Tanzania. Above all, the Mfecane explained and justified contemporary ethnic identity and land distribution. However recent work on societal collapse indicates that societies do not collapse due to single causes, history is far more complex and messy. This insight, coupled with a greater appreciation for Global interactions, allows us to reconsider the Mfecane in the context of:
- Population growth brought about by the introduction of New World Crops.
- Climate change and resulting crop failures brought about by the volcanoes Laki in Iceland (1784) and Tambora in Indonesia (1815).
- Mass-migration brought about by famine.
- The transition of the Cape in the context of the Global Napoleonic wars.
- Rapidly industrializing Great Britain, in which massive population growth, mass-migration and professional standing armies were the norm.
- Mass-migration of Boer settlers from the Cape in the Groot Trek of 1836.
In keeping with the call for panels, which emphasises that "a multiplicity of connections exist within, between, and beyond Africa" we assert that the "Time of Troubles"/Mfecane is more complex in origin and consequences than the activities of a single man, Shaka Zulu, or a single ethnicity, and can be better understood in the context of global interactions.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
The Mfecane was long indistinguishable from the image of the Zulu Warrior. This essay traces important moments in the European (re-) invention of the Zulu warrior from H. Rider Haggard to the present, as a way of critically examining "Global Africa".
Paper long abstract:
The history of the Mfecane cannot be divorced from the powerful effects that Zulu military prowess made on European imaginations. However, this formation of "Global Africa" only occurred after the battle of Isandhlwana, the ethnographic display of Zulu warriors in Europe, and H. Rider Haggard's bestselling novels. This presentation examines some of the more tantalizing historical layers of this stereotype to contribute further to a critical questioning of South African history. It argues that the Zulu Warrior was a decisive contribution to the emergence of a homogenized global image of Africa in the early twentieth century. This image became sufficiently general to be exported back to South Africa - not least in the shape of the Shaka Zulu TV-series of the 1980s, and the subsequent foundation of the Shakaland theme park. Such a historicization of the image of the Zulu Warrior can be used to critically interrogate stereotypical images of the Mfecane and its aftermath - but also to uncover the colonial complexities of a history that is all too often homogenized as well.
Paper short abstract:
The paper analyses the accounts of the Rolong historian Molema about the collapse of the Rolong morafe in the late eighteenth century. The fall of this large precolonial polity poses questions on the periodisation of Southern African past and on the novelty of the decades before the Mfecane.
Paper long abstract:
Historical research over the past thirty years has considerably updated our understanding of Southern Africa's 'Time of Troubles'. Today Shaka and the amaZulu are not seen as the sole protagonists of this story, nor as the sole initiators of a wholly different period of Southern African history. As questions on the origins and fall of various African polities over this time remain partially unanswered, historians are broadening their geographical, chronological, and theoretical scope to include multiple causes in their explanations.
In line with the approach proposed for the panel, the paper studies a large-scale political crisis taking place in a different region of Southern Africa and in a previous period: the collapse of the Rolong morafe in the second half of the eighteenth century, in the western Highveld/Thornveld region. During the lifaqane, the Barolong were divided in various communities and struggled to cope with the invading Matebele of Mzilikazi. Their recent history, however, had been marked by greater political power and regional dominance.
This complex historical development is analysed through the lenses of a notable Rolong historian, Seetsele Modiri Molema. He quizzically set the rupture at 1777, and defined the crisis and collapse as a new "Epoch of Secession", comparing it with much older - and perhaps less reliable - accounts of civil war in Rolong history. Twisting the general perspective, the paper will investigate both the existence of similar "Times of Troubles" in older Southern African history, and of new causes of instability that endured until the lifaqane.
Paper short abstract:
This paper seeks to address the role of the Louis Trichardt trek party in the conflict between Dzanani Venda brothers Ramabulana and Ramavhoya, who both sought to be khosi (king) over the Dzanani Venda nation from 1836 to 1837, and the long term consequence of that disruption on Venda leadership.
Paper long abstract:
In late 1836, Louis Trichardt arrived with a small trek party to the southern edge of the Soutpansberg region of Southern Africa. Trichardt is of the geographically most far-reaching participants in the Groot Trek, and the only one to keep a detailed diary. The diary is invaluable for showing how the voortrekker settler colonialism in the South African interior, the Indigenous named Dzanani region, disrupted local Indigenous hierarchies and power structures.
Until 1829, the Venda leader was the khosi Munzhedzi Mpofu. After his death, a power struggle ensued between his two sons, Ramavhoya and Ramabulana. Ramavhoya succeeded his father as khosi of the Dzanani Venda, but tension remained between the brothers. When Trichardt arrived in 1836, the Venda factions vacated territory occupied by Trichardt's trek party. Ramabulana secured an alliance with Trichardt and the Mashaba Basotho, near the modern-day border with Zimbabwe and Limpopo. The strong alliance helped Ramabulana dethrone and execute his brother, and rule over the Dzanani Venda until 1864.
An analysis of the diary shows how the early settler colonial pursuits of the Dutch settlers influenced land distribution, and Indigenous power structures in the Soutpansberg region for the remainder of the nineteenth century. It seeks to answer the question: was the Mfecane the single consequence of the choices of Shaka Zulu? It will show that the Mfecane happened in a more interconnected context with the settler colonial pursuits of the Boers in the South African interior.
Paper short abstract:
Through their long migrations from South Africa, a group of Ngoni warriors settled in Burundi in the 1880s with a new identity, known as the Bagina clan. However, their settlement in Burundi posed problems for their integration in the Burundi society based on Hutu and Tutsi dichotomy.
Paper long abstract:
Historical research on Burundi (Mworoha 1987, Chrétien 1993) has shown that the Kingdom of Burundi in the 19th century was involved in many wars. Among these, Mworoha (1987 : 239-240) accounts for raids of the Ngoni in Eastern Burundi (ca. 1880-1890). He goes on saying that the political-military Zulu revolution initiated by Shaka at the beginning of the 19th century reached the shores of Lake Tanganyika. A group of Ngoni settled in the south-west of Lake Victoria, from where they launched raids on Burundi in the 1880s. Buyogoma (Eastern province of Burundi) suffered from the attacks of these terrible Ngoni warriors whom the Barundi people called the Babwibwi, which means "Barbarians".
A small group these Ngoni warriors settled in Eastern Burundi, and from these a new social group emerged, the Bagina clan. They were soon integrated among the Barundi people. Chrétien (1994) maintains that the Bagina were enrolled by local chiefs in eastern Burundi because they were appreciated for their knowledge in war tactics, magics, and healing powers.
This study seeks to show how Ngoni migrations from the Mfecane process affected the Barundi people who lived in the Great Lakes region, thousands of miles away from South-Africa. It examines the challenges of settlement of a group of Ngoni in the Burundi society, inventing a new identity, i.e. the Bagina clan. The study addresses also the problem of integration of the newcomers in the Barundi society, especially with respect to the Hutu / Tutsi dichotomy which was unknown to them.