You mention upthread the zulus near wiping out the bantu in what became South Africa, well there was also a people previous to the bantu, wasn't there? ... this sort of thing has always been going on, and is still, for instance there has been recent ethnic cleansing of the bushmen in Namibia [too bad we don't have any uber-namibian posters to irritate, eh] .... a lot of early dutch colonisation there was in fact created on terra nulla, no natives present at all, but blacks moved in later for the work, as the zionists claim [much less accurately] happened in Palestine .... well, that turned out not to be considered valid argument anyway, c'est la vie ... now they're trying a wiser form of nationalism, more civic, inclusive
The Zulus are themselves Bantu. The just set in motion a calamitous chain reaction that killed a very large number of other Bantu.
The origins of the Bantu people are not really known. Linguists have tried to pin it in north central to West Africa, with migrations eastward and southward starting maybe 3000 years ago. By around 1400 AD they founded a civilization in central Zimbabwe, leaving the largest structural ruins in Africa south of the Sahara (Great Zimbabwe). If you ever stray through the area, it is well worth a visit.
There were much older inhabitants of southern Africa, first the Bushmen, then the Hottentots. The Bushmen were hunter/gathers, the Hottentots who largely displaced them in the western Cape where hunters but also agrarian. When the first whites, the Portuguese (Bartholomew Diaz 1488), came to the Cape region, these were the inhabitants. Both Bushmen and Hottentots were smaller, and more yellow complexioned than the later Bantu people. Both suffered greatly from European diseases as well as more direct means.
The Dutch came in 1652 (Jan van Riebeeck) and started a colony where Capetown is today. The Dutch Boers developed a very independent agrarian lifestyle, with each generation needing another 6000-acre farm (or several) for each son. The Hottentots became slaves, interbred, or died. They don't exist anymore, although some of their genes survive in the mixed race descendants of S. Africa. All comers killed the Bushmen (although kids were spared to become domestic house servants).
By 1770 the Boers had advanced about 500 miles along the southern coast from Capetown to the Great Kei River (about by East London of today). Across the river they met the Xhosa, the first Bantu people, who were slowly creeping southwest for the same reasons the Boers where creeping northeast: cattle and land. Both groups ground to a halt.
Meanwhile another 400 miles along the coast to the northeast a clan of about 4K Bantu's known as the Mtetwa were ruled by an aging chief Jobe. One of his sons, eager to ascend the thrown, plotted to hasten Jobe's departure, but was preempted. He lived as fugitive and changed his name to Dingiswayo (Troubled One). During his exile, he met a lone white man Robert Cowan with a band of Hottentots trying to reach Delagoa Bay. Cowan's party never arrived, but Dingiswayo may have acquired some odd (for Bantu) ideas, (as well as a horse and a gun) for when he ascended to the leadership of the Mtetwa (around 1810), they commenced an ascendancy without former parallel in those regions. He built a standing army, conquered his neighboring clans, and incorporated them into a Mtetwa empire. He was quite enlightened in his government however, being very willing to chain the dogs of war.
A character named Shaka became one of his regimental commanders and eventually sat on his council. Shaka was from a small set of clans on the edge of the Mtetwa hegemony, the amaZulu. When the amaZulu chief died, Dingiswayo installed Shaka as their chief, to maintain a friendly buffer (his archenemies the Ndwandwe ruled by Zwide were to the north). Shaka commenced to whip the Zulu into shape, at least those he didn’t kill. Unlike Dingiswayo, Shaka smashed his opponents, and incorporated the remnants into the Zulu clan. Shaka and Dingiswayo remained pals, and coordinated on military goals wrt to neighbors.
In 1817, Shaka and Dingiswayo decided to have a little expedition against a chief named Matiwane of a fairly powerful clan, the amaNgwaneni, who lived in the foothills of the Drakensberg Range. This character was beyond the boarders of the Mtetwa hegemony, but stirred up trouble as he chose. Matiwane had good intel regarding the expedition, so he sent all his cattle (the main Bantu possession) to a neighboring clan the amaHlubi further in the Drakensberg for safe keeping. He fought a very brief engagement with the Mtetwe, was lectured by Dingiswayo on the principles of good behavior, and much to Shaka’s disgust was now off the hook. Matiwane then sent to the amaHlubi for his cattle and was refused. While Matiwane considered the prospects of a campaign against the mountain dwelling amaHlubi to regain his cattle, Zwide (the powerful Ndwandwe) chose the moment to attack since he figured Matiwane would already be badly brusied from his encounter with Dingiswayo & Co. Zwide evicted Matiwane and the his amaNgwaneni from there ancestral homeland.
The problem was now this. All of the above Bantu tribes inhabited the pleasant coastal strip between the extended mountain ranges that run somewhat parallel to the coast (including the Drakensberg) and the sea. The Boers blocked the south. Across the interior mountain range was a high plateau (the Orange Free State of S. Africa) but this was well populated with other Bantu tribes (the Sutu). The past century or so had been a Golden Age for the agrarian Bantu in their aimless southern expansion since Bushmen and Hottentots were no match militarily.
Zwide, for the first time had seized the livelihood of a large mass of people, and driven them from their land. Matiwane turned into the Drakensberg with a conquer or starve mentality, and massacred a sizeable chunk of the amaHlubi including their various sub-clans, thus regaining his cattle and some territory. The remaining amaHlubi, fled over the Drakensberg and fell on the Sutu clans with a similar vengeance. Meanwhile Matiwane settled his people in the lower mountain foothills where he enjoyed some peace until 1822.
In 1822 Shaka and the Zulu where the major power, as Dingiswayo was dead and the Mtetwa in decline. Dingiswayo had gone on an expedition against Zwide, who sent a young female peace offering, which Dingiswayo used while continuing the advance. The peace offering however, escaped back to Zwide with a sample of Dingiswayo’s semen. Zwide’s witchdoctors used this powerful substance to hatch some incantations against Dingiswayo. The later wandered of alone from his camp, and was captured by some of Zwides spies and hauled off to meet the latter. Zwide was very polite for a few days while trying to comprehend if there were some plot involved, after which he pounded some wooden pegs into Dingiswayo’s nostrils and had his head cut off. Zwide’s mother collected such items.
When the Zulu impis headed for Matiwane in 1822, he wisely forsook his cattle and land, headed over the Drakensberg and fell on the Sutu clans as the amaHlubi had been doing for five years. Eventually something like 2.5 million people in the central plateau where displaced in what became known as the Mfecane (the crushing). Between 1 or 2M died in a decade of chaos which more or less depopulated the Orange Free State prior to the arrival of the Boers around 1836.
So, if you want to call it terra nulla, I suppose you can, but I just wanted you to understand the context. Sorry for the lengthy post! |
