Transformations in Southern Africa after 1750

By the late 1700s the region was home to many independent African chiefdoms - not empty land waiting to be settled.

Along the fertile eastern coast lived Nguni-speaking chiefdoms; on the highveld lived Sotho-Tswana communities. Most were mixed farmers who herded cattle and grew sorghum and maize, and were organised into chiefdoms of varying size.

• Cattle were wealth, status and the basis of political loyalty.
• Trade in ivory and cattle linked the interior to the Portuguese port at Delagoa Bay (Maputo).
• Growing populations meant more competition for land, water and grazing.

A period of widespread warfare, migration and political change in the early nineteenth century.

Mfecane is a Nguni word often translated as 'the crushing' or 'the scattering'; Difaqane (or Lifaqane) is the Sotho-Tswana term for the same upheaval, usually dated to roughly 1815 to 1840. Chiefdoms fought, broke apart and re-formed, and large numbers of people were displaced.

• Small chiefdoms were absorbed into larger, more centralised kingdoms.
• Refugees moved across the highveld, disrupting communities far from the coast.
• New states such as the Zulu, Ndebele, Sotho, Swazi and Gaza kingdoms took shape.

Historians disagree about the causes. A good answer weighs several factors rather than blaming one person.

Before Shaka, Chief Dingiswayo of the Mthethwa reorganised how young men served the state.

Dingiswayo built the Mthethwa into a dominant power among the northern Nguni. He is associated with organising young men into amabutho - age-regiments that served the chief - which strengthened central authority and military capacity.

• Amabutho grouped men by age rather than by clan, binding them to the ruler.
• Dingiswayo took the young Shaka under his protection and promoted him.
• After Dingiswayo was killed by a rival, Shaka absorbed the Mthethwa into a growing Zulu power.

From about 1816 Shaka kaSenzangakhona turned a small chiefdom into the region's most powerful state.

Shaka's state concentrated power, cattle and people under the king.

The Zulu kingdom controlled cattle, land and the labour of the regiments through the king. This centralisation made the state strong, but it also created tensions. In 1828 Shaka was assassinated by his half-brothers Dingane and Mhlangana; Dingane then took the throne.

• The amabutho could not marry until the king released them, keeping men in service.
• Tribute in cattle and grain flowed to the royal capital.
• Under Dingane the kingdom soon faced a new threat: the Voortrekkers of the Great Trek.

Groups fleeing or breaking away from the conflict carried the upheaval far inland and beyond.

As chiefdoms were conquered or chose to leave, leaders founded new states well beyond Zululand. Mzilikazi, once one of Shaka's commanders, broke away and led the Ndebele (Matabele) onto the highveld and eventually north across the Limpopo into present-day Zimbabwe.

• Mzilikazi's Ndebele raided and reshaped highveld communities before settling near Bulawayo.
• Soshangane founded the Gaza kingdom in what is now southern Mozambique.
• Sobhuza I gathered peoples in the north to form the core of the Swazi kingdom.

Not every response was warfare - some leaders built security through diplomacy and shelter.

On the highveld Moshoeshoe I gathered refugees and scattered communities and built a new Basotho (Sotho) nation. From about 1824 he made his stronghold on the flat-topped mountain of Thaba Bosiu, which was easy to defend against raiders.

• He absorbed and protected people fleeing the Difaqane, growing his following.
• He used diplomacy, cattle loans and marriage alliances as well as defence.
• The kingdom he founded became the basis of modern Lesotho.

1. c.1795 Dingiswayo builds Mthethwa power and the amabutho system
2. c.1816 Shaka becomes Zulu chief and begins expansion
3. c.1821 Mzilikazi breaks away and leads the Ndebele inland
4. c.1824 Moshoeshoe settles at Thaba Bosiu, building the Basotho kingdom
5. 1828 Shaka assassinated; Dingane takes the Zulu throne
6. 1830s Difaqane reshapes the highveld; Great Trek reaches the interior

In the 1980s and 1990s historians questioned the traditional story of the Mfecane itself.

The historian Julian Cobbing argued that the idea of a self-contained African 'Mfecane' had been used as an alibi - a cover story that blamed African violence while hiding European slave-raiding from Delagoa Bay and labour raiding on the Cape frontier. Other historians, such as Elizabeth Eldredge, questioned parts of his argument and offered a middle position.

The concept of the Mfecane has been used to explain away the role of outsiders in the violence of the period. Paraphrase of the argument associated with Julian Cobbing (1988)

• Traditional view: internal African causes, centred on Shaka and the Zulu.
• Revisionist view: European raiding and labour demand drove much of the disruption.
• Most historians now favour a combination of internal and external causes.

The upheaval left lasting political, social and demographic changes.

By about 1840 the political map of southern Africa looked very different. A few large, centralised kingdoms had replaced many small chiefdoms, and the movement of people had emptied and repopulated large areas. Some regions of the highveld appeared less densely settled to arriving Voortrekkers - a fact used to justify claims of 'empty land'.

• Powerful new kingdoms: Zulu, Ndebele, Swazi, Gaza and Basotho.
• The amabutho model of a centralised, militarised state spread widely.
• The disruption shaped how, and where, later colonial settlement took place.

The period after 1750 reshaped southern Africa's kingdoms, peoples and borders - and it remains actively debated.

You have traced the Mfecane/Difaqane, the rise of the Zulu kingdom under Shaka, the founding of new states by Mzilikazi, Sobhuza and Moshoeshoe, and the historians' debate about what caused it all.