The Zulus: The African Tribe that Fought Off the British
We tend to look down on tribal societies – thinking that if a people lived in staw or mud huts, there was no way they could compete with a great European Empire. So it’d be really embarrassing if the British lost to someone like that right? Meet the Zulu Empire. The African warrior civilization, which successfully resisted colonialization, longer than almost any other and survives gloriously into the 21st century. Let’s dive in, to the Zulu Empire.
The Zulu Empire: The basics
The Zulu Empire dominated South Africa from 1800 to 1900. They only lost control of their land after the invasion of the British in 1900, so reasonably recently by global standards. They were very different to a lot of the earlier African empires. They didn’t tend to build great buildings, there aren’t “Zulu ruins” in the way there are of Great Zimbabwe or Benin. They weren’t a nomadic tribe, but they tended to live in smaller villages, mainly made from straw and mud huts, each headed by a local chieftain. These villages then formed part of larger tribes and the tribes were all headed by one King.
The King who united the Zulus into one nation was Shaka. He is one of the most important people in African history, and is still well known and revered in a lot of Africa today. Shaka took his one tribe and invaded and conquered almost all the surrounding tribes within a decade (think Alexander the Great, or Genghis Khan). It is likely that more than 2 million people died during the wars that brought together the Zulu Empire. However, once he established dominance, Shaka set about creating a well-ordered state. He initiated many military, social, cultural, and political reforms including transforming the army, through innovative tactics and weapons (he created a new type of throwing spear called an Assegai). He was also a shrewd politician sidelining competitor power structures such as witch doctors and other spiritual movements, effectively ensuring the subservience of the “Zulu church” to the state.
Shaka was succeeded by a series of other Kings, until the British invaded in the late 1800s starting the Anglo Zulu War. Ultimately the Zulu’s lost, the British had guns and vastly more people. However, the Zulu’s won a large number of early victories, defeating the British through, what really looks like sheer tenacity. The most famous is the battle of Isandhlwana where 20,000 Zulu warriors, equipped with spears and traditional animal hide shields overwhelmed the British invaders, who were armed with breech-loading rifles and cannons. However, despite the defeat, the Zulu’s survive today as one of the dominant cultures in Southern Africa.
The Zulus: Surviving and thriving, despite the odds
We have a lot of hangups in the Western world about what it means to be a “civilization” or an “Empire”. Big buildings, preferably made of stone. Some metalwork, preferably swords and shields. Clothing that covers most of the body. Large centrally planned cities.
The Zulu Empire had very little of any of those things. However, they still managed to hold off the British empire invading with cannons and guns, while fighting with shields and spears. And despite their defeat, their culture has survived colonialism into the modern world, where many other native cultures have struggled to do so. And look, frankly in South African heat, would you really want to wear a suit and tie?
It’s time we appreciated the Zulus and the many other African tribes for what they were. A beautiful, advanced and sophisticated expression of human culture. A grand civilization and Empire.
