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The Legendary Story of the Warrior Chief, Shaka Zulu · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Beyond Infographics, the show where we take
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: those neat tidy history charts and just pull them apart
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to see the incredibly complex, often messy machinery working underneath.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: And today we are tackling a name that commands attention,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: a figure who casts an immense shadow over two centuries
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: of history. Shaka Zulu Shaka.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the name itself is synonymous with military genius, state building,
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  Speaker 1: and of course terrifying brutality.
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  Speaker 2: I must cartoonist brutality in some of the accounts. He
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  Speaker 2: is this giant historical.
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  Speaker 1: Figure, absolutely, But today we're actually moving beyond Shaka the man.
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  Speaker 1: Our focus is more on the idea of Shaka, the
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  Speaker 1: historical construct, and the well the enormous role that idea
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: played in shaping our understanding of Southern Africa through a
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  Speaker 1: single concept, the king.
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  Speaker 2: That's the key, the feaking or in the Sotho Tswana form,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: the defecane. It's a term that our generations described this
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: supposed tidal wave of warfare, famine, and mass migration that
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  Speaker 2: just swept across Southern Africa in the eighteen twenties and
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  Speaker 2: eighteen thirties.
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  Speaker 1: Right, and for so long, the story was clean simple
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  Speaker 1: and honestly pretty dramatic. Shaka's new, explosive Zulu kingdom was
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  Speaker 1: the engine, the single cause of all this chaos, the
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Zulu aftermath, it was, and.
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  Speaker 2: That idea is why you see all those old historical maps,
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  Speaker 2: the ones with the big bold arrows crisscrossing the continent.
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  Speaker 2: Every group is fleeing, migrating, conquering, And if you follow
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  Speaker 2: every one of those arrows back, they all point to
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  Speaker 2: a single origin.
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  Speaker 1: To Shaka's regiments in Natal, every single one. And our
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: mission in this deep dive is to basically re scramble
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that entire narrative. We're going to move beyond the Zulu
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  Speaker 1: aftermath and show how the real drivers of these massive
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: upheavals were far more complex.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: We're talking about non Zulu factors, long distance trade for one,
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  Speaker 2: indigenous rivalries that were going on long before Shaka, and
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: this is the big one, the relentless pressure of set
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: or expansion, rating and slaving coming from the Cape frontier.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: We want to show you how that history was written,
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  Speaker 1: why those maps were drawn that way, and how it
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  Speaker 1: was often groups armed with horses and guns, bores korra
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  Speaker 1: greco raiders, who are the real destabilizing force, not just
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  Speaker 1: the Zulu spears exactly. We are aiming to give you
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  Speaker 1: those aha moments that reshape how you see the entire
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century in Africa. And if you find this deep
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: dive helpful, please take a moment and give Beyond Infographics
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a five star rating. It really helps us reach more
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: people who are curious enough to look beyond the simple charts.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So where do we start? How was this chain forged?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's start there. How did the idea that Shaka
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: was the single motor of all this chaos becomes such
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: an unquestioned fact for so so long.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's a long story. It's an evolution. Really. It
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: starts with very early colonial reports, but it doesn't get
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: its really authoritative academic stamp until surprisingly late in the
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: mid twentieth century. Okay, the framework that really solidified the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: whole concept comes from a hugely influential book from nineteen
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: sixty six, John Omercooper's The Zulu Aftermath.
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  Speaker 1: Right, The Zulu Aftermath. He basically gave all these disparate
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: stories one single academic title and a structure. So what
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: were the core components he laid out?
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  Speaker 2: He built it on three main pillars. First, that Southern
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  Speaker 2: Africa did in fact experience this massive region ride chain
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  Speaker 2: reaction of war and migration in the eighteen twenties and thirties.
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  Speaker 2: That part's not really in.
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  Speaker 1: Dispute, Okay, a huge upheaval happened.
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  Speaker 2: Right second, and this is the absolute core of the
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  Speaker 2: traditional model. He argued that this chain reaction was set
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  Speaker 2: in motion almost exclusively by one thing, the explosive expansion
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  Speaker 2: of the Zulu kingdom under Shaka, the first domino, the
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  Speaker 2: first and only domino that mattered. And his third point
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  Speaker 2: was that this chaos was actually a constructive process, that
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  Speaker 2: out of all this destruction, new large or more centralized
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  Speaker 2: African states were born.
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  Speaker 1: So he's pointing to kingdoms like the Sotho under Mushweshwe,
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  Speaker 1: or the Indo Bealle exactly.
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  Speaker 2: The Indella's Andngoni states far to the north. He framed
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  Speaker 2: the memphicane not just as destruction, but as a revolutionary
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  Speaker 2: process of nation building.
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  Speaker 1: So the idea of blaming Shaka really goes back to
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  Speaker 1: the very first Europeans on the coast, doesn't it.
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  Speaker 2: It does all the way back to the eighteen twenties.
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  Speaker 2: You have British traders setting up shop at Port Natal.
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  Speaker 2: Guys like Henry Francis Finn and Nathaniel Isaacs, they're the
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  Speaker 2: first to write about seeing this mass depopulation of the
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  Speaker 2: lands around them.
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  Speaker 1: And they immediately point the finger at Shaka immediately.
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  Speaker 2: And at the same time, you have Cape Colony officials
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  Speaker 2: and missionaries hundreds of miles away who are dealing with
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  Speaker 2: refugees arriving on their eastern frontier, and for them, it's
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  Speaker 2: incredibly convenient to blame a distant, monstrous figure Shaka, as
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  Speaker 2: one pushing all these people towards them.
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  Speaker 1: It's a simple explanation for a complex problem on their border.
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  Speaker 1: And for the traders, a villain sells books.
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  Speaker 2: The lurid villain sells a lot of books, and that
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  Speaker 2: convenience just grows and grows through the mid nineteenth century,
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  Speaker 2: as white settlers start moving further inland, they need justification for.
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  Speaker 1: Taking land, and the Fakane narrative provides the perfect backstory.
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  Speaker 2: It's the perfect historical backdrop. It establishes that the region
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  Speaker 2: was already a place of chaos and violence before the
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  Speaker 2: Europeans arrived. So European intervention isn't conquest.
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  Speaker 1: You see, it's peacekeeping. It's a civilizing mission and a
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  Speaker 1: land torn apart by African despots.
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  Speaker 2: You've got it. And this is where historians start, almost literally,
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  Speaker 2: redrawing the maps of the past to fit the politics
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  Speaker 2: of the present.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about George Thiel. He's called the father of
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  Speaker 1: South African history, but he plays a pretty central role
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  Speaker 1: in expanding this myth, doesn't.
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  Speaker 2: He He's the perfect example of how political ambition shapes
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  Speaker 2: historical writing. So in the late eighteen hundreds, thel is
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  Speaker 2: writing the definitive History of South Africa. In his eighteen
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  Speaker 2: ninety version, he has Shaka's wars and influence contained roughly
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  Speaker 2: south of the Limpopo.
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  Speaker 1: River, which was at the time more or less the
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  Speaker 1: accepted boundary of South Africa.
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  Speaker 2: It was, But then what happens in the eighteen nineties
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  Speaker 2: Cecil Roads. He's aggressively pushing the Britgeish Empire north, absorbing
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  Speaker 2: huge territories all the way up to the Zambizi fighting
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  Speaker 2: groups like the endebl So.
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  Speaker 1: The political map is expanding rapidly.
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  Speaker 2: The map is expanding, and theol's history expands right along
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  Speaker 2: with it. By his nineteen oh one edition, his account
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  Speaker 2: of the Wars of Shaka has been retroactively stretched to
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  Speaker 2: include every single major migration across the Zambizi.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, So the Bengeni in modern day Tanzania, the Gaza
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  Speaker 1: Kingdom in Mozambique, all.
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  Speaker 2: Of them, the Cololo in the Upper Zambizi. Suddenly they
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  Speaker 2: are all just part of Shaka's aftermath, its historical causation
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  Speaker 2: being tailored to legitimize contemporary imperial claims.
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  Speaker 1: Its cartography following the flag.
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  Speaker 2: And to sell this expanded narrative, he leaned on a
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  Speaker 2: really destructive racist stereotype, the idea of marauding hordes.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, what does that mean?
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  Speaker 2: Steal actually dug up these old lurid Portuguese accounts from
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  Speaker 2: the sixteenth century descriptions of these supposedly cannibalistic invaders called
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  Speaker 2: the Zimba, and he explicitly compared those historical nightmares to
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  Speaker 2: the displaced groups of the eighteen twenties, like the people
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  Speaker 2: led by Mantitisi on the High Belt.
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  Speaker 1: So he is not just describing war, He's painting a
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  Speaker 1: picture of irrational inhuman chaos.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, he's embedding this idea that these African groups were
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  Speaker 2: just rootless bands. You know, Roman around pillaging, killing, even
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  Speaker 2: eating each other. And that stereotype is so useful because
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  Speaker 2: it implies that African history is just self destruction, which
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  Speaker 2: of course demands the arrival of European order.
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  Speaker 1: So you have decades of reports, maps being redrawn and
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  Speaker 1: this racist stereotype. Who's the one who finally pulls it
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  Speaker 1: all together into one massive, seemingly authoritative story.
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  Speaker 2: That would be the missionary Alfred Bryant. In nineteen twenty
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  Speaker 2: nine he publishes Olden Times in Zululand and Natal and
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  Speaker 2: it is a monumental work, incredibly detailed. He has whole
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  Speaker 2: chapters on every single migrating group, the Fingoes, the loubithing wine, and.
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  Speaker 1: He used oral testimonies right, which gave it this veneer
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  Speaker 1: of authenticity, a huge.
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  Speaker 2: Venear of authenticity. He did extensive interviews, so it seemed
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  Speaker 2: to be grounded in real indigenous sources. The problem, of course,
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  Speaker 2: is that he filtered everything through his own colonial worldview,
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  Speaker 2: so Olden Times becomes the standard reference, the big source
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  Speaker 2: books for the entire Ficaine idea.
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  Speaker 1: And then Omer Cooper comes along in nineteen sixty six,
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  Speaker 1: Givesn't the academic title and codifies it.
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  Speaker 2: He takes Brian's compilation rebrands it as a singular event,
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  Speaker 2: the Fatane, and uses it to write his history of
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  Speaker 2: an African Revolution.
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  Speaker 1: But wait, that seems like a huge contradiction. Omer Cooper
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  Speaker 1: was part of this new generation of liberal Africanist historians
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  Speaker 1: in the sixties. They were writing to support decolonization, to
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  Speaker 1: show that Africa had a history.
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  Speaker 2: It's a profound historical irony, and it's something the revisionist
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  Speaker 2: historian Julian Cobbing really exposed. Omer Cooper and his peers.
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  Speaker 2: They wanted to show that African history had shape and purpose.
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  Speaker 2: They saw the Bohmficaine as this revolutionary furnace that forged
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  Speaker 2: modern states.
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  Speaker 1: A constructive process, as you said, right.
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  Speaker 2: But in their search for that structure, they uncritically pick
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  Speaker 2: up the template that had been built by decades of
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  Speaker 2: colonial chronics. They accepted the Wars of Shaka as the
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  Speaker 2: unquestionable starting point for everything.
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  Speaker 1: So in an effort to write a history of African
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  Speaker 1: nation building, they ended up entrenching the colonial myth of
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  Speaker 1: a despotic monster who unleashes chaos.
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  Speaker 2: That's exactly what happened. The focus staid laser sharp on
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  Speaker 2: the Zulu Kingdom as the sole agent of change, while
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  Speaker 2: the Cape Frontier, the real source of guns, horses, slaving
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  Speaker 2: and raiding, was just sort of background noise. It took
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  Speaker 2: until Cobbing's work in nineteen eighty eight to finally and
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  Speaker 2: forcefully break those chains.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's break them. Let's move into the revisionist
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  Speaker 1: view and look at those arrows on the map one
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  Speaker 1: by one.
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  Speaker 2: The central argument from Cobbing and others is that the
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  Speaker 2: whole idea of Zulu expansion as the primary cause is
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  Speaker 2: just structurally flawed. To really get what's going on, you
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  Speaker 2: have to look at the interactions with bor Korra, Grica,
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  Speaker 2: British and Portuguese raiders and traders that started hitting these
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  Speaker 2: societies way back in the mid eighteenth century.
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  Speaker 1: So we need to stop looking for one big arrow
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  Speaker 1: pointing out of Zuli land and start looking at all
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  Speaker 1: complicated arrows pointing in from all sides. Let's start on
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  Speaker 1: the eastern Cape Frontier with the Fingos.
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  Speaker 2: Right, The traditional Fingo narrative is really powerful. They are
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  Speaker 2: the Amamfengu destitute wanderers who fled Shaka's armies, were oppressed
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  Speaker 2: by the Exosa, and then were heroically rescued by the
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  Speaker 2: British in eighteen thirty five.
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  Speaker 1: It's a story that gives them a collective identity and
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  Speaker 1: makes them useful allies for the colonists precisely.
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  Speaker 2: But when you actually dig into the original movements, that
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  Speaker 2: whole story starts to fall apart. For starters, the first
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  Speaker 2: groups moving south away from that northern region in the
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  Speaker 2: late eighteen tens, they were almost certainly fleeing Zwides in Juanwi.
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  Speaker 1: Kingdom, not Shaka Zulus.
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  Speaker 2: No, at that time, the unwan We were the dominant
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  Speaker 2: military power in the area. Shaka Zulu Poality was still
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  Speaker 2: relatively small. But Zuai doesn't make for us spectacular villains,
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  Speaker 2: so he gets sidelined in the story.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, And what about the idea that the land was
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  Speaker 1: just completely depopulated and devastated.
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  Speaker 2: The evidence doesn't really support that. Virtually depopulated is a
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  Speaker 2: huge exaggeration. What seems to have happened is that people
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  Speaker 2: clustered together for safety in more defensible areas, abandoning the open,
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  Speaker 2: more vulnerable.
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  Speaker 1: Lands, So strategic retreat, not total annihilation exactly.
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  Speaker 2: And the real conflict drivers in that specific area between
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: them Zimculu and men Zimboubu rivers were coming from multiple
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  Speaker 2: directions and most weren't Zulu, so.
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  Speaker 1: What were they?
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  Speaker 2: You had Guany and Sotho groups moving down from the
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  Speaker 2: high Veld who are being displaced themselves, and critically, you
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: have the arrival of a huge British military force in
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  Speaker 2: eighteen twenty eight.
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  Speaker 1: Let's focus on that British force because their official story
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  Speaker 1: is always that they're there to stabilize the frontier.
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  Speaker 2: Right, But the practical effect of that eighteen twenty eight
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  Speaker 2: incursion was to create a massive opportunity for plunder. The
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: British invasion gave their Boer allies and some of their
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  Speaker 2: Etosa and Thimbu allies the perfect cover to sweep in
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  Speaker 2: and seize huge mounts of cattle and importantly captives from
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  Speaker 2: these displaced groups.
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  Speaker 1: So the Fingos is less about fleeing Shaka and more
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  Speaker 1: about getting caught in the violent expansion of the Cape
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  Speaker 1: colony itself.
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  Speaker 2: It belongs far more to the history of the Eastern
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  Speaker 2: Cape frontier and colonial opportunism than it does to the
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  Speaker 2: Zulu Kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, let's move inland to the Highveld. The stereotype here
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: is even stronger. The Nguane under their chief Matiwane, are
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  Speaker 1: hit by the Nuanwei and then driven clean over the
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  Speaker 1: Drakensburg Mountains by Shaka.
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  Speaker 2: And that supposedly kicks off the whole chain reaction on
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the Highveld, the wars, the starvation, even stories of cannibalism.
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  Speaker 1: But the revisionist argument is that this view just completely
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: ignores what the High Veld was already like.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does. The High Beld was not some peaceful,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: isolated place that was suddenly shattered. For at least two
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: decades before the Iguan even arrived, it was being heavily
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: violently destabilized by external.
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  Speaker 1: Forces, specifically from the Cape, from the.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Cape Bore commandos, but also and maybe even more importantly,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: by Cora and Greeka raiders coming out of the Middle
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Orange River region.
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  Speaker 1: And these weren't just far. The Korra and Grico were
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: highly militarized.
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  Speaker 2: Immensely effective and destructive. They were mobile, they had horses,
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  Speaker 2: and crucially they had firearms that they got through trade
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  Speaker 2: with the Cape colony. And their entire economy was based
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  Speaker 2: on raiding deep into the interior for two things, cattle
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  Speaker 2: and increasingly human slaves for the Cape market. So the
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: people of the Hyaveld were already being forced to centralize,
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  Speaker 2: to militarize, to move, or to die long before Shaka
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: became a major power.
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  Speaker 1: So when Matiuani and the Enguan come over the mountains,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: they're not entering a peaceful land. They're walking into a
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: war zone that's already been ravaged for years by slavers
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  Speaker 1: on horseback.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely, the violence was endemic, and Matiwani's final decision to
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: move his people out of the Kaladon Valley in eighteen
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  Speaker 2: twenty eight, that wasn't because he was afraid of the Zulus,
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  Speaker 2: who were hundreds of kilometers away.
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  Speaker 1: So what was it.
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  Speaker 2: It was a direct response to threats from all sides.
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  Speaker 2: He had the Endebla to his north, but the most
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: relentless pressure was coming from the west and southwest, the Cora,
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: the Griqua, and the Boers.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: So if the region was already so volatile because of
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: these colonial linked raids, why were historians for so long
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: so insistent on blaming Shaka.
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  Speaker 2: Because blaming Shaka served the colonial narrative. It made the
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: violence look like it was internal to Africa, like it
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: was irrational. It conveniently hid the fact that the first,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: longest running and most technologically advanced source of destabilization was
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: the colonial frontier itself.
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  Speaker 1: It's a smoke screen.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: The Mafki narrative was a perfect smoke screen for colonial
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: driven violence.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go even further afield the colonal migration all
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the way to the upper Zambizi. This one seems like
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a real stretch to link to Shaka.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's the best example of how artificial the whole
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: chain is. The supposed link is ridiculously thin. Shaka attacks
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: the Engwine, who attacked the Cloqua, who attacked the Colo,
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  Speaker 2: who then wandered for twenty years. Omer Cooper himself could
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: only make the connection by this incredibly attenuated sort of
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: historical game of telephone.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: And in doing that he ignores the actual contemporary history
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: of Central Africa that they were walking into.
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  Speaker 2: Completely ignores it. When the Cololo moved north into what's
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: now Zambia and Botswana, they're entering a zone that is
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: buzzing with economic activity, specifically the long distance trade in
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: ifree and slaves.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: So they're not just fleeing randomly, they're moving towards an
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: economic opportunity.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly these trade networks were huge run out of Portuguese
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Angola to the west and the powerful London kingdoms to
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  Speaker 2: the north. The Cololo migration was a strategic move to
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: seize control of a piece of that action. It's a
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: story that belongs to the political and economic history of
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Central Africa.
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  Speaker 1: But linking it back to Shaka a thousand kilometers away
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  Speaker 1: makes it a footnote instead of a main story.
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  Speaker 2: It makes them passive victims of a distant chaos rather
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: than active agents in their own regional economy.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: All right, let's turn to the northeast, the Gaza Kingdom
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  Speaker 1: and Thengoni. The stereotype is that they're founders. So Shenghan
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and Zwangandaba fled north after Shaka crushed in Duanwei Kingdom
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: around eighteen twenty, and.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Again the premises flowed from the start. Swide's in Wanwe
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Kingdom wasn't annihilated, It more likely broke apart from the
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: inside because of internal rivalries and tensions after a defeat
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: by the Zulus.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So the leaders like Sushangan weren't just flinging in terror.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: No, they were ambitious leaders, taking their followers to go
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: carve out their own kingdoms. They were seizing an opportunity.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: And what was Sushanghan's opportunity in moving into Mozambique.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: It was all about the money, pure and simple. He
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: was moving to establish control over the booming trade at
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Delaga Bay. The Portuguese were there, and the demand for
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: ivory and especially slaves for places like Brazil was just
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: exploding in the eighteen twenties.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: So he takes the military system he learned in the
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: south and applies it to controlling the trade routes to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the coast. He becomes a merchant king.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: A very powerful one. The Gaza state was deeply involved
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: in the slave trade from its very beginning. Its history
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: is about engaging with Portuguese, Swazi and Padi politics to
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: ploit that coastal economic hub. It has very little to
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: do with being an aftermath of a Zulu war, and.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: The Nngoni traveled even further thousands of kilometers north.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Right, and historians of that region are quite clear the
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: history of the Angoni groups makes much more sense when
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: you delink them from Zulu history entirely and place them
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: within the history of eastern Zambisia. Their stories about local politics, agriculture,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: and their own engagement with long distance trade, not about
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: something that happened thirty years earlier, three thousand kilometers away.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, last one Menzilikazi and the Endo Balle the classic story.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: He's one of Shaka's commanders, he defies him, flees west,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: builds an empire, and is finally pushed over the Limpopo
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: by the Boers.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: And we see the same pattern. Zilikazi's initial move was
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: probably to get away from the Endwandwe, not the Zulu.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And while fear of Shaka was certainly a factor in
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: his later moves, it was one among.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Many, including the Korra and Greek Oraiders.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, he was moving into that same high veld
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: cauldron and had to contend with the slave trade expanding
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: from Delagoa Bay and the constant threat of mounted armed
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: raiders from the south. He wasn't just building a state
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: in a vacuum. He was building a defensive military machine.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: But the decisive push, the thing that finally sends him
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: north into modern Zimbabwe, that wasn't the Zulu, not at all.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: The decisive factor was his defeat at the hands of
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: the Boor trekkers in the late eighteen thirties that's a
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: crucial point.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: It was the expanding White frontier, not a rival African kingdom,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: that forced.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Him out absolutely. And after eighteen forty the history of
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: the endeval A is completely tied up with the Bores,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: the Swan of the Portuguese and eventually the British. It
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: has and I'm quoting here nothing to do with that
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: of the Zulu kingdom.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So if you look at all five of these cases,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the revisionist view is just overwhelming. Shaka was a catalyst
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: maybe for a few of these moves, but the scale,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the direction, the endurance of these migrations that was driven
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: by trade, by slaving, and most of all by the
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: violent expansion of the Cape frontier.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: In the chains of the Mechiane.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: And now that we've put Shako back in his proper context,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: we can look at his actual genius. He was a
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: military revolutionary. But the amazing thing is the system he used.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: He inherited it.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: He was handed the blueprint by a king who is
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: now almost totally forgotten, his mentor, Dingisueo.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Denisueo, chief of the Mattathwa Empire and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: really the architect of the whole system.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: His origin story is key to understanding everything that came after.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: He was born got Agwana. But after a failed coup
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: against his father around seventeen eighty seven, he was forced
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: into exile. He became a fugitive, the banished one.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: And that exile became his education. While other princes were
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: learning politics at court, he was learning how the world
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: actually worked.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: It was a revolutionary education. He wandered for years, learned
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: new languages, saw new customs, and the oral traditions are
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: strong on this. During his travels, he encountered foreign military ideas,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: whether he actually met a European explorer or just saw
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Portuguese soldiers drilling near Delago Obay. He grasped the potential
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: of organization, of discipline.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: He saw that traditional Nguni warfare, which is often more
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of a chaotic brawl, could be replaced by a professional.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Machine, a state built machine. And when he finally returned
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: and seized power, he launched the Efthethua Revolution, built on
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: three pillars that Chaka would inherit wholesale. The first was
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: military reform.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: How did he change the army?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: He took the traditional amabudo, the age grade regiments where
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: young men served their local chief, and he professionalized them.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: He created a standing.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Army so they weren't just called up for a fight.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: They were soldiers full time, full.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Time, They lived in royal barracks, they drilled constantly, and
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: their loyalty was systematically transferred from their local clan leader
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: directly to Dingiswayo and the state. That centralization was the
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: engine Shaka later used.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And an army like that costs money. What was the
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: economic pillar?
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: His location was key. He was near the coast. He
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: secured trade routes to Delagoa Bay and began a massive
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: trade in ivory with the portage that brought in wealth, cloth, beads, iron,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: which he used to fund his army and reward his followers.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: He was a merchant king and his.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Political strategy was very different from what Shako would later.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Practice, completely different. His third pillar was assimilation, not annihilation.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: When he defeated the neighbor, he usually allowed the chief
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: to remain in power as long as they swore loyalty
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: to him and sent their young men to join his army.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: He built a stable confederation of over thirty chiefdoms. He
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: created allies, not a landscape of enemies.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: So he builds the system and then he spots Shaka.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: He had an incredible eye for talent. Shaka was an outcast,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: an illegitimate son. Driven by this ruthless ambition, Ingisueo saw
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: that fire, took him under his wing and promoted him
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: to be a senior commander in his most elite regiment.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: The ultimate mentorship. Shaka didn't invent the standing army, He
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: just perfected how it fought.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: He perfected the mechanics. With Dengusuea's blessing, he introduced the innovations.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: The Zulus became famous for the short stay abbing spear,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: the equa to force close quarters combat, the large shield
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: for hooking, the brutal training, running barefoot over thorns to
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: toughen their feet.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And the horns of the buffalo formation.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: The tactical masterpiece, the central chest to absorb the enemy attack,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the horns to encircle them, and the loins held in reserve.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: He radicalized the Metthethwah.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Army, and Dingisueo enabled his rise to power directly. Didn't he?
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: He did. When Shaka's father died in eighteen sixteen, Dingusueo
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: gave him a full Mathuthwa regiment to go back and
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: seize control of the small Zulu clan, which he did
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: by killing his half brother. Shaka was a loyal vassal.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: But then disaster strikes and it creates the power vacuum
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that changes everything.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Around eighteen eighteen, Dengisueo is captured and executed by his
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: great rivals. Wide of the Unwuanwei and the Tithwa Confederacy,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: which was held together by Digisueo's personal diplomacy, just shatters overnight.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: The center cannot hold, and Shaka, who has the best
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: troops and the most ambition, moves with as you said,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: lightning speed. He absorbs the now leaderless Mathethwa regiments into
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: his own Zulu army in an instant. He inherits this
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: massive professional military machine, and he.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Immediately turns it ons wide.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: He uses that machine to crush wide in the Zulu
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Civil War and forge the Zulu kingdom. He inherited the tools,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: but he chose to rule with terror where his mentor
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: had used diplomacy.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Which brings us right back to Shaka's personal reputation. Was
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: he a nation building genius or a genocidal maniac?
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Well, the modern historical consensus tries to sidestep that a bit.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Judging historical figures by today's morality is tricky. The focus
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: is more on his impact, and there's no question he
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: was a competent, effective ruler, even if, as one historian
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: put it, he was maybe a three or four out
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: of ten as a person.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: But the public imagination is still gripped by these anecdotes
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of his extreme cruelty. The stories that create the monster narrative.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, they are powerful. There are three that really define
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: the myth. First, the stories of his sadistic punishments, like
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: the execution method of ailing people with reeds. Second, the
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: idea that he created an artificial desert around his kingdom,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: a deep populated buffer zone hundreds of miles wide.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: And the third, the one that really epitomizes the idea
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of his tyranny, is the mourning for his mother Nandy, the.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Nand Mourning Incident of eighteen twenty seven. It's the cornerstone
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: of the myth. When she died, Shaka supposedly ordered a
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: year of extreme mourning. No crops could be planted, no
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: milk could be used a staple of their diet.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: And anyone who disobeyed.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Was killed horrifyingly so. The accounts claim anyone who became
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: pregnant was executed along with her husband. The numbers thrown
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: around are staggering. Up to seven thousand people supposedly killed
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: for not seeming sad enough.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Right. And there's that detail about the calves, the.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Detail that seals the image of irrational madness, that he
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: had cows slaughtered so their calves would know what it
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: feels like to lose a mother.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: It's a picture of pure despotism, which leads us to
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the revisionist work on Shaka's biography itself, the argument that
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: this reputation was deliberately manufactured.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: This is where Dan Wiley's book Myth of Iron is
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: just essential. Wiley argues that a true biography of Shaka
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: is almost impossible because the sources were intentionally poisoned from
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: the very beginning by biased white chroniclers.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: And he found the smoking gun, the actual proof of
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: this distortion he did.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: It's in the letters between those early traders, Nathaniel Isaacs
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: and Henry Francis Finn. Isaacs, who wrote this famous travelog,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: was advising Finn on how to write his own book.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And what was his advice?
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: It was explicit, Isaacs wrote to Finn and I'm quoting,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: make them out to be as bloodthirsty as you can.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: He also told him to endeavor to give an estimation
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: of the number of people they have murdered.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: The goal was clear, sell books, and more importantly, encouraged
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: the British to annex Zululand, which Isaac's admitted would make
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: them a fortune.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: They were consciously building the monster narrative for profit and politics.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: So how did that advice corrupt a story like the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Nandi Morning.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Well, the event probably happened. His mother died, there was
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: a period of more, there were probably some executions. But
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: the colonial writers, following that advice needed to inflate the story.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: They took a real event and multiplied the death toll
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: by ten, added the lurid, insane sounding detail about the caws,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: and turned a story about a harsh ruler into a
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: story about a genocidal madman.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: It's propaganda to justify a landgrab, that's all it is.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: And the same goes for the artificial desert. It's the
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: perfect colonial story, isn't it. The natives destroyed their own land,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: so it's empty and available for us to settle the
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: reality was that any depopulation was far more likely the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: result of the constant warfare we've already discussed, not some
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: deliberate policy of self destruction.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: But here's the really complex part. If the monster story
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: was a colonial smear, why did so many Black oral traditions,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: even among groups who supposedly fled him, also perpetuate this
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: myth of shock of the mighty.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: This is where it gets fascinating, because you have a
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: convergence of interests. Black leaders and communities used the Shaka
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: myth for their own political purposes. For the Zulu kings
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: who came after Shaka, promoting him as a heroic, powerful
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: founder was a way to mobilize resistance against the Boers
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: and the British.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: It created a powerful, unifying identity, a usable past exactly.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: And for groups like the Fingoes and the Goni, who
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: were formed out of the fragments of other societies during
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: that chaotic period, tracing their origin into a single traumatic
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: event fleeing Horse Shaka gave them what's called a historical charter.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: A founding myth. Why was that so important?
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Because it gave them legitimacy in the colonial world. It
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: helped them define themselves, mobilize politically and get access to
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: resources land from the colonial government, jobs mission education. Saying
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: we are the people who fled the great tyrant Shaka
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: was a powerful identity that everyone understood.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And you see the same thing with the Sotho Kingdom,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you do.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Kimosh Weshway and his French missionary allies both had an
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: interest in exaggerated the chaos of the eighteen twenties by
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: claiming they had brought order to a devastated land. They
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: legitied Sotho royal rule and the missionary civilizing mission at
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: the same time.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: So the Shaka myth was useful to everyone, from colonial
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: land speculators to African kings building new nations.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: It was, and that's why untangling it is so complex.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: We're not just correcting a colonial lie. We're engaging with
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: the founding myths of many modern Southern African communities.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: This has been a true deep dive. We've gone from
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the simple infographic of the Zulu aftermath to this incredibly complex,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: layered history driven by trade, settler expansion, and local politics.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: We've seen Shaka not as the single cause, but as
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: a critical player who perfected a revolutionary system he inherited
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: from his mentor Dingisweo.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: And I think the enduring lesson here is just how
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: persistent a historical narrative can be when it serves so
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: many different political needs at once. That central idea of
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Shaka the Prime Mover. It worked for colonial justification and
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: for indigenous identity formation for completely different but inequally powerful reasons.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: And as the revisionists showed, that powerful story led history
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: down some real blind alleys, forcing historians to connect events
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: one thousand kilometers apart while ignoring the economic and political
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: reality happening right there.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: We're now finally doing the work of re scrambling those histories,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: and it's important to remember that challenging the veficane isn't
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: just an academic exercise. It's about engaging with narratives that
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: are still deeply meaningful to communities today.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you for taking this deep dive with us on
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: beyond infographics. If you enjoyed getting this more nuanced perspective,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: please share this with a friend and give us that
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: five star rating wherever you listen. It really does help.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: And here's a final thought to leave you with. The
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: history of nineteenth century Central Africa is largely written around
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the impact of long distance trade ivory copper slaves, but
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: South African history remains haunted by these colonial nightmares of
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: marauding African hordes. So, given all this revised evidence, what
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: happens when we start consistently writing Southern African history with
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: trade not terror at its center. What other giant infographics
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: will we need to talk out next.