The Changing Nature of the Historiography of the Mfecane:

Article by Luke Matcham. Edited and Researched by Rob Russell.

The Mfecane, or ‘The Crushing’, is a topic which has attracted considerable attention from historians of Southern Africa since its argued inception in the early nineteenth century. The traditional line of thought surrounding the ‘event’ was, that as a result of inherently barbaric behaviour traits, the militarily focused fledging Zulu Kingdom expanded outwards from the Eastern coast of Southern Africa in the 1810-20s, destroying all other tribes who crossed its path. Some rival groups fled northwards, while others were forced into the European settlements to the South, often extending the conflict themselves. Early colonial historians such as Theal have asserted that the movement led to widespread African depopulation in the regions soon to become home to Afrikaner Voortrekkers, with vast ‘fields of bones’ left littering the landscape. Such thoughts gave rise to a somewhat mythical cult surrounding the Zulu nation, which soon garnered a reputation as epitomising African barbarity, with Shaka Zulu emerging as its infamous figurehead. In an unprecedented move, the Mfecane soon became considered to be the result of entirely African actions, which in a period dominated by Euro-centric thought could have marked a turning point in the historical conception of non-European agency, yet in reality was merely explained away in social-Darwinistic terms as a typical act of ‘tribal savagery’.

As an example characteristic of Southern African historiography, such assertions were left largely unchallenged throughout the nineteenth century, and in this case have only recently been reproached. One of the turning points in the historiography of the Mfecane occurred alongside the nationalist surge of the 1960s and 70s, when historians in general began to re-evaluate the roles of African agency in light of the various independence movements developing throughout the continent. Some, such as Omer-Cooper, began to assert that the traditional view of barbaric violence during the period of the Mfecane was an oversimplification of what was in fact a complex process of state building and national incorporation. Such views have been supported in more recent years by historians such as Ncongco, who pursuing a highly nationalistic approach; see the series of events as a conscious assertion of modern state development. While such thoughts reverse the traditional negative implications of African agency, putting the expansion of the Zulu kingdom in more modern, Western terms, this argument has by no means been universally accepted.

Some, such as Cobbing, have sought to challenge such assertions and the publication of ‘The Mfecane as Alibi’ in the 1980s cast a serious shadow of doubt over the accuracy of both Ncongco and Omer-Cooper’s analyses. Cobbing’s work, while not denying the expansion of the Zulu Kingdom and the various resettlements which followed, argues that the cycle of violence was not instigated by African agency, but more as a result of the increasing external European pressures placed on societies within the region. ‘The Mfecane as Alibi’ takes a controversial approach in stating that the ‘myth’ of the Mfecane as an African driven event is in fact a largely European creation to explain away the negative activities of slaving and forced labour undertaken by the British and Portuguese during the period. Cobbing’s work, while evidently attacking the largely nationalist school of thought from the 1960s/70s can be seen to some extent to take a much more archaic approach by removing much of the ‘African agency’ which modern historians have striven to emphasise.

As such it is possible to see that the concept of the ‘Mfecane’ has come to represent entirely different meanings for the various historians who have chosen to study it. At the basic level the event can be seen from three separate viewpoints as either: an extended period of African violence leading to widespread depopulation, a conscious effort for modern state formation during a time of social turbulence, or as a European ‘invention’ to justify unwarranted behaviour on the ground. While the historical debate over the topic is by no means concluded, such varied interpretations begin to question the validity of the term Mfecane itself. The word is a somewhat artificial construct, introduced as a ‘Zulu term’ by European historians and to some extent can be considered to apply to an artificial period. By simplifying the diverse and extended period of social and political instability of the early nineteenth century into a single ‘event’, many of the varied fortunes of individual African tribes and local European responses become diluted as simply part of the ‘Mfecane’. Perhaps the future of historical focus on the period lies not in the troublesome sphere of ‘Mfecane studies’, but in an entirely new approach to the individual events and actors which made the period so intriguing to scholars in the first place.

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