How did the Zulus Interact with the Voortrekkers? | The Zulu-Boer War (1835-1839)

so recently on the channel I've been looking at the Zulu in this video and this one which you can both watch they'll be cards and links in the description now previously I've also looked at the booths who are another people that lived in South Africa in videos like this one for example on the history of South Africa this one on the Great Trek which is also available in Dutch and finally this one from a very long time ago about the first board war and by a long time ago I mean a long time ago in this one I'm gonna take a look at how did the booze and the Zulus interact with one another so first let's take a look at the Brewers and what's important to remember about the bullet in this period is that unlike the British when they came marching into Zulu land they weren't an army they weren't one solid group that had an objective they were descendants of Dutch settlers that came in but they were actually family groups that came they sometimes chose a leader and followed certain leaders in different Trek parties but they were ultimately just individuals and individual family they were descendant of the Dutch but we shouldn't be imagining let's say a Dutch army fighting against the Zulus although that would be a very interesting alternate history now in 1814 the Cape Colony that had been touched before became British for the last time and the British took control of the Cape Colony in South Africa misled - in 1835 a lot of the descendants of the Dutch inhabitants were disgruntled with this it led to what we came known as de fluid Trek in Afrikaans which is the Great Trek in English and essentially they packed their belongings in their families into ox-drawn carts and trekked into the interior of Africa looking for a new place to live that's why they're called the four trekkers essentially the guys who go on the trek and this is that nice flag now the region they came into was already inhabited by various groups various tribal groups eyes closer the Sioux - than goony and the Zulu or I should say the in goony the Zulu all and a goonie tribe but these were different and goony tribes that lived in this area and they came into this area they sort of skirted around the area of the Sioux to live closer actually helped them see you enter the area of the Zulu because they wanted a buffer against this expanding state so in about 1835 1836 they entered this area I've covered the zulu before in two different videos and at this time they were an ascending Empire or an ascending Kingdom they've recently been a really insignificant tribe but at this point they became incredibly powerful they started to push other tribes out of certain areas and expand their influence they were very militaristic and that's what they needed to keep going and to keep their system going was essentially to be at war all of the time now the zulu actually through their rise to power had potentially initiated something that was called the MAF akane and this kind of means the crushing in various bantu languages and what it essentially meant was that lots and lots of different tribal groupings that had lived fairly peaceably together beforehand were suddenly on the move and were suddenly being forced out of their territory as well as fighting with other tribal groups that then came into their territory a bit like the focus of and along in europe and it's estimated that potentially somewhere between one and two million people died which is incredible considering these were people being killed with you know very simple Spears and you know also famine plays a part as well so it's not just our now killing but the fact that so many people died in this way is incredible and it's possible actually that this meant that there were whole tracts of land that had been completely deserted by these tribal groups because of the great disruption that had been caused in the region though with this as a possible motive the boars come or the four-track has one of their parties being led by b30 comes and speaks to king Dingaan who at that time was the king of the zulu and to put him into context he's the half-brother of Shaka and he is probably the mastermind behind the assassination of shock and he then became king he did this in 1828 but we've moved on to 1835 by this point now Peter Latif who is the leader of this group of the four trekkers who'd come into this area of Natal which borders on Zulu land on the coast and he agreed with the King Dingaan that he would retrieve some stolen cattle that had been stolen by another tribe and upon the completion of this task that he would then get a tract of land granted to him by King Dingaan however when he returned with the cattle Dingaan instead ordered that they were seized and massacred the party and as straight away after this he sent out his zulu regiments to go and attack all the fourth wrecker settlements although with their wagons that were stationed in the natal region and this led to a massacre in which several hundred of the four trekkers and many of them children as well and women which particularly shocked the Europeans because other tribes even once they'd been fighting for ages like the closer they never killed the children of the four trekkers but the Zulus they did and this became known as the vein and Massacre there's a still town in South Africa called vein and there today which in Dutch means weeping so that's a bit of the etymology of the local area there but this is after he had already signed kington gone this this document that that the four attackers claimed that they found on the bodies of Piet Retief and and his companions and you can see it there that that does give the land to the four trekkers and now we have to wonder why did King Dingaan kill the Boers after he got them to take the cattle now the four trekkers document if you read it does contain several fairly thinly veiled threats about how many tribes they'd already defeated on their way there and you know saying well we'll do the same to the Zulu if you don't agree and as we know from the Zulu they were very proud people they dream strongly risen to power and had dominion over a lot of other tribes so it's possible that this sort of rubs Dingaan the other way and thought actually I'll teach them a lesson and it's also possible that Dingaan actually never intended to give them the land and simply used them as a means to capture the stolen cattle and then thought I'll wash my hands of them and potentially also the fact that it's recorded that before he ordered their killing he said guru Lani abathur Karthi which means kill the Wizards so it's possible that he thought that they had some kind of supernatural powers were associated with them potentially because of the different skin color as well and that's why he mistrusted them and decided to kill them but we're not entirely sure now the bush the fortress they didn't take this lying down and those that remained sort looked around for help and found it in the neighboring board republic of the Aranya fra staff and they asked for help and they've put together what's called a commando now you might think this word looks very similar with the difference of the K and that's true because the English word commando comes from the Afrikaans word that comes in because of the the Boer Wars and essentially what a commando was was this armed group of men think of it like a posse in the United States but then made up of Boers instead and this was still the main military unit it was armed on horseback it was very versatile very mobile and very good at you know long-range fighting as well these were marksmen initially and this was still the the main method of the call-up of men during the Boer Wars as well it was led by two men by Piet house and by Hendrik both leader both of them were Ford trekker leaders who'd led bands of dutch-speaking inhabitants from the Cape Colony out into the interior South Africa and they met the Zulu at the Battle of eat Eleni now what occurred here is that they basically dismounted from their horses after citing a Zulu regiment and opened fire on them inflicting you know fairly heavy casualties on them now this should have been the end of the battle but unfortunately for the vortex two brothers actually managed to get cut off from the rest of the party and they were being surrounded by the Zulu so beat us and several others this was after Hendrik both Luther and his party had already retreated away thinking the battle to be over moved in to intervene but they were cut off and surrounded by the Zulu who promptly killed them and so this went down as a defeat for the fourth Wreckers because Hendrik both heater's party had already retreated away at this point his group of men that fought at the battle with Eleni became known thereafter as the flock commando which means the flight commander the commander that was put to flight but in 1838 there would be another decisive engagement against the Zulu and this was that the famous Battle of Blood River or blew through fear in Afrikaans now an eyewitness account of the battle those survived and I'm gonna read a little section of it for you I have a link in the description to the full account of the journal where you can see that the movements of the four trekkers before and after the Battle of blew through fear and it's in early 19th century Dutch so I'll read it in the early 19th century Dutch which is an interesting activity because at this point Africa really isn't that different to dutch kids used to learn Dutch when they were in the wagons for example but then the spoken variant began to sound more and more like Afrikaans does today and you can see some elements of that in in this but I'll put the the English on the screen but I thought it would be nice to sort of get the the flavour of the language that the Boers were speaking at the time in this so I'll read it in Dutch but I'll have the English on the screen there for you at the same time zone doctor sestina December vet for an Oscar border the list was open at they declared and held it now flick suck man it's her Malik damn breaker of the vaak Tarantino open post Avada and now look sink on the inverted of the Zulus and at Nevadan the Petraeus new Vera Elaine and at Lakehurst dark staff order by Malka Malka Rupa the al-ahram sane and Method Conan defiant donated a full of art in ain't gloves how to say at lacquer from Allah's a dome singled on the velvet at left Sadat men hang condos in andron devil Hannah for hungers rates of are a true whose coat and are not a delivered who well akka loved or rota mocked after his whole house if dope say now Deborah she maintained either copy Jane might sign a month's hopin after an so that hotter the Petraeus darks the forehand Oakland scene up coma thought Alan own zone single tada a Conda Han Nutella doc man sec Dalton - gonna cover has hut Alphonse a synthetic regiment au poivre baccarat chemin de menthe and Hatala phone Neha 18,000 mum must break inna had perfect new hang on Anakin Olivera at either port who lost so vetted cough a fever selves in Tahiti Matt Klein Hayden so far on sir Al's phone who Nevada now dot silks now rounds veteran of the hollow shahadat of the Hoff commandant orders develop Island who do rocket Locker was stormed and I phrased that answer I mean each affirm endured soda but the porter her opened enter part they had fought the most water did vet had an and two-tone suspect FLOTUS I so Arif but men Hannon fail away her mu Stockton Ayaka so what Yan bunches is describing here in Journal is essentially a grand Zulu attack of many thousands of warriors against the lacquer of the fourth records now a lacquer essentially is when you get all the wagons and you put them in a circle this is also what you saw pioneers doing in the Americas for example against the Plains Native Americans because then you create a defensive structure on the plains that's very effective at holding back the enemy so you see that for example at the wagon box raids against the the Sioux Native Americans the US Army used this effectively and this is what the boars are doing this is a technique that they form the lacquered to you fight against native tribes because then they could keep everyone safe on the inside and keep the the natives out on the outside that was how the tactic works and essentially at the Battle of blew through fear they were able to do this with several hundred fourth records they were able to hold back many thousands of the enemy who were obviously had to get in a close range as this was Jacques technique that I talked about in the video about pseudo military tactics when this appears to have been very effective they are the fort records didn't actually lose any of their men whereas they succeeded in killing they estimate around 3,000 of the Zulus this was a really great victory for the 4th erectus and obviously it meant that they could then go on to settled into new lands now this also meant it was potentially already happening at this point the chronology is a bit blurred but there was a claimant to the throne actually another half brother of Dingaan called Bondi and and potentially he was already rebelling against Dingaan at this point but it sometimes is said that the loss of the Battle of glue trophy advising cans general was the catalyst for pan de - then rebel against him and the 4th records they obviously chose pan de side because Dingaan and killed Peter deep in his party and so they aided in pandey in fighting against his half-brother and amp and i ended up winning and they were able to succeed in fighting Dingaan now in 1839 he actually granted them a piece of land which they called the natalia republic because it was in the area of natal natal actually in portuguese means Christmas because it was found around Christmas time by Vasco de Gama I think so this lets the etymology they also have a fun flag which I think covered in one of my old flag videos because it's based again on the Dutch red white and blue and as I said at the Battle of McGann Corps they were successful in fighting against Dingaan but actually the Voortrekker contingent never actually arrived at the battle they they might have been too late because I think that actually in bandar in his generals they attacked before the 4th trackers could arrive but the 4th records did manage to make away with 36 thousand head of cattle which seems to me they didn't really hold up their end of the deal and they got this big grant of land as well now in 1843 then italian republic was actually taken off them by the british and this was because the british wanted to stop the fortress having access to a harbour and being internationally recognized because the british had ambitions to control all of south africa as a federation at this point but there were the other two border republics that would remain of the Irani phrase that on the left and what was known to the British as Transvaal although to the South Africans and the four trekkers and the Boers that founded it it was known as the South African Republic the South African Republic now in 1852 we see that there is an invasion by the Zulu of Swaziland which was home to a different group the Swazi and this might actually have been caused because of population pressure from the boards on the border with Zulu land that this is why imp and a feels the need to attack Swaziland and essentially rally his men behind him because many of the zulu were incredibly unhappy of what was happening with the Boers whose Amanda seems to have used the technique of appeasement rather than fighting them but in 1856 actually his son becomes the de facto ruler of Zulu land and Pandey was still alive at this point but it's in quechua Oh he actually fights against his half-brothers and kills a great deal of them and basically becomes the de facto ruler at that point in quechua has a very different attitude towards the Boers and actually seems to incite lots of native peoples living in the or Anya Frey start and in the South African city publique to rebel against them now in 1856 we hear that both the boars and the Zulu were actually patrolling around the same region because of disturbances that were occurring and actually I thought I'd include this it's not particularly significant or important but this could have escalated into further conflict although it didn't it was it was mostly just really small-scale kind of cattle theft and raiding which seems would be done by both the Brewers and the Zulus quite frequently and I only mentioned this because actually a rather younger Powell crew who was involved in on the Brewers side of things and obviously he will of course later on be very famous for his role in the the board wars and that were to occur the second world war but I thought I didn't include that now in 1877 the British actually annexed the South African Republic he said Afrikaans a republic and that's why it also has the British name of Transvaal because it was beyond the foul river now one of the reasons why the Boers didn't actually fight back against this annexation was because they were worried that if they did they would expose let's say their other flank to the Zulu because there was that real fear so actually the Zulu despite not being an open war with the Boers after you know the whole debacle with Dingaan and and the killing of Peter the teeth and the Battle of blew through fear they did play an important part in Africana politics at the time now as well in 1879 of course we have the fact that the British were looking to invade Zulu land they were trying to find any excuse they could to invade Zulu London to add it to their possessions and they did actually come to to Paul Kruger and asked him to raise a troop of Boers to fight in the wars but he refused this he didn't want to fight under the British flag but he did give them advice on how best to fight against the Zulus because the pores of course they had done this and you know they'd survived let's say because the Zulu were a force to be reckoned with so he gave them advice on not marching an open column you know locking your troops are creating the laughter of the wagons and and other things but the British completely disregarded this advice and you see the result at the Battle of peace and lawanna if they had created a better defensive structure it seems unlikely that they would have been able to defeat the British in the way that they could at ease and lawanna of course the war did end with a British victory this is the burning of Lundie which was the the Royal Corral at the time and the capture of King Quechua oh but it's not actually the end of the interaction between the British and the Zulu because actually in 1880 the very year after this is actually the year in which the first bull war breaks out which you know I have the video on and this is again because now the Zulu threat has been removed the Brewers there feel confident enough to take on the British that they won't be raided and attacked by the Zulu who had just suffered military and of course after the success of the Boers in this war you get the Republic the South African Republic being independent once more now the story of the Brewers and the Zulu even after the Zulu have been defeated isn't quite over yet though and this is quite interesting absolutely no idea about this before I started researching this video and this is that in 1882 actually the British realized they'd split the the Zulu Kingdom into 13 different little princedoms essentially each with a different chief but they found that this was actually a really stupid idea because of course the Zulu had you know they were a really centralized state under the king the Kings were really all-powerful and if you remove that and you split it you get kind of factionalism and warlordism which wasn't great for the area and actually one of the chiefs that revolted against the British when the British tried to put catch wire back on the throne was a chief called Z Babu and I'm really hoping I'm getting the pronunciation on that one right but he tried to create an independent zulu land again very interesting character i'll probably have to look into this in a separate video and he actually hired several of the four trekkers as I'm saying for trekkers I should be using board at this point because the trek was over he hired several of them to be his mercenaries and to fight for him and they actually fought several running battles against Quechua and British authorities and those Zulus and were victorious in many of them although the son of King Quechua after they had burnt the the royal crown Quechua who died off in the forest sometime afterwards his son King dinner Zulu actually also looked out and try to hire several of the Boers to be his mercenaries and they fought against this joint army and at the Battle of ghost mountain and they were able to defeat the the chief and he went on to be the the ruler of the Zulu now there was also another interesting factoid which is that after this point the New Republic is founded which also has a nice flag this was founded because the the King Dino Zulu actually granted this land to those boys that had helped him and this was actually had had a connection to the coast which the British didn't like so they they promptly went and tried to seize it and this is the flag of it which i think is just quite fun if you sort of play spot the difference with the flag of the south african city publique as well and lots of the flags of the little bird republics are very similar in design these feared plort kind of designs which i really quite enjoy but anyway i think that should be the end of this video because there's not really much more i can say at this point because very soon the Boer Republic's would both be taken by the British after the second board war and of course the Zulus had had failed to function as an independent nation by this point because they had been defeated by the British but I hope this video has been interesting it's a very interesting part of history and I've looked at the Zulu and the Brewers largely sort of at them separately but I think it's good to look at them sort of together as well and kind of plot the relationship between them do you let me know in the comments below if you did enjoy this video and which other videos you'd like to see after this one I think I'm gonna do one on the Muffit on air as well because I think I've referenced that quite a lot there's a fair bit of discussion about that and its causes and effect and that kind of thing but other than that I think I'll wrap up these kind of videos on South Africa fairly soon and move over to another part of the world and then take a look at that but thank you very much for watching and I do hope you've enjoyed it let me know in the comments below give me a thumbs up if you did and if you're new consider subscribing and sharing it around thank you very much this has been the history and I have been Hillman

Channel: History With Hilbert

Views: 100,134

Keywords: Zulu, History, Zulu 1964, Is Zulu Racist, Zulu FIlm Racist, Anglo-Zulu War, Rorke's Drift, Isandlwana, Boer War, South African History, Afrikaner, Zulu Full Movie, Michael Caine Zulu, British Imperialism, South Africa, isiZulu, History of South Africa, Dutch History, British History, Anglo-Boer War, Boers, Afrikaners, Voortrekkers, Great Trek, African History, Zulu People, Xhosa, Shaka Zulu, History Documentary, Khoisan, Battle of Blood River, Battle of Rorke's Drift, Zulu Boer War

Id: tC8kdzM-YZ8

Length: 21min 52sec (1312 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 18 2020