¹ Cobbing, J., ‘The case against the mfecane’ (unpublished seminar paper, University of Cape Town, 1983Google Scholar; revised form, ‘The case against the mfecane’, unpublished seminar paper, University of the Witwatersrand, 1984)Google Scholar; ‘The myth of the mfecane’ (unpublished seminar paper, University of Durban-Westville, 1987)Google Scholar; ‘The mfecane as alibi: thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo’, J. Afr. Hist., XXIX (1988), 487–519Google Scholar; ‘Jettisoning the mfecane (with perestroika)’ (unpublished paper presented together with John Wright's ‘Political mythology and the making of Natal's mfecane’, to a seminar at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1988 entitled ‘The mfecane: beginning the inquest’); and most recently, ‘Grasping the nettle: the slave trade and the early Zulu’ (paper presented to the workshop on ‘Natal and Zululand in the Colonial and Precolonial Periods’, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1990).Google Scholar

² See the work of Cobbing's students, notably Richner, J., ‘The withering away of the “lifaqane”: or a change of paradigm’ (B. A. Hons. essay, Rhodes University, 1988)Google Scholar; Webster, A., ‘An examination of the “Fingo Emancipation” of 1835’ (paper presented to the African studies seminar, University of Cape Town, 1990)Google Scholar; and that of John Wright on the genesis of the ‘mfecane’ myth in Natal, , notably ‘Political mythology and the making of Natal's mfecane’, Can. J. Afr. Studies, XXIII (1989), 272–91.Google Scholar

³ Cobbing, , ‘Mfecane as alibi’, 487–8.Google Scholar

⁴ For the fullest and latest version of Cobbing's argument on the slave trade, see ‘Grasping the nettle’, 5–20. This aspect of Cobbing's argument builds on the work of Harries, Patrick, ‘Slavery, social incorporation and surplus extraction: the nature of free and unfree labour in South-East Africa’, J. Afr. Hist., XXII (1981), 309–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Cobbing, , ‘Mfecane as alibi’, 519.Google Scholar

⁶ Cobbing, , ‘Mfecane as alibi’, 517.Google Scholar For the description of mfecane theory as Afrocentric, 488.

⁷ Cobbing, , ‘Mfecane as alibi’, 504.Google Scholar In ‘Grasping the nettle’, I, Cobbing goes even further in the invocation of a conspiracy, describing the European manufacture of the mfecane as the perfection by settler propagandists of ‘their pièce de resistance, “the mfecane”, combining partly contextualised facts, half-truths, and lies, both of commission and ommission’.

⁸ In his 1989 article, ‘Political mythology’, John Wright aligned himself closely with the main points of Cobbing's arguments on the Natal/Zulu material under review in this paper. Following a warm debate on the topic at the Conference on ‘Enlightenment and Emancipation’, held at the University of Natal, Durban, 1989, at which both Wright and I presented papers, Wright has refined his arguments regarding trader politics and avoids many of the errors and generalisations which characterise his own earlier article and the work of Cobbing. For his revised position see his doctoral dissertation, ‘The dynamics of power and conflict in the Thukela-Mzimkhulu region in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: a critical reconstruction’ (University of the Witwatersrand, 1990)Google Scholar, especially the final chapter.

⁹ See, for example, the papers presented by students or ex-students of Cobbing's at the recent colloquium, ‘The mfecane aftermath: towards a new paradigm’ (University of the Witwatersrand, 09, 1991)Google Scholar notably, J. Richner, ‘Eastern Frontier slaving and its extension into the Transorangia and Natal, 1770–1843’; A. Webster, ‘Unmasking the Fingo: the war of 1835 revisited’; J. B. Gewald, ‘Untapped sources: slave exports from the southern and central Namibia up to the mid-nineteenth century’; Cathy Gorham, ‘“A blind darkness”: knowledge, trade, and the myth of 1824: the trading settlement of Port Natal as Gateway to the “mfecane”’; B. Lambourne, ‘A chip off the old block: early Ghoya history and the emergence of Moletsane's Taung’.

¹⁰ Stuart, J. and Malcolm, D. M. (eds.), The Diary of Henry Francis Fynn (Pietermaritzburg, 1950)Google Scholar, see chs. 1 and 2, especially p. 42. [Hereafter Fynn, Diary.]

¹¹ See Fynn, , Diary, 51–3, 56 n. 1Google Scholar; J. King to the Sec. for Colonies, the Earl of Bathurst, 10 July 1824, Cape Archives Depot, Government House Archives [GH] 1/39, 45–58; King, J., South African Commercial Advertiser, 11 07 1826Google Scholar; for details of Farewell's engagement of King see Cape Archives, Notarial Protocols, Cape Districts [NCD] 35/8, 534–41. Owen's journal was edited and published as Narrative of Voyages to Explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia and Madagascar (2 vols.) (London, 1833).Google Scholar However, the publication also includes material drawn from other sources, is heavily edited and cannot be treated as an accurate reflection of Owen's views in 1822. An account of Shaka, attributed to Farewell writing in 1825, is reproduced in Owen's text and must be treated with the same caution. It is most unlikely, for example, that Farewell would have referred to Shaka as ‘the King of Natal, and of the Hollontontes’. One of Owen's officers, T. Boteler, also published an account of Owen's trip in 1835, Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery of Africa and Arabia, Performed in His Majesty's Ships Leven and Barracouta (2 vols.) (London, 1835).Google Scholar For some idea of what Owen's contemporary opinion of Shaka and the Zulu was like, see John Philip's report to Acting Colonial Secretary, P. G. Brink, 13 April 1824, Public Record Office [PRO], Colonial Office [CO] 48/62, believed to be based on Owen's information; see Governor of the Cape, Lord Charles Somerset to Bathhurst, 22 April, 1824, GH 23/7, 144–5, in which Philip comments optimistically on the prospects for trade with the interior.

¹² The precise nature of this setback in commercial terms is difficult to assess. The venture was well-insured and substantial claims were made. Unfortunately, the extent of the final settlement is not known. In his letter to Somerset, 1 May 1824, Farewell noted that the earlier expedition ‘sustained a most considerable loss’: Cape Archives Depot [CAD], Colonial Office [CO] 211, 222–5. However, it is clear that for his next expedition Farewell was obliged to seek other financial backing. See NCD 35/9, 67–75, 117–26, 144–9, 573–8, 585–9.

¹³ Farewell to Somerset, 1 May 1824, CAD, CO 211, 222–5; NCD 35/9, 573–8, 585–9. It is not clear from Farewell's letter who precisely ‘the natives’ are, i.e. whether he means the Zulu authorities or the inhabitants of the Bay area; for continued reports of Shaka's ‘friendly disposition’ arriving at the Cape in this period, see W. H. Lys, Officer of Health, to P. G. Brink, 12 April 1824, PRO, CO 48/62.

¹⁴ Farewell to Somerset, 6 September, 1824, CAD, CO 211, 650–1, 656–7.

¹⁵ Cobbing, , ‘Mfecane as alibi’, 504Google Scholar; ‘Grasping the nettle’, 25.

¹⁶ See, for example, Cobbing's assertion that in 1827 Cane supplied slaves to a schooner at Delagoa Bay: ‘Grasping the nettle’, 27. In my view the document cited as evidence is open to a very different reading. In such cases it is incumbent on the historian to discuss the quality of the evidence and the context of the document.

¹⁷ Cobbing, , ‘Mfecane as alibi’, 504–6Google Scholar; ‘Grasping the nettle’, 4–5. In the latter paper Cobbing claims further that in 1822–3 the main trading items moving through the Bay were slaves. He cites as his sources ‘the relevant evidence’ in two volumes of Theal's Records of South East Africa, without page references, and Fynn's Diary. The Diary is also cited in ‘Mfecane as alibi’ as a source of evidence for slaving at the Bay. (See n. 101) The Diary is a source, like so many others, which Cobbing elsewhere (see, for example, ‘Mfecane as alibi’, n. 120) discredits thoroughly. Dismissal of some of the major sources of the period as white ‘forgeries’, and subsequent citation of them, is a characteristic feature of his argument and is subject to two criticisms. The first is that such texts are significantly more complicated constructs and are shaped by a more complex set of interests than Cobbing allows. (See my more detailed discussion below of precisely the same problems in Cobbing's treatment of James Stuart.) The second is that, having indicted such sources, subsequent citation of them requires specific argumentation as to why they may be relied on in relation to a particular matter.

¹⁸ Theal, G. M. (ed.), Records of South-East Africa (London, 1903), ix, 37.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Theal, (ed.), Records of South-East Africa, ix, 32–5, 37–9.Google Scholar

²⁰ Theal, (ed.), Records of South-East Africa, ii, 487.Google Scholar

²¹ Cobbing, , ‘Grasping the nettle’, 8.Google Scholar

²² Cobbing, , ‘Grasping the nettle’, 9.Google Scholar

²³ Hedges, D. W., ‘Trade and politics in southern Mozambique and Zululand in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1978)Google Scholar; Smith, A., ‘The trade of Delagoa Bay as a factor in Nguni politics, 1750–1835’, in Thompson, L. M. (ed.), African Societies in Southern Africa (London, 1969), ch. 8.Google Scholar

²⁴ Cobbing, , ‘Grasping the nettle’, 10.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ See, for example, Fynn, 's Diary, 48Google Scholar, for comments to this effect.

²⁷ Cobbing, , ‘Grasping the nettle’, 26.Google Scholar

²⁸ Cobbing, , ‘Grasping the nettle’, 27.Google Scholar

²⁹ Roberts, B., The Zulu Kings (London, 1974), 100–3Google Scholar; Hamilton, C. A., ‘Ideology, oral traditions and the struggle for power in the early Zulu kingdom’ (MA dissertation, University of Witwatersrand, 1986), 363.Google Scholar

³⁰ Cobbing, , ‘Grasping the nettle’, 27.Google Scholar

³¹ Cobbing cites Isaacs, N., Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (2 vols.) (London, 1836; reprinted Cape Town, 1970), i, 171Google Scholar (i.e. p. 95 of the reprint), and Fynn, 's Diary, 128Google Scholar, as evidence that the traders took captives in raids against the Ndwandwe and Khumalo: ‘Grasping the nettle’, n. 215. Care needs to be taken in the interpretation of this evidence. Isaacs observes that when the Khumalo surrendered they agreed to ‘give up cattle, and become tributary to the conqueror’. Isaacs goes on to comment that ‘one of our seamen proposed that they should give ten young maidens by way of cementing their friendship by nuptial ties’. There is no indication that the women were given to the traders, although it is not impossible. It is important to note that cattle with which the traders returned to Port Natal after this campaign were not booty which they had seized but a portion of the captured cattle awarded to them subsequently by Shaka. It seems likely that any captives taken in battle would also have gone directly to the Zulu king. The Fynn reference cited as evidence for the traders having taken captives in battle is even less conclusive. Fynn describes how, during the Ndwandwe campaign, Shaka interrogated a captured Ndwandwe mother and child and then ordered them to be killed. Fynn then interceded on behalf of the child, asking that he ‘might become my servant’. Although we have no way of proving it, this may well have been an opportunistic attempt by Fynn to acquire child labour, but it does not qualify as evidence of slave raiding.

³² Cobbing, , ‘Grasping the nettle’, n. 217.Google Scholar

³³ Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, ii, 60Google Scholar; The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser, 28 April 1826.

³⁴ Similarly, when he so suggestively draws our attention to the fact that after leaving Natal one of the traders, Nathanial Isaacs, went on to become a slaver elsewhere, he should also tell us that another member of the trading party, John Ross, alias Charles Rawden Maclean, later in life became an avid anti-slaver: Gray, S., ‘South African fiction and a case history revised: an account of research into retellings of the John Ross story of early Natal’, Researches in African Literature, XXI (1988), 473–4.Google Scholar

³⁵ Cobbing, , ‘Mfecane as alibi’, 490Google Scholar; ‘The myth of the mfecane’, 11–12; The fait accompli idea originates in the work of Roberts, The Zulu Kings; see p. 138 in particular. As evidence, Cobbing cites Farewell's first communication with Somerset, without noting that Farewell was not approaching Somerset but responding to a query from the Governor; he also cites Fynn's comments that in retrospect he realised that Farewell was going to stay longer than he said, but the remark does not necessarily connote a campaign for colonisation. Neither is the latter borne out by Farewell's contracts regarding the ships, which were for 15 months only: Notarised Affreightment Declaration, between James Gosling and F. G. Farewell, 15 April 1824, NCD 35/9, 573–8. In his discussion of Farewell and King's motives for going to Natal, Fynn makes no mention of colonisation.

³⁶ Farewell to Somerset, 6 Sept. 1824, CAD, CO 211, 650–1. Cobbing does not, however, cite this document.

³⁷ While I do not consider Farewell's aim in 1824 to be the establishment of a colony at Port Natal, I do recognise that Farewell was careful to try and secure official Cape recognition and support for his commercial venture. I am grateful to John Wright for discussion on this point.

³⁸ Lt E. Hawes to C. R. Moorsam, Commodore of the British fleet at the Cape, 16 May 1825, CAD, CO 233, 245–6. For the published report see The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser, 4 June 1825.

³⁹ Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, ii, 15, 22, 24, 42, 52, 53, 71Google Scholar; also see King's, comments, South African Commercial Advertiser, 11 07 1826Google Scholar; Farewell to Somerset, 6 Sept. 1824, CAD, CO 211, 650–1; and correspondence between the commander of the Helicon and the Cape administration regarding the first Zulu visitor to the Cape, CAD, CO 270, 202–4.

⁴⁰ J. Hoffman and J. S. Peterssen to Moorsam, 9 March 1825, CAD, CO 233, 103–4.

⁴¹ Cobbing, , ‘Mfecane as alibi’, 490.Google Scholar

⁴² Farewell to Somerset, 6 Sept. 1824, CAD, CO 211, 650–1, 656–7.

⁴³ Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 18, 22, 31Google Scholar; Fynn, , Diary, 110, 117.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Hawes to Moorsam, 16 May 1825, CAD, CO 233, 245–6. For the published report see The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser, 4 June 1825. Hawes' report was passed on to the Cape Governor, Somerset, CAD, CO 233, 244. Note also, for example, that when Farewell's backers, Hoffman and Peterssen, lost contact with him as a result of the wreck of the Julia in late September 1824, they were dilatory in contacting the authorities, and once they did, expressed no alarm on behalf of the party at Port Natal; Hoffman and Peterssen to Moorsam, 9 March 1825, CAD, CO 233, 103–4. The authors of this letter comment that they returned from Natal because ‘the country and natives were different from what was told them’. In the Diary, Fynn indicates that Peterssen was disappointed to find that Shaka's residence was not built out of ivory, and, being corpulent and tempermental, he was not fitted for the rigours of Shaka's kingdom (ch. 5). Also see Moorsam's comments about their dilatoriness; Moorsam to Hoffman and Peterssen, 17 March 1825, encl. NCD 25/11, 765–83.

⁴⁵ Hawes, , The Cape Town Gazette, 4 06 1825.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ CAD, CO 233, 247; Hoffman and Peterssen to Moorsam, 9 March 1825, CAD, CO 233. 103–4; NCD 35/11, 765–83, and enclosures; NCD 35/9, 573–8.

⁴⁷ King to Bathurst, 10 July 1824, GH 1/39, 45–58; Farewell to the Editor, South African Commercial Advertiser, 31 Jan. 1829.

⁴⁸ Nonetheless, King's expedition was not heavily capitalised, and drew on credit as well as special concessions from the authorities. King to Somerset, 9 Aug. 1825, CAD, CO 3929, 136–9; see also the response from the colonial authorities, Sir Richard Plaskett, Chief Sec., to King, 12 Aug. 1825, CAD, CO 4853, 393, 409; also see CAD, CO 3929, 184–5; CAD, CO 243, 147–52; CAD, CO 235, 511–12; CAD, CO 4853, 453; CAD, CO 293, 1323–6.

⁴⁹ Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 13, 18.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 25, 60Google Scholar; also see Farewell's comments in the South African Commercial Advertiser, 31 Jan. 1829; King to Bathurst, 10 July 1824, GH 1/39, 45–58. In fact, the building of a boat at Port Natal had been on King's agenda from the first, and to that end he had taken with him to Port Natal the necessary tools and a shipwright.

⁵¹ Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 60, 64, 66.Google Scholar

⁵² The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser, 6 Jan. 1826.

⁵³ A section of King's party, under Norton, the mate of the Mary, gave up the ship-building exercise and in defiance of King departed for the Cape in the wrecked ship's longboat. Those who remained behind began to find it impossible to obtain food or porters without invoking Shaka's name as a threat. Things became particularly severe in the period immediately prior to the traders' crops being ready for harvest. Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 27–8, 38, 41, 42, 47, 57, 64, 67–70Google Scholar; The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser, 6 Jan. and 28 April 1826; report of the mate of the late brig Mary, J. E. Norton, to Plaskett, 19 Jan. 1826, CAD, CO 293, 97–100.

⁵⁴ The argument that the two stereotypes—‘depopulated Natal and Shaka-the-monster’–were designed to encourage settlement and British involvement in Natal is in itself not convincing. Both stereotypes can be seen as disincentives for colonisation. A good or better case can be made to the effect that the very opposite stereotype—a stable and orderly Zulu society under the firm hand of a powerful king on the borders of the proposed colony and the existence of a plentiful supply of labour, preferably rendered docile by the conquering Zulu (especially in the face of the turbulent Cape frontier and that Colony's labour problems)—would have constituted a significantly more powerful inducement to the British authorities. However, even had the traders wished to encourage settlement, they could not have argued that labour was plentiful, for it was not.

⁵⁵ Norton to Plaskett, 19 Jan. 1826, CAD, CO 293, 97–100; The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser, 28 April 1826.

⁵⁶ See the requests of C. H. Wehdemann, 8 Nov. 1824, CAD, CO 2659, 693–4; granted 9 Nov. 1824, CAD, CO 2659, 691–2, 695; CAD, CO 4851, 487; Cape Archives Depot, Archives of the Magistrate of Uitenhage [UIT], 15/9, 247; and James Whitworth and Samuel Broadbent, 4 March 1825, CAD, CO 230, 375–8; and the response, CAD, CO 4852, 488, for permission to proceed to Natal.

⁵⁷ The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser, 6 Jan. and 28 April 1826.

⁵⁸ South African Commercial Advertiser, 6 June 1826.

⁵⁹ In May, King attempted to negotiate the purchase of a schooner on a two-thirds mortgage. Pointing out that his finances were precarious, King sought colonial aid by stressing that his object was to assist his wrecked crew; failing aid, he requested the use of a government vessel. King was not allowed to bring ivory with him on the Helicon from Port Natal, despite Mrs Farewell's request to the governor to allow an exception. King to Plaskett, 2 June 1826, CAD, CO 293, 619–22; Elizabeth Farewell to Somerset, 27 Dec. 1825, CAD, CO 235, 946–9. Amongst other things, King also heard at this time of the failure of another of his schemes to come to fruition. See GH 23/7, 401, concerning his lease on the Bird and Chaun islands. Note that the Ordnance storekeeper at the Cape was pressing his backer Collison for debt settlement, while Collison himself was petitioning the Lieutenant Governor of the Cape for relief. See CAD, CO 293, 1319; CAD CO 219, 1317–8.

⁶⁰ CAD, CO 293/138.

⁶¹ South African Commercial Advertiser, 11 June 1826; note that this is the same description that is ascribed to Farewell in Bird, J. (ed.), Annals of Natal, I (Pietermaritzburg, 1888; reprinted Cape Town, 1965), 93Google Scholar, and which was quoted in Thompson, G., Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa (2 vols.) (London, 1827; second edition, Cape Town, 1967), i, 174–5.Google Scholar

⁶² On 22 July 1826, King, with the backing of one William Hollett, hired from John Thompson (Farewell's agent in the Cape) the Anne and on the same day appointed Thompson his agent as well. NCD 25/14, 145–55, 156–9; NCD 25/11, 765–83.

⁶³ Roberts, , The Zulu Kings, 98.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Application by George Rennie and response, CAD, CO 293, 911–12; CAD, CO 4895, 60–1.

⁶⁵ King to ‘T’ (presumably Thompson), May 1827, published in The Colonist, 3 Jan. 1828.

⁶⁶ Isaacs, for example, was able to resume the collection of curiosities, an endeavour he had been obliged for some time to forego because of the lack of trade goods. See Travels and Adventures, 70–1.

⁶⁷ Roberts, , The Zulu Kings, 99, 103–4.Google Scholar Roberts suggests that King wanted to take over Farewell's grant of land from Shaka but cites no evidence for this. Note that Cobbing's treatment of the split is confined to a discussion of divisions on the eve of Shaka's assassination: ‘Grasping the nettle’, 28.

⁶⁸ Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 75–6.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Also see the report in the South African Commercial Advertiser, 27 Dec. 1828.

⁷⁰ See note 62 above.

⁷¹ Mallory, J. K., ‘Abnormal waves on the south east coast of South Africa’, International Hydrographic Review, LI (1974), 99–129.Google Scholar

⁷² King faced an added problem when his shipwright downed tools. For evidence of continued problems of supply, see the journey of ‘John Ross’ to Delagoa Bay and the traders’ bartering for supplies with the Buckbay Packet; Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 101, 102; 117.Google Scholar

⁷³ See John Cane's deposition, 10 Nov. 1828, in which he asserts that Shaka ‘wished government to procure him a road that his people might come along with their sticks in their hands without assegaay or any other weapon to see the white people’, and that Shaka said ‘he would send no more ivory by sea but would collect some and send them to Faka's kraal [en route to the Cape]…and deliver them to an officer who should be sent down and from whom he would expect a present in return…’: GH 19/3, 388–415.

⁷⁴ By this time, moreover, Fynn's family had set up base in Grahamstown.

⁷⁵ Wright, , ‘The dynamics of power and conflict’, 358.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ See GH 19/3, 473–5 and 376–84.

⁷⁷ See, for example, Fynn's, Diary, 131.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 71Google Scholar; King to ‘T’ (presumably Thompson), 27 May 1827, published in the South African Commercial Advertiser, 3 Jan. 1828.

⁷⁹ Ibid.

⁸⁰ King to J. van der Riet, Civil Commissioner, Uitenhage, 10 May 1828, GH 19/3, 30–3.

⁸¹ Richard Bourke to Lord Viscount Goderich, 15 Oct. 1827, GH 23/8, 298–304.

⁸² By 9 May, King had been in contact with military officials in Port Elizabeth from whom he would have learnt of this policy: see Commandant F. Evatt to Lt Col. Somerset, 9 May 1828, GH 19/3, 35–6.

⁸³ See the discussion in Roberts, , The Zulu Kings, 129–36.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ King to van der Riet, 10 May 1828 GH 19/3; see also the emphases on haste, and in particular on the urgency of the return of one of the chiefs in King's anxious communication to van der Riet, 24 May 1828, GH 19/3, 39–42; Fynn, , Diary, 141, 153.Google Scholar Fynn subsequently made the same use of the hostage argument.

⁸⁵ See CAD, CO 4888, 217; CAD, CO 4893, 249; CAD, CO 4895, 312–13; D. P. Francis, port captain, to the Acting Secretary to Government, Lt Col. Bell, 9 May and 23 May 1828, CAD, CO 359, 191–2, 198–9; Evatt to Lt Col. Somerset, 9 May 1828, GH 19/3 35–6; The Colonist, May–June 1828.

⁸⁶ King to Bourke, 6 June 1828, GH 19/3, 48–53; King to van der Riet, 6 June 1828, GH 19/3, 66–9; van der Riet to Bell, 7 June 1828, UIT 15/12, 45–7.

⁸⁷ CAD, CO 4322, 151–2. Nonetheless Bell took sufficient cognizance of the threat to have the possibility of registration carefully checked out for a loophole: see GH 19/3, 54.

⁸⁸ Bell to Cloete, 14 June 1828, CAD, CO 4893, 255–7.

⁸⁹ Minutes of the Cape Council of Advice, 21 June 1828 [AC], 2, 453–60; Major Dundas to Bourke, 20 June 1828, GH 19/3, 88–9.

⁹⁰ See Somerset to Dundas, 15 June 1828, Cape Archives Depot, Archives of the Magistrate of Albany [A.Y.] 8/79, 193–6, 189–99; Rev. W. J. Shrewsbury to Somerset, 12 June 1828, Somerset to Bell, 20 June 1828, GH 19/3, 85–7; Dundas to Bourke, 20 June 1828, GH 19/3, 88–91; and deliberations of the Council of Advice in Cape Town, 21 June 1828, GH 19/3, 92–5; Bell to Dundas, 21 June 1828, CAD, CO 4888, 270–1; Cloete to Bell, 27 June 1828, GH 19/3, 96–103. Also see PRO, CO 48/124; GH 19/3, 92–5; and CAD, CO 4888, 274–5.

⁹¹ Cloete to Bell, 11 July 1828, GH 19/3, 159–66. The colonial authorities were extremely suspicious of King and his motives in bringing the chiefs to the colony. They were also alert to the contradictions and shifts in the account of things that he promoted. See van der Riet to Bell, 7 June 1828, UIT 15/12, 45–7.

⁹² The Colonist, May—July 1828.

⁹³ King to Cloete, 4 July 1828, GH 19/3, 125–6; Cloete to King, 4 July 1828, GH 19/3, 126–7; Cloete to Bell, 4 July 1828, GH 19/3, 115–24; Cloete to King, 5 July 1828, GH 19/3. 167–8; King to Cloete, 5 July 1828, GH 19/3, 169–72; Cloete to King, 10 July 1828, GH 19/3, 174–7; Bell to King, 11 July 1828, CAD, CO 4895, 336; Cloete to Bell, 11 July 1828, GH 19/3, 159–66; King to Cloete, presumably 18 July 1828, GH 19/3, 212–5; Cloete to King, 18 July 1828, GH 19/3, 216; Frances to Bell, 25 July 1828, GH 19/3, 248–63; Cloete to Bell, 29 July 1828, GH 19/3, 258–63; King to Cloete, 29 July 1828, GH 19/3, 264–71; Cloete to Bell, 18 July 1828, GH 19/3, 198–203; Cloete to King, 30 July 1828, GH 19/3, 272–3; King to Cloete, 30 July 1828, GH 19/3, 274–81; also see CAD, CO 4894, 18–9; GH 19/3, 178–81; CAD, CO 4893, 265–7, 291–2.

⁹⁴ King to Cloete, 11 July 1828, GH 19/3, 178–81; King to van der Riet, 13 July 1828, GH 19/3, 206–9.

⁹⁵ The Colonist, 26 Aug. 1828.

⁹⁶ The Colonist, 19 Aug. 1928.

⁹⁷ Ibid.

⁹⁸ Roberts, The Zulu Kings, chs. 2–6.

⁹⁹ Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 133Google Scholar; South African Commercial Advertiser, 31 Dec. 1829.

¹⁰⁰ Report of Sir Lowry Cole, GH 23/9, 39–47.

¹⁰¹ South African Commercial Advertiser, 15 Nov. 1828.

¹⁰² Cobbing, , ‘Mfecane as alibi’, 512–13Google Scholar; ‘Grasping the nettle’, 28–9.

¹⁰³ See Farewell to Bell, 19 Feb. 1829, GH 19/3, 579–80; Farewell to the Chairman, Committee of the Commercial Exchange, Cape Town, 3 March 1829, PRO, CO 48/133; S. Bannister to Bell, 28 March 1829, CAD, CO 3941, 403–4, and a host of other applications by Bannister. Note also the changed tenor of Farewell's communication to J. Barrow of 15 March 1829, PRO, CO 48/13.

¹⁰⁴ Bell to Mr. Benjamin Green, 22 Aug. 1828, CAD, CO 4895, 350; Green to Bell, 11 Aug. 1828, CAD, CO 3937, 323–4; Farewell to Bell, 4 Dec. 1828, CAD, CO 357, 400–1.

¹⁰⁵ South African Commercial Advertiser, 27 Dec. 1828, 31 Jan. 1829; Farewell's report, GH 23/9, 39–47; GH 1/15, 665.

¹⁰⁶ King to ‘T’ (presumably Thompson), 2 May 1827, in The Colonist, 3 Jan. 1828.

¹⁰⁷ de B. Webb, C. and Wright, J. B. (eds.), The James Stuart Archive [JSA] (4 vols.) (Pietermaritzburg and Durban, 1976–1986), iii, 15Google Scholar, Mbokodo.

¹⁰⁸ JSA, i, 195, Jantshi.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid.

¹¹⁰ JSA, i, 195, 201–2, Jantshi.

¹¹¹ JSA, ii, 232, Maquza; iii, 55–6, 65–7, Mcotoyi.

¹¹² Fynn, , Diary, 65–6, 130Google Scholar; Isaacs, , Travels and Adventures, 18, 19, 24–6, 32, 37, 41, 63, 67, 70, 78, 83, 89–90, 140.Google Scholar

¹¹³ This view of Zulu oral tradition is set out at length by Cobbing in a review article on the James Stuart Archive, entitled ‘A tainted well: the objectives, historical fantasies, and working methods of James Stuart, with counter-argument’, Journal of Natal and Zulu History, XI (1988), 115–54.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ While Cobbing dismisses Stuart's informants’ versions of Shaka, he does concede that the Archive may yield historical data: ‘Tainted well’, 116–17.

¹¹⁵ Stuart never published anything on Shaka beyond the accounts in his four Zulu readers, uBaxoxele, uTulasizwe, uHlangakula and uVusezakiti (London, 1923–1926).Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ JSA, i, evidence of Baleka, especially pp. 7–12.

¹¹⁷ JSA, i, 12, Baleka.

¹¹⁸ JSA, i, 8, Baleka.

¹¹⁹ Ibid.

¹²⁰ Cobbing, , ‘Tainted well’, 120.Google Scholar

¹²¹ Killie Campbell Africana Library, Stuart Papers, file 42, item xxi.

¹²² Cobbing, , ‘Tainted well’, 122.Google Scholar

¹²³ For a detailed assessment of the various versions of the life story of Shaka that occur in the Stuart Archive, and their dating, see my ‘The production of Shaka and “the weighing of evidence only procurable in prejudiced channels”’ (paper presented to the Conference on ‘Enlightenment and Emancipation’, Durban, 1989).Google Scholar