Victorian attitudes towards the Zulu

[Matt Easton]

I just stumbled upon this quote and thought it relevant:

The Zulus, armed with spears, rush upon repeating rifles, not because unduly endowed with true courage, but because they lack common sense.

Popular Science, 1906.

[mike snook]

Matt

Sounds like the editor of Popular Science should have got out a bit more!

Regards

Mike

[Matt Easton]

Well indeed. I think Popular Science had a pretty large readership though and it's Edwardian rather than Victorian, but useful for referrence.

Matt

[Isandlwana]

Matt,

Useful as a reference, I beg to differ.

The quote obviously alludes to the slaughter at Mome Gorge of 1906 Rebellion. A number of the rebels were from Natal - rather than from Zululand itself - the descendants of the men who had fled at Isandlwana & Rorke's Drift, who had taken up their traditional weapons to rebel against a poll-tax. The quote is doubly misleading to say the least. As the 'repeating rifles' were magazine-fed, and supported by belt-fed machine-guns and artillery-pieces.

John Y.

[Matt Easton]

Interesting, thanks.

[Matt Easton]

Stumbled on this:

The people, I mean the natives, are very happy and contented in Natal from all accounts; they look upon the British Government as the great bulwark against the tyrants in Zululand, where, Dr. Callaway says, things are very different, every one looks discontented, there is no merry singing and joking among the people, as indeed all live in terror, no one knowing where the chiefs displeasure may fall next: people are afraid to be rich and prosperous for fear of exciting envy, not only fearing the jealousy of their chief, but even that of their neighbours, who are always ready to incite the chief against any too prosperous commoner.

The government of the Zulus is oppressive and unnatural, uncongenial to the Kaffir habits of life. They are by nature a free people, with the greatest freedom of speech, the chief by no means uncontrolled, every man of wealth and standing having the right, and exercising it too, of speaking his mind in the National Council Chamber, which is the space in front of the houses at the ' great place.' Every Kaffir is able to plead, most do it well; it is one of the rights of manhood to be able to maintain one's rights 'by words'; ne great measure is determined on without public deliberation, and I never heard of intimidation being used to prevent a man from speaking out. Now all this freedom appears to be done away with among the Zulus ; and I cannot but think such a change to be for the worse ; a Kaffir chief is a patriarch, the Zulu a tyrant.

Occasional papers. Canterbury city, st. Augustine's missionary coll - 1870

[L. Braden]

There was a Victorian myth that the nervous systems of so-called "uncivilized" men were different from that of so-called "civilized"; and even though the "civilized" must have known that Zulu and other (so-called) "savage" warriors were trained from childhood to endure pain and suffering without flinching, as the ancient Spartans were, they nonetheless smugly attributed such stoicism and fatalism to "savagery" and/or "fanaticism".

[brigantii]

Can I please put a small note to the question about Victorian attitude to the Zulu. It starts with my Grandfather who served during what I believe (due to his date of birth and time severved in H.M.Forces) to be one of the Zulu uprisings, pre Boer war. I believe this to be true because my Father always stated that, my Grandfather was bitten in the upper left arm in close combat with a Zulu, as my grand father went on to have 7 children (and carried a scar)I can only assume that the Zulu did not survive. What came about was a great respect for the Zulu fighting man.Which was passed on to my father, then me after I told my father that I had seen ZULU the Welsh fantasy.
just a little bit of info that may help

[Peter Ewart]

Thanks for posting these paragraphs, Matt, which bring an interesting angle to the discussion. I think it might be worthwhile mentioning here, however, that the Anglican missionary from whose letter the extract is taken had no personal experience of Zululand at all and very little of the Zulu of Natal. The writer was the Rev Bransby Louis Key, who wrote from Queenstown, about 60 miles from King William’s Town and East London, and whose mission work had been, and was to be, mostly with the Griqua and Pondo of British Kaffraria, in today’s Eastern Cape. The letter was dated 14 Oct 1871 and addressed to the warden of Key’s alma mater, St Augustine’s College, Canterbury, and was published in the college’s organ, the Occasional Papers, No 145 dated 12 Feb 1872, rather than in 1870, as your source suggests. (In fact, although the Warden edited the Occasional Papers, the students undertook the printing task as part of their college course and were not averse to the odd “typo”, printing a date of 1861 instead of 1871 at the top of this particular letter!)

Key occasionally visited southern Natal and is relying here on Dr Callaway, who served in that part of the colony as well as further south in the St John’s diocese among the Pondo. Callaway was certainly familiar with the Zulu of southern Natal, as his well known publications demonstrated, but to my knowledge he only visited Zululand itself once, and had just returned from that visit when Key wrote to Canterbury. Key’s main source for saying what he did, therefore, was Callaway, who had stayed at kwaMagwaza with Bishop Wilkinson of Zululand and his colleague the Rev Robert Robertson. These two were responsible, during the 1870s, for stirring up much of the public animosity in Natal against Cetshwayo, perceiving him to represent a barrier to their access to the Zulu people. To be fair to these two, however, at the time the letter was written they still harboured high hopes of progress and maintained mainly good relations with the King-elect. Key had also recently met (in Pietermaritzburg, Natal) the Rev Joel Jackson, another Anglican missionary in Zululand, and no doubt drew upon his experiences as well, which went back even further than Wilkinson’s. Key’s statements regarding the Zulu of Natal no doubt contain plenty of truth, as many of them were refugees from Zululand in the 1840s, ’50 and ‘60s. Key and Callaway became bishops and Key and Jackson were both alumni of St Augustine’s, which tended to accept the idea (based upon the views of Wilkinson, Robertson, Jackson and later the Rev George Smith “of Rorke’s Drift”) which claimed that only Cetshwayo stood in the way of the Zulu people becoming fine Christians and stalwart subjects of the British Empire!

Peter

[Matt Easton]

Very interesting Peter, thanks.
I suppose there were lots of motivations for various people to paint the Zulu leaders as 'tyrants' - political, religious etc?
I wonder if many 'ordinary' Victorians bought into the perception, despite the obvious bias? I'm thinking here of the 'average joe' reading the newspaper in London.

Regards,
Matt