Talk:Mfecane

Untitled

Please read Elizabeth Eldredge's article, "Sources of Conflict in Southern Africa, c.1800-30: the 'Mfecane' Reconsidred " Also your depiction of Shaka and the Zulu as the main catalyst is a bit outdated.

Proposed New Lede

Hello everyone. As per the discussion above, I'd like to propose the following as a (draft) replacement for the current (outdated) lede. I left the sources in parentheses here, but of course they'd be properly formatted in the article itself. I'm looking forwards to your input:

"The Mfecane is a historical period of heightened military conflict and migration associated with state formation and expansion in Southern Africa. The exact range of dates that comprise the Mfecane varries between sources. At its broadest the period lasted from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century CE, but scholarship often focuses on an intensive period from the 1810s to the 1840s (Epprecht 83). The concept first emerged in the 1830s and centered on the actions of Shaka Zulu, who was alleged to have waged near-genocidal wars that depopulated the land and sparked a chain reaction of violence as fleeing groups sought to conquer new lands (Epprecht 144, Wright 286). Since the later half of the 20th century this interpretation has fallen out of favor due to a lack of compelling historical evidence (Epprecht 115, Wright 287). Current scholarly understanding revises the mortality figure significantly downward and attributes the root causes to complex political, economic, and environmental developments (Epprecht, Omer-Cooper, Saunders, Eldredge). The Mfecane is significant in that it saw the formation of novel states, institutions, and ethnic identities in Eastern Southern Africa. The historiography of the Mfecane is also historically significant, with different versions having been employed to serve a range of political purposes since its inception as a historical concept (Epprecht 114, Wright 286, Etherington 68)." Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 07:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I second this. Special:Contributions/TheSands-12 22:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I think that looks great Pliny the Elderberry and would encourage you to be bold and make the change. It might need to be edited a bit so that it complies with Wikipedia's citation style (using footnotes) but that is not material to the substance of the addition and can be done later or by another editor.--Discott (talk) 13:17, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Chicken

Fyfvvunff Jhvg 41.87.179.102 (talk) 20:26, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Tribes

Other tribes that were involved have been excluded. There's a need to revisit this article TwinMosia (talk) 07:10, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Rewriting the Article

Hello everyone. I am currently working on a full rewrite of the article based on more recent and reliable sources and wanted to check in concerning the organization of the rewrite. The main issue is whether to organize the article in chronological order (trying to list all events that could be described as part of the Mfecane) or by region (Natal, Highveld, etc.). The first option of doing everything chronologically is more narratively pleasing, but because a lot of different things were happening in different places at the same time, it might lead to the article jumping confusingly between places and events that don't necessarily have much to do with each other. A simple list of major events year by year is a second option (with the benefit of being clear to understand and much easier to write), but may be too much of a simplification. A third option would be to focus on specific regions (ex. Mfecane in the Highveld) where we could put together sort of sensical, chronological narrative. What do you all think would be the best way forward? Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 02:33, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

How're you getting on? Alexanderkowal (talk) 21:02, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I think doing it chronologically but having subheadings for regions, so you do periods with two == heading, and regions as === headings Alexanderkowal (talk) 21:05, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Btw, I recommend skimming through the relevant General History of Africa chapter Kowal2701 (talk) 19:48, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Proposed Changes

Hello! Let me know what you all think of these proposed changes:

Causes: The Mfecane resulted from the complex interplay of preexisting trends of political centralization with the effects of international trade, environmental instability, and European colonization. State formation and expansion had already been intensifying in Southeastern African as of at least the late 1700s, but these processes were greatly accelerated after the international ivory trade opened. The trade allowed leaders to amass unprecedented amounts of wealth, which they could then use to cultivate greater political power. Wealth and power became mutually reinforcing, as wealth enabled leaders to develop state instruments of control and expropriation, which they used to extract further wealth through taxation and military action. The consequence of this cycle was an increasing political and wealth disparity within and between polities, particularly as concerned access to productive land and food stores.

Political centralization became problematic in the early 1800s when deep drought (aggravated by the atmospheric effects of volcanic eruptions in 1809 and 1815) struck Southeastern Africa. Whereas previous droughts hadn't caused serious famine, the unequal distribution of land and food stores lessened the ability of average people to meet their needs. Though far less susceptible to famine, leaders faced threats to their power as (taxable) agricultural production dropped and ivory became scarcer due to overhunting. Faced with the challenges of fighting famine and maintaining wealth flows, leaders were incentivized to turn to raiding and conquest. Conquest protected conquering peoples against famine by providing immediate access to the conquered peoples's livestock and grain stores and, in the long term, by securing choice arable land and the people (particularly women) to farm it at greater intensities than before. Here another self-reinforcing cycle set in as famine and warfare promoted insecurity and militarism, which promoted political centralization and more warfare as strong leaders expanded their authority by offering a desperately-needed escape from famine to loyal followers.

A second stage of turmoil from the 1820s to the 1830s was driven in large part by slave and cattle raiding by Griqua, Basters, and other Khoekhoe-European groups armed and mounted by European settlers, who benefitted from trading for the plunder. The increasing economic pull of the international slave trade also incentivized greater warfare and disruption between polities close to international ports such as Delagoa Bay.

The Mfecane in the East: The Mfecane began in eastern Southern Africa with increasing competition and political consolidation as chiefdoms vied for control over trade routes and grazing land.

Delagoa Bay and its international port saw increasing regional conflict in the mid-to-late 1700s. The local Tembe and Mabhudu competed for for control, absorbing or expelling some of their neighboring polities. The abakwaDlamini were one such group put to flight by the conflict.

The mid-to-late 1700s also saw the rise of the Nxumalo and Nyambose chiefdoms between the Phongolo and Thukela rivers, which would eventually become the Ndwandwe Paramountcy and Mthethwa Paramountcy. On the borders of their spheres of influence, the amaHlubi of the upper Mzinyathi, the abakwaDlamini north of the Phongolo, and the abakwaQwabe of the lower Thukela. The latter's rise displaced elements of the abakwaCele and amaThuli further south. The amaThuli managed to secure a sizable chiefdom between the lower Mngeni and Mkhomazi Rivers, which displaced local groups across the Mzimkhulu River. This in turn contributed to the rise of the Mpondo Kingdom.

The 1810s saw the continued expansion of the Ndwandwe and Mthethwa Paramountcies, as well as the Portuguese Delagoa Bay slave trade. The Ndwandwe Paramountcy would come to blows with the Mthethwa in the late 1810s, ultimately defeating and slaying their leader Dingiswayo kaJobe. The Mthethwa promptly collapsed as its client polities reasserted independence. The Ndwandwe king Zwide kaLanga went on to war with one of these breakaways, the amaZulu of Shaka kaSenzangakhona. Their raids and counterraids proved costly and indecisive, contributing to the breakup of the Paramountcy. Soshangane and Zwangendaba seceded and settled their followers in the Delagoa Bay region, while Msane did the same in what is now eastern Eswatini. King Zwide, now in a position of weakness, evacuated to his territories north of the Phongolo to rebuild. Shaka took advantage of the power vacuum to expand the Zulu state to the Mkhuze River. The 1810s also saw the expansion of British colonial rule in southeastern southern Africa, with Xhosa polities displaced northwards by the Fourth and Fifth Xhosa Wars.

Meanwhile, between the Mzimkhulu and Mzimvubu Rivers, some polities fleeing the upheavals further north joined Faku kaNgqungqushe's Mpondo Kingdom, while most others instead vied for dominance just outside of its reach.

By the 1820s, Shoshangane's Gaza Kingdom and Shaka's Zulu kingdom had established themselves alongside the remains of the Ndwandwe Paramountcy as the major players in the Northeast of Southern Africa. After relocating once again to the Nkomati River region, Zwide successfully raided and recruited his way back to power. By the time of his death in 1825 the Ndwandwe had muscled into the interior, possibly sundering the Pedi Kingdom and certainly dominating the region between the Olifants and Phongolo Rivers. Msane, Zwangendaba, and the followers of Nxaba, for their part, were displaced farther north. The Gaza Kingdom expanded to the northeast, heavily raiding small Tsonga polities. Slave trading expanded at Delagoa Bay, and the Portuguese worked to expand their regional sphere of influence.

In 1826, the expansion of the Ndwandwe Paramountcy under Sikhunyana began to threaten the Zulu Kingdom's borders. In response, Shaka marched his army (and allied British traders) to the Izindololwane Hills and put Sikhunyana to flight. Their victory was so total that the Ndwandwe state collapsed shortly thereafter, with some constituent polities fleeing south or joining the Zulu, the Gaza Kingdom, or Mzilikazi's Matabele/Ndebele Kingdom. The collapse of the Ndwandewe allowed Sekwati to rebuild the sundered Pedi Kingdom around a fortified hilltop base near the Steelpoort River. From this stronghold, he soon gathered a large following by offering protection to groups of refugees.

In 1827, Shoshangane relocated the Gaza Kingdom from the lower Nkomati to the lower Limpopo River area. Gaza defeated a Zulu army in 1828 and developed economic and political ties with the Portuguese.

In May of 1828, Shaka launched a successful cattle raid against the Bomvana and the Mpondo Kingdom, following up with another raid north of Delagoa Bay before the first expeditionary force had returned home. Sensing political weakness, his brothers Dingane and Mhlangana assassinated him in September. Dingane subsequently purged Mhlangana and other political rivals and established himself as the new Zulu king. These chaotic events prompted the secession of a segment of the subject abakwaQwabe nation, though they were dispersed in late 1829 by a Mpondo attack south of the Mzimkhulu.

By the late 1820s the power struggles between the Mzimkhulu and Mzimvubu Rivers had produced two victors: the Mpondo Kingdom and the Bhaca Chiefdom. Several weaker polities again relocated, with some moving north, others moving south, and yet others to the Zulu Kingdom. 1828 saw a further advance of colonial power as a combined British-Boer force marched far beyond the colonial borders and destroyed Matiwane's amaNgwane at Mbholompo.

Benefitting from the fall of the Ndwandwe and Shaka, Sobhuza's Swazi Kingdom expanded from the core of modern Eswatini to the Sabie River by the early 1830s. In an 1833 trade dispute, Zulu forces briefly captured Delagoa Bay and executed the Portuguese governor Dionísio António Ribeiro. In an attempt to solidify their control over inland trade, the Portuguese launched a failed attack on the Gaza Kingdom in 1834, leaving Gaza dominant over Delagoa Bay and the territories to its north. By the late 1830s, the Kingdom's sphere of influence reached as far as the Zambezi River.

In 1836, the Swazi Kingdom weathered a joint attack by Zulu forces and British adventurers. Sometime in the late 1830s the Swazi launched a raid against the Pedi Kingdom, which repelled them.

The Mfecane in the Interior: The Mfecane began in the interior regions of Central Southern Africa in the late 18th century with the displacement of Khoekhoe and San peoples by slave and cattle raiders from the expanding Dutch Cape Colony. Arriving in the middle and lower Orange River regions, they competed with local Batwsana peoples, beginning a period of social breakdown and recombination. Further bolstered in number by escaped slaves, bandits, and people of all races from the Cape Colony, some of these peoples would eventually become the Korana. Their power increased as trade with and raids upon colonists provided guns and horses, and by the 1780s they began raiding northwards against Tswana polities.

From the 1780s to the turn of the century, the southern Tswana chiefdoms underwent fragmentations and consolidations as raids and counter-raids proliferated. The powerful Bahurutshe Chiefdom of the upper Marico River region had their control of the lucrative trade with the Cape Colony eroded by the Bangwaketse to the northwest, the Batlhaping to the southwest, and the emerging Pedi Kingdom to the east. The latter, helmed by the Maroteng clan, also came into conflict with the amaNdzundza Ndebele, Masemola, Magakala, Bamphahlele, and Balobedu polities. Meanwhile, the region of the modern north and central Free State was increasingly coming under the control of the Bataung.

In the late 1790s, expansion by the Cape Colony to the lower Orange River region displaced the mixed-race Griqua peoples to the confluence of the Vaal and Orange River. There, they absorbed some of their San and Korana neighbors as clients. The Griqua, like other ethnic groups, were not politically unified and differed in their livelihood strategies, which ranged from raiding to agriculture to controlling trade between Batswana and the Cape Colony.

By the turn of the century amaXhosa groups also began arriving in the middle Orange River region, fleeing instability along the eastern Cape Colony frontier. There they absorbed Korana, San, and others and engaged in extensive raiding along the Orange and lower Vaal rivers. This proved particularly damaging to the trade activities of their Batlhaping victims.

By the 1810s, Boer expansion brought increasing destabilization to the middle Orange River region, not least in that it increased the flow of firearms. The Caledon Valley was now sustaining raids by Boer, Griqua, and Korana parties. By the early 1820s the instability spread north of the Orange River.

In 1822 AmaHlubi under the command of Mpangazita crossed the Drakensberg mountains and attacked Queen MmaNthatisi's Batlôkwa people. Put to flight, MmaNthatisi's followers survived off of pillage before resettling west of the Caledon River in 1824. The Sotho polities of this area sometimes held conflictual relations with these Batlôkwa newcomers, and they began coalescing in 1824 under the leadership of Moshoeshoe.

Separately, facing violence and starvation, Sebetwane's BaFokeng, Tsooane's MaPhuting, and Nkarahanye's BaHlakoana fled their homes. The three joined forces in 1823 to take the BaThlaping town of Dithakong, whose access to water kept it rich in grain and cattle despite the overall drought. The BaThlaping repelled the invasion on 24 June with the aid of a mounted force of Griqua, inflicting heavy casualties and killing Tsooane and Nkarahanye.

In 1825, Mpangazita's followers dispersed after he was killed in a war against Matiwane's amaNgwane. The amaNgwane proceeded to control much of the Caledon River environs, raiding and displacing Sotho and Tswana neighbors.

The mid-1820s saw Sebetwane dominate the upper Molopo region and Moletsane's Bataung people heavily raid the Vaal River. The eastern interior, however, was coming under the domination of Mzilikazi's Ndebele Kingdom. His forces raided the Venda Kingdom to the north, the Maroteng, amaNdzundza, and Balodebu to the northeast, the Bangwaketse to the far west, and Matiwane's nation in the Caledon Valley. Sebetwane and Moletsane's nations, for their part, were outright put to flight.

Between 1827 and 1828 Matiwane's amaNgwane launched a failed attack on Moshoeshoe and, after suffering a major raid (likely perpetrated by the Ndebele), relocated to abaThembu territory in 1828, where they were destroyed by British, Boer, amaGcaleka, amaMpondo, and abaThembu forces. Though Matiwane was cast off, Moshoeshoe's forces successfully raided the abaThembu in 1829, greatly enriching his kingdom and allowing it to recruit large numbers of followers from returning refugees. To the south of Moshoeshoe's territory, small San polities eked out independent livelihoods, while others joined Morosi's Phuthi polity to raid abaThembu, Cape Colonists, and others. Notably, San groups developed new styles of rock art during this period of change.

Also between 1827 and 1828, Mzilikazi's Ndebele relocated to the Magaliesberg mountains, where he subjugated the Bahurutshe, Bakwena, and Bakgatla and regularly raided the Bangwaketse and southern Batswana peoples. A multi-ethnic force under the Kora leader Jan Bloem sought to profit from the Ndebele's wealth with a mid-1828 raid, which proved only a partial success as his Kora and Griqua parties were destroyed before they could escape. By 1830, the Ndebele had extended their political influence over the western Tswana polities. Mzilikazi suffered another major raid from the Griqua leader Berend Berends in 1831, but again managed to decimate the loot-laden attackers. In 1832 it was the Zulu Kingdom's turn to raid the Ndebele, but for the most part they were successfully repelled. Mzilikazi relocated after the Zulu attack, settling in the Bahurutshe's upper Marico territory. The Bahurutshe response was divided, with some submitting to Ndebele rule and others relocating to Bathlaping and Griqua territory. In 1834 Jan Bloem launched a second raid against the Ndebele, which ended similarly to his first attack. Mzilikazi responded by maintaining the southern reaches of his domain as an unpopulated buffer zone. Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 15:48, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

That’s great! Good work Kowal2701 (talk) 07:26, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the current lead gives undue weight to the outdated interpretation. That is better summarised at the end of the lede around the sentence on political motives. The first couple paragraphs should discuss what it is according to recent academic consensus, not what it used to be thought to be Kowal2701 (talk) 07:34, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

All right, I implemented the new sections. I'm going to leave the lede alone until the entire rewrite is complete, but please feel free to work on it if you'd like! Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 19:33, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I'll just reorganise as a placeholder until the rewrite Kowal2701 (talk) 13:16, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

References