The Dust Rose Like Smoke by James O. Gump

Author:James O. Gump [Gump, James O.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS001040 History / Africa / South / General, HIS036040 History / United States / 19th Century
ISBN: 9780803284531
Publisher: Nebraska
Published: 2015-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

5. Bartle Frere. Engraved from a drawing by Sir George Reid. In Sonia Clarke, ed., Zululand at War, 1879 (Johannesburg: Brenthurst Press, 1984), 54. Courtesy Brenthurst Press.

To support their case for war, Frere and Shepstone also made extensive use of missionary reports from Zululand, especially those of the Anglican Robert Robertson. Robertson, who enjoyed little success in attracting African converts, had grown frustrated and embittered by the late 1870s. A notorious drunk and vulnerable to the sexual attractions of young women on his station, Robertson blamed his personal misery on Cetshwayo and those “thousands of wild Zulus” who had only “learned the name of the Evil one” from the white man. By late 1877 Robertson lamented that as tragic as a conflict with the Zulu might be, “there are worse things than war sometimes.”77

Frere had reached similar conclusions. Working feverishly during 1878 to lay the groundwork for confederation, Frere prepared the Colonial Office for war against the Zulu kingdom. In September, for example, he wrote that “the preservation of peace in Natal depends simply on the sufferance of the Zulu Chief, that while he professes a desire for peace every act is indicative of an intention to bring about war, and that this intention is shared . . . by the majority of his people.”78 In manufacturing a casus belli, Frere exaggerated the significance of various incidents, including the exodus of missionaries from Zululand in mid-1878. Frere informed the colonial secretary that virtually every missionary had been “terrified out of the country.” Although Cetshwayo disliked most Christian missionaries, he had never persecuted them. According to Colonel Anthony Durnford, the mission stations in Zululand had converted only a handful of Africans, “as the king considers that the moment a man becomes a Christian he is no use. Indeed he is right in his own point of view, as the few supposed Christians are an idle useless lot.”79 In all likelihood the missionaries decided to quit Zululand on the advice of Shepstone, who warned them of an impending “political crisis.”

Frere’s propaganda campaign against the Zulu was briefly sidetracked in the early months of 1878 when the lieutenant governor of Natal, Sir Henry Bulwer, intervened to defuse the boundary dispute between the Transvaal Boers and the Zulu kingdom. Bulwer urged Frere and Shepstone to avoid rushing into a war against the Zulu. As Bulwer put it, “We are looking to different objects—I to the termination of the dispute by peaceful settlement, you to its termination by the overthrow of the Zulu kingdom.”80 Frere reluctantly agreed to Bulwer’s request, and a boundary commission was assembled at Rorke’s Drift in March and April to gather evidence on the merits of the various claims. On June 20, 1878, the commissioners delivered their final report to Frere, which awarded the bulk of the disputed territory to the Zulu. For Frere the commission report was most unwelcome and undermined his case for war. According to the historian Ian Knight, “It flatly contradicted the impression that [Frere] had carefully

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