Leaving Zululand
He took his tribe, the Khumalo, on an 800 kilometres (500 mi) long journey from Zululand to what is now called Zimbabwe. Along the way he showed considerable statesmanship, as he was able to weld his own people and the many tribes he conquered into a large and ethnically diverse but centralised kingdom.
He was originally a lieutenant of Shaka, but in 1823 he had a quarrel with him and rebelled. Rather than face ritual execution, he fled northwards with his tribe. He first travelled to Mozambique but in 1826 he moved west into the Transvaal due to continued attacks by his enemies. As he conquered the Transvaal he absorbed many members of other tribes and established a military despotism, such as Mzilikazi's attacks in the Nzunza kraal at Esikhunjini, where the Nzunza king Magodongo and others were kidnapped and subsequently killed at Mkobola river. For the next ten years, Mzilikazi dominated the Transvaal. This period, known locally as the Mfecane (crushing) was characterised by devastation and murder on a grand scale as Mzilikazi removed all opposition and remodelled the territory to suit the new Ndebele order. He used the method of scorched earth to keep distance to all surrounding kingdoms. The death toll has never been satisfactorily determined but the region was so depopulated that the Trekboers were able to occupy and take ownership of all the best land in the 1830s due to the low population of the area.
Read more about this topic: Mzilikazi
Famous quotes containing the word leaving:
“As words go crying after themselves, leaving the dream
Upended in a puddle somewhere
As though “dead” were just another adjective.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)