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| Shaka
(Tshaka):
King of the Zulu |
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Tshaka Zulu was one of the greatest warriors in the
world. His battle techniques revolutionized the way wars
were fought in Africa. Tshaka introduced new battle
techniques and weapons. His army consisted of different
regiments or impis. Each regiment consisted of
boys of a certain age. Each had its own shield, war
cries and uniform. Tshaka devised innovative tactics
and weapons to establish nineteenth-century Zulu
dominance of Africa and increase his control over a
population that began at 1,500 and grew to more than
250,000. Known to friend and foe alike as cruel,
bloodthirsty, and deranged, Tshaka still managed to
develop a military system that reined supreme for more
than fifty years after his death. |
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Tshaka (also known as Chaka, Shaka) was born an unwanted son of a minor
chieftain. At the age of six, Shaka and his mother were
dismissed from his father's tribe. They left to live
under the great King Dingiswayo, who later influenced Shaka's development and way of thinking. Although
Shaka was just an ordinary herd boy, his acts of
bravery were the type of deeds legends were made of. For
example, when he was 13, he attacked and killed a black
Mamba snake that had killed a prize bull he was
guarding. And, at the age of 19, he killed a leopard by
piercing its heart with a spear and crushing its skull
with a club. Shaka's illegitimate birth in about 1787 to
a Zulu chief, Senzangakhona, and a woman of a lower-class clan
(Nandi) led to
his harsh treatment as an outcast, perhaps the root of
his own future ruthlessness. The name Shaka itself
translates as "intestinal parasite," or more
simply as "bastard."
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After the death of King Dingiswayo in 1818, Shaka became
Chief of Chiefs and proved to be one of the greatest yet
most misunderstood kings in all of African history. On
becoming King Shaka called
his capital Bulawayo. Shaka is renowned for his military genius, discipline and attempt
to unify the warring tribes of the Zulu Nation. With the
force of arms and diplomacy, he unified his people so
effectively that he was able to resist the invasion of
white people from Europe and maintain peace among Black
People in the south part of Africa. Shaka built a Zulu
Nation that expanded over a hundred thousand square miles
of land and created a military machine capable of
inflicting heavy casualties on British troops and
calvarymen armed with rifles, cannons, rockets and other
advanced weapons.
Ultimately, Shaka's end came from internal rather than
external enemies. Shaka's erratic behavior worsened with
the death of his mother in 1827. The often cruel treatment
of his own subjects, including execution for
"smelling like a witch" and arbitrary mass
executions of entire villages, created terror within his
civilian subjects. His army also grew unhappy with the
constant operations, which ranged farther and farther from
home as Shaka sought new tribes and lands to conquer. Shaka's
enforcement of chastity in his warriors also lowered their
morale.
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| The training regime was very
strict. Shaka tolerated no weakness in his men. He
drilled them vigorously, and forced them not to wear
sandals. Even though this allowed the men to run faster
it meant that they often got thorns stuck in their feet.
To toughen their feet Shaka made them run on beds of
thorns and any man that cried out in pain was killed. |
| By the time of his mother's death, Shaka no longer
took the field at the head of his army, further eroding
the confidence of his people. On September 23, 1828, Shaka's
half brothers Dingane and Mhlangana assassinated him.
His killers buried him in an unmarked grave somewhere
near today's Natal village of Stanger. |
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