The Khumalo story Part Two (Muzilikazi) The arrival of the Voortrekkers in 1836, Mzilikazi’s enemies found in the Whites a useful ally. When it became clear that Mzilikazi and the White newcomers would not live peacefully together, the Ndebele attacked the Voortrekkers in October 1836. The Voortrekker forces (including the Griqua and Rolong) retaliated three months later and defeated the Mzilikazis Ndebele at Mosega. The Voortrekker leaders associated with this war are Barend Liebenberg, J. Bothma, and H. Steyn. Displaced from the South African highveld, the Mzilikazis Ndebele trekked over the Limpopo River to present day Zimbabwe. Mzilikazi settled on the western edge of the central plateau of modern-day Zimbabwe, in the late 1830s, leading some 20,000 Ndebele, descendants of the Nguni and Sotho in South Africa. He invaded the Rozwi Empire and incorporated many of the Rozvi people (many joined the Ndebele Nation voluntarily because it would offer them protection from their enemies). The rest became satellite territories who paid tribute to the Ndebele Kingdom. Mzilikazi called his new nation Mthwakazi, a Zulu word which means something which became big at conception, in Zulu into ethe ithwasa yabankulu. Europeans called the territory Matabeleland. Mzilikazi organised this ethnically diverse nation into a militaristic system of regimental towns and established his capital at Bulawayo. He was a statesman of considerable stature, able to weld the many conquered tribes into a strong, centralised kingdom. In 1852, the Boer government in Transvaal made a treaty with Mzilikazi. While Mzilikazi was generally friendly to European travellers, he remained mindful of the danger that they posed to his kingdom and, in later years, he refused some visitors any access to his realm. The many European travelers who met with Mzilikazi include Henry Hartley the hunter and explorer, Robert Moffat the missionary, David Hume the explorer and trader, Andrew Smith the medical doctor, ethnologist and zoologist, William Cornwallis Harris the hunter and the missionary explorer David Livingstone. During the tribes wanderings north of the Limpopo Mzilikazi became separated from the bulk of the tribe who gave him up for dead and hailed his young heir Nkulumane as successor. However, on his reappearance after a traumatic journey through the Zambezi valley, Mzilikazi asserted control once more. According to one account, he had his son and all those chiefs who had chosen him put to death. They were all executed by being cast over a steep cliff on a hill now called Ntabazinduna (hill of the chiefs). Another account claims that Nkulumane was not killed with the chiefs, as is popular belief, but was sent back to the Zulu Kingdom with a sizeable delegation including warriors. On his journey south, he passed through the Bakwena territory in the northwestern Transvaal, near Rustenburg. The Bakwena were at the time struggling to repel frequent attacks from a neighbouring king, who wanted to lay claim to the territory that they occupied. Nkulumane assisted the Bakwena by leading his impi in a battle in which the neighbouring chief was killed by Nkulumane himself. Following this victory, the Bakwena convinced Nkulumane to settle in their territory, arguing that it would be futile to return to the Zulu kingdom as his fathers enemies would probably kill him. Nkulumane settled and lived with his family in that area until his death, in 1883. His gravesite, covered in a concrete slab, is on the outskirts of Rustenburg in Phokeng. The gravesite is incongruously referred to as Mzilikazis kop, even though it is his son who is buried there. After resuming his role as chief, Mzilikazi made his capital 5 km distant from Ntabazinduna and named it Gu-Bulawayo (place of slaughter). Shakas capital was also called Bulawayo. After a long success life which saw the founding one the most prominent military nation of that time Muzilikazi died 9 September 1868 in Matabeleland he was suffering from dprosy(which is different from leprosy). He was buried in a cave at Entumbane, Matobo Hills, Zimbabwe.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 04:58:45 +0000
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