DINUZULU

Dinuzulu (Dinizulu), (circa 1868-October 18, 1913), Zulu king from 1884-87 ruled over a divided Zululand in the aftermath of the destruction of the Zulu empire during the reign of his father, Cetshwayo. As a descendant of Shaka, Dinuzulu provided a symbol of kingship and power on which most Zulus could pin their hopes in the face of increasing foreign domination.

PHOTO CAPTION: Dinuzulu. SOURCE: EA Library

Dinuzulu was born in Zululand, the eldest son of Cetshwayo and of kaMsweli. At age 11, he accompanied his uncle, Ndabuko, to the 1879 conference at Ulundi where Sir Garnet Wolseley, leader of the British forces in the Zulu War, was to announce terms of surrender of the Zulus.

At this conference Wolseley ignored Dinuzulu’s heredity status and, in the partition of Zululand, placed Dinuzulu under the authority of Zibhebhu, an arch-enemy of his father. Other terms of surrender destroyed the basis of the organsation of the Zulu state.

When Cetshwayo died in 1884, the 16-year-old Dinuzulu attempted to rebuild the Zulu empire. To this end he accepted the offer of help from the Boers of the Transvaal who pronounced him king in a crude coronation ceremony and helped to drive his rival, Zibhebhu, out of Zululand into the protection of the Natal government. However, the Boers demanded and received as reward some 3,000,000 acres of land and formed a New Republic in Northern Natal. This reduced Dinuzulu’s territory even more than Wolseley’s settlement had done.

The next three years were turbulent, and Dinuzulu attempted to establish order by appealing alternately to the British government and to the Boer Republic, depending on the status of his problems. His appeals were in vain. In 1887 the British government unilaterally annexed Zululand and placed the territory under the jurisdiction of the Natal government subjecting it to its Natal Native Law.

Dinuzulu viewed his status as unchanged, which led to clashes with the British resident and the magistracies when Dinuzulu continued to dispense justice as before. When the British resident, Melmoth Osborn, returned Zibhebhu to Zululand, open mobilisation for warfare against Zibhebhu led Osborn to issue warrants for the arrest of Dinuzulu and his uncle and advisor, Ndabuko. The Zulu rebellion that followed was crushed within two months, and Dinuzulu, among others, was tried and convicted of treason and public violence. In 1889 he was taken to the island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic to serve a ten-year sentence.

On December 13, 1897 Dinuzulu was returned to Eshowe in Zululand with his status reduced to that of a salaried district chieftain. Dinuzulu still commanded respect among the Zulus, however, and this respect increased after he left Eshowe for his hereditary base in the Usuthu area. When Bambatha, a chieftain of the Zondis, rebelled against the taxation policy of the Natal government. he solicited the support of Dinuzulu but the response he received was ambivalent. When the Bambatha rebellion was crushed in 1906, Dinuzulu was charged with treason for allegedly sheltering Bambatha and his family.

In 1908 Dinuzulu was found guilty and sentenced to four years imprisonment and a fine. Dinuzulu had served half of his sentence when, in 1910, the prime minister of the new Union of South Africa allowed him to live at Middleburg in the Transvaal. Dinuzulu died there in 1913. He was succeeded by his son Maphumzana (Solomon) who was later given the courtesy title of paramount chief of the Zulus.

Faced with baffling circumstances at a very young age, with vacillating British colonial policy, and with the scramble for African land by whites, Dinuzulu presided over a most difficult period in Zulu history. Proof of his influence was given when the African National Congress, at its inception in 1912, made Dinuzulu its first honorary president.

NOMATHEMBA SITHOLE