Episode 204 - Planet Earth 1855, the Regal Cetshwayo kaMpande and Natal Land Realities

Episode 204 - A quick whip around the globe in 1855 and Cetshwayo kaMpande makes his Regal Entrance.

First up, a quick thank you to Adi Badenhorst at AA Badenhorst family wines in the Swartland of the Cape — your gift was extraorindarily generous and well received. I am truly indebted to you. And to all those folks sending me tips and notes, thank you its gratifying to receive correspondence from such learned people!

Straight to our episode 2024, Planet Earth 1855, Cetshwayo kaMpande grows powerful and Natal Land Realities.

A legend is the only way to describe the amaZulu king who was going to dethrone his father Mpande kaSenzangakhona, usurp his brother’s right to rule, and later in life, destroy an entire British column at Isandhlwana. In this episode we’ll deal with the initial years of his life.

Folks tend to focus on Shaka when it comes to important Zulu warriors, but by the time we’re done, you’ll agree that Cetshwayo was probably more significant. I’ll end the editorialising there - let’s head over to the eastern seaboard of South Africa, into Zululand across the Thukela.

It’s 1855.

Mpande had overthrown his half-brother Dingana, and one of his professed goals was to stop the internecine conflict that had riven the house of the Zulu. Peace is what he strived for, and so he set about creating sons unlike Shaka and Dingana who had their offspring killed and tried to insure themselves against being bumped off by their own children by just not getting their wives or concubines pregnant.

Easier said than done.

Mpande had at least 30 sons with his wives, believing that protection lay in numbers.

Problem was, there will always be someone who thinks they’re better than the eldest son of the Great Wife. And the eldest son of the Great Wife will always believe he should be king. Fade up the ominous music.

And thus, in a nutshell, Cetshwayo.
The settler port village of Durban had gone through various ructions by the mid-1850s. For some distance around the port and into the interior, English settlers had replaced the original Dutch farmers with the stipulation that a farmer could own only one farm of 2500 acres and security of tenure had improved. Originally tenure was a measly 15 years - then changed to perpetuity. Marking out the farms was done on horseback at walking pace. One hour each way. Four hours later, that was your farm.

Of course most mustered the fastest horse they could find, some even changed horses, then tried to gallop or canter the four hours. Land sizes could top 5000 acres by cheating in this way.
Simultaneously a clash of ideas between the indigenous population of South Africa and the British Government was most marked in Natal.

Most of the region is suitable for farming in some manner — the region can be divided, pretty broadly, into two zones. The interior grasslands and open tree savannah, and the coastal bush and forest. The grasslands were not ideal for arable agriculture, but were great for livestock farming. The coastal zone was a different story — more rain fell along the coast, it was more suitable for farming — and that’s why sugar became such an important story in Natal a little later.
With that, its time now to step back and peer inscrutably at what was going on internationally in the year 1855. The Panama Railway became the first railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, long before before the time of the Canal which was built between 1904 and 1916.

In 1855 Alexander the Second ascended the Russian throne while in China, the Taiping Rebellion rolled on — the Taiping army of 350 000 invaded Anhui in the east of the country.

Van Diemen’s land was seperated from New South Wales and granted selfgovernment and later in the year, renamed Tasmania. For the wine connoissours listening, including Adi Badenhorst I hope, the Bordeaux wine classification system was first listed in 1855.