Shaka, also known as Chaka or Tshaka, was a prominent Zulu chief from 1816 to 1828 and the founder of the Zulu Empire in Southern Africa. Born around 1787 and passing away on September 22, 1828, Shaka is renowned for establishing a formidable fighting force that had a profound impact on the entire region. His life has been the subject of numerous colorful and exaggerated stories, many of which are still debated by historians.
Shaka was the son of Senzangakona, the chieftain of the Zulu, and Nandi, an orphaned princess from the neighboring Langeni clan. However, their marriage violated Zulu custom due to belonging to the same clan, resulting in social stigma that extended to Shaka himself. His parents separated when he was six years old, and Nandi took him back to the Langeni, where he experienced a fatherless upbringing among people who looked down upon his mother. In 1802, the Langeni expelled Nandi, and she eventually found refuge with the Dletsheni, a subclan of the powerful Mthethwa. When Shaka turned 23, Dingiswayo, the Mthethwa paramount chieftain, enlisted Shaka’s Dletsheni age group for military service. Over the next six years, Shaka served with distinction as a warrior of the Mthethwa Empire.
Following the death of Senzangakona in 1816, Dingiswayo released Shaka from service and dispatched him to take over the Zulu, who at the time numbered fewer than 1,500 and inhabited an area along the White Umfolozi River. Despite being one of over 800 Eastern Nguni–Bantu clans, Shaka’s arrival marked the beginning of their ascent to greatness. From the outset, Shaka ruled with an iron hand, swiftly executing anyone who opposed him.
One of Shaka’s initial actions was to reorganize the Zulu army. Before his leadership, the Zulu and other clans were armed with oxhide shields and slender throwing spears, engaging in brief and relatively bloodless battles. Shaka equipped his men with long-bladed, short-hafted stabbing assegais, compelling them to fight at close quarters. He introduced a regimental system based on age groups, quartered at separate kraals (villages) and distinguished by uniform markings on shields and various combinations of headdresses and ornaments. Shaka also developed standard tactics that the Zulu used in every battle.
Under Shaka’s leadership, the Zulu army’s available regiments (collectively known as the impi) were divided into four groups: the “chest,” which engaged the enemy to immobilize them while two “horns” flanked and attacked from behind, and a reserve called the “loins.” The battle was overseen by officers known as indunas who used hand signals to direct the regiments. The impi covered impressive distances each day and lived off requisitioned grain and cattle from the kraals they passed.
Shaka pursued a policy of extermination, absorbing the remnants of clans he defeated into the Zulu. He started by decimating small clans in his vicinity, including the Langeni, seeking out those who had tormented him during his childhood and executing them. Within a year, the Zulu and their army had quadrupled in number. In 1817, Dingiswayo—still Shaka’s overlord—was murdered, removing the last restraint on Zulu expansion. Within two years, Shaka overcame the only sizable clans that posed a threat—the Ndwandwe and the Qwabe. Subsequently, he launched annual campaigns against the network of clans south of Zulu territories, resulting in widespread devastation and population displacement as far as the Cape Colony.
While Shaka’s depredations were confined to the coastal area, they indirectly led to the Mfecane (“Crushing”) in the early 1820s—a period of widespread warfare and disruption that devastated the inland plateau. Marauding clans fleeing from Zulu aggression initiated a deadly game of territorial displacement, resulting in significant loss of life and societal upheaval. The Boer Great Trek of the 1830s traversed this area with relative ease due to the diminished opposition resulting from the Mfecane.
The first Europeans arrived in Port Natal (present-day Durban) in 1824. A small group from the Farewell Trading Company established a post on the landlocked bay and established contact with Shaka at his kraal Bulawayo located 100 miles (160 km) to the north. Intrigued by European ways but convinced of his own civilization’s superiority, Shaka allowed them to remain. Two of these early settlers, Henry Francis Fynn and Nathaniel Isaacs, became fluent Zulu linguists whose writings provide much of what is known about early Nguni history.
In 1827, Nandi passed away, triggering a visible deterioration in Shaka’s mental state. Approximately 7,000 Zulus were killed during his initial grief-stricken outburst. For a year, no crops were planted, and milk—the staple of the Zulu diet—could not be utilized. Pregnant women were executed alongside their husbands, as were thousands of milch cows to ensure even the calves experienced maternal loss.
In early 1828, Shaka dispatched the impi south on a raid that reached the borders of the Cape Colony. Upon their return and in anticipation of the usual seasonal respite, he sent them on another raid far to the north. This proved to be too much for his associates, leading two of his half-brothers—Dingane and Mhlangana—along with an induna named Mbopa to assassinate him in September of that year.