Mfecane

[14][15] The Mfecane resulted from the complex interplay of pre-existing trends of political centralization with the effects of international trade, environmental instability, and European colonization.

[18] Political centralization became problematic in the early 1800s when deep drought (aggravated by the atmospheric effects of volcanic eruptions in 1809 and 1815)[19] struck Southeastern Africa.

Whereas previous droughts hadn't caused serious famine, the unequal distribution of land and food stores lessened the ability of average people to meet their needs.

[21] A second stage of turmoil from the 1820s to the 1830s was driven in large part by slave and cattle raiding by Griqua, Basters, and other Khoekhoe-European groups armed and mounted by European settlers, who benefitted from trading their plunder.

[23] The Mfecane began in eastern Southern Africa with increasing competition and political consolidation as chiefdoms vied for control over trade routes and grazing land.

[28][29] Meanwhile, between the Mzimkhulu and Mzimvubu Rivers, some groups fleeing the upheavals further north joined Faku kaNgqungqushe's Mpondo Kingdom, while most others instead vied for dominance just outside of its reach.

By the time of his death in 1825 the Ndwandwe had muscled into the interior, possibly sundering the Pedi Kingdom and certainly dominating the region between the Olifants and Phongolo Rivers.

These chaotic events prompted the secession of a segment of the subject abakwaQwabe nation, though they were dispersed in late 1829 by a Mpondo attack south of the Mzimkhulu.

[36] Benefitting from the fall of the Ndwandwe and Shaka, Sobhuza's Swazi Kingdom expanded from the core of modern Eswatini to the Sabie River by the early 1830s.

[33] The Mfecane began in the interior regions of Central Southern Africa in the late 18th century with the displacement of Khoekhoe and San peoples by slave and cattle raiders from the expanding Dutch Cape Colony.

Arriving in the middle and lower Orange River regions, they competed with local Batwsana peoples, beginning a period of social breakdown and recombination.

The powerful Bahurutshe Chiefdom of the upper Marico River region had their control of the lucrative trade with the Cape Colony eroded by the Bangwaketse to the northwest, the Batlhaping to the southwest, and the emerging Pedi Kingdom to the east.

The Griqua, like other ethnic groups, were not politically unified and differed in their livelihood strategies, which ranged from raiding to agriculture to controlling trade between Batswana and the Cape Colony.

[42] By the turn of the century amaXhosa groups also began arriving in the middle Orange River region, fleeing instability along the eastern Cape Colony frontier.

[46] The BaThlaping repelled the invasion on 24 June with the aid of a mounted force of Griqua, inflicting heavy casualties and killing Tsooane and Nkarahanye.

[48] His forces raided the Venda Kingdom to the north, the Maroteng, amaNdzundza, and Balodebu to the northeast, the Bangwaketse to the far west, and Matiwane's nation in the Caledon Valley.

[50] Though Matiwane was cast off, Moshoeshoe's forces successfully raided the abaThembu in 1829, greatly enriching his kingdom and allowing it to recruit large numbers of followers from returning refugees.

[52] Also between 1827 and 1828, Mzilikazi's Ndebele relocated to the Magaliesberg mountains, where he subjugated the Bahurutshe, Bakwena, and Bakgatla and regularly raided the Bangwaketse and southern Batswana peoples.

Going north and then inland westward along the watershed between the Vaal and the Limpopo rivers, Mzilikazi and his followers, the AmaNdebele, (called Matebele in English) established a Ndebele state northwest of the city of Pretoria.

Dutch settlers from the Cape Colony encroaching upon the Khoikhoi and San into regions where Tswana people live resulted in the formation of the Korana who started to launch raids on other communities by the 1780s.

Fortifying the easily defended hills and expanding his reach with cavalry raids, he fought against his enemies with some success, despite not adopting the Zulu tactics, as many clans had done.

Sebitwane gathered the Kololo ethnic groups near modern Lesotho and wandered north across what is now Botswana, plundering and killing many of the Tswana people in the way.

[58] In addition to these major kingdoms, a number of smaller groups also moved north into Tswana territory, where they met with defeat and ultimately vanished from history.

[59] In 1988, Rhodes University professor Julian Cobbing advanced a different hypothesis on the rise of the Zulu state; he contended the accounts of the Mfecane were a self-serving, constructed product of apartheid-era politicians and historians.

Instead, Cobbing argued that the roots of the conflicts lay in the labour needs of Portuguese slave traders operating out of Delagoa Bay, Mozambique and European settlers in the Cape Colony.

The resulting pressures led to forced displacement, famine, and war in the interior, allowing waves of Afrikaner settlers to colonise large swaths of the region.

[60] Cobbing's views were echoed by historian Dan Wylie, who argued that colonial-era white writers such as Isaacs had exaggerated the brutality of the Mfecane to justify European colonialism.

While historians had already embarked upon new approaches to the study of the Mfecane in the 1970s and 1980s, Cobbing's paper was the first major source that overtly defied the hegemonic "Zulu-centric" explanation at the time.

Moreover, Eldredge argues that the Griqua and other groups (rather than European missionaries as asserted by Cobbing) were primarily responsible for the slave raids coming from the Cape.

She suggests these pressures created internal movements, as well as reactions against European activity, that drove the state formations and concomitant violence and displacement.