[1][2][3] In the years following the Second Boer War, British employers in Natal found it difficult to recruit sufficient Zulu farm workers because of increased competition from the gold mines on the Witwatersrand.

The revolt, led by Chief Bambatha kaMancinza, leader of the amaZondi clan of the Zulu people who lived in the Mpanza Valley, a district near Greytown, was sparked in February 1906, when two British tax collectors were killed near Richmond.

[4] Martial law was declared and Bambatha embarked on a series of guerrilla attacks, using the Nkandla forest as a base.

King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, who gave tacit support to Bambatha, was arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment for treason.

[6] The medal was designed and manufactured by the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Company of London, having been commissioned by the Natal Government.It was struck in silver and is a disk, 36 millimetres (1.4 in) in diameter.

[1][2][3] The reverse displays the figures of Britannia and Natalia, holding a large sword and standing on a heap of native weapons, against a background of a landscape with a group of Zulu men and huts with a sunrise behind.