Shaka Zulu. The Rise of the Zulu Empire

Ritter, E.A.

Published by Longmans Green and Co, London, 1955

About this Item

Brown cloth boards with slightly dull titling on spine. No ownership marks, Colour frontis plate. + 12 further plates. xvi, 383 pages clean and tight. "INTRODUCTION - THIS book attempts to portray Shaka, the founder of the Zulu nation, as the Zulus saw him, particularly at the turn of the last century. By writing a biography rather than a general history it has been possible to incorporate the established traditions of the Zulus which the older generations described in the vivid and dramatic style peculiar to their nation. To find a suitable English idiom for the reproduction of that style would have required literary genius, to which the author does not pretend. But he has done his best to echo it. Almost every evening Zulu fathers spoke to their children of the traditions of the Zulu nation, which they in their turn had learned from their fathers. In much the same way must the Old Testament stories have been passed on orally for generation after generation until at last, perhaps not until as late as 80o B.C., they were written down. The earliest chronicles of all peoples were presumably oral: they were none the less chronicles for that, and the author has not hesitated to refer, occasionally, to the Zulu oral tradition as a chronicle, and to the elders who spoke it as chroniclers. In order that the reader may understand how the author came to have access to a tradition which would normally have been heard only by Zulu children, it will be necessary-the necessity is one he welcomes-to say something of his father, Captain C. L. A. Ritter. In 1876 President Burgers of the Transvaal Republic tried to quell the Ba-Pedi chief Sekukuni and failed. He then called for volunteers who would be required to equip and supply themselves with everything needful for a campaign, and in return for a year's service they were each promised a farm. The response came exclusively from foreigners living in the Transvaal and a mounted force of some 200 men came into being under the command of von Schlikmann, a former Prussian officer. This heterogeneous body called itself the `Filibusters'. Captain C. L. A. Ritter, the author's father, joined them. Captain Ritter was born in 1833; he had been a lieutenant in the Hanoverian army, had joined the British army in the reconstituted King's German Legion, and fought in the Crimea. In 1857 he came to South Africa as a captain in the British Army. With other legionaries he was stationed on the turbulent Kaffrarian frontier of the Cape Colony in the combined roles of settler and border guard. After joining the Filibusters he soon became one of the principal officers. The Transvaal Republic was meanwhile heading for bankruptcy and on 12 April 1877 it was annexed to the British crown by Sir Theophilus Shepstone. The Filibusters had given a good account of themselves but were unable to dislodge Chief Sekukuni from his rocky stronghold. A strong British military expedition failed likewise. It was after this that Sir Theophilus Shepstone and Sir Garnet Wolseley commissioned Captain Ritter to raise a regiment of Swazi warriors. This he did. The Swazis were closely related to the Zulus and armed like them with stabbing spear and shield. Sekukuni's stronghold was then besieged by British troops together with Captain Ritter's regiment, Ritter being the only European among them. In the subsequent storming of the stronghold one side was allocated to the Swazis and they were the first to breach the defences. Captain Ritter told the author that the resulting butchery was revolting, for the blood-maddened Swazis could not be stopped and spared neither man, woman nor child. Sekukuni managed to get away through one of the subterranean caves which honeycombed the whole stronghold, but was soon afterwards captured alive in another cave. Captain Ritter was thereafter appointed `Native Commissioner' over the whole area and after the first Boer War and the resuscitation of the Transvaal Republic, he was transferred to Natal as a M. Seller Inventory # 138607

Bibliographic Details

Title: Shaka Zulu. The Rise of the Zulu Empire

Publisher: Longmans Green and Co, London

Publication Date: 1955

Binding: Hard Cover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: No DJ

Edition: First Edition.