Could the British Empire have coopted the Zulus?

What if the British, impressed by the fighting prowess of the Zulu, decided to co-opt them as a subject martial races like they did to the Sikhs and the Maori instead of destroying their power?
 
I should imagine so. We employed African, excellent ones, in the First World War. You'd need a differant history of SA, for which you need someone besides me, but as I understand it the Zulu War was something of a fluke and there was no feeling of hostility to the Zulu nation in London.
 

MrP

Banned
I should imagine so. We employed African, excellent ones, in the First World War. You'd need a differant history of SA, for which you need someone besides me, but as I understand it the Zulu War was something of a fluke and there was no feeling of hostility to the Zulu nation in London.

Yeah, as mentioned in the recent thread (by Melvin?), the Home government had no desire to conquer Zululand; it was the man on the spot, Sir Henry Bartle Frere, who trumped up a reason for war.
 
So if the British have decided to treat a colonized African race halfway decently as a client people, rather than a conquered people, how would that go?
 
So if the British have decided to treat a colonized African race halfway decently as a client people, rather than a conquered people, how would that go?

Well, one might look to Botswana as an inspiration, since we treated them halfway decently as a client people.

Oh yeah I forgot. Moustache-twirling evil. Uh, bwahahahaha! Prepare for destruction, pathetic foes of the British Empire!
 

MrP

Banned
So if the British have decided to treat a colonized African race halfway decently as a client people, rather than a conquered people, how would that go?

I'd imagine it'd be a similar situation to that with the Gurkhas: they'll be regarded as splendid fighters, and *Joanna Lumley (or does the asterisk go at the end?) will eventually acquire for them some rights they've been denied.
 
Zululand probably becomes a tributary of the British Empire in the short term, with Zulu warriors serving with distinction against their enemies the Boers in the Boer wars. Said Distinction eventually leads to the British crown adopting a similiar policy in regards to the Zulus as to the Nepalese, forming "Zulu Regiments" for a lack of a better name.

These regiments later go on to perform admirably in World War 1 both hunting down German forces in Africa and eventually taking down the Ottoman Empire. A similiar thing happens in WWII with the Zulus serving in Africa as well as the Mediterranean and Pacific with distinction. During WWII the Zulus are unique for fielding their own aerial squadron in the RAF.

Post-War the Zulus probably participate in several operations to varying extents in Africa. A better view of Africans in general might lead to an earlier decolonization.
 
The question is- if the British can treat an African subject people semi-decently like that, albeit thinking of them as still inferior and unfit to rule, how would this change their approach to dealing with other Africans?

I dunno, I'm probably making mistakes but I still think that the Maori and the Indians got a better deal than most native peoples, including Africans. Though upon reading some history on Botswana I suppose their country did relatively well. No wonder they're so stable now.

By one estimate, it has the fourth highest gross national income at purchasing power parity in Africa, giving it a standard of living around that of Argentina, Mexico and Turkey

Damn.
 
The question is- if the British can treat an African subject people semi-decently like that, albeit thinking of them as still inferior and unfit to rule, how would this change their approach to dealing with other Africans?

I dunno, I'm probably making mistakes but I still think that the Maori and the Indians got a better deal than most native peoples, including Africans. Though upon reading some history on Botswana I suppose their country did relatively well. No wonder they're so stable now.

Damn.

Ts'what I've always said: the British empire was decidedly non-monolithic. There was no "racial policy" towards black people. There status on Jamaica was totally differant from there status in Rhodesia. It was a matter of each colony's history and circumstances.

We already have a country where the natives were treated reasonabky well and well enough was left alone, and unsurprisingly its very much a success story. In this scenario, the Zulus will likely become the same, and this will have interesting butterflies but it doesn't have to change the way, say, the Gold Coast is governed, because the British Empire never was based on a coherent racial ideology, but on local circumstance. Improving the conditions of one specific tribe in one specific place does little for the other tribes and places.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Yeah, as mentioned in the recent thread (by Melvin?), the Home government had no desire to conquer Zululand; it was the man on the spot, Sir Henry Bartle Frere, who trumped up a reason for war.
It seems like half of OTL's colonial wars got started by men on the spot acting on their own authority, sometimes in direct violation of orders from back home. I guess it's a question of mindset--if you were going to go exploring darkest Africa and whatnot, you probably weren't all right in the head to begin with. And everyone fancies himself the next Cortes.
 
It's kinda odd to me that Botswana seems to be one of the few examples of a colonial power letting the locals just be.

The only reason the British made Botswana (then Bechuanaland) a protectorate was to stop the Germans in South-West Africa and the Afrikaners in the Transvaal using it as a conduit to meet up in the Kalahari. There didn't seem much reason to go there, its quite an arid place. Diamonds were only discovered sometime in the 20th century, so the Tswana were left alone for the most part.
 
The only reason the British made Botswana (then Bechuanaland) a protectorate was to stop the Germans in South-West Africa and the Afrikaners in the Transvaal using it as a conduit to meet up in the Kalahari. There didn't seem much reason to go there, its quite an arid place. Diamonds were only discovered sometime in the 20th century, so the Tswana were left alone for the most part.
The Tswana over there, anyway. Not so much the Tswana further east.
 
Okay, so maybe British policy towards Africa wouldn't change as a whole if they had treated the Zulu as a semi-civilized martial race. But what about the other colonial powers? Could they have decided to support their own client African peoples against the Zulus or anyone standing in their way?
 
The Tswana over there, anyway. Not so much the Tswana further east.

I don't understand what you are saying.

There are no Tswana further east. There are Tswana further south. There are more Tswana in South Africa than in Botswana, and the last South African President was a Tswana.
 
It seems like half of OTL's colonial wars got started by men on the spot acting on their own authority, sometimes in direct violation of orders from back home. I guess it's a question of mindset--if you were going to go exploring darkest Africa and whatnot, you probably weren't all right in the head to begin with. And everyone fancies himself the next Cortes.
It wasn't as simple as that. Frere was representative of thinking among the settlers in Natal, who saw the Zulus as a threat (and probably wanted their land). The same kind of thinking was present among the Boers to the north, the idea that "something" had to be done about the Zulu. The fact that British forces were at the time still engaged in campaigns against other tribes in the area contributed no doubt to the feeling of vulnerability in the region. The British imperial response to vulnerability was to attack someone.

Arising out of the fears of tribal revolt among the Anglo and Boer settlers was a desire for confederation. Canada had made a success of it, and it was felt South Africa could benefit from the same policy. I'm sure Frere was picturing himself as "father of the nation", when he tried to put this policy into practice, by attacking the principal native power in the region. It helped that his political masters were fond of confederation (particularly Carnarvon, previous Colonial Secretary - I'm not sure if Hicks-Beach was a fan, but it seems likely).

The irony is that the defeat of the Zulu left the Boers feeling much more secure, and more prepared to fully retake their independence from the British. So by defeating the main obstacle to confederation, the British created another obstacle.
 
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