Aaah, OK, now I understand. The mfecane, I know, is a highly political issue in SA. You have obviously read The Mfecane As Alibi by Cobbing, and the intellectual tradition he represents is very right to question the scope and causes of the Mfecane. But while I am of the camp that disagrees with Cobbing and his ilk on the scope of the Mfecane, I am also saying the opposite of what the early twentieth century SA historians would have you believe: that the Mfecane was Africans killing Africans for African reasons. In connecting it with European crops or slave raids (take your pick, I'm not getting into the debate between those two groups), I am agreeing with Cobbing, that Whites were at least indirectly responsible for the events in question. Also, while the Mfecane was undeniably violent, regardless of the precise number of dead or dislocated, it was also a process of creation and innovation, and a fascinating example of the flexibility of Nguni political institutions....Apartheid government...
So I hope you will join me in trying to think about this issue outside the context of SA politics, and not lump me with the apologists.
EDIT: also, when you say "Zulu" I think you might be confusing them with the Mthethwa. Mthethwa was a chiefdom containing tens of thousands of members in various clans. The Zulu were only a small part of the Mthethwa before Shaka. It is estimated that their numbers only a few thousand before 1800, possibly as low as 2000. The fact that a quarter of a million Nguni identified as Zulu by the 1830s is because the Zulu, like all Nguni groups, were fantastically good at assimilating people. So there's no reason to assume the Zulu specifically would come to dominate the Mthethwa and then the entire region without the particular success of Shaka kaSenzangakona. This is actually good material for a POD.
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