The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 was a war of survival for the indigenous Zulu kingdom against the militarily superior British, who were attempting to confederate the various South African republics and kingdoms of the area under the Union Jack. Zulu tribesmen waged a defiant defensive campaign against the European power---handing the British some of their most decisive defeats up to that time. This war took place during a time when the government of Great Britain was rejecting claims that it was seeking more colonial territories, or the responsibilities that came along with them. The motives for its involvement in this conflict, and the subsequent prejudiced conditions dished out to its vanquished foe seems murky at best, and can only be explained as institutionalized racism.
British Colonial Reform in the Late-Victorian Age
Colonial reform and humanitarian campaigns in Great Britain gave rise to many policy movements in this era. The First Reformed Parliament saw to the abolition of slavery throughout the empire and, as found in W.P. Morrell's book, British Colonial Policy in the Mid-Victorian Age, a Select Committee of the House of Commons had attempted to lay down principles for the treatment of aboriginal peoples in and on the borders of British colonies. Amid the clamor for colonial reform, ironically, came the test of how far British egalitarian sentiment would stretch.
The Annexation of the Transvaal
The annexation of the Boer Transvaal Republic in 1877 created a sense of urgency for the British Colonial Office concerning the idea of South African confederacy under its control. in his article in the Summer 2006 issue of Historian magazine, Imperial Strategy and the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, Damian O'Connor points out that the Boers had been engaged on an expansionist adventure through the territory of the Pedi in an attempt to gain an outlet to the sea, but [Pedi] Chief Sekukune had armed his warriors with modern breech loading rifles and handily defeated their encroachment. Fearing a Pedi retaliatory attack---possibly with Zulu reinforcement---many Boers were willing to acquiesce to a British takeover, if only to save them from eminent destruction.
The annexation of the Transvaal had another consequence for the British concerning the Zulu. As O'Connor states, The British had now inherited Boer border quarrels with Cetshwayo, the Zulu King.
The Decision for War
Late in 1878, Sir Henry Bartle Frere, the British governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner for native affairs in South Africa, decided to initiate war with the Zulu kingdom, even though the kingdom was honoring the British with a yearly tribute. The British Colonial Office believed war with the Zulus would be inexpensive to manage and relatively bloodless. Neither, as it turned out, was to be the case.
An Honorable War?
The British policy concerning the conduct of the war in the beginning was a relatively honorable one. According to Michael Lieven in an article published in the October 1999 issue of History magazine, Butchering the brutes all over the place: Total war and massacre in Zululand, 1879, no prisoners, women or children were to be harmed in any way. But two weeks after the commencement of hostilities, an event took place that altered this policy. Over 850 white, and several hundred Black soldiers were massacred---and ritually cut open by the Zulus at the Battle of Isandlwana. A mood of revenge against the Zulus became the prevalent frame of mind amongst the colonists and the army.
At the conclusion of the Anglo-Zulu War, the once grand Zulu kingdom was shattered, which resulted in civil war that left most of its lands in the hands of opportunist Boer settlers. It would take until 1887 for it to be formally annexed to the British Empire.
