South Africa: Visiting Fort Nongqai: Eshowe’s Colonial Fort

DAY TWO

🏹Shakaland: A Casualty of Covid

Our plans for the second day were a touch loose, but the broad idea was to learn as much as we could about the history of this remarkable area and the culture of the Zulu people, who have one of the most extraordinary stories of any indigenous group in the whole of southern Africa. I had read before we set out about a place called Shakaland, a tourist attraction dedicated to Zulu culture built on the site used for the filming of the Shaka Zulu television series. This was a 10-part miniseries broadcast in 1986, made at a budget of 27 million South African rand — which was an eye-watering sum at the time — and filmed right here in Natal. It told the story of King Shaka, born around 1787, an illegitimate son of the Zulu chief Senzangakhona kaJama, whose mother Nandi was effectively driven out of the clan with young Shaka in tow. The series followed Shaka’s rise from that difficult, outcast childhood, through his military training under the Mthethwa paramount chief Dingiswayo, to his eventual ascent as one of the most formidable military commanders Africa had ever produced.

And formidable is not putting it too mildly. Shaka is credited with developing the impondo zankomo — the “bull’s horns” battle formation — a tactical innovation in which a central chest engaged the enemy head-on while two flanking “horns” encircled them and a resting reserve, the “loins,” waited behind. It was devastatingly effective, and through these fighting techniques and an ability to inspire fierce loyalty, Shaka united the northern Nguni peoples into a powerful Zulu kingdom. The series itself was watched by over 350 million viewers across North America alone, topped the ratings in Germany and reached number one in the Netherlands — where, brilliantly, the theme song hit the top of the pop charts. The world, it seems, could not get enough of Shaka. After filming wrapped, all but one of the Zulu kraals constructed for the production were demolished. The one that survived became the basis for Shakaland, a living cultural village where visitors could experience Zulu traditions first-hand.

It was only a short drive to Shakaland, though the signage on the approach road was frankly terrible, and I managed to sail straight past the turning. We backtracked a mile or two, got ourselves on the right road, and arrived at the gate — only to find it firmly shut and padlocked. We later established that Shakaland had closed for business altogether, yet another casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic, which devastated South Africa’s tourism industry in ways that are still being felt today. A shame, genuinely. One more thing the wretched virus managed to ruin.

🏛️Fort Nongqayi: Three Turrets and a Story

The other significant attraction I had researched before our visit was the Fort Nongqayi Historical Museum, situated within Eshowe itself. Having swallowed the disappointment of Shakaland, we pointed the car in the direction of the fort. When we arrived, we found the car park entirely empty, which gave us a slightly anxious moment — the spectre of yet another closed attraction loomed. But no sooner had we pulled in than a parking attendant materialised, as if from thin air, and escorted us into the office. There we were greeted by a large, cheerful man who was overseeing the museum that day and who, in a move that we absolutely were not expecting, immediately wanted to take some selfies with us before we went anywhere near the exhibits. Fair enough — we obliged, and off we went.

The fort itself is a rather handsome little structure, completed in 1894 after a construction process that began in 1883 and was plagued by the kind of budget shortfalls that will be familiar to anyone who has ever attempted a home renovation. It was built to house the Nongqayi — the “barefoot” Zulu police force established by the British following the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 to reinforce colonial authority and support Sir Melmoth Osborn, the resident commissioner. The walls were built with weapon slits for rifles, designed to repel potential attackers, and the structure includes three granulated turrets and a spacious courtyard. A fourth turret was planned but the money ran out, so three it remains to this day. During the Bambata Rebellion of 1906 — a major Zulu uprising against the poll tax imposed by the colonial government, which had caused fury among a population already reeling from land evictions and the devastating cattle epidemic of 1896 to 1897 that had wiped out roughly ninety per cent of local herds — the citizens of Eshowe, then the colonial capital of the Crown Colony of Zululand, took refuge inside the fort’s walls, where they were besieged by a considerable Zulu impi. The Nongqayi, who had actually been disbanded in 1904, were recalled specifically to help suppress this rebellion. Once the insurrection was put down, the unit was finally and permanently dissolved. The rebellion itself resulted in between three and four thousand Zulu deaths, over seven thousand imprisonments, and cost the colonial authorities nearly nine hundred thousand pounds — a figure that tells you everything about the sheer scale of the confrontation.

Our guide took us first into the small chapel before we worked our way round the fort. The museum is dedicated to both Zulu culture and colonial history, and contains many fascinating artefacts relating to those early, frequently violent years of Zulu-British contact. The undoubted highlight — the one that stopped us in our tracks — was an extraordinary recreation of the office of John Dunn, the first and only white man ever to be made a Zulu chief, and one of the most remarkable figures in the whole of southern African history. Dunn was born in 1834 in Port Alfred in the Cape Colony, orphaned as a teenager after his father was trampled to death by an elephant, and went on to become an interpreter, trader and hunter who was utterly at home in Zulu society. He befriended King Mpande — Cetshwayo’s father and Shaka’s half-brother — and when Cetshwayo came to power in 1872, Dunn’s influence grew to the point where he was handling nearly all of the king’s foreign correspondence. He settled permanently in Zululand from 1857 and, to put it delicately, threw himself into Zulu custom with considerable enthusiasm: he married forty-nine women in total — one of Cape Malay descent and forty-eight Zulu wives from twenty-three different clans — and fathered one hundred and seventeen children. When the Anglo-Zulu War broke out in 1879 he sided with the British, and was rewarded with the largest land allocation of any of the thirteen post-war rulers of Zululand. He died in 1895, and many of his descendants still live in and around Eshowe to this day. The recreated office is a marvellous piece of work — deeply atmospheric, and a completely unexpected delight.

The whole tour took about half an hour, which felt a touch rushed, if we are being honest. Our guide seemed rather keen to press on whenever we paused to read any of the display panels in any depth, which is a slight shame given how much interesting material there was on show. A word to the management: your visitors quite like reading things.