Shaka II

Prologue

Before Shaka, we were no more important than the ants on the ground.

In 1816 A.D., Zululand was the size of a very large farm, extending almost two miles in every direction from the central kraal. The dominant tribes in southern Africa were the Matabele and the Shona.

Then came Shaka, who claimed the kingship of the Zulus. He reigned for only twelve years, yet when he was assassinated in 1828, the Zulus controlled an empire far larger than the country of France, and more than two million men had died opposing the creation of that empire.

The Zulus remained South Africa’s dominant tribe for the rest of the century, but one by one they lost their wars against the British and the Boers, and suddenly found themselves dominated within their own homeland by the Xhosa.

75 years after Shaka’s death our primacy was gone, and for another century we were dominated, in turn, by white men, brown men, and black men. The white men controlled our land and the Indians controlled our economy, and when they were finally removed from power, that power was claimed not by the Zulus, but by the Xhosa.

For years then, for decades, for more than two centuries, even after Man moved out into space and onto other worlds, every time a baby boy was born to a Zulu family, his parents and relatives and neighbors would gather around and stare at him, wondering: Are you the One? Are you finally the One who will restore our former glory, who will reclaim what was Shaka’s and what was ours?

And one day, though of course we didn’t know it at the time, he was among us.