The Mfecane produced Mzilikazi of the Khumalo, a general of Shaka's. He fled Shaka's employ, and in turn conquered an empire in Zimbabwe, after clashing with European groups like the Boers. The settling of Mzilikazi's people, the AmaNdebele or Matabele, in the south of Zimbabwe with the concomitant driving of the Mashona into the north caused a tribal conflict that still resonates today. Other notable figures to arise from the Mfecane/ Difaqane include Soshangane, who expanded from the Zulu area into what is now Mozambique, [35] and Zwangendaba.

Shaka still recognised Dingiswayo and his larger Mthethwa clan as overlord after he returned to the Zulu but, some years later, Dingiswayo was ambushed by Zwide's Ndwandwe and killed. There is no evidence to suggest that Shaka betrayed Dingiswayo. Indeed, the core Zulu had to retreat before several Ndwandwe incursions; the Ndwandwe was clearly the most aggressive grouping in the sub-region. [ citation needed]The only complaint I really have is that some facts about Shaka Zulu are not for overly sensitive readers, and he does get murdered at the end of the book in a power struggle so that could cause some tension, and they also changed around the details of his banishment from the clan to make it more suitable for young readers. Ngubane, Jordan K (1976). "Shaka's social, political and military ideas". OCLC 661145240. {{ cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= ( help) A television series entitled King Shaka is being developed at Showtime, with Antoine Fuqua directing and executive producing. [48] [49] Shaka Zulu, a 10-part 1986 SABC TV miniseries about Shaka, which starred Henry Cele in the title role. [46] The series was written by Joshua Sinclair.

The warrior king ruled without rival over 250,000 people for ten years. He could assemble more than 50,000 warriors at a time and it is said that he was responsible for the deaths of some two million people by warfare alone. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2012-01-11 21:36:59 Boxid IA176001 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City Harmondsworth Donor Senzangakhona made Shaka his heir, but before his assassination in 1816 one of his wives convinced him to make Shaka’s half-brother Sigujana his successor instead. But the young warrior did not let it stand. With the help of one of Dingiswayo’s regiments, Shaka killed Sigujana and took charge of the 1,500 Zulus. They were among the smallest of the more than 800 clans — but under Zulu, this would all change. A United Zulu Kingdom King Shaka was born in the lunar month of uNtulikazi (July) in the year of 1787 in Southern Africa near present-day Melmoth, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, the son of the Zulu King Senzangakhona kaJama. Spurned as an illegitimate son, Shaka spent his childhood in his mother's settlements, where he was initiated into an ibutho lempi (fighting unit), serving as a warrior under Inkosi Dingiswayo. [3]Wylie, Dan (1995). " 'Proprietor of Natal:' Henry Francis Fynn and the Mythography of Shaka". History in Africa. 22: 409–437. doi: 10.2307/3171924. ISSN 0361-5413. JSTOR 3171924. S2CID 153865008. Mr. Ritter has put Shaka's reign in its proper prospective, using 1st hand accounts of people that lived during his life. Using diaries of Englishmen who lived among the Zulu's during Shaka,s reign. He also was fortunate to have the exprtise and papers from paternal grandfather, and the oral histories from Zulu elders. To really evaluate the life of Shaka you have to breakdown his life into three parts. #1 before the death of his mother, #2 during the year of mourning of the death of his mother, #3 after the year of his mourning to his death.

In addition, those who had treated his mother or him badly in the past were condemned to brutal deaths. Furthermore, he neither took a legal wife nor fathered a son, paranoid that an heir would plot against him. If a concubine became pregnant, she was executed. Thousands of his subjects were massacred when his mother died, so that their families would mourn along with him. Shaka’s madness caused those close to him to fear for their lives. Omer-Cooper, John D. (1966). The Zulu aftermath: a nineteenth-century revolution in Bantu Africa. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 9780810105881. OCLC 2361338. Morris, Donald R. (1994) [1965]. The Washing of the Spears: A History of the Rise of the Zulu Nation Under Shaka and Its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879 (Newed.). London: Pimlico. ISBN 978-0-7126-6105-8. OCLC 59939927. OL 7794339M.Most historians [ who?] credit Shaka with initial development of the famous "bull horn" formation. [21] It was composed of three elements:

Shaka, king of the Zulus, was born around 1787 to the Zulu chief Senzangakhona KaJama, and Nandi, of the neighboring Langeni clan. One popular narrative is that Shaka’s conception was a mistake after his parents got carried away during uku-hlobonga, a ritual for unmarried couples involving sexual foreplay and no penetrative sex. When Zulu elders including Senzangakhona himself discovered that Nandi was pregnant, they tried to deny it. Senzangakhona claimed that Nandi’s bloated belly was a symptom of iShaka, an intestinal and parasitic beetle. Once in power Shaka began reorganizing the forces of his people in accordance with ideas he had developed as a warrior in Dingiswayo's army.

Why is he such an enduring figure in popular culture?

Though much remains unknown about Shaka's personal appearance, sources tend to agree he had a strong, muscular body. [16] He was tall and his skin tone was dark brown.