The Civil Servant Becomes an Oral Historian

James Stuart was born in Pietermaritzburg, the capital of the British colony of Natal, in January 1868, the son of Marthinus and Mary Stuart. There were five surviving children, and James would appear to be the oldest. His father was a magistrate in Greytown and Ixopo (for many years also called Stuartstown), and was an interpreter with the British forces in the Anglo-Boer war of 1881, and was killed at the battle of Ingogo. His widow took James and his two brothers (and presumably two sisters) to England, where they received their later education at a public school in Sussex. James returned to Natal in 1886. In February 1888 he entered the civil service as a clerk in the general post office in Pietermaritzburg.^{Footnote 4}

After Stuart’s death in 1942, his brother Philip said that James knew only one word of isiZulu, sakubona (“hello”), when he returned from England, but he mastered the language in five years.^{Footnote 5} This facile description of his linguistic achievement ignores the fact that Marthinus Stuart’s postings took the family to places where they would have become familiar with Zulu people and their language. Carolyn Hamilton, who has read the diaries which Stuart kept in the late 1880s, shows that Stuart had a good knowledge of isiZulu to build on, and he did so with zealous application.^{Footnote 6}

In May 1888 Stuart accepted the post of clerk and interpreter to the resident commissioner and chief magistrate of Zululand, which Britain had annexed as a colony in 1887. A crisis in Swaziland in 1894 led to his appointment as interpreter to the British commissioner there, and he went to Cape Town and later to London with a Swazi deputation. In November he had an audience with the queen and received the thanks of the imperial government for his services to Swaziland, to which he returned and acted as British consul for several months in 1895. At the beginning of September 1895 he was promoted and became resident magistrate of the Ingwavuma district of neighbouring Tongaland.^{Footnote 7}

At this stage his career faltered. In November 1897 Stuart became ill and suffered mental derangement. He was brought to Eshowe, the seat of government in Zululand, where resident commissioner Marshall Clarke and district surgeon Dr. Hamilton Balfe, interviewed him. “There is no doubt Mr. Stuart is not in a sound state of mind,” the commissioner wrote to the governor of Natal. On Dr. Balfe’s advice, Stuart was granted a month’s leave, and his brother Harold came to take him back to Pietermaritzburg for a medical examination.^{Footnote 8} Stuart recovered, of course, but he did not return to Ingwavuma. During the next two years he was moved around a lot – as acting magistrate in the Umgeni, Impendhle, Upper Umkomanzi and Alexandra divisions and also acting British consul in Swaziland. For seven months he was magistrate of the Lower Tugela Division. During the South African War, in 1900 and 1901, he was acting magistrate in the Lions River and Klip River divisions, which took him to the theatre of military operations.^{Footnote 9}

In December 1900 Stuart wrote to his mother about an “Idea,” which may have justified his subsequent assiduous collecting of information on Zulu culture and history. He did not describe the Idea, but other writings suggest he envisaged an open-ended encyclopaedia of useful knowledge as a source for the expert administration of Native Affairs. When he was acting magistrate in Ladysmith he had interviews with John Kumalo, doyen of the Christian settlement at nearby Driefontein and influential in the Christian native rights society Funamalungelo (“Demand Civil Rights”) and the nascent Natal Native Congress. Apparently he was sounded out as a possible go-between of some sort with government, and Carolyn Hamilton suggests that this may account for an otherwise unexplained severe reprimand from his superiors.^{Footnote 10}

In March 1901 Stuart was appointed acting assistant magistrate in Durban, and a little over a year later (April 1902) he was promoted to magistrate, and in 1905 he became first (i.e. principal) magistrate for criminal cases in Durban. By this time his command of the isiZulu language was such that he represented the government at three conferences on isiZulu orthography, held in Durban and Pietermaritzburg in 1905–1907, and was elected convener of the standing committee therefor.^{Footnote 11}

It was about this time that Stuart began interviewing and recording the recollections and common knowledge of clan history from Zulu informants that make up the corpus of documents of what is now The James Stuart Archive. ^{Footnote 12} His brother Philip recalls visiting James’ home in Durban circa 1902, where he found him, as always, after office hours, making records: he would be in his study, surrounded by old men, whom he paid for their travel and accommodation, and who told him their stories. In 1903 his study contained between two and three hundred note books on Zulu history and lore.^{Footnote 13} In 1903 Stuart began giving public lectures in Durban on Zulu customs and the Zulu king Shaka. He may also have contemplated writing a book on them.^{Footnote 14}

Historian of the Zulu Rebellion^{Footnote 15}

The Zulu Rebellion began on 7 February 1906, when a clash between police and poll tax protesters took place on the farm Trewirgie, near Richmond, in Natal. It was immediately followed by the colonial government’s proclamation of martial law, and ended on 2 October 1906, when the government lifted martial law. It occurred in three phases. In the first phase (February–March) the colonial government forestalled an outbreak of violence by a militia demonstration in the southern part of Natal. The second phase (April–June), associated with the chief Bhambatha, affected the middle Thukela region and involved the colonial militia and rebel impi in a series of operations which culminated in the action at Mome gorge on 10 June, where the militia destroyed the impi. The third phase (June–July) consisted of an incoherent uprising in the lower Thukela region, which the militia quickly suppressed.

The origins of the rebellion lie in the great difference between the respective societies of the colonizers and the indigenes. The two necessarily interacted, and at some stage they were bound to come into conflict as they competed politically and economically. After the Colony of Natal achieved self-government and the European settlers wielded power tensions increased, especially in the wake of the South African War, when native Africans resented Britain’s failure to reward their loyalty and endeavour to reconcile the defeated Boers and promote federation. Natural disasters and economic depression exacerbated these tensions and there were recurrent rumours of a native revolt against the settler regime. In 1905 the government sought to disembarrass itself financially by imposing the poll tax, a capitation on adult males, which is considered the immediate cause of the Zulu Rebellion. It fell most heavily on the African population, who resented it, and, when collections began early in 1906, there were protests, one of which led to the fracas at Trewirgie.^{Footnote 16}

Stuart was an officer in the Natal Militia, a captain in the Natal Field Artillery, although not attached to any section.^{Footnote 17} When the Zulu Rebellion erupted in early 1906 he entered active service as an intelligence officer attached to the Umvoti Field Force, based in Greytown. Colonel George Leuchars, the commander, put him to work interrogating prisoners connected with the rebel chief Bhambatha kaMancinza. Bhambatha took refuge in the Nkandhla Division of Zululand, and the commissioner for Native Affairs, Charles Saunders, arrived at Empandhleni, the seat of the magistracy, and for a week negotiated with the influential chief Sigananda kaZokufa for the capture of Bhambatha and his followers, whom Sigananda concealed in the forest. The government also offered a reward for Bhambatha dead or alive. But who at Empandhleni would recognize him? For this purpose Captain Stuart led a party, consisting of Bhambatha’s brother Funizwe and several headmen and several European settlers employed by Militia Intelligence, on a daring cross-country ride from Greytown to Empandhleni.

As it turned out Sigananda joined the rebels, the offer of a reward was withdrawn, and the militia was sent to Nkandhla to deal with the rebels. The Intelligence party returned to Greytown (by a safe route), but Stuart remained at Empandhleni. There he served the commissioner, recording an interview with Mankulumana, counsellor of the Zulu chief Dinuzulu, who had been sent to negotiate with Sigananda, also without success. When a strong force of Natal Carbineers under Colonel David Mackay arrived at Empandhleni, Stuart served with them in scouts and skirmishes along the edge of the forest. Leuchars asked in vain for Stuart’s return. Mackay would not let him go, and when the Carbineers returned to Natal few weeks later Stuart went with them. He spent the rest of the campaign as Intelligence officer with Mackay’s column, operating in the Umsinga Division in Natal and then the Nqutu Division in Zululand. In his report of operations Mackay is unstinting in praise of Stuart’s work and recommends that he be appointed permanent chief of Militia Intelligence.^{Footnote 18} In retrospect Shula Marks cites him as the best type of Intelligence officer, “who had fine knowledge of Zulu language and custom, and was fairly disinterested.”^{Footnote 19}

The Natal government decided to compile a history of military operations. Stuart was asked to do the work, and consented. In August the minister of defense and justice, Thomas Watt, gave him instructions to do so.^{Footnote 20} In September the government appointed a Native Affairs Commission to enquire into matters of Native policy and administration. It was not to enquire into the causes of the rebellion per se, but, of course, there was no disguising its raison d’être. Stuart was appointed secretary and interpreter to the commission. In between his appointment to compile the history and the commencement of the commission’s hearings, Stuart began the compilation of information for the history in the field, under the direction of the commandant of Militia, Colonel Hilmer Bru-de-Wold.^{Footnote 21}

A small expedition was organized to visit the main sites of operations to collect information, make maps and take photographs. In a period of three weeks the party, led by Stuart, was to visit Greytown, the battlefields of Mpukunyoni, Mome and Bobe in Nkandla, Middle Drift and Kranskop, and the battlefields of Nsuze and Izinsimba in Maphumulo. The core group, under Stuart, consisted of August Hammar, director of survey, and Lieutenant T.W. Bru-de-Wold, mapping officer. They were all government servants. Knowledgeable officers of Militia who had served with the various columns would join the party at appropriate points and provide information about operations in the area. (Stuart doubled as representative for Mackay’s column.) They would be paid £1 a day for this. In addition Stuart was authorized to select up to six Natives who had served with the Zululand Native Police or with tribal levies; they would be paid 2s. Two or three former rebels were also to be taken along, but they would be paid nothing.

Stuart expected that the expedition would start on 24 September and finish 24 October, and reckoned it would cost just under £80. The start was delayed until the 28 or 29 September. Because of the rugged country they had to traverse, they carried their equipment and provisions on pack horse, which, Stuart said, caused “a lot of bother.” In the time allocated they just completed their work in Zululand. Stuart was then taken up with the work of the commission, but while it was meeting in Durban, he used the king’s birthday to arrange a long weekend in which (this time with a cart and mules) he, Hammar, Bru-de-Wold, and two others managed to complete their work in Maphumulo (8–13 November 1906).^{Footnote 22}

The History Languishes

At this point Stuart was distracted from the compilation. The Native Affairs Commission held meetings at thirty-four places in Natal and Zululand from 16 October 1906 until 18 June 1907; 301 Europeans and 906 Natives addressed it personally or by delegation, and at least 5,500 natives attended the meetings. The evidence was distilled in a report, including recommendations for improvements, in July 1907.^{Footnote 23} As secretary and interpreter Stuart was fully occupied with the commission during this period. Stuart did take note of information relating to the rebellion in evidence presented to the commission, but he could not have pursued the work of compilation of the history otherwise. In Stuart’s papers there are about a dozen memoranda referring to the causes and outbreak of the rebellion and the Zulu military organization, about half of these are dated in December 1906, although it is not clear whether Stuart obtained the information or just made notes of it then.^{Footnote 24}

Stuart had just completed the report of the commission when he was required to take depositions from Bhambatha’s wife and children, who had escaped from Dinuzulu’s kraal at oSuthu, and then to make a report about the implication of Dinuzulu himself in the rebellion. The attorney general then urged his appointment to conduct a further enquiry into Dinuzulu’s conduct.^{Footnote 25}

While Stuart was so occupied, others took an interest in compiling the history of the rebellion. The War Office in London read in the newspapers that the Natal government was going to make the compilation, and sent per the general officer commanding South Africa and the governor of Natal a suggestion regarding format and content. This was a table of contents of the official history of British operations in Somaliland in 1901–1904. Colonel Bru-de-Wold copied the War Office’s letter and the outline “with a view to having the history drawn up as near as possible on the lines suggested.” The general officer commanding was duly informed. Whether or not Stuart was is not known.^{Footnote 26}

It seems strange that the Natal government having engaged Stuart to compile an official history of the rebellion, another officer should write an account of it. This was published as The Natal Rebellion of 1906 by Captain Walter Bosman, the Engineering Officer on the Militia staff, who had served with Colonel Duncan McKenzie, commander of the Zululand Field Force and other columns in the field. The book was published by Longmans, Green in London and J.C. Juta in Cape Town in 1907. Captain Bosman’s preface is dated Pietermaritzburg, 7 October 1906. He states that he gave the manuscript to Colonel McKenzie to read, which McKenzie did, and his Introduction is dated October 1906.

What prompted Bosman’s book? He mentions hostile criticism of the conduct of Natal by certain persons in Britain and professes to defend the colonists with a “plain unvarnished tale.” Presumably Stuart would do the same, in due course. In the absence of any documentation (that I have been able to find) it is easy to speculate over a wide range of possible motives for what was a relatively hasty piece of work. McKenzie was full of praise for Bosman’s manuscript, and one may suppose that militia headquarters was anxious to get out an account of its own since it appeared Stuart’s would be some time in the making. Bosman’s narrow military history is not without value. Indeed, Stuart made good use of it later.

The Natal government also produced a “history of our time” of its own: a set of despatches, modeled on the British government’s Blue Books. This appeared in October 1906 as The Natal Native Rebellion as Told in Official Despatches from January 1st to June 23rd, 1906. (It was also printed as “Correspondence Relating to Native Disturbances in Natal,” in a supplement to The Natal Government Gazette.) It was not a narrative, but a true compilation of correspondence and reports, and virtually the same material appeared in the British Command papers.^{Footnote 27} It is remarkable that there was no second publication covering the second half of the rebellion, from 24 June to 2 October 1906.

In due course Stuart returned to his magistrate’s duties in Durban. He was appointed assistant secretary for Native Affairs in July 1907. As a result of the commission’s recommendations legislation revised the system of native administration, and consequently Stuart was appointed assistant secretary for Native Affairs and secretary to the government’s council for Native Affairs in July 1909.^{Footnote 28} After Natal joined the Union of South Africa in 1910 Stuart became assistant secretary for Native Affairs at the national level, but he was unhappy with this appointment and resigned in 1912. One of the reasons he gave was that he wanted to complete his book on the Zulu rebellion.^{Footnote 29}

Although the rebellion had been crushed in July 1906, unrest continued in Zululand. The government’s release of rebel prisoners appeared to be a sign of weakness rather than a gesture of reconciliation to friend and foe. The acquittal of one of Dinuzulu’s retainers on a charge of murdering a magistrate during the rebellion seemed like a signal for revenge killings. Several loyal chiefs and headmen in Nkandla were murdered or had attempts made on their lives, and the others lived in fear. Suspicion fell on the erstwhile king Dinuzulu as instigator of the crimes; for years he had been trying to gain paramountcy; however, it was extraordinarily difficult for the government to get direct evidence against him. Eventually several persons of importance who had been at oSuthu during the rebellion provided it, and the government proclaimed martial law in Zululand and sent McKenzie with the Militia to arrest him. Stuart accompanied the column and received the chief’s surrender in person. The disturbances practically ceased.

Dinuzulu was imprisoned and subjected to a long preliminary examination, while martial law was prolonged and the government collected further evidence. Dinuzulu’s defense, inspired by a prominent critic of government native policy, Harriette Colenso, accused the government of foul play. There were reports of torture and floggings to extract evidence by government agents. True or not, it did not prevent the defence from gathering their evidence. Dinuzulu was tried before a special court at Greytown on twenty–three charges of high treason. The trial lasted seventy–three days, at the end of which Dinuzulu was found guilty on three charges, and was permanently deposed and sentenced to four years imprisonment. He was detained at Newcastle, in the north of the colony, and, after Union, at the request of Louis Botha, an old acquaintance who had become prime minister, he was transferred to a farm in the Transvaal, where he died in 1913.^{Footnote 30}

The events in Zululand and the complications of arrest and trial added an important postscript to the rebellion which Stuart, though busy with other work and unable to pursue the work of compilation, could not ignore. Yet there was another reason the compilation languished. All this occurred while the Natal government was subject to hostile criticism, especially in Britain, for the handling of affairs under martial law in Zululand. Stuart explained the situation in a letter to Major T.H. Blew, chief of staff of the Natal militia, in May 1911:

The Revival of Prospects

Stuart’s elevation to assistant secretary for Native Affairs in the Union government took him to Pretoria (and often to Cape Town), “away from all [my] records and papers.” “[E]veryone knows that I am supposed to be doing the history,” he wrote to Blew. “I would like very much to have an opportunity of completing what I undertook to do and which I have to a large extent already carried out.”^{Footnote 32}

He seems not to have got on with the secretary for Native Affairs, E.E. Dower. He had not been given a commissionership, and he thought that a deputy commissionership which had been offered to him lacked “substance.” He had not had leave for thirteen years, and asked to be seconded for three months to complete his book, followed by nine months long leave. Dower doubted that the government would admit the need of an official history of the rebellion, and he himself was not in favour of it. He would not recommend Stuart’s secondment to the minister unless the Union government endorsed the former Natal government’s instructions to Stuart. Stuart considered this a matter for the Militia, not Native Affairs. He talked to Watt, now a member of parliament, in Cape Town, and wrote to Blew to raise the matter per Colonel McKenzie, now commandant general, with the Union minister of defence, General J.C. Smuts. Stuart calculated that he could finish book in three months. It should then be submitted by the commandant to the minister; if necessary, a small commission might vet it before printing. Smuts intimated that the Union government would not “ratify” the Natal government’s original instructions to Stuart. He said that he personally hoped the book would be published, but Stuart would have to assume the responsibility and expense of publication. He did arrange for Stuart’s secondment, for six months, so that he could write. Stuart then retired from government service in order to concentrate on this literary work.^{Footnote 33}

Stuart appealed to participants in the rebellion for financial support “to a limited extent.” Owing very largely to their guarantee he incurred the “heavy costs” of publication. Parts of the manuscript were read by J. Windham and Stuart’s mother (who died in 1914^{Footnote 34}). He had difficulties working “practically alone,” and missed the publisher’s deadline by a few months. Flyers promised a date of 12 August 1913. Macmillan of London published a limited edition of 2,000 copies, of which almost half were subscribed at the outset.^{Footnote 35}

Stuart had other literary concerns in mind while he was trying to tie up his History. Henry Rider Haggard was writing a fictional trilogy based on Zulu history, Marie (1912), Child of Storm (1913), and Finished (1916). Haggard met Stuart in London, ostensibly to discuss a biography of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the founder of Natal’s Native policy. Stuart was an admirer of Shepstone’s native policy, at least as he conceived of it, and Arthur Shepstone, a grandson of Sir Theophilus and also a magistrate and commissioner, had written to Haggard about writing the biography and offered Stuart’s services for research: Stuart would be in London in May–August 1912, supervising publication of his History, and Shepstone suggested Haggard meet him. Haggard declined to write the biography, pleading other work. He suggested that Stuart write it and include Zulu accounts. He agreed to write an introduction and to discuss content and form with Stuart. He also persuaded Stuart to read the proofs of Child of Storm, and incorporated Stuart’s suggestions. Child of Storm was published in January 1913 and dedicated to Stuart. Stuart did make an effort at the Shepstone biography, and then abandoned it.^{Footnote 36}

Stuart would have been aware of a number of books being published about this time, and may have expected them to prime a readership for his History. Besides Haggard’s novels on the Anglo–Zulu War, there were Bertram Mitford’s four on the Zulu Rebellion: The White Hand and the Black (1907), Forging the Blades (1908), A Dual Resurrection (1910), and Seaford’s Snake (1912). Three other apparently less successful novels based on it were also published in that period, as well as three more based on rebellion in southern Africa, most notably John Buchan’s Prester John (1910).^{Footnote 37} Also, in 1911 Longmans, Green had published a new, revised edition of The Story of the Zulus, by James Gibson, another Natal magistrate and Zulu scholar.^{Footnote 38}

In the first paragraph of the Introduction to A History of the Zulu Rebellion 1906 Stuart states his purpose and (explicitly European) perspective:

Stuart was aware that the book was no longer just a compilation about military operations. It had become for him a broader account of “an occurrence that must for long loom large in the history of the Native races of South Africa.” His “intimate connection” with Native Affairs and knowledge of it led to the inclusion of much more than would be expected in “a more formal production.”^{Footnote 40}

It is not surprising that Stuart considers the imposition of the poll tax a mistake, and reflects a deep pessimism with regard to the government’s native policy.^{Footnote 41} He was not “grovelling” with respect to the authorities, as Julian Cobbing says (see below). Stuart is very positive in his appreciation of Sir Henry McCallum (to whom the book is dedicated), the governor of Natal at the time of the rebellion, and of Colonel Hilmer Bru-de-Wold, the commandant of Militia, but he gives his reasons.^{Footnote 42} Towards others in authority he is appropriately respectful. He is guarded with respect to Sir Charles Saunders, the commissioner in Zululand, with whose initial policy regarding Sigananda he evidently does not agree.^{Footnote 43} He is critical of Colonel George Mansel, the chief commissioner of police, for incurring attacks at Mpanza and Bobe and for failing to follow McKenzie’s instructions at Thathe during the Nkandla operations.^{Footnote 44} He considers Bhambatha a desperado, unfit to be chief.^{Footnote 45} He is ambivalent with regard to Dinuzulu, a proud man brought low by the government and obliged to dissemble his ambition to regain power in his own country. Stuart’s description of Dinuzulu as a secret participant in the rebellion is not novel, but his rationalization of a secret agenda is.^{Footnote 46}

The local impact of the History is difficult to gauge. The reviews in the Natal newspapers – the Natal Witness and Times of Natal in Pietermaritzburg and Natal Advertiser and Natal Mercury in Durban – were positive. The Pietermaritzburg reviews were complimentary and expansive; the Durban ones were brief and descriptive. Only one, in the Times of Natal, gave any attention to the military aspect, because the local regiment, the Natal Carbineers, was on parade that day and it was known that Colonel Mackay had disobeyed commandant’s orders when he had transferred operations from uMsinga to Nquthu. Both Times of Natal and Natal Witness gave serious attention to Stuart’s critique of Native policy and administration, which were immediately relevant in view of the land legislation then before the Union parliament.^{Footnote 47}

On “Rebellion” – The Reception of Stuart’s Work in Retrospect

Stuart described his book as a “unique” hybrid of official and unofficial sources, and he said that he had always striven for and achieved accuracy in describing events.^{Footnote 48} He was wrong if he hoped that the book would become a centre piece of the literature on contemporary colonial race relations. It certainly became the definitive work on the Zulu Rebellion for half a century, but the literature of the rebellion is sparse, probably because it was overtaken and eclipsed by momentous events in Europe and in South Africa. The book’s composition and argument met its audience’s expectations, and its style is simple and direct; yet there are passages, especially in the last section, which are both elegant and ironic in their turn of phrase.

Shula Marks’s Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906–1908 Disturbances in Natal, which appeared in 1970, is the only comparable work of scholarship. Marks’s work was based in good part on sources unavailable to Stuart, and was a radical reinterpretation of political and socio–economic colonial dynamics. Marks states: “Undoubtedly the start of any fresh look at these events must still be Captain James Stuart’s History.”

Stuart’s work reflected contemporary settler and government attitudes, but Marks recognized that Stuart’s deep interest and knowledge of the Zulu made his work “something of an exception” to the contemporary literature on anti–colonial colonial resistance: “He appears to believe that if only Natal had remained true to the great Shepstonian tradition all would have been well.”^{Footnote 49} There was for Marks little to criticize in it as military history.^{Footnote 50}

The editors of The James Stuart Archive refrain from giving an historiographical appreciation and largely confine their comments to Stuart’s methodology in the collection and annotation of information. Julian Cobbing focussed on The James Stuart Archive, but he remarked incidentally that Stuart’s History was “crudely denigratory of the Zulu and full of obsequiousness towards his superiors, to whom he was loyal to the point of grovelling.”^{Footnote 51} Carolyn Hamilton, John Wright and Michael Mahoney have responded critically to Cobbing’s allegations regarding the Archive.^{Footnote 52}

Jeff Guy says that Stuart’s History “was sponsored by, and reflects the attitudes of, the men who put down the rebellion. The book has nonetheless retained a certain authority, particularly insofar as military matters are concerned. It is time that authority was challenged.”^{Footnote 53} Guy’s book is probably the most prominent academic publication since Marks’s Reluctant Rebellion. It most notable feature is or the way in which the subsequent investigations and trials of prominent men in the rebellion are contextualized, narrated and criticized. Guy does challenge Stuart’s accounts of two actions in Maphumulo, at Otimati and Pheyana, and by implication those of others.^{Footnote 54} In another work, though, Guy states that Stuart’s History is “indispensable,” but leaves it at that.^{Footnote 55}

It will be noted from the above that since 2002 “the rebellion” has been called as “an uprising.” Stuart was the first writer to deal with the problem of nomenclature in respect of the rebellion. The Zulu Rebellion has many alternative names, e.g. the Bhambatha (the name has various spellings) Rebellion, the Natal Rebellion, the Natal Native Rebellion, the Poll Tax Rebellion, the War of the Heads (Impi Yamakhanda), and most recently the Zulu (or Bhambatha) Uprising. Besides rebellion, it has been called a rising, an uprising, an insurrection, an insurgency, and even a brawl or riot (isidumo). No name quite fits. Perhaps this is not surprising, since the various leaders and their followers differed as to purpose. Bhambatha and Sigananda may be regarded as rebels, Dinuzulu as an insurrectionary in waiting, and the combined chiefs and people in Maphumulo as “uprisers.” The terms have ideological implications which bear further study. Stuart (and this writer as well) favours “insurrection,” but, apparently to be consistent with previous works and contemporary parlance, he uses “rebellion.”

Stuart uses “rebellion” in the title of his book and generally (but not always) in his narrative to describe actions which took place during the period of martial law in 1906, and, of course, martial law and rebellion can be linked juridically. Yet in the simplest sense Stuart calls the actions a “rising.” In a section of his book he discusses what, in legal terms, he thinks the rising was. Since rebellion has as its purpose the overthrow of a government, he regarded the actions of Bhambatha, Sigananda and their associates as a rebellion. However, Dinuzulu had a different purpose, which was to regain paramountcy by the intervention, not removal, of the British Crown. Thus their rebellion was his insurrection. The demonstrations of discontent in the south of Natal did not result in insurrection or rebellion. The incoherent rising in Maphumulo was unlike the others, and Stuart and other writers have recognized the difference.^{Footnote 56} Marks and Guy call it an “uprising” as well as a “rebellion.” The most recent usage (see above) connotes populistic and messianic elements. Recent research suggests that it may have been part of a larger rising being engineered from oSuthu, whose counterpart in Zululand did not materialize because of the setback at Mome.^{Footnote 57}

Stuart’s Sources and the Way He Used Them

In his Preface Stuart states that his History is:

But the History is more than a secondary source. Its “fullness” owes also to Stuart’s intimate connection with the Native Affairs department, to his expert knowledge of Zulu history and customs, and to his personal experience in the rebellion, to which must be added the information gleaned from other participants during their visits to the sites just afterwards, and to his experience in later, related events. Marks therefore calls the History a valuable primary source as well.^{Footnote 59}

Stuart states what types of sources he uses, but rarely is he specific. Indeed, he seems almost wilfully vague by referring to “etc.” Presumably he would have known about certain documents in the departments of the attorney general and Native Affairs, for he wrote some of them, but the extent of his access to the documents of those and other departments can only be guessed at. It may be doubted that high officials or department clerks threw open files for him. Even if they willing to do so many of the documents would not have been in the orderly state in which they are found in the archives today. It is clear that there were some files which would have been quite useful which he never saw, e.g. the synopses of wires received at militia headquarters, daily intelligence summaries of reports received from magistrates, police, militia and other sources during the last twenty-four-hour period.^{Footnote 60} Nor does he seem to have looked at the transcripts of courts martial or trials in the magistrates’ courts under martial law.^{Footnote 61} Both are rich sources of information, with which he might have corrected some serious errors in his text.

Stuart used footnotes rather sparingly and usually to add bits of information which do not fit in the text. He did not use them for references to sources, as is done in present-day scholarly works. Besides, there is the problem of confidentiality: Stuart would not have been able to cite some sources at all. The reader must take him at his word with regard to his sources and accept his assurance that his “main object throughout has been to ensure accuracy.”^{Footnote 62}

There is no trace of a contemporary diary or note book which Stuart may have kept during the rebellion (and drawn on later for information), except for a single scrap: “Bambata’s Story,” copied from his note book “in the field” by a clerk, who later deposited it in the Natal Archives.^{Footnote 63} It is also interesting that of the 159 statements in the five volumes of The James Stuart Archive, only twelve contain information about the rebellion, and only five of them would have been useful in the writing of the History.^{Footnote 64}

Besides more or less confidential official sources, Stuart consulted the printed sources publicly available. He would have known about the Natal government’s Natal Native Rebellion as Told in Official Despatches (1906), but notes in his text indicate that he preferred to use British Command series.^{Footnote 65} He consulted Walter Bosman’s The Natal Rebellion (1907) and W.J. Powell’s The Zulu Rebellion of 1906: A Souvenir of the Transvaal Mounted Rifles (1906).^{Footnote 66}

Stuart would have read the newspapers; he may indeed have written some reports himself when he was in Nkandla. The reports of both special and syndicated correspondents contain much information not found elsewhere, but Stuart does not seem to have read old newspapers later. It would have taken much time, and probably he felt that he already had the essential information he wanted. There is nothing in his book to suggest that he pored over the transcripts or newspaper reports of Dinuzulu’s trial; rather that he used the documents of the preliminary examination published in the Command series and the Judgment separately printed later.

Stuart’s manuscript of the book passed into the hands of his publisher, and what has become of it is not known. Nor has a corpus of notes on which that manuscript was based been found. There is a single file in the Stuart Papers in the Killie Campbell Africana Library, in Durban, which pertains to the History, but it is a miscellany of items of uneven significance, too few to allow one to determine what sources Stuart actually used for particular chapters and sections.^{Footnote 67}

Stuart was employed by the Natal government to make a “compilation” describing the military operations of the rebellion. Basic documents, such as the official reports of column commanders, were made accessible for him, and he added other material, as has been indicated. Based on all this information he composed a narrative, which entailed some analysis and speculation, especially as the scope of his work extended beyond military matters.

Stuart does not note his sources regularly or often, and therefore it is not clear what ones he uses; nor is it always clear when he departs from them in order to express his own opinion. It is the purpose here to examine the particular chapters of his book in an effort to ascertain what sources he used as he wrote, and, when it seems important, what sources he did not use; and also when he was expressing an independent view. It is not the purpose to footnote Stuart’s book for him; portions of text will be treated summarily.

There are a few places where Stuart erred in matters of fact. When the mistakes seem significant, they will be pointed out and explained.

The chapters are considered in sequence and grouped in three main sections. First there are the introductory chapters. Second, are the “military” chapters, the work he was originally commissioned to do. Third, there are the chapters which necessarily round out the story of the rebellion; Stuart was not commissioned to do them, but, of course, he could hardly have completed the story without them.