Panda, had been located by the Natal government under their chief Langalibalele (i.e. the great sun which shines and burns) in 1848 at the foot of the Drakensberg with the object of preventing the Bushmen who dwelt in the mountains plundering the upland farmers. Here the Amahlubi prospered, and after the diamond fields had been discovered many of the young men who had been to Kimberley brought back firearms. These Langalibalele refused to register, and entered into negotiations with several tribes with the object of organizing a general revolt. Langali-balele’s rebellion. Prompt action by Sir Benjamin Pine, then lieutenant-governor of the colony, together with help from the Cape and Basutoland, prevented the success of Langalibalele’s plan, and his own tribe, numbering some 10,000 persons, was the only one which rebelled. The chief was captured, and exiled to Cape Colony (August 1874). Permitted to return to Natal in 1886, he died in 1889.
This rebellion drew the attention of the home government to the native question in Natal. The colonists, if mistaken in their general policy of leaving the natives in a condition of mitigated barbarism, had behaved towards them with uniform kindness and justice. They showed indeed in their dealings both with the natives within their borders and with the Zulus beyond the Tugela a disposition to favour the natives at the expense of their white neighbours in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, and their action against Langalibalele was fully justified and the danger of a widespread native revolt real. But there were those, including Bishop Colenso, who thought the treatment of the Amahlubi wrong, and their agitation induced the British government to recall Sir Benjamin Pine, Sir Garnet Wolseley being sent out as temporary governor. Sir Garnet reported the natives as “happy and prosperous—well off in every sense.” As a result of consultations with Shepstone certain modifications were made in native policy, chiefly in the direction of more European supervision.
Meantime the colony had weathered a severe commercial crisis brought on in 1865 through over-speculation and the neglect of agriculture, save along the coast belt. But the trade over berg largely developed on the discovery of the Kimberley diamond mines, and the progress of the country was greatly promoted by the The Colenso affair. substitution of the railway for the ox wagon as a means of transport. There already existed a short line from the Point at Durban to the Umgeni, and on the 1st of January 1876 Sir Henry Bulwer, who had succeeded Wolseley as governor, turned the first sod of a new state-owned railway which was completed as far as Maritzburg in 1880. At this date the white inhabitants numbered about 20,000. But besides a commercial crisis the colony had been the scene of an ecclesiastical dispute which attracted widespread attention. Bishop Colenso (q.v.), condemned in 1863 on a charge of heresy, ignored the authority of the court of South African bishops and was maintained in his position by decision of the Privy Council in England. This led to a division among the Anglican community in the colony and the consecration in 1869 of a rival bishop, who took the title of bishop of Maritzburg. Colenso’s bold advocacy of the cause of the natives—which he maintained with vigour until his death (in 1883)—attracted almost equal attention. His native name was Usobantu (father of the people).
For some years Natal, in common with the other countries of South Africa, had suffered from the absence of anything resembling a strong government among the Boers of the Transvaal, neighbours of Natal on the north. The annexation of the Transvaal to Great Britain, effected by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in April 1877, would, it was hoped, put a period to the disorders in that country. But the new administration at Pretoria inherited many disputes with the Zulus, disputes which were in large measure the cause of the war of 1879. For years the Zulus had lived at amity with the Natalians, from whom they received substantial favours, and in 1872 Cetywayo (q.v.), on succeeding his father Panda, had given assurances of good behaviour. These promises were not kept for long, and by 1878 his attitude had become so hostile towards both the Natal and Transvaal governments that Sir Bartle Frere, then High Commissioner for South Africa, determined on his reduction. During the war (see Zululand) Natal was used as the British base, and the Natal volunteers rendered valuable service in the campaign, which, after opening with disasters to the British forces, ended in the breaking of the Zulu power. (F. R. C.)
Scarcely had the colony recovered from the shock of the
Zulu War than it was involved in the revolt of the Transvaal
Boers (1880–1881), an event which overshadowed all
domestic concerns. The Natalians were intensely
British in sentiment, and resented deeply the policy
adopted by the Gladstone administration. At Ingogo,
Natal and the war of
1880–81.
Majuba and Laing’s Nek, all of them situated within
the colony, British forces had been defeated by the Boers.
And the treaty of retrocession was never regarded in Natal as
anything but a surrender. It was clearly understood that the
Boers would aim to establish a republican government over the
whole of South Africa, and that the terms of peace simply meant
greater bloodshed at no distant date. The protest made by
the Natalians against the settlement was in vain. The Transvaal
Republic was established, but the prediction of the colonists,
ignored at the time, was afterwards fulfilled to the letter. In
justice, however, to the colonists of Natal it must be recorded
that, finding their protest with regard to the Transvaal settlement
useless, they made up their minds to shape their policy
in conformity with that settlement. But it was not long before
their worst fears with regard to the Boers began to be realized,
and their patience was once more severely taxed. The Zulu
power, as has been recorded, was broken in 1879. After the
war quarrels arose among the petty chiefs set up by Sir Garnet
Wolseley, and in 1883 some Transvaal Boers intervened, and
subsequently, as a reward for the assistance they had rendered
to one of the combatants, demanded and annexed 8000 sq. m.
of country, which they styled the “New Republic.” As the
London Convention had stipulated that there should be no
trespassing on the part of the Boers over their specified boundaries,
and as Natal had been the basis for those operations against
the Zulus on the part of the British in 1879, which alone made
such an annexation of territory possible, a strong feeling was
once more aroused in Natal. The “New Republic,” reduced in
area, however, to less than 2000 sq. m., was nevertheless recognized
by the British government in 1886, and in 1888 its consent
was given to the territory (the Vryheid district) being incorporated
with the Transvaal. Meantime, in 1887, the remainder
of Zululand had been annexed to Great Britain (see Zululand).
In 1884 the discovery of gold in De Kaap Valley, and on Mr Moodie’s farm in the Transvaal, caused a considerable rush of colonists from Natal to that country. Railways were still far from the Transvaal border, and Natal not only sent her own colonists to the new fields, but also offered the nearest route for prospectors from Cape Colony or from Europe. Durban was soon thronged; and Pietermaritzburg, which was then practically the terminus of the Natal railway, was the base from which nearly all the expeditions to the goldfields were fitted out. The journey to De Kaap by bullock-waggon occupied about six weeks. “Kurveying” (the conducting of transport by bullock-waggon) in itself constituted a great industry. Two years later, in 1886, the Rand goldfields were proclaimed, and Growth of industries.the tide of trade which had already set in with the Transvaal steadily increased. Natal colonists were not merely the first in the field with the transport traffic to the new goldfields; they became some of the earliest proprietors of mines, and for several years many of the largest mining companies had their chief offices at Pietermaritzburg or Durban. In this year (1886) the railway reached Ladysmith, and in 1891 it was completed to the Transvaal frontier at Charlestown, the section from Ladysmith northward opening up the Dundee and Newcastle coalfields. Thus a new industry was added to the resources of the colony.
The demand which the growing trade made upon the one port of Natal, Durban, encouraged the colonists to redouble their efforts to improve their harbour. The question of a fairway
