Shaka
Shaka kaSenzangakhona transformed a small chiefdom into the dominant power in southeastern Africa within about a decade, and is credited with a military revolution whose extent is still argued over. Born around 1787, the son of the Zulu chief Senzangakhona and Nandi, a woman of the Langeni, he was probably illegitimate by Zulu reckoning and was raised in exile among his mother's people and then the Mthethwa, where he served with distinction under Chief Dingiswayo. He took the Zulu chieftaincy around 1816 with Dingiswayo's backing, and after Dingiswayo was killed by Zwide of the Ndwandwe, defeated Zwide at the Mhlatuze River in 1820 and absorbed his following. The military reforms attributed to him are substantial: the short stabbing spear, the iklwa, in place of the thrown assegai; the larger cowhide shield used to hook an opponent's shield aside; the age-regiment system, in which men were organised by cohort rather than clan and quartered in royal barracks; and the encirclement formation known as the horns of the buffalo. He is also said to have required his men to discard sandals. Some of these predate him or were adopted from Dingiswayo, and colonial writers exaggerated his personal role. His conquests contributed to the Mfecane, a period of upheaval, migration and famine across the region in the 1820s, though drought and the slave trade from Delagoa Bay were also drivers. After Nandi died in 1827 he ordered mass mourning, and executions reportedly followed. That excess, and his prolonged campaigning, turned his own family against him. His half-brothers Dingane and Mhlangana assassinated him in September 1828.
- Lived: 1787 CE – 1828 CE
- Nationality: South African
- Roles: king, military_leader
