Background - A Short Safari Adventure Among Africa's Thorny Bushveld Wildlife - page 4

Natural Vegetation in Africa
Having been dissipated by the great diaspora of south eastern South Africa named the
Mfecane (meaning destroyed in total war), the tribes fled the blood lust of Dingiswayo
(Mtethwa tribe leader), Zwide (Ndandwe leader), Shaka Zulu, Shoshangaan and Mzilikazi.
During this time, Shaka's mother left her tribe ruled by his father Senzangakona because of
Shaka Zulu being illegitimate and joined the Mtethwa where Shaka rose to rule a regiment.
When his father died he returned and murdered his half-brother and took over the tribe of
amaZulus (“People of the heavens”). In 1819, war broke out between the Mtethwa and
Ndandwe, and Zwide killed Dingiswayo, leading to Shaka overtaking the Mtethwa as well.
During this battle, Zwide believed one of his sub tribes was being treacherous and summoned
their leader, killed him, and installed Mzilikazi as leader. Mzilikazi aligned himself with
Shaka, but then stopped sending cattle he captured back to Shaka. As a result, Shaka attacked
him and he fled to the Transvaal, destroying the Sothu, and eventually settling in what is now
southern Zimbabwe as the Matabele people. Shaka also attacked the Xhosa to the south, then
eventually destroyed the Ndandwe after being attacked twice by Zwide. The remains of the
Zwide tribe fled north led by Shoshangaan attacking the Swazis, Sothu, Tsonga, Portuguese in
present Maputo, missionaries, and Zwangendaba, eventually ruling Mozambique between the
Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. Shaka's half-brother Dingane murdered him when Shaka ran a
campaign to punish Shoshangaan leading to Dingane's rule.
The embers of this past history of battles still remained when as a child one of us would sit
with his African friends below Kamhlabane overlooking a dirt road on which “impi”