Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo

Who is Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo?

Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo was king of the Zulu people during a turbulent period of British colonial expansion in southern Africa. Son of King Cetshwayo, he assumed leadership amid the political fragmentation that followed the Anglo-Zulu War and the subsequent partition of Zululand. After leading an armed uprising against British annexation of Zululand's coastal territories in 1888, Dinuzulu was captured and, in 1890, exiled by the British colonial government to Saint Helena, the same remote island once used to exile Napoleon. He spent seven years on the island under guard, held at a series of residences including Rosemary Hall and Francis Plain House, with an entourage of about twenty people including two of his wives, uncles, a doctor, and translators; several of his children were born there. He was released in 1897 when Zululand was formally incorporated into Natal. Years later, following the 1906 Bambatha Rebellion against poll taxes, in which he was accused of complicity, he was tried for high treason at Greytown, Natal (1908-09) and convicted on lesser charges of harbouring rebels; this second sentence was served in Natal itself (Pietermaritzburg, then Newcastle), not on Saint Helena. Released in 1910, he lived out his final years on a farm in the Transvaal, where he died in 1913.

Sources: Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (1979) · C.T. Binns, Dinuzulu: The Death of the House of Shaka (1968) · South African History Online, "King Dinuzulu"