James Stuart’s African Informants

The Construction of the Zulu Kingdom in the Accounts of Socwatsha kaPhaphu and Baleka kaMpitikazi (South Africa, 1890-1920)

Abstract

This paper examines the accounts of Socwatsha kaPhaphu and Baleka kaMpitikazi, as registered by colonial administrator James Stuart, in Natal and Zululand (in present-day South Africa) between the 1890s and 1920s, with emphasis on the memories referring to the consolidation of Zulu political power during early 19th century. The documentation is considered through the concept of “contact zones” (as suggested by Mary Louise Pratt), demarcating the interactive dimensions of colonial encounters, including discourses constructed with the goal of reinforcing distinctions between “colonizers” and “colonized”. Although Stuart’s framework for memory is committed to the elaboration of colonial policies for the treatment of the “native” population, the testimonies reveal a re-elaboration of the past based on memory and orality, in particular, the different alignments of power and political strategies undertaken by their communities in facing the expanding Zulu power.