ABSTRACT
An early and still valuable collection of documents compiled by John Centilivres Chase was published by Robert Godlonton as The Natal Papers in 1843. Chase and Godlonton were at the centre of the nest of land speculators who clamoured for annexation of territories held by the Xhosa and the Zulu. Fynn’s narrative of Zulu history was partly a product of obvious self-interest. By the time he told his story to Major Charters he was the only surviving member of the Port Natal traders to possess a credible claim to a large tract of land. Elizabeth Eldredge has produced convincing reasons for drastically scaling down estimates of lives lost in the wars of the 1820s. In 1928 another historian, Eric Walker, first used the term Mfecane to denote a period of ceaseless warfare throughout the entire region shown on Theal’s map. The historians who have suggested that the mfecane be dropped from the vocabulary present a convincing case.
