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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY Introduction The Natal Native Contingent is the most elusive of imperial units in terms of source material. The career of the British regulars in the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879 is well documented and published, that of the colonials adequately so. Only the African soldiers of the Queen have been slighted. Neglect owes partly to the customary portrayal of the war as a conflict between European and African, between black and white, in which Her Majesty’s African forces, most notably the Natal Native Contingent, do not fit conveniently and therefore are more easily left out. Otherwise it owes to a dispersion of information, which this essay describes. Official documents The records of the War Office (cited by the prefix WO in the notes) concerning the Anglo-Zulu war are housed in the Public Records Office at Kew. The diaries, reports and returns of the imperial forces are concentrated in the records groups 32 and 33/34. These are invaluable, as the notes indicate; but they contain very little on the Natal Native Contingent per se. It is remarkable that no corpus of material seems to have survived, if, indeed, it ever existed, for what in fact was the largest imperial unit in the war. The War Office records are concerned with military affairs. The various records in the Natal Archives Depôt, at Pietermaritzburg, which pertain to the contingent, are not concerned with military affairs but rather with the organization and mobilization of levies. Most useful are the records of the Secretary for Native Affairs (SNA), especially files 1/6/11 through 1/6/15, entitled ‘Papers re War of 1879 and the calling out of the Natives’. Intimately connected with the correspondence in this records group is that found in the records of the various magistracies, notably those of the Inanda (VLM), Umgeni (PMB), Umvoti (GTN), Upper Umkomanzi (RMD), Upper Tugela (BGV), and Weenen (Weenen-Add) divisions. Taken altogether, the correspondence and reports in these record groups reveal and filter the problems of the chiefs and head men and people involved in the war sympathetically, if not always with great understanding. Important for matters of policy and assignment are the records of the offices of the Governor (GH) and the Colonial Secretary (CSO), also in the Natal Archives Depôt. The differences between the Supreme Chief and the Lieutenant General are clearly delineated in the records of the former. The records of the Colonial Secretary contain relatively more on officers and units, and frequently overlap matters of concern in the SNA. Among the printed documents there is a wealth of information, but it is largely in bits and pieces. The British parliamentary papers, published contemporaneously at intervals by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office at short intervals, contain much that is found in the unpublished records described and sometimes more. They are cited by their Command (C) numbers. The most important single official document is the Narrative of the Field Operations connected with the Zulu War (London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1881), compiled by the Intelligence Branch of the Quartermaster-General’s Department, the Horse Guards, War Office. This is an expanded diary of events, divided into chapters according to larger units and sectors and logical intervals. It is essential first-reading for a grasp of war. Later information, including that acquired in the war, is in the Précis of Information concerning Zululand With a Map ... Corrected to December, 1894 (London, HMSO, 1895), also prepared by the Intelligence Division of the War Office. There is no corresponding publication of documents on the colonial side; however, there are several reports which focus on the people of the Colony just after the war and which contain useful insights into their response to it. These are the Report of the Natal Native Commission, 1881–2; Evidence taken before the Natal Native Commission, 1881; and Evidence taken by the Sub-Commission for Umvoti County (Pietermaritzburg, Vause, Slatter, 1882). There is also the Blue Book of Native Affairs, published by order of the Legislative Council in 1884. The Blue Book for the Colony of Natal, published annually (and for 1879, also by Vause, Slatter), contains information and statistics primarily descriptive of the settlers’ transformation of the country. The Natal Government Gazette (NGG), the official periodical, gives some information on the war-time period, notably on casualties. The Natal Native Contingent in the Anglo-Zulu War 1879 175 Newspapers Among non-official sources a great amount of information appears in the...

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