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  • Bambatha at Mpanza: The Making of a Rebel
  • Lize Kriel
P. S. Thompson . Bambatha at Mpanza: The Making of a Rebel. Pietermaritzburg: P. S. Thompson, 2004. xi + 153 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Endnotes. Bibliographical essay. Price not reported. Paper.

In a biographical essay appended to his latest book, Paul Thompson, a prolific historian of Natal and the Zulu, explains the relatively thin spread of publications seriously attempting to understand the role of Bambatha in the rebellion against colonial Natal in 1906. Thompson identifies James Stuart's contemporary account and Shula Marks's 1970s "radical interpretation of the events" as the "only two books which give much attention to" what became known as the "Bambatha rebellion" in South African historical consciousness (151). General works on South African history, historical dictionaries, and the poetry of struggle framed Bambatha in the gallery of anticolonial, antiwhite oppression, and antiapartheid heroes. In Bambatha at Mpanza, Thompson sets out to demythologize this image with a dense narrative meticulously constructed out of contemporary newspapers and written reports, including court records, excavated from several archives. Thompson finds no evidence of the popular perception that Bambatha rose as a patriot to lead the resistance against the poll tax imposed upon the Zulu by the Natal government. Instead, he explains the rebellion as a "personal one" and Bambatha's "vision" as "shortsighted" (vi–vii). Over nine chapters Thompson sets out to elucidate "the antecedents of [Bambatha's] rebellion and his role in it," without "indictment" but also without "glorification" (viii).

Demythologizing a story that has become entrenched in the social memory of generation after generation of South Africans is no easy task, and it could have been pursued via different routes. One approach would be to try to illustrate what the social memories (however faulty) of different groups entail, how people have come to believe and interpret things the way they do, and what these stories have meant and still mean to them, as manifested in cultural forms as diverse as performances, monuments, and books (as was done so masterfully by Isabel Hofmeyr in her 1995 publication We Spend Our Years as a Tale that is Told.) Another possibility would be the reconstructionist route: an empirical effort—in the established Rankean tradition of historical narrative—to ascertain as accurately as possible what actually happened. Thompson seems to have opted mostly for the latter—a mammoth task which he concedes is not finished yet. Certainly scholars concerned with the meaning and implications of the social memory of Bambatha will find his historical detective work very useful. He knows his sources well and juxtaposes the most contradictory texts rather than reconciling them beyond recognition. Among the most enjoyable passages in the book are the ones in which he points out the different layers [End Page 154] of evidence and speculates about the motives of the witnesses to conceal some aspects and to inflate others.

I do not agree, however, with the author's contention that "official colonial communications are usually straightforward enough" (ix). To me, the fact that they are "colonial" places them in a very distinct paradigm; to perceive them as transparent, to "naturalize" their take on things, may lead to an underestimation of the extent to which the legitimacy of Natal's colonial government and its successors was subverted and challenged by black South Africans until the end of the twentieth century. For Thompson it is admirable that a witness like Sukabekuluma, Bambatha's right-hand man, can shift "brilliantly between respect for his king and regard for his captors and tell... a marvelous story besides" (ix). However, for his research purposes he finds it as much an impediment as did the government official who cross-examined Sukabekuluma and commented: "He lies like truth yet most truly he lies" (ix). Although it would have been a completely different project, it is tempting to consider a Marc Bloch–inspired approach to turn these testimonies inside out and ask what evidence the witnesses provide "in spite of themselves."

While most historians I know choose to avoid the concepts "tribe," "native," and "kraal," Thompson explains in his introduction why he prefers to stick with them. I am also a bit uncomfortable with...

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