The was a historical period of heightened military conflict and migration associated with state formation and expansion in Southern Africa. It resulted from the complex interplay of pre-existing trends of political centralisation with the effects of international trade, environmental instability, and European colonisation. The exact range of dates that comprise the Mfecane varies between sources. At its broadest, the period lasted from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, but scholars often focus on an intensive period from the 1810s to the 1840s.
Traditional estimates for the death toll range from 1 million to 2 million; however, these numbers are controversial, and some recent scholars revise the mortality figure significantly downwards and attribute the root causes to complex political, economic, and environmental developments. The is significant in that it saw the formation of new states, institutions, and ethnic identities in southeastern Africa.
The historiography itself is also historically significant, with different versions having been employed to serve a range of political purposes since its inception as a historical concept. The label first emerged in the 1830s and blamed the disruption on the actions of King Shaka, who was alleged to have waged near-genocidal wars that depopulated the land and sparked a chain reaction of violence as fleeing groups sought to conquer new lands. Since the latter half of the 20th century, this interpretation has fallen out of favour among scholars due to a lack of historical evidence.
Causes The resulted from the complex interplay of pre-existing trends of political centralisation with the effects of international trade, environmental instability, and European colonisation. State formation and expansion had already been intensifying in Southeastern Africa as of at least the late 1700s, but these processes were greatly accelerated after the international ivory trade opened. The trade allowed leaders to amass unprecedented amounts of wealth, which they could then use to cultivate greater political power. Wealth and power became mutually reinforcing, as wealth enabled leaders to develop state instruments of control and expropriation, which they used to extract further wealth through taxation and military action. The consequence of this cycle was an increasing political and wealth disparity within and between polities, particularly in concern to productive land and food stores.
Political centralisation became problematic in the early 19th century when deep drought (aggravated by the atmospheric effects of volcanic eruptions in 1809 and 1815) struck Southeastern Africa. Whereas previous droughts had not caused serious famine, the unequal distribution of land and food stores lessened the ability of average people to meet their needs. Though far less susceptible to famine, leaders faced threats to their power as (taxable) agricultural production dropped and ivory became scarcer due to overhunting. Faced with the challenges of fighting famine and maintaining wealth flows, leaders were incentivised to turn to raiding and conquest. Conquest protected conquering peoples against famine by providing immediate access to the conquered peoples' livestock and grain stores and, in the long term, by securing arable land and the people (particularly women) to farm it at greater intensities than before. Here another self-reinforcing cycle set in as famine and warfare promoted insecurity and militarism, which promoted political centralisation and more warfare as strong leaders expanded their authority by offering a desperately-needed escape from famine to loyal followers.
A second stage of turmoil from the 1820s to the 1830s was driven in large part by slave and cattle raiding by Griqua, Basters, and other Khoekhoe-European groups armed and mounted by European settlers, who benefitted from trading their plunder. The increasing economic pull of the international slave trade also incentivised greater warfare and disruption between polities close to international ports such as Delagoa Bay.
The Mfecane in the East The began in eastern Southern Africa with increasing competition and political consolidation as chiefdoms vied for control over trade routes and grazing land.
Delagoa Bay and its international port saw increasing regional conflict in the mid-to-late 18th century. The local Tembe and Mabhudu-Tembe competed for control, absorbing or expelling some of their neighbouring polities. The abakwaDlamini, who would later form the Swazi Kingdom, were one such group put to flight by the conflict.
The mid-to-late 18th century also saw the rise of the Nxumalo and Nyambose chiefdoms between the Phongolo and Thukela rivers, which would eventually become the Ndwandwe Paramountcy and Mthethwa Paramountcy respectively. On the borders of their spheres of influence were the amaHlubi of the upper Mzinyathi, the abakwaDlamini north of the Phongolo, and the abakwaQwabe of the lower Thukela. The latter's rise displaced elements of the abakwaCele and amaThuli further south. The amaThuli managed to secure a sizeable chiefdom between the lower Mngeni and Mkhomazi Rivers, which displaced local groups across the Mzimkhulu River. This in turn contributed to the rise of the Mpondo Kingdom.
The 1810s saw the continued expansion of the Ndwandwe and Mthethwa Paramountcies, as well as the Portuguese Delagoa Bay slave trade. The Ndwandwe Paramountcy came to blows with the Mthethwa in the late 1810s, ultimately defeating and slaying their leader Dingiswayo kaJobe. The Mthethwa promptly collapsed as its subjects reasserted independence. The Ndwandwe king Zwide kaLanga went to war with one of these breakaway polities, the amaZulu of Shaka kaSenzangakhona. Their raids and counterraids proved costly and indecisive, contributing to the breakup of the Ndandwe Paramountcy. Groups broke away under Soshangane and Zwangendaba who settled their followers in the Delagoa Bay region, while Msane did the same in what is now eastern Eswatini. King Zwide, now in a position of weakness, withdrew to his territories north of the Phongolo to rebuild. Shaka took advantage of the power vacuum to expand the Zulu state to the Mkhuze River. The 1810s also saw the expansion of British colonial rule in southeastern southern Africa, with Xhosa polities displaced northwards by the Fourth and Fifth Xhosa Wars.
Meanwhile, between the Mzimkhulu and Mzimvubu Rivers, some groups fleeing the upheavals further north joined Faku kaNgqungqushe's Mpondo Kingdom, while most others instead vied for dominance just outside of its reach.
By the 1820s, Shoshangane's Gaza Kingdom and Shaka's Zulu kingdom had established themselves (alongside the remains of the Ndwandwe Paramountcy) as the major players in the Northeast of Southern Africa. After relocating once again to the Nkomati River region, Zwide' Ndwandwe successfully raided and recruited their way back to prominence. By the time of his death in 1825 the Ndwandwe had muscled into the interior, possibly sundering the Pedi Kingdom and certainly dominating the region between the Olifants and Phongolo Rivers. Msane, Zwangendaba, and the followers of Nxaba, for their part, were displaced farther north. The Gaza Kingdom expanded to the northeast, heavily raiding small Tsonga polities. Slave trading expanded at Delagoa Bay, and the Portuguese worked to expand their regional sphere of influence.
In 1826, the expansion of the Ndwandwe Paramountcy under Sikhunyana began to threaten the Zulu Kingdom's borders. In response, Shaka marched his army (and allied British traders) to the Izindololwane Hills and put Sikhunyana to flight. Their victory was so total that the Ndwandwe state collapsed shortly thereafter, with some constituent polities fleeing south or joining the Zulu, the Gaza Kingdom, or Mzilikazi's Matabele/Ndebele Kingdom. The collapse of the Ndwandwe allowed Sekwati to rebuild the sundered Pedi Kingdom around a fortified hilltop base near the Steelpoort River. From this stronghold, he soon gathered a large following by offering protection to refugees.
In 1827, Shoshangane relocated the Gaza Kingdom from the lower Nkomati to the lower Limpopo River area. The Gaza defeated a Zulu army in 1828 and developed economic and political ties with the Portuguese.
In May of 1828, Shaka launched a successful cattle raid against the Bomvana and the Mpondo Kingdom, following up with another raid north of Delagoa Bay before the first expeditionary force had returned home. Sensing political weakness, his brothers Dingane and Mhlangana assassinated him in September. Dingane subsequently purged Mhlangana and other political rivals, establishing himself as the new Zulu king. These chaotic events prompted the secession of a segment of the subject abakwaQwabe nation, though they were dispersed in late 1829 by a Mpondo attack south of the Mzimkhulu.
By the late 1820s the power struggles between the Mzimkhulu and Mzimvubu Rivers had produced two victors: the Mpondo Kingdom and the Bhaca Chiefdom. Several weaker polities again relocated, with some moving north, others moving south, and yet others to the Zulu Kingdom. 1828 saw a further advance of colonial power as a combined British-Boer force marched far beyond the colonial borders and destroyed Matiwane's amaNgwane at Mbholompo.
Benefitting from the fall of the Ndwandwe and Shaka, Sobhuza's Swazi Kingdom expanded from the core of modern Eswatini to the Sabie River by the early 1830s. In an 1833 trade dispute, Zulu forces briefly captured Delagoa Bay and executed the Portuguese governor. In an attempt to solidify their control over inland trade, the Portuguese launched a failed attack on the Gaza Kingdom in 1834, leaving Gaza dominant over Delagoa Bay and the territories to its north. By the late 1830s, the Kingdom's sphere of influence reached as far as the Zambezi River.
In 1836, the Swazi Kingdom weathered a joint attack by Zulu forces and British adventurers. Sometime in the late 1830s the Swazi launched a raid against the Pedi Kingdom, which repelled them.
The Mfecane in the Interior The began in the interior regions of Central Southern Africa in the late 18th century with the displacement of Khoekhoe and San peoples by slave and cattle raiders from the expanding Dutch Cape Colony. Arriving in the middle and lower Orange River regions, they competed with local Batswana, beginning a period of social breakdown and recombination. Bolstered in number by escaped slaves, bandits, and people of all ethnicities from the Cape Colony, some of these peoples would eventually become the Korana. Their power increased as trade with and raids upon colonists provided guns and horses, and by the 1780s they began raiding northwards against Tswana polities.
From the 1780s to the turn of the century, the southern Tswana chiefdoms underwent fragmentations and consolidations as raids and counter-raids proliferated. The powerful Bahurutshe Chiefdom of the upper Marico River region had their control of the lucrative trade with the Cape Colony eroded by the Bangwaketse to the northwest, the Batlhaping to the southwest, and the emerging Pedi Kingdom to the east. The latter, helmed by the Maroteng clan, also came into conflict with the amaNdzundza Ndebele, Masemola, Magakala, Bamphahlele, and Balobedu polities. Meanwhile, the region of the modern north and central Free State was increasingly coming under the control of the Bataung.
In the late 1790s, expansion by the Cape Colony to the lower Orange River region displaced the mixed-race Griqua peoples to the confluence of the Vaal and Orange River. There, they absorbed some of their San and Korana neighbours as clients. The Griqua, like other ethnic groups, were not politically unified and differed in their livelihood strategies, which ranged from raiding to agriculture to controlling trade between Batswana and the Cape Colony.