AFRICANWARSAND WHITEINVADERS
leader and its central position in southern Africa, Lesotho played an impor-
tant role throughout the next half-century.
In transforming the farming society of southeastern Africa, the Mfecane
wrought great suffering. Thousands died violent deaths. Thousands more
were uprooted from their homes. Villagecommunities and chiefdoms were
eliminated. A century later, Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, a Motswana,
started his novelMhudi with tragic incidents in the Mfecane. Yet,in Thom-
as Mokopu Mofolo's well-known novel Chaka, written in Sesotho and
translated into English, German, French, and Italian, and in an epic poem
by Mazisi Kunene, the name of Shaka has passed into African literature
and the consciousness of modern Africans as a symbol of African heroism
and power.l?
Besides the destruction, the immediate consequences of the wars were
twofold. First, thousands of Basotho and Batswana from the highveld, as
well as Mfengu and Xhosa from the coastal area, poured into the Cape
Colony in search of subsistence, which they were able to obtain by working
for white colonists. Second, the wars provided Whites with unprecedented
opportunities to expand into the eastern part of southern Africa. In much