advantage. The longer a conflict lasted, the more likely the Whites' victory,
since white forces, sustained from commissariats borne by ox wagons from
the nearest railhead, would destroy the food supplies of their enemies. To
crown it all, in 1896-97,
when the last indigenous community in South
Africa (the Venda) was about to be conquered, a tragedy struck the entire
region. An acute infectious disease known as rinderpest
swept through
from the north and destroyed up to 90 percent of the Africans' cattle, which
had been their principal form of wealth.I"
The course of events varied from case to case. Traders and speculators,
drawing African polities into the international
capitalist network, eroded
some of them, notably the Swazi, to such an extent that they collapsed
without
offering physical resistance. Other Africans, such as the Zulu,
fought desperately before they succumbed to superior force, but even in
such cases economic penetration and internal cleavages contributed to the
outcome.
Consider
the Zulu case."? The Zulu kingdom
had survived the as-
sassination of its founder, Shaka, in 1828 and defeat by Afrikaner voor-
trekkers a decade later, but it was subject to endemic factionalism.
In
customary Nguni fashion, rival members of the royal family built up seg-