around two of his sons, Cetshwayo and Mbuyazi, who were rivals for the
succession to the monarchy. In 1856, Cetshwayo defeated his rival in a
massive battle at Ndondakusuka
on the Tugela River, and thousands of
people who had belonged to the Mbuyazi faction fled across the river to
Natal. By 1870, the African population of the colony was estimated to be
fifteen times as numerous as the white population.
Facing the problem that had been the nemesis of the Afrikaner republic,
the Natal colonial government tried to place the Africans in reserves (which
it called locations),leaving the rest of the colony available for white settle-
ment. By 1864, there were forty-two locations, with an area of 2 million
acres, and twenty-one mission reserves, with 175,000 acres, out of the total
colonial area of 12.5 million acres. In terms of colonial law, the rest of the
colony was either owned by Whites or held by the government as unas-
signed Crown lands. At least half of the African population, however, lived
not in the reserves at all but on Crown lands or on land owned by Whites,
to whom they paid rent. Until the 1870S the white landowners were mak-
ing more money from "Kaffir farming" than from their efforts to produce