the Transvaal Boers as to the
possession of the territory between the Buffalo and Pongola rivers, and
encouraged the chief Sikukuni (Secocoeni) in his struggle against the
Boers. This feud with the Boers was inherited by the British government
on the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. Cetywayo's attitude became
menacing; he allowed a minor chief to make raids into the Transvaal, and
seized natives within the Natal border.

Sir Bartle Frere, who became high commissioner of South Africa in March
1877, found evidence which convinced him that the Kaffir revolt of that
year on the eastern border of Cape Colony was part of a design or desire
"for a general and simultaneous rising of Kaffirdom against white
civilization"; and the Kaffirs undoubtedly looked to Cetywayo and the
Zulus as the most redoubtable of their champions. In December 1878 Frere
sent the Zulu king an ultimatum, which, while awarding him the territory
he claimed from the Boers, required him to make reparation for the
outrages committed within the British borders, to receive a British
resident, to disband his regiments, and to allow his young men to marry
without the necessity of having first "washed their spears." Cetywayo,
who had found a defender in Bishop Colenso, vouchsafed no reply, and
Lord Chelmsford entered Zululand, at the head of 13,000 troops, on the
11th of January 1879 to enforce the British demands. The disaster of
Isandhlwana and the defence of Rorke's Drift signalized the commencement
of the campaign, but on the 4th of July the Zulus were utterly routed at
Ulundi. Cetywayo became a fugitive, but was captured on the 28th of
August. His kingdom was divided among thirteen chiefs and he himself
taken to Cape Town, whence he was brought to London in August 1882. He
remained in England less than a month, during which time the government
(the second Gladstone administration) announced that they had decided
upon his restoration. To his great disappointment, however, restoration
proved to refer only to a portion of his old kingdom. Even there one of
his kinsmen and chief enemies, Usibepu, was allowed to retain the
territory allotted to him in 1879. Cetywayo was reinstalled on the 29th
of January 1883 by Shepstone, but his enemies, headed by Usibepu,
attacked him within a week, and after a struggle of nearly a year's
duration he was defeated and his kraal destroyed. He then took refuge in
the Native Reserve, where he died on the 8th of February 1884.