[c. 1787–SEPTEMBER 24, 1828]

Founder of the Zulu Empire

Between the end of the eighteenth century and 1825, societies on the eastern coastal seaboard of southern Africa underwent a radical and violent political transformation. The cause of this upheaval remains obscure, but an established order of independent chiefdoms collapsed, to be replaced by a number of much larger, more militarily robust kingdoms. The most powerful of these was the Zulu state, which emerged under the leadership of King Shaka kaSenzangakhona. Shaka remains one of the most complex and controversial figures in southern African history, a man still revered as the founding father of his nation, a conqueror of extraordinary vision and political ability whose methods have nonetheless earned him the reputation of a brutal tyrant. A minor—and possibly illegitimate—son of Chief Senzangakhona of the small Zulu clan, Shaka grew up amid escalating social...