Shaka+Zulu

Shaka Zulu was born in 1776, the same year the American Revolution began. Shaka Zulu was a great Zulu king and conqueror. He led the Zulu kingdom at a time that they became their strongest and largest.

Shaka Zulu was disowned by his father when he was a young boy. His father, Senzangakona, was the king of his people, but his marriage to Nandi, Shaka's mother, violated Zulu tradition. Senzangakona was left with no choice but to disown his wife and son. Shaka was only six years at the time. Shaka and his mother returned to her own clan, but she no longer fit in there. She eventually left and sought shelter with the Dletsheni Subclan, led by a chieftain named Dingiswayo. Dingiswayo treated Shaka like a sun, trained him and supported him. Eventually, Shaka took over Dingiswayo's amry, training them to fight in entirely new styles with unique strategies.

Shaka trained these troops to fight like a Roman Legion. He was a military genius, developing the famous African buffalo battle formation to attack neighboring tribes. Shaka's army would attack other tribes again and again until they agreed to join him. Eventually, after his father's death, he absorbed his own tribe into his growing empire too, forming what we now call the Zulu Empire. For several years in the early 1800s, this war continued and the empire grew and grew.

Shaka's biggest rival was a chief named Zwide, who killed Dingiswayo in battle. Zwide led the Ndwandwe tribe and they were fierce warriors, but eventually Shaka beat them too. All of this fighting and the tremendous size of Shaka's empire made the British settlers in Cape Town very nervous, and they sent emissaries out to talk with Shaka.

Unfortunately Shaka was killed by his own brothers in 1828. This sounds like Shaka was killed so the brothers could rise to power, but in reality his brothers killed him to save the Zulu tribe. In 1827 Nandi died, and Shaka did not handle his mother's passing well. He enacted strange new laws that disallowed using milk, planting crops, or getting pregnant for a year after his mother's death. Anyone who disobeyed these laws was killed. Hundreds of Zulus were slaughtered, including any pregnant woman he found and their husbands too. Shaka's grief was tearing apart the empire he worked so hard to build. He's brothers then killed him in order to save the Zulu Empire.

The legacy that Shaka Zulu left on the people in Africa was immense. Some believed that he was a hero while others believe he was a murderer. But no matter what you think he was he will be remembered for generations to come.