A new interpretation of the military settlements of the northern Nguni

ABSTRACT The migration of the various northern Nguni groups during the nineteenth century is associated with a period of increased and extensive conflict throughout southern Africa. Central to the success of the nineteenth-century northern Nguni kingdoms was the utilisation of a social organisational system known as the regimental system. These regiments were housed in military settlements that would form the core of the various kingdoms’ administrative and military systems. From examining the various military settlements of the northern Nguni kingdoms, two different settlement variations can be observed. The first variant was utilised by the Zulu and Matabele with the second one used by the Ngoni and Swazi. This study advances a new hypothesis relating the nature and origins of these two variants. It is argued that they are more than reflections of the separate historical development of each northern Nguni kingdom and that they result instead from regional developments that occurred within the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The communities that utilise each variant can be linked both historically as well as geographically, with a very distinct geographical divide detectable between them. The hypothesis presented here therefore argues that these variants are reflective of at least two different and simultaneous regimental systems with different corresponding military settlements.