A Long History
The Zulu people have lived in what is modern day South Africa for many centuries. In fact the Zulu people are the largest single tribe in the country of South Africa.
Therefore the Zulu people have been one of the most successful tribes or nations in the history of the continent of Africa. The Zulu people were predominantly based in the Southern tip of Africa from the Middle Ages onwards.
In fact the Zulu people were effectively the dominant tribe or nation in the southern part of Africa having enough military power to control the other tribes within that region of the African continent. The power of the Zulu people was based upon the military strength derived from their fearsome warriors. The Zulu warriors had a great deal of stamina as well as fighting ability. The stamina of the Zulu people in general, and particularly of their warriors was feared by other African peoples not to mention the Europeans that reached parts of Southern Africa from the seventeenth century.
The history of the Zulu people began to change from the seventeenth century with the arrival White Europeans into the region of Southern Africa, namely the Dutch speaking Boer farmers, Generally speaking the Boer farmers and the Zulu people kept their distance from each other.
Conquest By the British
Through their contacts with the Boers the Zulu people were aware that their position of strength within the region of Southern Africa would be challenged or completely overturned by any of the major European powers. From the 1820s British colonists and missionaries arrived in the Southern African region threatening the position of both the Zulu people and the Dutch-speaking Boer settlers.
It was the British that altered the history of the Zulu people by slowly but surely over running all of the Zulu controlled areas within the region of Southern Africa. The resistance of the Zulu people to British imperial expansion inevitably led to the Zulu Wars. The Zulu warriors amply demonstrated their bravery and skills yet eventually lost to the superior firepower of the British Army. However for the British Army the conquest of the Zulu people was not as easy as originally anticipated.
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