British Fortifications in Zululand 1879

For 30 years, Anglo-Zulu relations were amicable enough, but in the 1870s the British adopted a more aggressive policy in southern Africa based on a new Imperial economic vision stimulated by the discovery of diamonds at Kimberly in 1868. In 1877 Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to the Cape to consolidate British claims across the area. Quickly, Frere came to see the Zulu kingdom – the most militarily robust and economically independent black African group south of the Limpopo River – as a threat to British interests. In late 1878 he manipulated border tensions to engineer a rift with the Zulu king, Cetshwayo kaMpande, and in late 1878 presented an ultimatum. This demanded, among other things, that the Zulu disband their army and accept a British resident at the Zulu capital. The Zulu made no reply, and war began.