Sir Theophilus Shepstone

Sir Theophilus Shepstone (born Jan. 8, 1817, Westbury-on-Trym, Gloucestershire, Eng.—died June 23, 1893, Pietermaritzburg, Natal [now in South Africa]) was a British official in Southern Africa who devised a system of administering Africans on which all later European field administrations in Africa were to be based. He was responsible for the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 and helped to instigate the Anglo-Zulu War (1879).

Shepstone’s family immigrated in 1820 to Cape Colony, and he was educated in his father’s mission school. At an early age Shepstone acquired great proficiency in the native dialects and culture and learned Xhosa. He served on the staff of Benjamin D’Urban, governor of Cape Colony, during the Cape Frontier War of 1834–35 against the Xhosa and was appointed British resident in a Xhosa group in Kaffraria (now in South Africa) in 1839.

In 1845 he moved to Natal, where he first served as a diplomatic agent (1845–53) and later as secretary for native affairs (1853–75). He was responsible for delineating reserves for Africans, for introducing the hut tax (1849), and for ruling through chiefs loyal to himself. He believed that Africans should be governed separately from the white settlers and that African land-tenure systems should be maintained in the reserves (which became the basic approach in South Africa during the apartheid era of the 20th century), but he provoked opposition from white settlers who coveted further African land.

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Shepstone was active in regional affairs. He attempted to impose a pretender on the Ndebele people following the 1868 death of their king, Mzilikazi, which was a source of trouble for Mzilikazi’s successor, Lobengula. Shepstone also vied with the president of the Boer South African Republic (SAR), Marthinus Pretorius, in making claim to much of the African interior not already occupied by Europeans. He was present at the coronation of the Zulu king, Cetshwayo, in 1873 and negotiated with him. Also that year, Shepstone led the attack on the Hlubi chief Langalibalele, who had ignored orders to give up his people’s firearms.

In 1876 the British colonial secretary, Lord Carnarvon, consulted with Shepstone as to how best to bring about a federation of the Southern African colonies. It was in working toward that goal that in April 1877 Shepstone annexed the SAR to Great Britain as the crown colony of the Transvaal. The annexation and Shepstone’s subsequent role as administrator in the Transvaal (1877–79) have given rise to considerable controversy. Critics insist that Shepstone was a crafty, secretive “South African Talleyrand” whose “soaring ambition” led him to employ deceit and intimidation with the Transvaalers when he took over their land and that his high-handed, autocratic rule contributed much to the successful rebellion of the Boers (1880–81). After the rebellion, relations between the Boers and the British were poisoned for generations. Also during this time, Shepstone fomented war against Cetshwayo’s Zulu and, together with the high commissioner of Cape Colony, Sir Bartle Frere, was largely responsible for the British ultimatum to the Zulu in December 1878 and the resulting war in 1879.

Shepstone retired from public life in 1880 but in 1883 served briefly as administrator in Zululand, where the Zulu called him “Somtseu” (the “father of whiteness”).