A Phoenician ship

There is a strong possibility that the first so called "civilised" visitors to the southern tip of Africa were the Phoenicians in 610 BC.

There is evidence that the Pharaoh Necho sent these intrepid mariners on a three year trip around Africa, proceeding down the east coast, rounding the Cape and sailing north up the west coast and back through the "Pillars of Hercules" across the Mediterranean, home.

Natal was named by the Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama after rounding the Cape in 1497.
On December 25 of that year, he found his flotilla of four small ships, San Gabriel, San Rafael, Barrio, and a stores ship (which was later burnt), off the coast of South Africa and he named this stretch of coast line "Terra Natalis" after the birth of our Lord. There is no record of him landing.
We don't know if he was observed by any of the inhabitants of the land and there is no mention in any African tradition, of this occurrence.

No one knows with absolute certainty who the first
"Homo Sapiens" inhabitants of the Eastern Coast of South Africa were, but it is widely agreed that this honour should go to the Bushmen or San people of the latter Stone Age era.
They left a legacy of   some of the finest rock art known to man, on the walls of the sandstone caves of the Drakensberg Mountains right up to what is now Mpumalanga, as well as the central hinterland of this country, down to the Western Cape.

There are beautifully drawn galleries depicting their lifestyle on these cave walls, but sadly there is no accurate record, apart from their art sites, of how large an area these primitive hunter gatherers occupied.

Evidence of their rock art sites covers a vast area of South Africa showing how large an area they

VASCO DE GAMA
Painting courtesy of Cape Town Castle

actually inhabited when they were at the height of their culture.
They thrived in this invigorating climate, free of many of the tropical diseases like bilharzia and malaria that were to beset later inhabitants of the lower lying coastal areas.
These San or Bushmen have vanished from this part of the land and the only record, apart from their art, that we have are the memories passed down by early invaders who displaced them.
These first inhabitants appeared as phantoms to the newcomers and they were regarded with superstition, to be annihilated when found.

It is not certain who the new Bantu invaders were but it was thought by the later Zulu speaking migrants, that they were an offshoot of the Karanga/ Rodzvi tribe from what is now Zimbabwe, known as the Lala people. They were mainly splinter groups who moved on after internecine fights, to seek sanctuary further south. Their appearance in this part of the world is accepted to have been in the 15th century and like the Bushmen not much is known about them and even their language has all but disappeared.

It is only in the seventeenth century that more reliable and accurate records are available of a new band of invaders known as the Nguni after their leader.

The Nguni invaders, named after their legendary leader Nguni, came down from northern Central Africa bringing with them cattle, which were not originally indigenous to Africa.

The Sahara Desert in the north of Africa was an almost impossible barrier for herdsman to cross with their livestock.

To the north of the Tropical Rain Forests and the Congo River, which was also a major barrier to migration from the North southwards, lay a fertile subtropical savannah which was home to great numbers of pastoralists.
As their population numbers built up they had to move from their land known as "eMbo" and find new land to occupy but were faced with the Sahara in the north and the Tropical Rain Forests in the south. The only narrow way for them to move south was through the Rift Valley and the Lake belt of Eastern Africa known as the"Interlacustrine Region or Belt" .

They utilised this corridor and moved steadily south through what is now Mozambique under their leader known as Dlamini.
Contact with San hunters produced the "click" sounds characteristic of their language today.
They stuck east of the 600mm line of rainfall and finally after following the Lebombo(Swazi) Ubombo (Zulu) Range, they finally found what they thought was the ideal country side to settle in.

Here the tribes, all with a common language base, dispersed and the North and South Nguni groups came about.

Shaka Zulu 1825
Drawn by James King

The Zulu, the Swazi and the Ndbele are of the Northern Nguni group, while the Xhosa, Pondo and Thembu form the Southern group

A Leader Ngwane, established himself in the Pongola River basin and founded what was to become the Swazi Nation. The Ngawne's also had other splinter groups who established themselves in an area on the White Umfolozi River near to Nhlazatshe Mountain near to present day Vryheid

CLICK HERE FOR FURTHER NGWANE HISTORY

Of importance to this province is the trail of a chief of one of the small fragmentary tribes called Malandela (The Follower). CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON MALANDELA
Please note that his name is not Mandela but Malandela. Malandela with his wives and followers finally settled in a beautiful valley named after the river that flowed through it viz. uMhlatuze (The Powerful One).
Malandela had a son called Ntombhela who had

two sons Qwabe, the eldest and his youngest son named Zulu (Heaven).
Zulu or Nkosinkulu moved and settled in the eMakhosini Valley on the banks of the uMpembene stream.
Here was born the Zulu Nation , that was to change the face of this part of Africa under King Shaka and rock the British Empire military power in the future, under Cetshwayo.

First ship built at Port Natal 1685
Painting by Nils Anderson
Old House Museum

A painting of the purchase of Natal in 1689 by Daphne Strutt.

Local History Museum Durban

The British Settlement of Natal 1824

In 1822 Lieutenant James King Capt of the "Salisbury" together with Lt. Francis George Farewell both ex Royal Navy officers from the Napoleonic wars were engaged in trade between the Cape and Delagoa Bay.

On a return trip to the Cape in 1823 they were caught in a very bad storm and decided to risk the Bar and anchor in the Bay of Natal. The crossing went off well and they found safe anchor from the storm.
Lt. King decided to to map the Bay and named Salisbury and Farewell Islands.
In 1824 Lt. Farewell together with a trading company called J.R.Thompson & Co. decided to open trade relations with Shaka the Zulu King and to establish a trading station at the Bay.
Henry Francis Fynn another trader at Delagoa Bay, was also involved in this venture.

Chart of Port Natal 1822
by Capt James Saunders King
Click here for bigger picture

Fynn sailed for The Bay of Natal on the brig "Julia" and Farewell followed six weeks later on the "Antelope". Between them they had 26 possible settlers, only 18 stayed.
On 7 August 1824 they concluded negotiations with King Shaka for a cession of land including the Bay of Natal and land extending ten miles south of the Bay, twenty five miles north of the Bay and one hundred miles inland.
Farewell took possesion of this grant on 7 August 1824, raised the Union Jack and fired a Royal Salute, which consisted of 4 cannon shots and twenty musket shots.

Of the original 18 would be settlers only 6 remained and they can be regarded as the founder members of Port Natal as a British settlement. These 6 were joined by Lt. James Saunders King and Nathaniel Isaacs in 1825.

The life appeared too lonely for some of these prospective settlers, so one month later on
7 September 1824, 9 people boarded the Julia and sailed back to Cape Town. On 9 December 1824 a further 11 people again boarded the Julia for the Cape, but unfortunately the Julia caught alight and sank and all passengers drowned.

The founders who remained behind were:-