29. Shaka Zulu Was Assassinated by His Own Brothers
Shaka abandoned the throwing spears used in the region for centuries. Instead, he trained his men to use short stabbing spears, emphasizing shock tactics and decisive close combat. Zulu tactics and training made them unstoppable, triggering a catastrophe known as the Mfecane, meaning the “crushing” or “forced migration”. Tribes fleeing Shaka’s onslaught were forced to encroach upon their neighbors, who were then forced to fight or become refugees, encroaching upon their neighbors in turn, in a cascade of violence that killed millions.
Shaka’s rule finally came to an end in 1828. That year, he sent a regiment raiding up to the borders of the Cape Colony, but when it returned, rather than allow it the customary rest, he ordered it on yet another raid. That and increasingly megalomaniacal behavior led to widespread grumbling. Taking advantage of that, Shaka’s half-brother Dingane organized an assassination plot. At a signal one day at camp, he and his co-conspirators suddenly fell upon Shaka, and stabbed him to death.
