In the years following the end of the
Second Boer War in 1902, European employers in the British
colony of Natal had difficulty recruiting Black farmers due to increased competition from
gold mines in the
Witwatersrand. Colonial authorities in Natal introduced a
poll tax of £1 () in addition to the existing
hut tax to pressure
Zulu men into entering the labour market. The tax was highly
regressive, and disproportionately affected poorer households. This was exacerbated by Africans experiencing a wider economic crisis, as European landowners evicted African tenants to work the land themselves (leading to overcrowding on the small lands reserved for the African majority), and various natural disasters, such as an 18961897 epidemic which killed 90% of local cattle. In 1897, the
Zulu king Dinuzulu KaCetshwayo, who was in exile at
Saint Helena, was allowed to return to South Africa by the British. After his return, rumours circulated among Africans that he was planning a rebellion to restore African rule and expel white settlers from the region. The imposition of the poll tax served as the catalyst to unite young African men. While some chiefs and elders attempted to negate the coming rebellion, many supported it. Bambatha returned to the Mpanza Valley to discover that the Natal government had deposed him as chief. He gathered together a small force of supporters and from 3 April began launching a series of
guerrilla attacks on colonial forces, using the Nkandla forest as a base. In response to news of the rebellion, the Natal authorities mustered all the soldiers and policemen they could along with requesting assistance from the
Transvaal and
Cape colonies. Their efforts resulted in the raising of a force of 4,316 men under
Colonel Duncan McKenzie. On 10 June, McKenzie's troops surrounded Bambatha's rebels
at Mome Gorge. As the sun rose, they attacked the poorly-armed rebels and inflicted heavy casualties on them. It was reported that Bambatha was killed in action by McKenzie's forces, but this claim was disputed by his supporters, who believed that he fled to
Portuguese Mozambique. The rebellion was continued by
Chief Meseni in the lower
Thukela Valley from 13 June to 11 July, before it was also suppressed. This corps of 21 men was commanded by Gandhi, who also urged the Indian population in South Africa to join in suppressing the rebellion through his columns in
Indian Opinion: "If the Government only realised what reserve force is being wasted, they would make use of it and give Indians the opportunity of a thorough training for actual warfare". By 1927, his view on the rebellion had changed, and Gandhi wrote in
The Story of My Experiments with Truth that it was "No war but a man hunt". ==Commemoration==