Battle of Blood River

On 16 December 1838, beside the Ncome River in what is now KwaZulu-Natal, a Boer commando of some 464 Voortrekkers under Andries Pretorius, in a fortified wagon camp, repelled a much larger army of the Zulu king Dingane. The battle, also called the Battle of Ncome after the river, was a turning point of the Great Trek. It later became a powerful and contested symbol in South African politics, remembered very differently by the two communities.

Boer families leaving the Cape Colony had moved into Natal, over part of which the Zulu Kingdom claimed authority. Their leader Piet Retief negotiated with Dingane for land, but the talks were clouded by distrust on both sides, and Boer demands for written private title clashed with the Zulu practice of holding land in common. On 6 February 1838 Dingane had Retief and his party killed at his royal kraal, uMgungundlovu, accusing them of witchcraft. Zulu regiments then attacked trekker encampments; estimates of the dead range from about 500 to 532, including women and children and the Khoikhoi and Basotho servants who travelled with the Boers. A Boer counter-attack was defeated at Italeni in April 1838, and a Zulu assault on a Boer laager at Veglaer in August failed.

In late November 1838 Pretorius took command of a force of 64 wagons. A further group of servants accompanied it, perhaps 200, although one later writer put their number at only 59. Before the battle the commando made a vow that, if God granted victory, they and their descendants would keep the day holy and build a church. Pretorius declined to march through the hilly country near Dingane's capital, where earlier Boer forces had been ambushed, and on 15 December he drew his wagons into a laager on ground of his own choosing, protected on two sides by the river, where a steep drop fell into a deep pool. He had two small cannon.

During the night, Zulu regiments under the command of Dambuza crossed the river and gathered around the camp. Ndlela kaSompisi, Dingane's senior general, held his elite troops back on the far bank. The size of the Zulu army is uncertain; estimates range from about 20,000 to 30,000. At dawn the Zulu charged the laager repeatedly, but musket and grapeshot fire from behind the wagons broke each assault. After about two hours and four waves of attack, Pretorius sent mounted men out to scatter the Zulu formations, and the pursuit lasted for some three hours.

Boer accounts, including the journal of Pretorius's secretary Jan Bantjes, report about 3,000 Zulu dead and only three Boers wounded, among them Pretorius. The historian S. P. Mackenzie has questioned the Zulu death toll, comparing it with other battles of the period. Zulu oral tradition gives a different picture, in which only one wing of the army reached the laager, approaching through the morning mist, and then withdrew under fire.

Days later the commando reached uMgungundlovu, finding it abandoned and burned, and buried the remains of Retief's party. The war did not end there: a Boer force was defeated at the White Umfolozi River later that month. Dingane was finally overthrown in 1840 by his half-brother Mpande, who had allied with the Boers and became king. The trekkers set up the Natalia Republic, which Britain annexed in 1843.

For many Afrikaners the victory came to stand for divine favour, and the anniversary, kept as the Day of the Vow, became central to Afrikaner nationalism. A memorial of bronze wagons stands on the west bank, while the Ncome Museum on the east bank honours the Zulu dead. Since 1994, 16 December has been a public holiday in South Africa called the Day of Reconciliation.

Our 1815 map shows the Zulu state before the trek, and the 1878 map shows Zululand beside the colony of Natal.