Learn Your History With @IamZuluboy

To be free is to know yourself, and the history of your people. Although the history of our people has been either erased, or isn’t being taught in schools, there are those who have had the privilege to be amongst those who were part of the history and got to hear their stories. The scholars, who now become the teachers and pass down knowledge to the current generation and those who will soon follow.

Zuluboy shares the story of the first African Rebellion, led by Bhambatha kaMancinza, who protested against the rise of taxes employed by the British colonial government in Natal in the year 1906:

In mid 1906, the Natal colonialist in the face of rising Zulu resentment against the imposition of a 'Poll Tax' unleashed one of the most brutal and bloody armed campaign to suppression the challenge to British colonial rule. The protest and subsequent armed rebellion against the tax has become popularly known as the Bambatha/Bambatha* Rebellion after Chief Bhambatha Kamancinza, head of the Zondi, a Zulu clan that lived in the Mpanza Valley in the Greytown district. Chief Bambatha, with the support of other chiefs in the area, refused to accept a new tax that was being implemented by the colonial administration. Together with a small group of supporters, he launched a series of attacks against the colonial forces, using the Nkandla Forest as a base. The campaign, later known as the Bambatha Rebellion, culminated in a pitched battle against the colonial forces at Mome Gorge, where Bambatha and his followers were finally defeated. In general terms, the Rebellion was a response to the harsh policies that the Zulu population was subjected to by the colonial administration in Natal, as well as a number of other contributing factors. (sahistory.org.za)

Bhambatha kaMancinza further influenced Afrika Bambaataa, leader of the first Zulu Nation in America, who counts amongst those who influenced the development of hip hop culture, his name was adopted from Chief Bhambatha after his visit to South Africa.