Decem. 2 1856:
The epic Battle of Ndondakusuka was fought on the Zulu bank of the Tugela River, South Africa.
It was one of the bloodiest battles ever fought in Africa from ancient to modern times.
It was the rise of Cetshwayo kaMpande (son of King Mpande) of the Zulu nation.
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The 12,000 warriors of UmNtwana (Prince) Cetshwayo had ruthlessly pursued and trapped the 7,000 men and 13,000 noncombatant followers of his rival half-brother UmNtwana Mbuyazi.
They were two of the king’s 29 sons.
Five other princes and many chiefs were with Mbuyazi’s faction.
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Two Zulu armies faced off in customary “Horns of the Bull” formation.
Cetshwayo’s regiments outnumbered Mbuyazi’s iziGqoza faction whose strong left horn was along the river.
It included a group of Natal frontier police and white hunter-traders armed w/ muskets and elephant guns.

Mbuyazi’s gunmen inflicted great casualties amongst Cetshwayo’s regiments on their right horn before being overwhelmed by the collapse of the iziGqoza's right.

The uSuthu faction's 12,000 warriors then methodically slaughtered about 18,000 of Mbuyazi’s people, the iziGqoza.

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Trapped men, women and children were all killed or drowned with no mercy.
Prince Mbuyazi & five other royal princes were killed.
23 years later, five of Cetshwayo’s regiments; the iSangqu, uThulwana, iNdlondlo, iziNgulube and the uDloko, fought at Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift.
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A small traumatised party of white settlers became stranded on a midstream island.
They received polite greetings and smiles from Cetshwayo’s warriors as they went about the ferocious slaughter.
About 2,000 refugees escaped across the flooded river to the British colony of Natal.

The river downstream was marked for years by a great white smear of thousands of skeletons, forever after known as the Mathambo ‘the place of bones’.
23 years later, the sons of the Zulu refugees returned as vengeful British allies when Lord Chelmsford’s army invaded KwaZulu.
END