Remembering the Rebellion

Book excerpt: Remembering the Rebellion narrates and commemorates the Zulu or Bhambatha rebellion of 1906 with riveting anecdotes, maps, and illustrations, many of them previously unpublished. At that time, the people of KwaZulu-Natal, already suffering the material and social consequences of colonialism, were further provoked by the imposition of a poll tax and the official determination to treat all protests against the tax as defiance. The resistance that followed was put down with uncompromising violence, but the memory of rebellion became an inspiration to those who continued the struggle against racial exploitation in South Africa.