Shaka (ca. 1787-1828) was an African warrior leader and creator of the Zulu military monarchy. His career was a transforming influence in the history of southern and central Africa.

Shaka was the son of the Zulu chieftain Senzangakona, but doubt surrounds his legitimacy, and it seems that his mother, Nandi, was soon expelled with her child from Senzangakona's household. Thus Shaka grew up an exile in the territories of neighboring chiefs. The distortions in his adult personality, his indifference to suffering, his fierce devotion to his mother, and his urge to dominate may, in some measure, be attributable to the experiences of those years.

The latter phase of this period of exile was spent in the territory of the Mthethwa chief Dingiswayo. Here Shaka found himself at the center of military activity and political change, for Dingiswayo was engaged in subjugating his weaker neighbors and establishing a confederacy...