Natal–Zululand Border Incident

Date: September 17, 1878 • Location: iLembe District Municipality, South Africa

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1878.

A British surveyor was detained by the Zulu on the border with the Colony of Natal; a demand for reparations for the incident formed part of an ultimatum that led to the Anglo-Zulu War.

On 17 September 1878, a British surveyor for the Colony of Natal and a trader were detained by the Zulu while on an island in the Tugela River, which marked the boundary between Natal and Zululand. The men were robbed but released unharmed. The border incident was seized upon by Sir Henry Bartle Frere, the British high commissioner for Southern Africa, as a pretext for war with the Zulu, and reparations for the incident formed part of his December 1878 ultimatum to the Zulu king Cetshwayo. British forces invaded Zululand on 11 January 1879, following the expiry of the ultimatum.