First Boer War in the open at the Battle of Isandlwana. Shortly after the main battle, a British outpost at Rorke's Drift on the Zululand-Natal border, withstood a second Zulu attack with great losses to the Zulus with the British fighting defensively in and around the stone buildings of a small trading store which had been hastily fortified. After reinforcements arrived, the British won a series of skirmishes and eventually conquered the Zulu capital at Ulundi on 4 July 1879. This war to all intents and purposes signalled the end of the independent Zulu nation. The British consolidated their power over Natal, the
Ntshingwayo Khoza Ntshingwayo Khoza Ntshingwayo kaMahole of the Khoza (c. 1809 – 21 July 1883) was the commanding general ("inDuna") of King Cetshwayo's Zulu Army during the first Anglo-Zulu War. He became known as Ntshingwayo kaMahole after being taken into foster care by Mahole of the Xhosa. Ntshingwayo was given overall field command of the Zulu impi against the Centre Column of the first British invasion of Zululand in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. He was given conflicting orders. Publicly, he was told to meet the British Army's Centre Column in open battle "and eat them up" [kill them], but privately he