White Chief of The Zulus

Africa’s powerful Zulu tribe once had an Englishman for a chief. His name was John Dunn and he grew up as an orphan in the 19th century British colony of Natal, South Africa. Dunn was making a living as a big game hunter when, in the 1850s, he met the Zulu king, Cetewayo. Cetewayo was so impressed by Dunn that he appointed him a royal adviser. By the end of the Anglo-Zulu War in 1872, Dunn had become a power behind the Zulu throne, and after the Zulu’s defeat, he was made ruler of the largest of the States into which the British partitioned Zululand. By the time Dunn died in 1895, he had 50 wives and 117 children, and had accumulated so many descendents that the colonial government set aside a special 4000 hectare reserve for them near the Tugela River in Natal.