SHAKA

also spelled Chaka, or Tshaka born c. 1787 died Sept. 22, 1828 Zulu chief (181628), founder of southern Africa's Zulu Empire, who created a fighting force that devastated the entire region. Additional reading D.R. Morris, The Washing of the Spears: A History of the Rise of the Zulu Nation Under Shaka and Its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879 (1965), a detailed account; James Stuart and D.M. Malcolm (eds.), The Diary of Henry Francis Fynn (1950), and Nathaniel Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa, ed. by Louis Herrman, 2 vol. (193637), primary sources by two of the first Europeans to have prolonged contact with Shaka; A.T. Bryant, Olden Times in Zululand and Natal (1929), an extensive history of the Eastern NguniBantu clans during the Shakan era.