‘Stealing Dingane’s Title’: The Fatal Significance of Saguate Gift-Giving in Zulu King Dingane’s Killing of Governor Ribeiro (1833) and Piet Retief (1838)

In 1833, the Zulu king, Dingane, ordered the execution of the Portuguese governor, Dionísio António Ribeiro, at Delagoa Bay (now Maputo, Mozambique), some 600 kilometres away from his capital. Zulu warriors led Ribeiro naked into a cattle kraal and cited complaints against him. After a slave had shot the governor, a warrior then cut the man’s heart from his chest. Five years later, warriors clubbed to death Dingane’s guests, the Voortrekker leader Piet Retief and his party, and removed Retief’s heart and liver. Previously, Retief’s death has not been analysed in the context of Ribeiro’s execution but has generated a substantial historiography, while the governor’s demise has received scant treatment. This article argues that a profound intertwining of political status and control over the exchange of goods was a core cause of both executions. In the governor’s case, his failure to present Dingane with a fitting saguate gift sealed his fate. Retief’s arrogant actions communicated a lack of regard for the prestige and power of the king. The Voortrekker leader presumed that he had a higher status than the Zulu monarch. Retief might have proceeded with greater caution had he understood how enmeshed the symbolism of prestige goods and political power was. Surprisingly, many historians who have described Retief’s murder have not considered the earlier execution and its causes in their explanation of the demise of the Voortrekker leader. This article places these events within a common analytical framework – namely, an understanding of the interplay of status, power and the exchange of goods. It also develops an explanatory narrative that stresses the multi-dimensional nature of royal power. It further shows how a parochial and teleological view of regional dynamics and borders and a failure to draw on critical sources in Portuguese has limited the analysis of the execution of Retief and his party.