The Role of Trade and Hunter-Traders in the Political Economy of Natal and Zululand

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Periodical article

Title:	The Role of Trade and Hunter-Traders in the Political Economy of Natal and Zululand
Author:	Ballard, Charles C.
Year:	1981
Periodical:	African Economic History
Volume:	10
Pages:	3-21
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Natal South Africa Zululand
Subjects:	colonists Europeans trade hunting History and Exploration Economics and Trade
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3601292
Abstract:	White hunter-traders were the first group or class of individuals to respond to the economic opportunities and political risks that lay in exploiting the natural wealth of Natal and Zululand. During the first four decades of white settlement there, they made an indelible impression on the economy and environment of the region. The demand for ivory, hides, and skins in Britain and continental Europe prompted early white settlers to exploit the game and cattle of Natal and Zululand. Inevitably, the ecology of the region was damaged by scores of hunter-traders, leading to the exhaustion of the natural fauna by the early 1880s. Hunter-traders were responsible, initially, for integrating Natal and Zululand into a European-dominated international economy. Notes.