Natal

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Natal. Former British colony in South Africa. British traders and missionaries settled at Port Natal (Durban) in 1824. A British colony was declared in 1843 to check the spread of Afrikaner influence in the region and British settlers were officially encouraged though their numbers were never large in comparison with the black population. Sheep-farming and, at the coast, sugar-growing were the main sources of wealth. The dismemberment of Zululand in the 1880s and 1890s extended the boundaries of the colony and in 1910 the colonists reluctantly accepted the inclusion of their country within the South African Union.

Kenneth Ingham

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