Makers and Shapers Profile

Henry Fynn

Person

1803 - 1861

[Source - Benathi Marufu for FHYA, 2022, using 1820settlers.com website: Henry Francis Fynn was a trader and adventurer, was in the party of 25 men led by Lieutenant Francis Farewell, who helped establish the city of Durban. Henry befriended King Shaka and helped him recover from a stab wound. In return, Shaka gave him land and 9 wives. Henry kept 6 of the wives and gave 3 to his brother Frank. One of these wives was Mavundlase ka Senca. Another version of the story is that she was the daughter of Senca Mzela, who fled her home and sought protection with Henry's party to escape an unwelcome suitor and was allotted to Frank as a wife. A third version is that she was of the Zelemu people and was a captive from a Zulu campaign in Delagoa Bay. She settled with Frank on the South Coast, where he ruled as one of Shaka's chiefs, and when he died he passed on the chieftainship to her. Many of the other Zulu wives of White settlers remarried when their settler husbands died or left them. Mavundlase never remarried and retained her sovereignty over her clan. When she died in 1894, the title of chief went to her eldest son, Charles. Morris Fynn says that the hereditary title of chief passed down the generations and the last chief was his uncle, Colin FynnFynn, who died in 1926. He claims that the title was stripped from them under the apartheid government and he, as the next hereditary holder of the title, is campaigning to have it restored. Henry Fynn became a magistrate on the South Coast in the 1850s and in his writings acknowledged Mavundlase as chieftainess of remnants of tribes collected by "one of the early colonists of 1828". In 1854, he wrote that he had removed five tribes from her control as he felt that it was impossible for her to keep them all in order. Spencer says it is believed that Henry Fynn, who lived among the Zulus for 10 years, had between 16 and 20 children by his Black wives. When Henry left - Morris Fynn claims as a result of difficulties with Dingane - his wives attached themselves to Black men and his children were neglected. Theophilus Shepstone placed the children under the control of Mavundlase. Spencer records that Henry Fynn also had White wives. He married two sisters, Ann Brown, who had no children, and Christiana Brown, who had a son, Henry Francis. "According to Henry junior, his aunt Vundlase, Frank Fynns's widow, went to Theophilus Shepstone and asked if he (Henry) could be taken and shown to the people. He went and was presented to and recognised by the tribes. He was also presented with cattle."]