The television documentary was inspired by the story of the march of about 7000 Zulu mine workers from the Witwatersrand to the rural areas of Zululand / Natal at the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899. The repatriation march of the mine workers was led by John Sydney Marwick, a public servant at the time, saving them from certain starvation, as Gold mining on the Witwatersrand had come to a grinding halt.
The documentary places the story of John Sydney Marwick against the historic background of British colonial conquest in Natal and resistance by the Zulu nation, covering the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879 to the Bambatha rebellion of 1906.