Dunn was born of Scottish parents in 1824 and grew up in the rough and ready spirit of early Port Natal (now Durban) but at the age of 18, he moved with his young bride Catherine into the unexplored territory north of Durban.

He is credited with having sired at least 117 children.

Against the disapproval of his wife, Dunn married his first Zulu wife in 1861. Over the next few decades he ended up taking 48 Zulu wives. He was careful to heed Zulu marriage rituals and customs and he paidilobolo (bridewealth delivered by bridegroom to his in-laws) of between 9 and 15 head of cattle to the fathers of the brides. For breach of rules, several of his wives were banished from his household and two wives found guilty of infidelity were sentenced to death and executed in accordance with Zulu law.

The close bond between Dunn and King Cetshwayo strengthened over the years and Dunn rose to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful chiefs in the Zulu kingdom through his ivory and gun trading. Dunn's own economic well-being depended on a policy of peace with the British colony of Natal but with the inevitability of war, Dunn's influence over Cetshwayo diminished and the king and his advisors came to view his motives with suspicion.

Dunn tried to negotiate a position of neutrality for his chiefdom but the British warned him that he would lose everything in a British-controlled Zululand.

On Old Year's Night 1878 Dunn and his family, 2 000 supporters and over 3 000 head of cattle were ferried across the Thukela into British Natal. A few days later - his fortunes plummeting rapidly - Dunn offered his services to the British. His first task was to brief the British on the terrain of his former chiefdom. He took in the war for the first time at the Battle of Gingindlovu.

Following the defeat of the Zulu army at Ulundi and the arrest of Cetshwayo, the British divided the kingdom into 13 independent chiefdoms and appointed men amenable to British administration, including Dunn who was given back his former chiefdom with increased powers and twice as much land. In the late 1880's Britain annexed Zululand as a British colony and Dunn unhappily found himself once again under colonial rule.

"One very cold and stormy night in winter I was seated before a large fire in my hut when there was a noise without as if someone was arriving.
I asked the cause from my attendants and they told me a white man in a miserable state of destitution had just arrived and claimed my hospitality. I ordered the servants to bring him in, and a tall, splendidly made man appeared. He was dressed in rags, for his clothes had been torn to pieces in fighting through the bush, and he was shivering from fever. I drew my cloak aside and asked him to sit by the fire, and told the servants to bring food and clothing. I loved this white man as a brother, and made him one of my head indunas, giving him land and wives, daughters of my chiefs. Now my sun has gone down and John Dunn is sitting by the fire, but he does not draw his cloak aside."

A rare photograph of
one of Dunn's wives

King Cetshwayo, on board the HMS Natal, on his way to exile in the Cape.