Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Colony of Natal was proclaimed on the 4th of May 1843, when the British annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia. It ceased to exist on the 31st of May 1910, when it became one of the four founding provinces of the Union of South Africa, giving the colony a lifespan of just under 67 years.
The British brought indentured labourers from India because local Zulu workers did not volunteer in sufficient numbers to staff the sugar plantations that expanded rapidly from the 1860s onward. The first Indian labourers arrived in 1860, and by 1904 Indians outnumbered whites in the colony.
Mohandas K. Gandhi arrived in Durban in 1893 as a young lawyer. In 1894, he helped establish the Natal Indian Congress, an organization founded specifically to fight legal discrimination against Indians in the colony, including a law passed that year aimed at excluding Indians from the vote.
The Bambatha Rebellion broke out in 1906, triggered by a poll tax of one pound imposed on all adult males in the colony. Chief Bhambatha of the Greytown district led the uprising after being removed from his position; he was killed in battle in June 1906. Colonial forces under Colonel Duncan McKenzie suppressed the rebellion by the end of July.
After the Anglo-Zulu War, Britain established a protectorate over a subdivided Zululand. Eighteen years later, the colonial government found the arrangement unsatisfactory and annexed the Zulu kingdoms to Natal, roughly doubling the colony's size. The annexation was formally completed in 1897.
John Robinson became the first premier of Natal when responsible government was established in 1893. He had arrived in the colony in 1850, worked as a journalist, and served on the legislative council since 1863. Harry Escombe served as attorney-general in his cabinet.