A Brief History of Swaziland
In eastern Swaziland archaeologists discovered human remains dating back 110, 000 years, but the ancestors of the modern Swazi people arrived relatively recently.
During the great Bantu migrations into southern Africa, one group, the Nguni, moved down the east coast. A clan settled near what is now Maputo in Mozambique, and a dynasty was founded by the Dlamini family. In the mid-18th century increasing pressure from other Nguni clans forced King Ngwane III to lead his people south to lands by the Pongola River, in what is now southern Swaziland. Today, Swazis consider Ngwane III to have been the first king of Swaziland.
The next king, Sobhuza I, withdrew under pressure from the Zulus to the Ezulwini Valley, which today remains the centre of Swazi royalty and ritual. When King Sobhuza I died in 1839, Swaziland was twice its present size. Trouble with the Zulu continued, although the next king, Mswazi (or Mswati), managed to unify the whole kingdom. By the time he died in 1868, the Swazi nation was secure. Mswazi?s subjects called themselves people of Mswazi, or Swazis, and the name stuck.
European interference
The arrival of increasing numbers of Euro?peans from the mid-19th century brought new problems. Mswazi?s successor, Mbandzeni, inherited a kingdom rife with European carpetbaggers ? hunters, traders, missionaries and farmers, many of whom leased large expanses of land.
The Pretoria Convention of 1881 guaranteed Swaziland?s ?independence? but also defined its borders, and Swaziland lost large chunks of territory. ?Independence? in fact meant that both the British and the Boers had responsibility for administering their various interests in Swaziland, and the result was chaos. The Boer administration collapsed with the 1899?1902 Anglo-Boer War, and afterwards the British took control of Swaziland as a protectorate. Read more
