introduction of moshoeshoe essay

The Survival of the Sotho Under Moshoeshoe Essay

Introduction.

• The 19th Century Sotho Kingdom

The Thaba Bosiu Experience

Cited works.

Trade was the major economic activity that brought groups of people together during the time the Basotho people arrived in their present homeland. In fact, by the beginning of 19 th century, white traders, the Voortrekkers inhabited what is now called the Basutoland. With this conglomeration of different groups of people, there emerged extreme pressure on the environment for resettlement.

Meanwhile, the Zulu state, led by Shaka was expanding and with it a series of violence across the entire southern Africa. The violence that was witnessed throughout this region threatened the extinction of many groups of people but not the organized Sotho society.

The survival of this group of people is attributed to the strong leadership of their king Moshoeshoe the Great that was necessitated by frequent cattle raids. The paper investigates the validity of the postulate that the Basotho people survived because of cattle raids, which made their leader to seek refuge in Thaba Bosiu.

The 19 th Century Sotho Kingdom

In the 19 th century, a violent explosion erupted annihilating the South African chiefdoms border today’s Lesotho. Those who did survive the annihilation either were dispersed or were incorporated into larger chiefdoms that were stronger and well reorganized.

The leaders of these new chiefdoms were capable of defending their subjects; and Moshoeshoe was one such leader. The political situation in the east of Drakensberg Mountains was characterized by increasing competition over trade links, arable land for cultivation, cattle raids, among other factors (Stokes 102).

Owing to the political and economic instability of the region courtesy of Shaka Zulu’s autocracy, food scarcity and famine struck the region thereby according dominant chiefdoms the opportunity to increase their wealth and power. Consequently, the leader who promised wealth and security obtained from agricultural and pastoral production as well as from trade commanded greater support and following.

Cattle raiding and agricultural production became the silver bullet to the peoples’ problems, a policy that was pursued religiously by leaders. It is little wonder then, that conflicts resulting from food shortage interrupted food production hindered economic growth, and starvation punctuated the disruptions caused by migrating chiefdoms that sought a place to settle (Eldredge 2).

From 1822 throughout the century, raids were common phenomena in this region of southern Africa. For example, destitute immigrants crossed the Drakensberg Mountains from the east and executed their raids on the population around Highveld and upper Caledon River Valley to get crops and cattle (Eldredge 2).

These raids conjured up survival instincts of the young Sotho leader, Moshoeshoe l to forge alliances with their neighbors, the Sesotho group, and move to the mountains for protection. He, therefore, sent his scouts to find a good place in the mountains that could act as a fortress against their would-be raiders notwithstanding the risk that he was exposing them to. A large flat-topped mountain was located south of the territory.

In 1824, Moshoeshoe led his subjects in a three-day trek to occupy this new residence with natural bulwarks against the raiders. However, the weather was terribly cold and some people died as a result; and according to oral tradition, desperation led to their bodies being eaten up by the starving groups.

Nevertheless, the move proved to be an act of ingenuity of the Moshoeshoe l, thus earning him credit for having saved his people from extermination in the hands of marauding neighbors. This mountain fortress was called Thaba Bosiu, which literally translates to the “mountain of the night”. It was almost an invulnerable site for the Basotho people could now protect themselves, their cattle, and crops (McKenna 93).

Moshoeshoe l is hailed as a leader of remarkable political and diplomatic ace who expanded his hegemony by incorporating many chiefdoms into his own lineage. As a shrewd leader, he acknowledged the crucial role played by such skills as farming, hunting, adventuring, among others that his neighboring community in the south had mastered.

As a result, he welcomed missionaries to inform him about the events of the rest of the world and to import these skills into his chiefdom. Actually, that is how the Boer trekkers trickled into his kingdom to later wreck havoc.

After a protracted period of war occasioned by chronic hunger and frequent famine, the Basotho grew weary of being marooned in the Thaba Bosiu and wanted to resettle on their ancestral lands to expand agricultural production.

Eventually, they managed to resettle in these lands and built up their stores of food, which in turn expanded their economy so rapidly that they supplied their African and European neighbors with surplus food.

During this time, the Boers who resided in the Cape Colony were increasingly becoming frustrated with the British rule that had imposed strict policies on land tenure, prohibited slavery, and restricted continued expansion eastwards. Consequently, in the early 1830s this discontent caused the Great Boer Trek where about fifteen thousand Boers together with their households migrated across the Orange River.

Many of them settled “along the southwestern fringes of lands which had belonged to the forefathers of the Basotho” (Eldredge 3). The earliest settlers in this region did acknowledge the authority of Moshoeshoe over this territory and therefore, sought his permission to settle.

The events that shaped the survival mechanisms of the Basotho people such as economics and politics are best explained from the perspective of the pursuit of security. These dynamics of the 19 th century can only be interpreted within the context of security structures rather than blatant physical survival.

The reason being, security denotes recognition that extracting resources for purposes of satisfying peoples’ material needs was governed by social structure that puts a limit to the abilities of people to exploit others. Moreover, the pursuit of security expedites the explanation of the motivations underlying the acceptability of the authority of Moshoeshoe by subordinate groups (S.A.H.S. 113).

Such groups had a strong belief that physical survival presupposed the achievement of security in the political front, which guaranteed their protection and access to productive resources therewith.

Not surprisingly then, that individuals as well as groups that were weary of the regional politics sought clientship under Moshoeshoe, the Basotho leader, but not other chiefs in the region owing to their despotic bent and lamentable lack of generosity.

The Basotho was a dominant group in the southern African region in the 19 th century and unlike any other group of its caliber, it was shaped by the pursuit of holistic security.

With violent struggles reverberating across the region, beginning among Africans in the 1820s before Europeans followed suit, it will be a great misrepresentation of fact to reduce the motivation of this group to a craving for exploiting subordinate groups in their society.

Many chiefs within the neighborhood copied the leadership style of Moshoeshoe and endeavored to achieve security by attracting outsiders and consolidating their authorities over a greater population of subjects.

The key to this strategy was to accumulate vast resources and reallocating it to people in a way that would win their support. Briefly, dominant as well as subordinate groups strived to achieve a degree of security by midwifing clientship relations (Eldredge 4).

It can be said with confidence that the survival of the Basotho people in the 19 th century was occasioned by the political and economic instability in the southern African region. The repercussions of this hapless situation bred a habit of cattle raiding by groups that were considered dominant.

In order to spare his group from this disastrous attack, Moshoeshoe mooted a security plan to whisk his people in a mountain fortress called Thaba Bosiu with virtually impenetrable frontiers. While safely marooned in their new residence, Basotho could cultivate their crops and keep their cattle undisturbed.

Moshoeshoe was also endowed with excellent diplomatic skills besides good leadership and this enabled him to have clientship relations with many individuals and groups that were incorporated in his society.

Eldredge, Elizabeth A. A South African Kingdom: The pursuit of security in nineteenth-century Lesotho. New York; NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

McKenna, Amy. The History of Southern Africa. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2011.

S.A.H.S. (South African Historical Society). South African historical journal, Issue 30. Cape Town, South African Historical Society, 1994.

Stokes, Jamie. Encyclopedia of the People of Africa and the Middle East, Volume 1. New York, NY: InfoBase Publishing, 2009.

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1. IvyPanda . "The Survival of the Sotho Under Moshoeshoe." March 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-survival-of-the-sotho-under-moshoeshoe-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Survival of the Sotho Under Moshoeshoe." March 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-survival-of-the-sotho-under-moshoeshoe-essay/.

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The Exemplary Ethical Leadership of King Moshoeshoe of Basotho of Lesotho in the Nineteenth Century Southern Africa

There is no gainsaying in that nation-building requires bold, visionary, and above all, exemplary ethical leadership. King Moshoeshoe 1 of the Basotho of Lesotho standing as an exemplar of ethical leadership is abundantly supported both by his monumental achievements and by the ethical qualities of his organizational creative leadership. The purpose of this exemplar profile is to display his underappreciated record of individual moral responsibility for social science disciplines i.e. political management, political science, political philosophy, public administration, business administration, leadership studies, organizational theory etc. There is so much these disciplines can learn about the nature of ethical leadership and its relationship to public organizational effectiveness from Moshoeshoe‟s leadership philosophy, managerial style, organizational behavior and decisions in their quest for building harmonious and just societies worldwide.

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King Moshoeshoe I

Also known as Moshesh, Mosheshwe or Mshweshwe. His name was allegedly changed from Lepoqo after a successful raid in which he had sheared the beards of his victims – the word ‘Moshoeshoe’ represented the sound of the shearing.

In 1820 Moshoeshoe succeeded his father, Mokhacane, as the chief of the Bamokoteli. His first settlement was at Butha Buthe, but he later built his stronghold at Thaba Bosiu (Mountain of the Night). He united various groups of refugees during the Shaka wars, a period known as the ‘mfecane’ or difaqane (1813-1830), into the Basotho nation. From his capital at Thaba Bosiu , he warded off attacks from many enemies, including Shaka’s Zulus and Mzilikazi’s Ndebele .

In 1833 he encouraged missionaries from the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society to come to his kingdom, and so brought the Basotho in contact with Christianity. Moshoeshoe himself is said to have converted to the faith at the end of his life. From 1836 he came into contact with the Voortrekkers who settled in what is today known as the Free State, and then reached several territorial agreements with the British, who had taken over possession of the Free State territory in 1848. Border disputes nevertheless led to battles between the Basotho and British forces in 1851 and 1852, both of which were won by the Basotho.

In 1854 the Orange Free State (OFS) became an independent Boer republic. As with the British, border conflict broke out soon afterwards. After a Basotho defeat in 1868, Moshoeshoe asked the British for protection. Basotholand became British territory, but Moshoeshoe still managed to preserve his kingdom and his people’s existence. After the British signed the Treaty of Aliwal North with the OFS, the border dispute was settled. Moshoeshoe died in 1870 and a year later Basotholand was integrated with the Cape Colony. However, in 1884, it became a separate British Protectorate.

In 1966, Basotholand gained its independence and was renamed Lesotho.

A great-great-grandson of Moshoeshoe, Archbishop Emmanuel Mbathoana (1904-1966), became the first Black bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Southern Africa. He was the archbishop of Basotholand from 1952. Another great-great-grandson, Moshoeshoe II, became the king of Lesotho after independence.

Potgieter, J. (ed)(1972). Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa, Vol. VII, Pretoria: HSRC, pp. 544-5.|(1999). Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia Deluxe Edition, Keyword: Mosheshwe.9

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8 Facts about King Moshoeshoe I: The Razor of Southern Africa

Introduction: King Moshoeshoe I , founder of Lesotho, reigned from 1822 to his death in 1870, during a period of immense tumult in southern Africa. He waged one of the most effective resistance efforts to colonialism (from the Dutch Boer settlers and British Empire) over many decades, as well as to Shaka’s military consolidation of what became Zulu Kingdom in the 1820s.

His name was originally a nickname derived from a poem he wrote as a youth, a braggadocio-filled anthem to farm animal theft that could put most hip-hop moguls to shame. From the poorly sourced Wikipedia version of the story:

During his youth, he was very brave and once organised a cattle raid against Ramonaheng and captured several herds. As was the tradition, he composed a poem praising himself where, amongst the words he used to refer to himself, said he was “like a razor which has shaved all Ramonaheng’s beards”, referring to his successful raid. In Sesotho language, a razor makes a “shoe…shoe…” sound, and after that he was affectionately called Moshoeshoe: “the shaver”.

  He also wore an appropriately supreme tophat and cape, like the badass king he was.

King Moshoeshoe I with his ministers of state (Bensusan Museum, Johannesburg – Wikimedia )

Additional claims to fame include:

• He founded his own all-new clan at age 34. Presumably on the strength of his charisma, diplomatic flair, and cattle-rustling skills. This clan established a settlement in a location that could withstand Zulu assaults. His original clan eventually grew to be Lesotho and environs.
• He never lost a major battle!
• He ruled for 48 years against a colonial onslaught. Many native rulers in Africa were unable to maintain such a strong level of sovereignty and control in their domains during the period.
• He united the various Sotho people into a Basotho nation through a combination of battle followed by compassionate diplomacy (rather than subjugation through conquest).
• He was very willing to mess with the Boers as they tried to invade. He would give them fair conditions for maintaining peaceful coexistence and then beat them back when they rebelled. Eventually, of course, they took over much of the outlying territories of his realm (as they did in many places). But he never lost control of his home kingdom.
• He beat the British military and then threw them a bone so they could make peace with dignity.
• He manipulated various Europeans to get defensive weapons and surprisingly valid foreign policy advice to fight off the settlers. He also used them to help preserve local culture in written form for future generations.
• He successfully negotiated an intervention by Queen Victoria to preserve Lesotho against all attempts at settler seizure, via protectorate status...

While this did eventually make Lesotho into a colony, it remained separate and intact from British South Africa and Apartheid South Africa both during and after its colonial phase. The monarchy still survives to this day (now in constitutional form) and the Sotho culture endures. Compared to how many of the surrounding areas fared, the decision to pitch a deal to Queen Victoria makes King Moshoeshoe I look pretty insightful.

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1786?-1870 Independent Lesotho

Moshoeshoe (also Moshesh and various other spellings) was the founder of the Kingdom of Lesotho. He was born at Menkhoaneng in what is now northern Lesotho, son of a village headman. His original name was Lepoqo. He was early influenced by the religious and political reformer Mohlomi. About 1820, Moshoeshoe migrated to set up his own village. By military and diplomatic skill he incorporated various groups, many of them displaced by Zulu conquest, and in 1824 consolidated the process by migration to Thaba Bosiu, which he made a well-nigh impregnable mountain fortress. Having effectively formed a new nation, he had now to adjust to the encroaching white presence and for this purpose invited missionaries. Eugene Casalis and Thomas Arbousset of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society arrived in 1833, and Moshoeshoe offered them every facility and encouragement, bringing Sotho institutions under Christian influence while avoiding disruption of the community. Education was encouraged, Christian burial introduced, the killing of witch suspects forbidden, and the powers of diviners curtailed; most remarkably, the “circumcision schools” for manhood initiation were discontinued. While he himself held back from full commitment, Moshoeshoe encouraged conversions in his family. Casalis became a trusted counselor, writer of Moshoeshoe’s letters, and his intermediary in dealing with whites. Moshoeshoe handled relations with British and Boers with the same sagacity as he had shown with his African neighbors, maintaining the integrity and autonomy of Lesotho as far as he could, eventually accepting British protection as the least undesirable option, and forestalling white land ownership and future absorption into South Africa.

After 1847 Sotho disillusionment with whites slowed Christian progress; leading converts gave up their profession, and the circumcision schools returned. After Casalis left in 1855, no subsequent missionary held Moshoeshoe’s confidence to the same degree. But in the 1850s Moshoeshoe was assuring the missionaries that the total victory of Christianity in the country was only a matter of time and patience. He was attracted to French Catholic missionaries who arrived in 1862, and inter-mission rivalries complicated matters. As death approached, however, Moshoeshoe told Adèle Mabille (Casalis’s daughter) that he had been a believer for three months. The date for his public baptism by the Paris missionaries was announced; he died the night before. He had, however, opened his nation to Christian conversion, in Protestant and Catholic forms, as a key to its survival and welfare in the new world. His rule fostered a long dialogue between Christianity and African culture, and it became a paradigm of the modern spread of Christianity in Africa. Today the Kereke era Moshoeshoe, a large independent church, claims to perpetuate his legacy by maintaining an African version of Christianity.

Andrew F. Walls

Bibliography

E. Casalis, Les Bassoutos, ou vingt-trois années d’études et d’observations au sud de l’Afrique (1859) and My Life in Basutoland (1889, 1971); D. F. Ellenberger and J. C. MacGregor, History of the Bassuto, Ancient and Modern (1912); E. W. Smith, The Mabilles of Basutoland (1939); Leonard Thompson, Survival in Two Worlds: Moshoeshoe of Lesotho, 1786-1870 (1975).

This article is reproduced, with permission, from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions , copyright © 1998, by Gerald H. Anderson, W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan. All rights reserved.