‘Offy’ Shepstone, the son of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, assisted Mbandzeni Dlamini in his dealings with European prospectors in Swaziland. This merely consolidated Shepstone’s position in relation to the other concessionaires as he profi ted from his position of trust. Mbandzeni dismissed Shepstone in 1889.
Although the Boers and the Swazi had reached apparent agreement over recognition of a boundary in 1866 this did not signal the end of Boer pressure upon Swazi land. In 1868 the ZAR proclaimed its annexation of Swaziland but failed to put the annexation into practice. Seven years later the ZAR persuaded the Swazi to sign a treaty agreeing to become its subject colony.
Between 1875 and 1877 the Zulu under Cetshwayo were threatening to invade Swaziland. If these threats had materialised, they might have crippled the Swazi state because of its own internal crises. Towards the end of Ludvonga’s minority (he had succeeded his father Mswati), just when he was being prepared to take over the kingship, he fell ill and died unexpectedly. Uncertainty and squabbles over the succession followed briefly until Mbandzeni succeeded as king. Timid and ineffectual at first, Mba ndzeni began to assert himself from the late 1870s.
The 1870s were also an important period for Swazi history because of the issue of white intrusion into the kingdom. White encroachment into the kingdom occurred in two ways. The first was through an influx of concessionaires and the second through formal colonial annexation. From 1873 when gold was discovered in the eastern Transvaal, white concession hunters came to Swaziland hoping to find gold and make a fortune. Very many other whites were granted grazing, hunting and woodcutting concessions. In 1876, for example, Mbandzeni gave away a grazing concession of 36 000 acres to Joachim Ferreira and Ignatius Maritz.
During the mid-1880s, fortune-seekers flocked into the country. Overwhelmed by their numbers, Mbandzeni sought the assistance of ‘Offy’ Shepstone (son of Sir Theophilus Shepstone of Natal) whom he appointed as advisor to the Swazi kingdom. The appointment, however, had no official standing with either the British authorities or the Transvaal government.
For a while Shepstone was able to control the activities of the concession hunters – for which he was disliked by the Boer graziers in the kingdom who wished to acquire the land for freehold tenure. In the late 1880s the granting of concessions continued unabated as Mbandzeni, whose health was then failing, unsuccessfully attempted to restrict Shepstone’s mandate.
White intrusion into the kingdom also slowly eroded its independence and the extent of its territory. This was achieved through boundary delimitations. In 1880 a Britishappointed commission demarcated a new Swazi-Transvaal boundary by which the Swazi lost some lands in the northwest and northeast parts of the kingdom. While Swazi independence was recognised by the Pretoria Convention of 1881, the Boers were still continually attempting to incorporate the kingdom. In 1885, for example, Vice-President Piet Joubert and J.C. Krogh unsuccessfully tried to make Swaziland a protectorate of the Transvaal. Formerly landdrost at Wakkerstroom, Krogh later became the Transvaal’s ‘special commissioner’ for Swaziland during the Boer occupation of the kingdom from February 1895 to June 1903.
While the late 1880s saw serious threats to Swazi independence, it was also a period of serious internal power squabbles, accompanied by numerous killings and the execution of some leading councillors accused of plotting to overthrow the ailing Mbandzeni. He died in 1889 and was succeeded by Ngwane V, aged only 14.
At his young age Ngwane was unable to exercise authority. Between 1890 and 1894 a number of conventions was held between leaders of the ZAR and the British authorities to decide the future of Swaziland. The major contentions of these conventions were about whether control over Swaziland was to come under the ZAR or the British. The ZAR pushed for the right to rule the kingdom, while the Swazi themselves strongly preferred British rule and protection. In 1895 the British allowed Swaziland to become a protect orate under the ZAR, much to the dislike of the Swazi. However, this was only a tempor ary state of affairs, which was ended by the South African War of 1899–1902. Following the Boer defeat by the British, the Transvaal relinquished control of Swaziland and both territories became British colonies, though the governor of the Transvaal was given power to govern Swaziland of behalf of the British Crown. He did so through a series of proclamations that, though they recognised Swazi law and custom, were not issued in consultation with the Swazi people.
Shaka Zulu
