Lozi Kingdom

The Lozi kingdom, also known as Barotseland, grew up on the Bulozi floodplain of the upper Zambezi in what is now western Zambia. Its kings, who held the title Litunga, ruled from around the 17th century, lost their throne to Sotho-speaking invaders around 1840, regained it in 1864, and under Lewanika placed the kingdom under British protection at the end of the 19th century. The Litunga's office survives today, and the kingdom's status within Zambia remains a live political question.

Each year between January and May the Zambezi floods the Bulozi Plain, leaving fertile ground that made it the economic heart of the region. Lozi tradition holds that the people descend from the god Nyambe and the ancestress Mbuyu and have always lived there. Neighbouring peoples instead trace the ruling dynasty to the Lunda Empire, and historians such as Mutumba Mainga accept a Lunda origin, with the dynasty perhaps reaching the plain in the late 16th century. Before the 19th century the people were known as the Luyana. The first Litunga remembered by tradition, Mboo Mwanasilundu Muyunda, is placed in the 17th century.

Over several generations the kings gained control of the makolo, groups of men who served as soldiers and labourers. The fourth Litunga, Ngalama, conquered rival centres founded by Mboo's breakaway kinsmen, bringing the whole plain under one rule. Ngombala, the sixth, created a southern seat of royal power at Nalolo and campaigned as far as Victoria Falls, imposing tribute in goods and labour on the forest peoples around the plain. Kings lived in ritual seclusion, and ancestor worship at the royal graves lay at the heart of their authority. Over time, however, power drifted towards the aristocratic officials, the manduna, and the national council, the Kuta.

Mulambwa, who reigned from about 1780 to about 1830, settled Mbunda refugees in the kingdom and fought long wars with his neighbours. His death set his sons Silumelume and Mubukwanu against each other, and Silumelume was killed by an Mbunda arrow at a ceremony in the capital. Meanwhile the Makololo, a Sotho people driven north by the Mfecane, had reached the Zambezi under their leader Sebetwane. Around 1840 they invaded the divided kingdom and routed its armies. Under Kololo rule the Sotho-based language that became Silozi spread across the plain, and the conquerors traded slaves for guns. After Sebetwane's death in 1851 their power faded, weakened by malaria, Ndebele raids and unpopular rulers. In 1864 a rising led by the nobleman Njekwa killed most of the Kololo men and restored the Lozi monarchy under Sipopa.

Factional struggles followed the restoration. Lubosi became Litunga in 1878, was driven out by a rebellion in 1884, and returned in 1885 to crush his opponents, taking the praise name Lewanika. He revived pre-Kololo institutions, rebuilt the tribute system and purged rivals. With colonial powers closing in, and on the advice of the Ngwato ruler Khama, he sought British protection. A series of concessions from 1889 brought the kingdom under the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes, and an order of 1899 confirmed a protectorate that preserved Lozi law only where it did not conflict with British authority.

Company rule steadily stripped away Lewanika's powers. Territory was lost to Portuguese Angola in 1905 and to German South West Africa in 1911, the year Barotseland was absorbed into Northern Rhodesia as a province. Lewanika died in 1916. Shortly before Zambian independence, the Litunga Mwanawina III and Kenneth Kaunda signed the Barotseland Agreement of 1964, granting the kingdom a special status, but the Zambian government revoked it in 1969 and renamed Barotse Province the Western Province. Lozi demands for the agreement's restoration have continued; in 2012 the Kuta declared that its annulment had returned Barotseland to its original status, a position that has so far won little international support.

Our maps show the kingdom, labelled Lozi, from 1783 to 1900, beside the Lunda and Luba on the 1783 map. From 1878 a neighbouring area is labelled Barotse, the European form of the same name, with the Ndebele to the south-east.