Mbabane - History
The
quiet, small city of Mbabane is the capital of Swaziland, one of Africa's
few remaining monarchies and the smallest country in the southern
hemisphere. With its population of 50,000, Mbabane is hardly a big city;
yet it has a charming authenticity that makes it one of the country's most
appealing destinations.
There's
not much to do in the city itself, other than browse the local crafts sold
at the Swazi Market and a few other shopping opportunities; tourists
mainly use Mbabane as the jumping off-point for visiting the nearby
Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary and the regal sites and resort-dense area of
the Ezulwini Valley, just south of Mbabane.
The
Ezulwini enfolds the village of Lobamba, home of the National Museum and
the royal seat of power. The Royal Village is closed to the public, though
the parliament is sometimes open to visitors; and the monarchy can be seen
at the Royal Kraal, near Lobamba, during the country's two most important
events -- the Incwala ceremony in late December and early January,
celebrating the new year and the first harvest; and the Reed Dance in
August or September, during which young unmarried women collect reeds and
symbolically offer themselves up for royal matrimony.
The
Reed Ceremony is not quite as archaic as it might seem at first -- after
all, King Mswati III, crowned in 1986, was one of 200 princes (among 600
children) sired by his father, King Sobhuza II, who died in 1982. King
Sobhuza, the world's longest reigning monarch at the time of his death,
had 100 wives to help with the heir raising.
The
natural attraction in the Mbabane area is the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary,
the first such reserve in Swaziland, home to hippos, rhinos, zebras,
giraffes, and crocodiles. The small park, one of three game parks in
Swaziland, allows visitors to tour on foot, by horse, or, at night, by
game drive. the Kingdom of Swaziland has been
inhabited since the Stone Age. There are also
relics of nomadic bushmen, of Sotho and the Ntungwa-Nguni clans. Centuries
ago, a great migration from Central Africa occurred. A sub-group known as
the Nguni, 
which
today includes the Zulu and Xhosa, branched off from the main stream of
this movement to follow the East Coast. The first steps towards the
creation of the Swazi Nation were taken around 1750 when NqwaneIII led his
people inland to settle in, what is now, Southern Swaziland. Ngwane
absorbed, or drove out, other people to establish himself in this area.
His successor, Sobhuza I was
troubled with raids by the Zulu's to the south and re-established his
capital near present-day Lobamba which has remained the heartland of
the Nation.Mswati II succeeded Sobhuza I and inherited a Kingdom twice the
size of Swaziland today. Still troubled by the quarrelsome Zulu's, he
established his capital at Hhohho, in the northern mountains, conquered
territories as far afield as Carolina, Barbeton and Hectorspruit and
welded his people into a nation. They were known as the people of
Mswati-Mswazi to the Zulu's, hence the name"Swazi" today.
During the 1840's white adventurers - hunters, traders, cattlemen,
missionaries, began to arrive in the area. They were received peacefully
by the Swazi's but, during the reign of Mbandzeni, it became clear that
many of them were simply fortune-hunters, greedy for land and trading
concessions. Then, in the late 1800's, both the Boers of the old South
African Republic and the British sought administrative domination over the
Kingdom. This was a confused period where little was done to resolve the
problem of the fortune-hunters and the present Northern, Western and
Southern borders of the country were defined without reference to the
Swazi's.
During
the Anglo-Boer War, in 1899, King Sobhuza II was born and after the death
of his father, Bhunu, his grandmother, Labotsibeni,
assumed the Regency until the King came of age. After the war, Britain
ruled Swaziland for 66 years as a Protectorate.
Upon ascending the throne, Sobhuza II continued his mother's struggle with
the British to recover land, belonging to the Swazi Nation which had
supposedly been ceded to concession holders by King Mbandzeni during the
1800's. A system of dual control persisted; the British Resident
Commissioner and his district officers, on the one hand, and the King, the
National and Inner Councils, and the local chiefs, on the other. However,
constitutional changes suggested by King Sobhuza II in the years leading
up to Independence in September 1968 were eventually accepted.
After Independence, it was recognised that the Constitution, created with
western thinking by the British, did not suit the traditional needs of
Swazis. King Sobhuza Ii ruled Swaziland from 1921, when he ascended the
throne, until his death in 1982. His long rule is remembered for the
wisdom of his insistence on the maintenance of traditional tribal values
at a time of modern development.