SWAZILAND

	CLIMATE
	In the high veld there is plenty of rain, and it can be very cold in the winter. The middle veld is less extreme, with good rainfall and moderate temperatures. The low veld is hot and dry.

A Clan Becomes a Nation

Stone Age people were living in Swaziland (SWAH-zee-land) many thousands of years ago. It is known that there were San (SAHN) hunter-gatherers in the area about twenty thousand years ago. Ironworking farmers who spoke languages of the Bantu (BAN-too) family began arriving in the region around 1900 years ago.

The royal family of Swaziland belongs to the Dlamini clan. They are a Nguni-speaking Bantu people, whose ancestors were living in the lower Pongolo (pawng-GOE-loe) River Valley of southern Mozambique some five hundred years ago.

In the 1700s C.E., the Dlamini clan traveled up the Pongolo Valley into the area that is now the southern border region of Swaziland, on the north bank of the Pongolo. There, the people settled and called themselves the Ngwane (ehn-GWAH-nee), after the name of their king. In 1816 the Ndwandwe attacked the Ngwane from the south and drove them northward, out of the Pongolo Valley. The Ngwane established a new capital in the Usutu (oo-SOO-too) Valley, the middle veld of today’s Swaziland.

Mswati I, who reigned from 1840 to 1865, strengthened and expanded the kingdom that was to take its name from him: Swati, or Swazi. Clans and villages from a region almost twice the size of modern Swaziland joined the new kingdom, seeking its protection. Throughout his reign Mswati played off his powerful neighbors, both European (British and Afrikaners) and African (Zulu and Pedi), one against the other, by forming and changing alliances with each one in turn. As a result the Swazi retained their political independence.

Mswati’s successors, however, were not as politically savvy. Afrikaners (Afrikaans-speaking whites) from Transvaal (the Afrikaner state on the eastern border of the Swazi kingdom) bribed the Swazi to lease them land for sheep grazing, while British adventurers from Natal (a British-ruled region to the south) persuaded them to sell them concessions for mining minerals and for running much of the trade and administration of the kingdom. By 1890 Europeans controlled two-thirds of the kingdom. In 1895 Transvaal took formal control of Swaziland without Swazi agreement.

However, shortly afterward war broke out between the British and the Afrikaners, during which the Afrikaners pulled out of Swaziland, leaving the British free to make it a protectorate in 1903. In 1907 the British turned all the land concessions of the 1880s into private, white-owned property or British Crown land (land owned by the British ruler) available for sale.

In 1912 the Swazi royal family set up a national fund to buy back the British Crown land for the Swazi nation. Young men were sent to Johannesburg in South Africa to work in the gold mines to bring back money for the land fund.

The British saw that the Swazi monarchy had powerful control over the chiefs and, through them, the Swazi people. They were happy to leave the royal family in charge of law and order among the Swazi, so long as everyone paid an annual tax.

The British, meanwhile, concentrated on encouraging whites to settle in Swaziland and introducing policies to benefit these newcomers. The largest artificial forest in the world was planted on the high veld, and sugar-milling factories were established to service white-owned sugar plantations on the Usutu River.

It was not until 1960 that the British began to think in terms of Swazi independence. Educated Swazi opposed both British rule and the power of the Swazi king, and radicals among them called for democracy and immediate independence. They led a number of major strikes in towns, factories, and mines.

To regain control of the situation, the Swazi king, Sobhuza II, set up his own political party, the Imbokodro National Movement. This party won all the seats in the 1967 National Assembly elections. In 1968 Swaziland regained its independence, with the king very much in charge.

Sobhuza’s method for regaining control of the economy was to make members of the royal family shareholders and board members of most of the major white-owned businesses and industries. In 1973 opposition parties won some seats in parliamentary elections. Sobhuza promptly suspended the constitution and abolished the elected parliament. He declared he would rule in the traditional way, through monarchy and chiefs.

Despite these political problems, much was done during Sobhuza’s reign (1923–1982) to develop health and education services. However, during the 1990s the people of Swaziland became impatient with the absolute rule of kings and demanded greater democracy in their country. King Mswate III grudgingly allowed some political reform and greater democracy. However, a new constitution, introduced in 2006, confirmed the monarch’s dominance.