Moshweshwe was born in Menkwaneng during the famine of 1787. His father, Mokhachane, was head of the Bamokoteli, a Sotho-speaking subclan, which paid tribute to its more powerful neighbors, the Basekake. Moshweshwe was given the name Lepoqo (disasters) because of the misfortunes in which he was born.
As was the custom among the princely families, Mokhachane took his son to Mohlomi, a famous seer and philosopher, to study law and acquire wisdom. Mohlomi, whose renown had spread all over southern Africa, taught him that the practice of virtue and discipline was the first prerequisite for the successful governance of men. The wise ruler sought to live in peaceful coexistence with his neighbors and encouraged habits of thrift and industry among his people.
In the late 1810s and early ’20s, European land invasions, labour needs, and trade heightened Southern African disturbances and led to migration in the region. Moshoeshoe led his people south to the nearly impregnable stronghold of Thaba Bosiu (“Mountain at Night”) in the western Maloti Mountains, where his following expanded to other African peoples attracted by the protection he was able to provide. He eventually united the various small groups to form the Sotho nation, called Basutoland by English-speaking persons. He strengthened his new nation by raiding local Tembu and Xhosa groups for cattle and adopting the use of horses and firearms. In the cold Highveld he was able to defeat mounted Griqua and Korana raiders with his own mounted cavalry and expanded his control into the Caledon valley.
In 1833 he welcomed missionaries of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (though he never became a Christian himself), and he used them to cultivate good diplomatic relationships with British politicians in Cape Town. Moshoeshoe’s greatest threat (and opportunity) came with the Boer invasions—the Great Trek—after the mid-1830s. The rival Boer and Sotho groups fought for control of the fertile farming lands of the Caledon valley, with the British arbitrating by drawing boundary lines that at first favoured but then disadvantaged the Sotho.
In 1848, when the British annexed the Orange River Sovereignty to the east of Moshoeshoe’s stronghold, he found himself exposed to direct Anglo-Boer invasion. Moshoeshoe’s Sotho forces twice defeated overconfident and undersupported British armies, first in 1851 at Viervoet and again in late 1852 at the battle of Berea near Thaba Bosiu. Moshoeshoe continued to fight against encroachment on Sotho lands, and in the following year he defeated and absorbed the Tlokwa, local African rivals.
Wanting to avoid the time and expense required to defeat the Sotho, the British gave the Boers of the Orange River Sovereignty (renamed the Orange Free State) independence at the Bloemfontein Convention of 1854. During the next 10 years, Moshoeshoe was able to inflict further defeats on the Boers, who were disorganized in their efforts to unite and repel the Sotho. At the Treaty of Aliwal North in 1858, the Sotho regained control of land on both sides of the Caledon River, a perhaps unparalleled assertion of black expansionism against contending whites in Southern Africa.
After the Boers of the Orange Free State united behind Pres. J. H. Brand in 1864, however, the long land war turned against Moshoeshoe. He was forced to give up most of his earlier gains at the Treaty of Thaba Bosiu in 1866, and during 1867 he faced complete defeat. This was prevented when the British high commissioner of the Cape Colony, Sir Philip Wodehouse, annexed Moshoeshoe’s now truncated territory as Basutoland in 1868. Though Moshoeshoe’s power waned in the last years of his life, the Sotho continue to venerate his name, and he is considered to be the father of his country.
Although he had ceded much territory, Moshweshwe never suffered a major military defeat and retained most of his kingdom and all of his culture. His death in 1870 marked the end of the traditional era and the beginning of the modern colonial period. Moshweshwe Day is a national holiday in Lesotho celebrated every year on 11 March to commemorate the day of Moshweshwe's death.
