Gun War

Gun WarColonial volunteers reconnoitering in Basutoland during the Gun War (1880–81), from The Illustrated London News, January 1, 1881.

Gun War, (1880–81), Southern African war in which the Sotho (also Basuto or Basotho) people of Basutoland (present-day Lesotho) threw off the rule by the Cape Colony. It is one of the few examples in Southern African history of Black Africans’ winning a conflict with colonial powers in the 19th century.