Moshoeshoe (born c. 1786, near the upper Caledon River, northern Basutoland [now in Lesotho]—died March 11, 1870, Thaba Bosiu, Basutoland) was the founder and first paramount chief of the Sotho (Basuto, Basotho) nation. One of the most successful Southern African leaders of the 19th century, Moshoeshoe combined aggressive military counteraction and adroit diplomacy against colonial invasions. He created a large African state in the face of attacks by the Boers and the British, raiders from the south east coastal lowlands of Africa, and local African rivals.
Moshoeshoe was the son of Mokhachane, the chief of the Mokoteli. As a young man, Moshoeshoe—then known by his post circumcision name of Letlama (“The Binder”)—won a reputation for leadership by conducting daring cattle raids. In early adulthood he took the name Moshoeshoe, an imitation of the sounds made by a knife in shaving that symbolized his deft skills at rustling cattle. His acquaintance with the chief Mohlomi, who was revered as a wise man, strengthened his capacity for generous treatment of allies and enemies alike.
In the late 1810s and early ’20s, European land invasions, labor 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 favored 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.