Lobengula Khumalo

(1833–1894)

   The last king of the Matabele in present-day Zimbabwe, Lobengula Khumalo held the throne from 1870 until his death. In 1893, Lobengula came into con-flict with the British South Africa Company both over mining rights and over his attempts to reestablish Matabele authority over the Mashona people who were increasingly employed by Europeans. Although he had agreed to mining concessions with Cecil Rhodes in 1888, Lobengula had underestimated the scope of Rhodes’s commercial ambitions and attempted to limit the company’s encroachments into Mashonaland. In the resulting Matabele War of 1893, he was defeated and fled his capital of Bulawayo after torching the city. He died of smallpox in 1894. The British took over Matabeleland and named it Rhodesia.

   See also <>.

   FURTHER READING:

    Cloete, Stuart. Against These Three. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1945.

   CARL CAVANAGH HODGE