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This is a PRE-ISBN edition.The story of MZILIKAZI, founder of the MATABELE empire.Mzilikazi, of the Northern KHUMALO, deserted King SHAKA and with his people, and after many years of warfare and disruption, settled in what is now Southern ZIMBABWE.MZILIKAZI rivals King SHAKA as a military genius and leader of his people and this book is a must for anyone wishing to understand the turbulent times of King SHAKA'S rule.Mzilikazi (ca. 1795-1868) was a southern African warrior leader who, after being driven out of his homeland, created the Ndebele, or Matabele, kingdom.A younger son of the Kumalo chieftain Mashobane, Mzilikazi spent his early life in the north of what was later to become the Zulu kingdom. During his young manhood, the Kumalo were victims of a power struggle between the Zulu chief, Shaka, and the Ndwandwe chief, Zwide. The latter, Mzilikazi's maternal grandfather, had Mashobane killed, but Mzilikazi, who was elevated to the vacant Kumalo chieftainship, identified his interests with the rising star of Shaka.Although Shaka's program of conquest and expansion commonly involved the elimination of members of former chiefly houses, Mzilikazi received specially favored treatment and seems to have been left, after the destruction of the Ndwandwe (ca. 1818), with the authority of a territorial subchief on the northern marches of the new Zulu kingdom.In 1823, after endangering his position by refusing to surrender to Shaka certain cattle captured in a raid, Mzilikazi fled Zululand. With a few hundred warriors he began a career of conquest that contributed to the Difaqane, a violent upheaval among the South African chiefdoms of the interior, which produced political consolidation in certain areas but left much of the central plateau practically uninhabited.Shifting westward, in stages, across the Transvaal, Mzilikazi eventually settled at Mosega on the Marico River. These moves gave him greater geographical security and enhanced his power. By piecemeal conquest and