Mthimkhulu II’s sons
The Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims, in its determination on the amaHlubi kingship claim, records that the Hlubi king Mthimkhulu II had several sons, among them Dlomo II (the heir), Langalibalele (also called Mtetwa), Duba, Magadla, Ludidi, Luzipho and Mhlambiso. Mthimkhulu II died in 1818 during the war with Matiwane of the amaNgwane, after which the amaHlubi fled. Wikipedia’s article on Langalibalele says he was Mthimkhulu’s second son, originally called Prince Midinga, and gives his birth as about 1814 in its lead and 1818 in its body.
Dingane and Mpande
After the Mfecane wars the amaHlubi returned to their land under Mthimkhulu’s brother Mahwanqa. The commission describes a series of succession disputes in which the Zulu kings intervened. Mahwanqa was reluctant to hand the kingship to Dlomo II, who killed him and then went to Dingane to report it, where Dingane killed Dlomo II and his bodyguards. A dispute followed between Langalibalele and Mini, a son of Mahwanqa, and Dingane sent his army to help Langalibalele, though the commission says he later tried unsuccessfully to kill him. Mpande attacked the amaHlubi in 1848. The commission says the amaHlubi fled the uMzinyathi district under Langalibalele I, not because they were defeated, but to avoid a larger Zulu force that would be sent to compel his submission, settling near Ladysmith along the Klip River and later at the Drakensberg foothills near Estcourt. Wikipedia also has the flight after Mpande summoned him and he refused, and says the Natal authorities granted land on the Little Bushmans River in December 1849. Wikipedia names the murdered king as Dlomo III and dates it to 1839, while the commission calls him Dlomo II, so the two accounts do not match.
The 1873 affair
The commission records that Langalibalele was seen by the colonial authorities as a security threat, in part because of illegal firearms, and says that he was arrested and prosecuted for treason and rebellion. It dates this to 1870, but the proclamation deposing him is dated 11 November 1873, and Wikipedia places the confrontation at Bushman’s River Pass in 1873, so 1870 may be a slip in the commission’s text. Wikipedia says wages paid in guns at the diamond mines led to a dispute over gun registration, that martial law was declared on 11 November 1873, and that on 13 December Langalibalele and five sons were handed over. His trial began on 16 January 1874 under native law with the Lieutenant Governor and Theophilus Shepstone presiding, and he was sentenced to life banishment on Robben Island. Critics, including Bishop Colenso, condemned the trial. He left Robben Island in August 1875, stayed in the Cape Colony until 1887, and was then allowed to return to Natal under a form of house arrest at Swartkop. He never regained his power. He died in 1889 and was buried near Estcourt; Wikipedia says the burial place was kept secret by Hlubi custom until his grandson revealed it in 1950.
After Langalibalele I
The commission names his son Siyephu, who ruled until his death in 1910, then Tatazela kaSiyephu (who ascended in 1926 and died in 1956), and Muziwenkosi Johannes Radebe, Langalibalele II, who succeeded in 1974 and was officially recognised as a senior traditional leader in the uKhahlamba district, with effect from 17 September 1974.
What the commission decided
The commission records that Langalibalele II claimed the restoration of a Hlubi kingship lost through colonial intervention. It found that the earlier amaMpembe, amaNgelengele and imiHuhu were semi-independent entities in loose confederations, and that any Hlubi kingship, which it thought might have formed when other clans joined them for their rainmaking and medicine, was broken up by the Mfecane wars and succession disputes before the 1873 arrest. It also found that the Hlubi are scattered across KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the North West, that many of their senior leaders in the Eastern Cape fall under other kings, and that they do not share similar language and culture today. It concluded that “amaHlubi do not have kingship”, that there is no kingship to be restored, and that the claim by Muziwenkosi Johannes Radebe was unsuccessful. Our Hlubi overview records that the community has continued to contest this, and we have not read its response.
Izithakazelo and totem
We have not found a published Langalibalele praise text or a confirmed totem, so we are not printing either. If you can share the royal izibongo, with your permission and credited to you, we would like to record them.
Sources and further reading
- Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims: Determination on the amaHlubi kingship claim (pp. 503 to 533 of the PDF)
- Wikipedia: Langalibalele (cites Pearse, Walker, Bulpin, Deacon, Etherington; some passages are marked as needing citations, and sources differ on the 1873 events)
See also our Hadebe and Mpangazitha pages.
Do you belong to the Hlubi royal house or the amaHlubi? Tell us your praises and what elders say about the history, and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.