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For the majority of African states, the building of the
national unity is a historic task that, for most people, is
yet to be accomplished. But in a few cases, the nation
existed before the state was formed. Lesotho and Swaziland
are examples of this.
According to
COUNTRYAAH,
the Zulu conquests initiated in 1818 by Chaka (see South
Africa ) affected a large number of Bantu people. These
include the Sothos who inhabited a large area of the
present Transvaal. While several of these groups withdrew to
the north, Chief Moshoeshoe bakwene gathered the tribe under
his leadership, also captured a number of opposition Zulu
groups and retreated with these toward the Drakensberg
Mountains. There was now a long-standing resistance
struggle. First against the Zulus and from 1839 against the
Boers. This battle brought together the different
peoples who otherwise had different origins, and they gave
Moshoeshoe the title "The Great Chief of the Mountains".
They called themselves Basothos.
The Boers - the Dutch settlers in South Africa - tried to
force the Basothoans to work on their plantations but soon
had to realize that "these savages prefer freedom over
slavery". The Basothoans also refused to work on the white
cattle farms, because "God created the animals to feed man,
not man to feed the animals."
The Dutch colonization of South Africa seemed doomed to
failure when a boy in 1867 found a glittering stone that
turned out to be a diamond. A short time later, gold was
found, and after this the English appeared. In 1868 British
missionaries convinced the Basotho King Moshoeshoe I that
only the "protection" of London could save him and his
people from the attempts of the peasants to make them
slaves. The country was made a protectorate, and remained
separate from South Africa - even after the English, after
the bloody "Boer War" in 1899, had submitted to the whole
country.
Britain had promised the government of Pretoria that both
Basutoland, Bechuanaland (now Botswana ) and Swaziland -
operating under comparable circumstances - would one day be
admitted to South Africa. But when the South African Union
broke ties with London in 1961 and consolidated its racist
apartheid policy, Britain decided to give the countries
their independence. As early as 1956, a constitution had
been drawn up for Basutoland, and in 1966 it declared itself
under the name Lesotho.
But as completely contained in South Africa, Lesotho
depended on the transit trade in its products: wheat,
asbestos, cattle and diamonds. The South African currency,
rand was also a means of payment in Lesotho, and the South
African companies controlled the country's economy and
transport.
Foreign trade was very skewed with an import volume of 10
times exports. The balance of payments was saved by Lesotho
sending migrant workers to South Africa: 45% of Lesotho's
unemployed population worked in South Africa's gold mines,
sending money home to their families.
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