Labotsibeni Mdluli

Labotsibeni Mdluli
Ndlovukati of Swaziland
Reign	1921-1925
Predecessor	Tibati Nkambule
Successor	Lomawa Ndwandwe
Queen Regent
Reign	1899-1921

Labotsibeni Mdluli, also known as Gwamile (c. 1859 – December 15, 1925), was the Queen Mother and Queen Regent of Swaziland. She was born at Luhlekweni in northern Swaziland about 1858, the daughter of Matsanjana Mdluli. At the time of her birth, her father was away fighting the people of Tsibeni in what became the Barberton district of the Transvaal—hence her name. Following the death of her father she moved with her uncle Mvelase Mdluli to the royal homestead at Ludzidzini in the Ezulwini Valley, central Swaziland. It was there that she received some training in statecraft from the old queen mother, Thandzile (‘LaZidze’), widow of King Sobhuza I and mother of Mswati II. She became one of the wives of the young Ingwenyama or king of the Swazi, Mbandzeni Dlamini (c.1857–1889), soon after his succession in 1874. They had four surviving children, three sons, Bhunu (c.1875–1899), Malunge (c.1880–1915), and Lomvazi (c.1885–1922), and a daughter, Tongotongo (c.1879–1918).

Labotsibeni's husband, King Mbandzeni (also known as Dlamini IV) was an attractive person, and an essentially fair-minded ruler, who was unable to stop, and may indeed have encouraged, the army of concession-hunters who invaded his country in the wake of the gold rush to Barberton in the late 1880s. By the time of his death in October 1889 he had granted numerous overlapping and conflicting land concessions, and a variety of equally contentious monopolies, including one which purported to give its holder the right to collect ‘the king's private revenue’. Critics alleged that many of these were granted in exchange for greyhounds and gin, but a good deal of money changed hands, much of it finding its way into the pockets of corrupt white advisers, including the egregious and venal Theophilus ‘Offy’ Shepstone, the eldest son of Sir Theophilus Shepstone. These concessions were to be the subject of endless litigation and several commissions of inquiry over the ensuing twenty years. They had the effect of involving the governments of Great Britain and the South African Republic (the Transvaal) in the affairs of Swaziland in support of the competing claims of their citizens. The complex and long-running nature of the litigation that they engendered played a part in ensuring that Swaziland avoided complete incorporation into the South African Republic before 1899, the British colony of the Transvaal after 1902, or the Union of South Africa in 1910.

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