Mswati II

King Mswati II (c. 1820 – August 1868), also known as Mswati and Mavuso III, was the king of Eswatini between 1840 and 1868. He was also the eponym of Eswatini. Mswati is considered to be one of the greatest fighting kings of Eswatini.^[1]

Under his kingship, the territorial boundaries of Eswatini were greatly increased. Mswati was the son of Sobhuza I and Tsandzile Ndwandwe (known as "LaZidze") who after ruling as Queen Mother became Queen Regent after the death of her son. After the death of Sobhuza, Mswati inherited an area which extended as far as present day Barberton in the north and included the Nomahasha district in the Portuguese territory of Mozambique.^[2]

Mswati's military power, initially suppressed by infighting with his brothers Fokoti, Somcuba and Malambule who supported the kingship of Sidubela, to whom they had already given custody of royal cattle, was increased in the late 1850s and thereafter. When Mswati's armies attacked organized forces of other Bantu tribes or nations, the goal was initially plunder in the form of cattle and captives, rather than incorporation into one political unit.^[2] During this period the arrival of Trekboers, in what would become the Transvaal republic, marked the first contact between Swazis and European settlers. Mswati greatly extended the boundaries of the Swazi territory beyond that of the present state with military outposts and royal villages outposts such as Embhuleni, on the upper Komati River at the foot of the Mkhingoma Mountains in Badplaas, Mekemeke near the Mbayiyane Mountains, situated east of Mantibovu (Low's Creek) and Malelane in Nkomazi. The death of Mswati II in August 1868 ended the era of Swazi conquest, territorial expansion and resulted in unification of various people into one nation.^{[citation needed]}