Sobhuza I of Swaziland

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Sobhuza I (Ngwane IV) (ca. 1780 - 1836?/1839?) was king of Swaziland from 1815 to 1836?/1839? (his title was ngwenyama or 'lion' in siSwati, later called by the British paramount chief). Born around 1795, his father was Ndvungunye, his mother Lojiba Simelane, who served as regent to Mswati II, possibly from 1836 to 1840, although some sources indicate that Sobhuza died in 1839 rather than 1836.

Swazi royal naming conventions were complex. Ngwane IV was an official name. Both in his own day and since then he has primarily been known as Sobhuza I. He also was called Somhlolo, "the Wonder," because he managed to save Swaziland, then called Kangwane, from conquest by the more powerful Ndwandwe and Zulu kingdoms to the south in the 1810s and 1820s. After moving the center of Dlamini royal power from what is now southern Swaziland to the north, Sobhuza led the conquest of many local chiefdoms, forming a kingdom comparable in scope to those of the Zulu, the southern Sotho, or the Pedi. Although kingship held by Dlamini royalty long predated him, in many respects Sobhuza I was the founder of modern Swaziland, along with wife Tsandzile Ndwandwe and their son Mswati II, from whom the country's name comes.

Sobhuza I had three wives, the first of whom, Tsandzile laZidze, bore him Mswati II and Mzamose Dlamini. (Zidze was the siSwati version of the name of the Ndwandwe king Zwide, and laZidze means "daughter of Zidze").

The most detailed and reliable source on Sobhuza I is Philip Bonner, _Kings, Commoners, and Concessionaires_ (Cambridge University Press, 1983), which also deals with Swazi history down through the reign of King Mbandzeni.