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 Land"). Mswati is considered to be one of the greatest fighting kings of Eswatini.

Mswati's military power, initially suppressed by infighting with his brothers Fokoti, Malambule, and Somcuba over the kingship, 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. The Swazi clans under the leadership of Sobhuza I were constantly in conflict with the Ndwandwe's. As a result, Sobhuza made an offer to marry one of the daughters of Zwide and establish peace with his neighbors. This culminated in a party being sent to the Ndwandwe capital and Tsandzile was chosen as the wife to bear the successor to Sobhuza. Such circumstances during his early life are sometimes considered to have predisposed him to be fierce and decisive later in his rule. These new groups and the immigrants became known as Emafikamuva ( "those who arrived after" ). He had danced the annual incwala 19 times. He was buried at the royal burial hill at Mbilaneni, next to his father King Sobhuza I and great-grandfather King Ngwane III. The death of Mswati II ended the era of Swazi conquest, territorial expansion and unification of various peoples into one nation. Mswati's successor was the eleven-year-old Ludvonga II who died in 1874 without any children. Ludvonga's elder-half brother Mbandzeni became the new King in June 1875, reigning as Dlamini IV (1875-1889). Earlier, Ludvonga's older half brother Mabhedla was regarded as a threat to the crown prince and had to flee from Eswatini. He fled Eswatini in approximately 1872 or 1873 and lived for a while on the farm Stonehaven, some 8 km northwest of Louw's Creek, before moving on until he settled at the Leolo Mountains, near Steelpoort, west of Burgersfort where died in 1895 and is buried there.