Ngwanase Tembe

Prince Ngwanase Tembe (died 1928) was a Chief of Tembe and ruler within the historic Tembe Kingdom on the north-eastern coast of present-day KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and southern Mozambique. He governed the Tembe people from 1894 until his death in 1928. Ngwanase was the son of King Noziyingile Tembe and Queen Zambili Dlamini of the Kingdom of Eswatini.

The Tembe royal line traces its ancestry to early rulers such as Sikuke, Ludahumba, Silamboya and Mangobe as founding ancestors and its rise is attributed to 18th-century military rulers such as King Mangobe himself and his son Mabudu Tembe, whose kingdom extended from Delagoa Bay (Maputo) southwards to the area of Lake St. Lucia.

Ngwanase was formally installed as Chief of Tembe in 1894. During the regency, a succession dispute arose between two senior Tembe lineages, the Ngwanase branch (descendants of Queen Zambili) and the Makhuza branch (descendants of Prince Madingi), which claimed authority in the inland territories. Earlier when King Noziyingile died, another son of King Noziyingile, Prince Muhena, declared himself ruler of the Tembe Kingdom with military support from King Cetshwayo of the Zulu Kingdom. Queen Zambili, using internal resistance and her strong Swazi royal lineage, overthrew Muhena and ruled as regent until Prince Ngwanase came of age in 1894 but only to rule a portion of the former Tembe land. These division, compounded by colonial interference from both the Portuguese in southern Mozambique and the British in northern KwaZulu Natal, fractured further what was once Southern Africa's most powerful state, the Tembe Kingdom.