Mzilikazi (ca. 1795-1868) was a southern African warrior leader who, after being driven out of his homeland, created the Ndebele, or Matabele, kingdom.

A younger son of the Kumalo chieftain Mashobane, Mzilikazi spent his early life in the north of what was later to become the Zulu kingdom. During his young manhood, the Kumalo were victims of a power struggle between the Zulu chief, Shaka, and the Ndwandwe chief, Zwide. The latter, Mzilikazi's maternal grandfather, had Mashobane killed, but Mzilikazi, who was elevated to the vacant Kumalo chieftainship, identified his interests with the rising star of Shaka.

Although Shaka's program of conquest and expansion commonly involved the elimination of members of former chiefly houses, Mzilikazi received specially favored treatment and seems to have been left, after the destruction of the Ndwandwe (ca. 1818), with the authority of a territorial subchief on the northern marches of the new Zulu kingdom...