Zwangendaba

Zwangendaba kaZiguda Jele Gumbi (c. 1785 – 1848) was the king of the Ngoni people for more than thirty years, from approximately 1815 to his death in 1848. He was the younger brother of Somkhanda kaZiguda Jele who remained with the Gumbi clan in Kwazulu Natal in areas of Pongola and the current Chief is Mbhekiseni Zeblon Gumbi. After being driven from the eastern region of what is now South Africa, near modern Swaziland, by the Zulus during the Mfecane, Zwangendaba led his people, then called the "Jere", on a migration of more than 1000 miles lasting more than twenty years. Their journey took them through the areas now known as Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi to the western part of Tanzania, where Zwangendaba set up a base at Mapupo. The Ngoni, once a small tribe, extended their dominion even further through present-day Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia when they fragmented into five separate groups following his death.