AFRICANWARSAND WHITEINVADERS
In addition, the Sotho had one exceptional boon: the skillful leadership of
Moshoeshoe, who had been creating the kingdom of Lesotho out of the
debris of the Mfecane. During the 1850S,Lesotho conquered and absorbed
the rival southern Sotho chiefdom of Sekonyela and several other commu-
nities that had been clients of the short-lived British administration.
Con-
flict with the Orange Free State was inevitable. The British had shed re-
sponsibility for the region without attempting to consult Moshoeshoe or
settling his boundary
with the Orange Free State. The Afrikaners and
Sotho thus jostled one another for control of the land and raided each
others' cattle. Open warfare broke out in 1858, when Afrikaner comman-
dos invaded Lesotho from both north and south, capturing cattle and
ravaging villages and mission stations, and converging on Thaba Bosiu.
There, they faltered. Mustering some ten thousand men, all mounted on
horses and equipped with firearms, the Sotho defended their fortress and
raided Afrikaner farms, seizing livestock and burning homesteads as the
Afrikaners had been doing to them. White morale collapsed. The comman-
dos disbanded, leaving Moshoeshoe the victor.
When war broke out again in 1865, the relative strengths of the contes-