Gaza Empire

[2] In the 1820s, during a period of severe drought, after the abolition of slavery caused the Great Trek, Nguni armies, Southern (Xhosa) and especially Northern Nguni (Zulu, Swazi, Shangani, Gaza, Matabele or Ndebele, and Ngoni) people who spoke related Bantu languages and inhabited southeast Africa from Cape Colony to southern Mozambique, began to migrate to Mozambique from what is now South Africa.

Soshangane's grandson, Gungunyana, took over the Gaza Empire from his father Mzila and moved the capital southward to Manjakazi, putting him in closer proximity with the Portuguese.

In their place, valley warlords established fortified strongholds at the confluence of the major rivers, where they raised private armies and raided for slaves in the interior.

The most powerful of these warlords was Manuel António de Sousa, also known as Gouveia, a settler from Portuguese India, who by the middle of the 19th century controlled most of the southern Zambezi Valley and a huge swath of land to its south.

[3] For centuries, the Nguni peoples are thought to have lived in scattered patrilineal chiefdoms, cultivating cereal crops such as millet and raising cattle.

[5] Within the area encompassed by the Gaza Empire, Nguni armies invaded the north and established cattle-owning military states along the edges of the Mozambican highlands.

[1] Soshangane extended his control over the area between the Komati (Incomati) and the Zambezi rivers, incorporating the local Tsonga and Shona peoples into his Kingdom.

[1] The empire under Soshangane has been criticized for involvement in the slave trade between the year 1830 and 1897, and human rights violations over the indigenous peoples of Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

[5] The descendants of Gungunyana currently reside in South Africa, including de jure king Eric Mpisane Nxumalo whose application for recognition by the Nhlapo Commission was rejected in 2012.