Significant populations of native speakers of the Northern Ndebele language (siNdebele) are found in Zimbabwe and as amaZulu in South Africa.

[1] The Northern Ndebele, specifically the Khumalo (amaNtungwa) people under Mzilikazi, were originally named Matebele in English.

After a few battles, Shaka gave Mzilikazi the extraordinary honour of being chief of the Khumalos and remaining semi-independent from the Zulu, if Zwide could be defeated.

This peace lasted until Shaka asked Mzilikazi to punish a tribe to the north of the Khumalo, belonging to Raninsi a Sotho.

Mzilikazi and his allies continued on to raid and occupy the chiefdoms of the Sotho people and the Southern Ndebele, who had been significantly weakened by the Dutch–Afrikaner settlers (Boers) from the Cape Colonies.

A skilled military and political tactician, Mzilikazi attacked or subjugated the local tribes he found along the way, including the Khoi, Batswana, Bapedi, and the Ndebeles of Mpumalanga.

During the Great Trek of 1836–1838, voortrekkers (Boers) arrived in Transvaal and found Mzilikazi the king of the region, and a threat to their advancement.

In the second battle in 1837, the Boers (led by Potgieter, Maritz, and Uys) launched another attack on Mzilikazi's military stronghold at eGabeni at dawn.

Mzilikazi—realizing that the Ndebele, like the Sotho, did not stand a chance against the Boers, who were heavily armed with guns and rifles—decided to retreat with his regiments and loyalists from the Marico Valley.

Mzilikazi who reigned from 1823, chose a new headquarters on the western edge of the central plateau of modern-day Zimbabwe, leading some 20,000 Ndebele, descendants of the Nguni and Sotho of South Africa.

Mzilikazi organized this ethnically diverse nation into a militaristic system of regimental towns and established his capital at Bulawayo.

As gold was already known to exist in that area, the concession enabled Rhodes to obtain a royal charter to form the British South Africa Company (BSAC) in 1889.

The social organization of the Northern Ndebele language people was rigidly controlled by rules of service and hierarchy inherited from Shaka's reforms among the Zulu.

Hoping for a quick victory, Leander Starr Jameson sent his BSAC forces to attack the capital koBulawayo and capture Lobengula.

[citation needed] The British were vastly outnumbered throughout the war, but their superior armaments, most notably the Maxim gun, proved too much for the Ndebele.

In an attempt to reach a peace accord with the British, a band of Lobengula's warriors brought a large sum of gold to two BSAC soldiers to be delivered to their superiors.

After a year of drought and cattle sickness, Mlimo, the Matebele spiritual leader, is credited with fomenting much of the anger that led to this confrontation.

Upon learning of Mlimo's death, Rhodes boldly walked unarmed into the Matebele stronghold and persuaded the leaders to lay down their arms.

[6] The Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) was a primarily-Ndebele anti-government force, led by Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU.

Because ZAPU's political strategy relied more heavily on negotiations than armed force, ZIPRA did not grow as quickly or elaborately as the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), but by 1979 it had an estimated 20,000 combatants, almost all based in camps around Lusaka, Zambia.

The largest number of dead in a single killing occurred on 5 March 1983, when 62 young men were shot on the banks of the Cewale River, Lupane;[9] seven survived with gunshot wounds, the other 55 died.