Mzilikazi, an Nguni military commander under Shaka, king of the Zulu, came into conflict with Shaka and in 1823 was forced to flee, migrating with his followers first to Basutoland (now Lesotho) and then north to the Marico Valley. 

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In 1822, in a quarrel with their kinsman, the Matabele people under their king Mzilikasi, are forced to flee Shaka. Mzilikasi forms his own kingdom in the fertile Marico River valley, after his powerful army of 6000 men drive out the resident Sotho and Tswana people. 

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Mzilikazi (b. c. 1790,, near Mkuze, Zululand [now in South Africa]; d. Sept. 9, 1868, Ingama, Matabeleland [near Bulawayo, now in Zimbabwe]) also spelled UMSILIGASI, OR MOZELEKATSE, South African king who founded the powerful Ndebele (Matabele) kingdom in what is now Zimbabwe. The greatest Bantu warrior after Shaka, king of the Zulus, Mzilikazi took his Kumalo people more than 500 miles (800 km) from what is now South Africa to the region now known as Zimbabwe, creating en route an immense and ethnically diverse nation. Mzilikazi was a statesman of considerable stature, able to weld the many conquered tribes into a strong, centralized kingdom. 

Originally a lieutenant of Shaka, he revolted against the Zulu king in 1823 and withdrew his people northward to safety from their home on the southeast coast of Africa. He traveled to Mozambique and then west into the Transvaal, settling there by 1826. Continued attacks by coalitions of his enemies caused him to move west again to what is now Botswana...