Labotsibeni “Gwamile” Mdluli

Born around 1858 at the Luhlekweni homestead in what is today eSwatini, Labotsibeni of the Mdluli clan became the chief wife of King Mbandzeni. Mbandzeni's reign was consumed by the concessions crisis: under pressure from Boer and British settlers, vast tracts of Swazi land, minerals and grazing rights were signed away in concessions that would haunt the nation for generations. When their son Bhunu (King Ngwane V) died young in 1899, leaving an infant heir, Labotsibeni stepped into power as Ndlovukati — Queen Mother — and then as Queen Regent.

She ruled as regent from 1899 to 1921, and her authority spanned roughly three decades from her years as Queen Mother. After the South African War, Britain imposed colonial administration over Swaziland in 1902 and moved to partition Swazi land, confirming the settler concessions. Labotsibeni fought back through deputations, petitions and shrewd diplomacy — a British administrator described her as a woman of extraordinary diplomatic ability. In 1914 she helped launch a land-buyback fund (the Lifa fund) so the Swazi could purchase back their own soil.

Her most far-sighted gamble was education. A traditionalist who nonetheless grasped that the new century demanded new weapons, she championed Western schooling for her people over aristocratic objection — arranging schooling for her grandson and heir, Mona, at Zombodze and then at the Lovedale institution in South Africa's Eastern Cape. She also became a patron of the early Pan-African movement, helping finance the newspaper Abantu-Batho in 1912. On 22 December 1921 she ceremonially handed power to her grandson, who reigned as King Sobhuza II. She died in 1925.