Why Lesotho is a country inside South Africa

A kingdom on a mountain

In the violent upheavals of the 1820s, known to the Sotho as the Difaqane, many chiefdoms were destroyed or absorbed. In 1824 Moshoeshoe, from a minor Kwena lineage, occupied the flat-topped mountain of Thaba Bosiu and built a kingdom from the people who gathered around him, forging a Sotho identity. He welcomed French Protestant missionaries in 1833 as a window on the wider world.^[3]

Lesotho owes its long autonomy to its mountains. Two-thirds of the country is mountainous, with the Drakensberg forming its eastern border; the plateau is the source of South Africa’s two largest rivers, the Tugela and the Orange.^[1] Its lowest point is about 1,400 metres above sea level, making it the only country that lies entirely above 1,000 metres.^[2]

The plains lost

From 1834 Boer trekkers from the Cape settled on the kingdom’s western edge and disputed the Sotho’s right to the land. After 30 years of conflict the Sotho had lost most of their territory west of the Caledon River, out of which the Boers formed the Orange Free State.^[3]

Wars in the late 1860s threatened to scatter the Sotho altogether, and Moshoeshoe appealed to Britain. In 1868 the Cape governor annexed the kingdom to the British crown as Basutoland.^[3]

Kept out of the Union

In 1871, the year after Moshoeshoe died, Basutoland was attached to the Cape Colony without its consent. The Cape’s attempt to disarm the Sotho led to the Gun War of 1880–81, and in 1884 Britain took the territory back as one of three High Commission Territories, with Bechuanaland and Swaziland.^[3]

When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the three territories stayed under Britain. The Sotho were united in opposing incorporation into South Africa and feared Britain might hand them over without asking; instead Basutoland became independent as the Kingdom of Lesotho on 4 October 1966.^[3]

“Like only two other independent states in the world (Vatican City and the Republic of San Marino), Lesotho is completely encircled by another country”^[1]

Inside, but not part of it

Independence did not end the dependence. Basutoland had been the classic labour reserve of southern Africa, its people relying on work in South Africa’s mines.^[3] Lesotho is in a customs union with South Africa and depends on it for access to the outside world.^[1] In January 1986 South Africa effectively closed the border, and in response a faction friendlier to South Africa overthrew the government; later that year the two countries signed the treaty for the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which sends water from Lesotho’s mountains to South Africa.^[4]