Topic summary
Basotho people
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Sotho people.
Early history
The Basotho nation is a mixture of Bantu-speaking clans that mixed with San people who already lived in Southern Africa when they arrived there. Bantu-speaking people had settled in what is now South Africa by about 1500 CE. Separation from the Batswana is assumed to have taken place by the 14th century. Some Basotho people split from the Nguni while others got assimilated into building the Nguni nation. By the 16th century, Iron-working was well established in Basotho communities alongside their Nguni neighbours. Basotho were mostly independent and relatively isolated up until this point in which they occasionally traded with the regions north of their homeland with external links that are described as "Sporadic and Marginal". By at least the 17th century a series of Basotho kingdoms covered the southern portion of the African plateau (nowadays Free State Province and parts of Gauteng), and North West. Basotho society was highly decentralized, and organized on the basis of kraals, or extended clans, each of which was ruled by its own chief. Chiefdoms were united into loose confederations.