Paramount Chief Mpezeni is a chieftainship of the Ngoni people

Ngoni people

The Ngoni people are an ethnic group living in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, in east-central Africa. The Ngoni trace their origins to the Zulu people of kwaZulu-Natal in South Africa...

 of Zambia

Zambia

Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....

's Eastern Province

Eastern Province, Zambia

Eastern Province is one of Zambia's nine provinces. The province lies between the Luangwa River and the border with Malawi, from Isoka in the northeast to just north of Luangwa in the south.The provincial capital is Chipata...

 and Malawi

Malawi

The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...

's Mchinji

Mchinji

Mchinji is a town in the Mchinji District of the Central Region of Malawi. As of 2008 estimates, Mchinji has a population of 25,184. The area's economy is sustained by rain-fed agriculture, although the town is currently in the midst of a food crisis. Mchinji is also a major railroad junction,...

 district.

The chieftainship was founded by Zwangendaba

Zwangendaba

Zwangendaba was the king of the Ngoni people for more than thirty years, from approximately 1815 to his death in 1848. After being driven from the eastern region of what is now South Africa, near modern Swaziland, by the Zulus during the Mfecane, he led his people, then called the "Jere", on a...

, a former general of King Shaka

Shaka

Shaka kaSenzangakhona , also known as Shaka Zulu , was the most influential leader of the Zulu Kingdom....

 of the Zulu, who fled the mfecane

Mfecane

Mfecane , also known by the Sesotho name Difaqane or Lifaqane, was a period of widespread chaos and warfare among indigenous tribes in southern Africa during the period between 1815 to about 1840....

. It is named after the Ngoni warrior-king Mpezeni

Mpezeni

Mpezeni was warrior-king of one of the largest Ngoni groups of central Africa, based in what is now the Chipata District of Zambia, at a time when the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes was trying to take possession of the territory for the British Empire...

 (also spelt Mpeseni) who rose up in 1897 with over 4000 warriors against the British

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 who were taking control of Nyasaland

Nyasaland

Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....

 and North-Eastern Rhodesia

North-Eastern Rhodesia

North-Eastern Rhodesia in south central Africa was formed by and administered by the British South Africa Company as the other half, with North-Western Rhodesia, of the huge territory lying mainly north of the Zambezi River into which it expanded its charter in 1891...

, and was defeated. He signed a treaty which allowed him to rule as Paramount Chief of the Ngoni and his successors use his name in the title to this day.

Paramount Chiefs or Inkosi ya makosi (1815 – )

• Zwangendaba
  Zwangendaba
  Zwangendaba was the king of the Ngoni people for more than thirty years, from approximately 1815 to his death in 1848. After being driven from the eastern region of what is now South Africa, near modern Swaziland, by the Zulus during the Mfecane, he led his people, then called the "Jere", on a...
  
   (1815 - 1848)
• Regency (1848 - 18xx)
• Mpezeni I (1848 - 1900)
• Mpezeni II (1900 - 1928)
• Mpezeni III (1928 - 1959)
• Mpezeni IV (1959 - )