Lewanika

Lewanika ( – 4 February 1916) (also known as Lubosi, Lubosi Lewanika or Lewanika I) was the Lozi Litunga (King) of Barotseland from 1878 to 1884 and again from 1885 to 1916. A detailed, although biased, description of King 'Lubossi' (the spelling used) can be found in the Portuguese explorer Alexandre de Serpa Pinto's 1878–1879 travel narrative (How I Crossed Africa, in English translation).

== Biography == In December 1882, the missionary Frederick Stanley Arnot reached Lealui, the capital of Barotseland, after traveling across the Kalahari Desert from Botswana. King Lewanika kept him for the next eighteen months, then allowed him to move on, but in a westward direction rather than eastward as he had planned. While detained, Arnot taught the king's children to read and undertook some evangelism. Arnot was present when Lewanika received a proposal from the Ndebele for an alliance to resist the white men. Arnot may have helped Lewanika to see the advantages of a British protectorate in terms of the greater wealth and security it would provide. Arnot left Bulozi in 1884 to recover his health and to escape a brewing rebellion against Lewanika.