Photographer: Unknown
Photo & Text Source: Swaziland Digital Archives
This is often claimed to be the first photo of a Swazi, Prince Mbilini, circa 1860. It isn't Mbilini, nor is it Mswati as claimed by Neil Parsons in his A New History of Southern Africa ( p.137). It is a drawing of a photograph and the photograph was reproduced as Mswati in Saunders's Black Leaders in Southern African History (p.62) with National Archives also getting the credit. Ian Knight reproduces it in his There Will be an Awful Row At Home About This (p.39) and identifies the main figure as Ngoza kaLudaba of the Cube.
Mbilini, by the way, was not the heir and certainly died outside the Swazi country - he was mortally wounded by a British patrol whilst on a cattle rustling expedition near Lüneburg in April 1879. S. Bourquin has a photograph of a man he names as Mbilini in his collection. It has been reproduced several times, on p.33 of Ian Knight's Brave Men's Blood, for example, and could well be authentic.
