Powerful women of Africa
Mantsopa Makhetha

(Thread)

Prophetess Anna Mantsopa Makhetha was born in 1795 at a place called Likotsi or Ramakhetheng near present day Maseru. She is the daughter of Nkopane, elder brother of Makhetha, and Sesilane.

During the early 1850s Mantsopa prophesied that the Basotho would win a battle against the British troops led by Major Warden. She became renowned as a prophetess, living legend and advisor to Moshoeshoe I when her prophesies about successive wars were fulfilled.

Eugene Casalis (French missionary) recalled how, in anticipation of conflict with Major Warden's forces in 1851, Moshoeshoe was only concerned about whether to await the enemy or to commence the attack thanks to Mantsopa.

Over time she prophesised many victories including that over Batlokwa of Sekonyela in 1853 and predicted many events such as the rinderpest epidemic that followed World War I.

However, her role as an advisor to Moshoeshoe ended in 1868 when the British annexed Basutoland (Lesotho). That same year, she was baptised by a French missionary called Theophile Jousse and given the name Anna.

This did not sit well with the missionaries as they regarded what she did as black magic, but she still continued.
Her conversion to Christianity was in itself surprising, because her early encounters with the missionaries were ambivalent.

The name she was given at birth is Koena-li-fule, which means “the crocodiles are feeding/ crocodile feed”. When she was young she witnessed the horrors of famine caused by the Difaqane, which forced many people to turn to cannibalism and sadly this is how she lost her father.

She was also taken captive for 6 months by an Nguni group called Amankowane (or Mankoane), who swept down the country in pursuit of Pakalitha and his AmaHlubi. Fortunately, she managed to escape when some of her relatives came into the area trading animal skins for mealies.

Mantsopa was supposed to marry her cousin Lekote (son of her father’s elder brother, Makhetha), but he died shortly after the dowry cattle were handed over. She, therefore, got married to his brother, Selatile, who already had five wives and bore four children

(three daughters and one son namely; Ntsopa, Motsielehi, Ts’iu and Sesilane). As is customary in the Basotho culture for a mother to change her name after the birth of her first child by adding the prefix “Ma or Mma” to the name of the first child, she became MaNtsopa