In the run-up to independence, the Litunga, the Ngambela ( Prime Minister ) and about a dozen senior indunas went to London for talks with the Colonial Office, in an attempt to have Barotseland remain a Protectorate.

The Government of Barotseland is the Kuta, presided over by the Ngambela ( Prime Minister ).

On 18 May 1964, Litunga Mwanawina III, King of Barotseland and Kenneth Kaunda Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia signed the " Barotseland Agreement 1964 " which established Barotseland's position within Zambia in place of the earlier agreement between Barotseland and the British Government.

In addition there was some cattle farming in Barotseland.

When settlers moved in to ' Southern Rhodesia ' in 1890, and when the BSAC was chartered to administer ' North-Western Rhodesia ' and ' North-Eastern Rhodesia ', it was not under those names, but the names of the parts, e. g. Mashonaland, Matabeleland, Barotseland, and so on.

an agreement was signed at Bulawayo between Lewanika and Robert Coryndon, the resident in Barotseland, in the presence of Lawley.

Although Barotseland was incorporated into Northern Rhodesia, it retained a large degree of autonomy, which was carried over when Northern Rhodesia became Zambia on its independence in 1964.

Barotseland continued to lobby to be treated as a separate state and was given substantial autonomy within the later states, Northern Rhodesia and independent Zambia.

A desire to secede was expressed from time to time, causing some friction with the government of Kenneth Kaunda, reflected in the latter changing its name from Barotseland Province to Western Province.

Mongu is the capital of Western Province in Zambia and was the capital of the formerly-named province and historic state, Barotseland.

Lewanika ( 1842 – 1916 ) ( also known as Lubosi Lewanika or Lewanika I ) was the Lozi Litunga ( king or paramount chief ) of Barotseland from 1878 to 1916 ( with a break in 1884-5 ).

On the 14 January 2011, thousands of Mongu residents in Western Province most of them youths rioted demanding the restoration of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964.

The traditional Monarch of Barotseland is the Paramount Chief, called the Litunga meaning ' keeper or guardian of the earth ', who is directly descended from the ancient Litunga Mulambwa who ruled at the turn of the nineteenth century and through his grandson, the late great Litunga Lewanika who ruled from 1878 – 1916, with one break in 1884-5, who restored the traditions of the Lozi political economy in the arena of recent invasion by the Makololo, internal competition, external threats such as that posed by the Matabele and the inexorable spread of European colonialism.

The Lozi people of Barotseland had prevented access to their land by Arab and Portuguese traders.

Utterly defeated by Shaka's new Zulu Kingdom in the 1820s, the Makololo under the guide of Sebetwane were forced to march north until they conquered the Lozi and became the aristocracy of Barotseland, with Sebitwane as new Litunga.

At independence in 1964, Zambia's economy grew the British South Africa Company ( BSAC, originally setup by the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes ) retained commercial assets and mineral rights that it acquired from a concession signed with the Litunga of Barotseland in 1892 ( the Lochner Concession ).

The silimba is a xylophone developed by the Lozi people in Barotseland, western Zambia.

The Tokaleya paid tribute to the Lozi of Barotseland but in 1838 the Kololo, a Sotho tribe from South Africa displaced by Zulu wars, migrated north and conquered the Lozi.

In about 1830, an army that originated in the Sotho-speaking Bafokeng region of South Africa, known as the Makololo, led by a warrior called Sebetwane, invaded Barotseland and conquered the Lozi.

The BFM accused the Linyungandambo of having set up Barotseland Government portal website without consultations, and included BFM members in the puroported Barotseland Government without their consents, and in disregard of the effort being made by Mr. Sata to find a lasting solution.

Originally residing in what is now South Africa, they were displaced by the Zulu expansion under Shaka and migrated north through Botswana to Barotseland in the mid-19th century.

* Barotseland Free State

When the first Europeans arrived, the most powerful states in precolonial Zambia were the kingdom of Barotseland in the upper Zambezi, and the kingdom of Mwata Kazembe on the Luapula.

It is said that versions have also been played in Barotseland ( Zambia, central Africa ).

They settled on the floodplains of the upper Zambezi River in what is now western Zambia and developed a kingdom, Barotseland, and also gave their name to the Barotse Floodplain or Bulozi.

The Lozi people are an ethnic group primarily of western Zambia, inhabiting the region of Barotseland.

Barotseland is a region in the western part of Zambia, and is the homeland of the Lozi people or Barotse who were previously known as Luyi or Aluyi.

Lewanika brought Barotseland, now part of Zambia, under British control in 1890, when he agreed with Cecil Rhodes for the region to become a protectorate under the British South Africa Company ( BSAC ).

According to Barotse views, the government in Lusaka also starved Barotseland of development — it has only one tarred road into the centre, from Lusaka to the provincial capital of Mongu, and lacks the kind of state infrastructure projects found in other provinces.

The first certain historical fact concerning Barotseland is in the early 19th century the trek of the Makololo, a clan of the South-African Basotho or Tswana people.

* Judd Dunning Blick ( March 17, 1873-December 9, 1951 ), participated in the Barotseland expedition of 1895, during which he and his party nearly died of thirst, and fought in the Second Matabele War.

After King Lewanika of the Barotse signed a treaty in 1890, the next year the British government placed Barotseland and land up to Nyasaland in the east and to Katanga and Lake Tanganyika in the north under the Charter of Rhodes ' British South Africa Company ( BSAC ), administrated as two different units, North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia.

In 1948 the Federation changed its name to the Northern Rhodesia Congress and Godwin Lewanika, a Barotseland native from an aristocratic background, became its leader.

The Kololo finally settled north of the Zambezi River in Barotseland, where they conquered the Lozi people.

On the north side of the Chobe River are the Caprivi Swamps, on the edge of which is the ruined capital of the Kololo people who conquered Barotseland in the 19th Century.

Situated in the southern part of Barotseland, the falls are a difficult two or three day journey from the capital, Lusaka.

In 1898, Lawley led a mission to the court of Lewanika, the king of Barotseland.

Lawley later wrote a detailed account of his journey to Barotseland and his experiences.

After, “ they had tried to steam up the Zambesi in flat bottomed launches and fought their way well beyond the Kariba Gorge ” ( Cartwright 1960 ) they had to abandon their boats and explored Barotseland on foot.

Western Province, encompasses the area formerly known as Barotseland in the colonial era.

In 1864 the Lozi threw off their Kololo masters and re-established their dominance over the Subiya and the Tokaleya in the vicinity of the Falls, which became the south-eastern margin of the greater Barotseland kingdom.

Lozi tradition states that they have always inhabited Barotseland.