The Shangani Patrol was a 34-soldier unit of the British South Africa Company that in 1893 was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors in pre-Southern Rhodesia, during the First Matabele War. Headed by Major Allan Wilson, the patrol was attacked just north of the Shangani River in Matabeleland, Rhodesia. Its dramatic last stand, sometimes called "Wilson's Last Stand", achieved a prominent place in the British public imagination and, subsequently, in Rhodesian history, similarly to events such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Battle of the Alamo in the United States.
There Were No Survivors, an 1896 depiction of the patrol's last stand, by Allan Stewart (1865–1951)
The Shangani Memorial, which was erected at World's View in the Matopos Hills in 1904
King Lobengula of Matabeleland (a posthumous depiction, based on a contemporary sketch)
Route of the Shangani Patrol
The Northern Ndebele people are a Nguni ethnic group native to Southern Africa. Significant populations of native speakers of the Northern Ndebele language (siNdebele) are found in Zimbabwe and in South Africa.
Matebele warrior in dancing dress, by Thomas Baines