When the first Europeans arrived, the most powerful states in pre-colonial Zambia were the kingdom of Barotseland in the upper Zambezi, and the kingdom of Mwata Kazembe on the Luapula.
The first certain historical fact concerning Barotseland is the arrival in the early 19th century of the Makololo, a clan of the South-African Basotho or Tswana people.