Ceteswayo – or alternately Ceteshwayo, Cetawayo, Cetewayo, Cetywajo, Ketchwayo, was the last substantive King of the South African Zulu people, and their leader during the Anglo/Zulu War of 1879, and who died on February 8 1884.

Ceteswayo became King on 1 September 1873 after the death of his father Mpande, a half brother of Shaka, the founding father of the Zulu people. By the time of Ceteswayo’s ascension to the throne British and Boer occupation of Natal had increasingly begun to encroach on the independence of the Zulu, who were the only substantive native power that could be deemed a threat to the white occupation of the coastal littoral.

Corresponding with Ceteswayo's rule the British colonial authorities began to ponder the rationale of allowing a powerful independent nation to continue to exist in the the Natal colony that would represent a continuing threat to European hegemony.

For his part Ceteswayo maintained a diffident attitude to ongoing foreign encroachment, recognizing that war would inevitably mean defeat. However, by 1878 the British began to openly pick a fight in order to establish a pretext for war. British Commissioner for South Africa, Sir Bartle Frere, began to demand reparations for border infractions that in due course led to demands that the Zulu army disband. This was clearly impossible, and, as expected, it led to war.