The emergence of Basotho as a nation occurred around 1818 when King Moshoeshoe (1786-1870) formed alliances with an amalgam of clans and chiefdoms of southern Sotho people who occupied the area which is presently the Northern and Eastern Free State and Western Lesotho from about 1400 AD.

Moshoeshoe was born at Menkhoaneng in the Northern part of present-day Lesotho in 1786. He was the first son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli, a branch of the Koena clan. While still under the tutelage of his father Lepoqo, as he was called at the time, played an important role in augmenting the power of the Bakoteli subclan by bringing the senior Sekake group and a number of Bafokeng clans, including the Makara and Ratsiu groups, under his father’s control.