The Mandelas are direct descendants of the AmaHala clan, the ruling dynasty of the
Kingdom of AbaThembu; as a result, their leader has traditionally had a hereditary claim to both membership of the Thembu king's
privy council and the
chieftaincy of the town of
Mvezo that is subject to his authority. The family was started in the 18th century, when
King Ngubengcuka of the Thembus married and left a son named Mandela, the first of the direct line to bear the name. Prince Mandela was a son of a woman that belonged to the
Ixhiba House, a ritually inferior lineage when compared to his father's AmaHalas, and therefore his
cadet branch of the dynasty was deemed to be
morganatic. Due to this, in lieu of having a place in the line of succession, he and his heirs were recognized as
privy councillors thereafter. The prince's own son, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa Mandela, was later also given the title of the chief of Mvezo by his relative, the king of
Thembuland, as a further marker of the family's eminence. After being lost in the
Apartheid era, this chieftaincy has since been restored to the Mandelas. During the title's
abeyance, the claim to it passed to Chief Mandela's son
Nelson, who would never inherit it. Following his renunciation of it in order to become active in the anti-Apartheid movement, it would later pass to his sons
Thembekile and
Makgatho, and following their own early deaths, to Makgatho's son
Mandla. Chief Mandla Mandela would ultimately succeed to the title in 2007 following its restoration. ==Prominent members==