Lobengula governed the Ndebele during a period of intensifying European competition in south-central Africa. He restricted immigration and refused to open his country freely to mining and hunting. His political tactics included moving from one town to another, setting European powers and concessionaires against one another, and delaying decisions in order to frustrate impatient outsiders.

As a longer-term strategy, Lobengula sought either a military alliance or protectorate status with Britain. He hoped this would counter German, Portuguese, and Afrikaner pressure and restrain colonial expansion from South Africa. The strategy initially preserved diplomatic room for manoeuvre, but it also exposed him to British officials and missionaries who presented colonial agreements as instruments of friendship and protection.

On 11 February 1888, Lobengula signed the agreement later known as the Moffat Treaty. Its terms restricted his ability to correspond or conclude treaties with foreign powers and required British approval for the sale, alienation, or cession of land under his control. The treaty thereby placed Matabeleland and Mashonaland within the British sphere of influence.

Cecil John Rhodes then sought exclusive mineral rights through the Rudd Concession. The written agreement granted the concessionaires extensive authority over the metal and mineral resources of Lobengula's kingdoms, principalities, and dominions, while promising him money, rifles, ammunition, and a steamboat. Conditions Lobengula regarded as part of the verbal agreement were not written into the final text and were therefore unenforceable under European contractual law.

Lobengula learned from John Kumalo, John Makunga, rival concessionaires, and his indunas that the concession had been interpreted in a manner that threatened his authority. He published a notice repudiating it in February 1889 and sent a delegation to London to ask Queen Victoria either to reject the treaty or to declare a protectorate over Matabeleland and Mashonaland. The delegation returned with royal greetings but no repudiation.

After Rhodes obtained a royal charter and settlers occupied Mashonaland in September 1890, Lobengula attempted to prevent war by appealing to Jameson, Rhodes, and the British government. In 1893, however, an invasion force entered Matabeleland. Lobengula chose evacuation rather than a suicidal attack against heavily armed settlers and auxiliaries, fled northward toward Northern Rhodesia, and died in flight while the Ndebele nation fell apart.