Inyati was established as a mission station at the behest of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in December 1859 by Robert Moffat after successfully leading a column of ox-drawn carts from Kuruman in Bechuanaland (modern-day Botswana), reaching the kraal (and probably the headquarters) of Matebele king Mzilikazi at Emhlangeni in western Zimbabwe, in October, 1859.
•
The village grew up around the Inyati mission, which established in 1859 by on land given to Robert Moffat and William Sykes of the London Missionary Society by the Ndebele king, Mzilikazi.
Reprisals followed, and in November 1837 the Boers decisively defeated Mzilikazi, who thereupon fled northward and eventually established himself on the site of the future Bulawayo in Zimbabwe.