Tswana People
Tswana People: The Bechuanaland Protectorate, which was founded in 1885, was the forerunner of the modern-day state of Botswana. Eight major Tswana chiefdoms—the Kgatla, Kwena, Lete, Ngwaketse, Ngwato, Tshidi-Rolong, Tawana, and Tlokwa—occupied the protectorate at the time of its establishment. The European “Scramble” for Africa in the late nineteenth century must be considered in the context of the protectorate’s creation.
In this instance, Tswana land was impacted by four primary external factors at the time: Cecil Rhodes’ expansionist push, German imperialism, Boer expansionism, and British imperialism. Tswana area south of the Molopo River, which was to serve as the protectorate’s southern border, has experienced instability since the late 1870s.
In pursuit of more territory, Boer freebooters from the Transvaal took advantage of and fostered divisions among Tswana chiefs. In southern Tswana, these freebooters established two minirepublics by forming partnerships with specific chiefs. When Germany declared a protectorate over southern Namibia in 1884, the British government was concerned about the potentially dangerous possibility of German territory connecting with the Transvaal across Bechuanaland.
The British took action; they established a protectorate over Tswana land south of the Molopo in 1884 and sent a military expedition led by General Charles Warren to expel the Boer freebooters in the first part of 1885. The British expanded the protectorate in September 1885 to include a sizable region north of the Molopo, which was bordered to the east by the Limpopo River and to the west by the German protectorate.
In 1890, Britain expanded the protectorate to the northern Chobe River in accordance with an agreement with Germany. At first, the creation of the Bechuanaland Protectorate was welcomed by two Tswana leaders, Khama of the Ngwato and Gaseitsiwe of the Ngwaketse. They saw the British presence as a safeguard against external dangers from the Ndebele to the northeast and from Transvaal Boers. Mineral prospectors turned their attention to the protectorate following the 1886 gold discovery on the Rand.
Adventurers who thought the Johannesburg gold reef would extend north and west introduced the protectorate to the hunt for a “second Rand.” Several of these explorers were granted mineral, land, and trading concessions by all of the principal Tswana chiefs in the protectorate starting in 1887. These concessions mostly turned out to be worthless.
Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company (BSAC) would eventually buy out certain concessionaires, while the British colonial government would finally forbid other concessions. The status and future of the protectorate became a topic of debate and contention in the late 1880s and early 1890s due to the imperial expansion and growing resource extraction in southern Africa.
Some people, including as Sir Henry Loch, the British high commissioner, and missionary John Mackenzie, wanted the protectorate to be a true British colony. (Protectorate status did not go as far as this, giving local chiefdoms a reasonable amount of independence.) The protectorate also played a significant role in Rhodes’s plans to expand.
He referred to the region as “the Suez Canal into the interior” because he considered it to be a vital conduit. The protectorate was supposed to be the entryway to the north in Rhodes’s ambitious Cape-to-Cairo plan, but it was also supposed to act as a stepping stone for Rhodes in the near future. Ngwato territory served as the starting point for the BSAC’s pioneer column, which was an expedition of European settlers who entered Mashonaland in 1890.
The business invaded Lobengula’s Ndebele kingdom three years later in a bold but dangerous move. The Ndebele’s ability to defend itself was weakened when an imperial force from the protectorate launched a supporting invasion, creating a second front. Meanwhile, in the early 1890s, there was still disagreement over the protectorate’s future status. Loch continued to push for imperial annexation. Rhodes demanded that the territory be transferred to the BSAC.
However, the Tswana leaders steadfastly rejected the company’s takeover. To protest such a takeover, three chiefs traveled to Britain in 1895: Khama, Sebele (the Kwena chief), and Bathoen (the Ngwaketse chief). In November 1895, an agreement was made whereby Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen would continue to enjoy a high degree of autonomy under imperial protection, but they would also cede to the BSAC a large portion of the protectorate’s western and northern regions as well as a narrow strip of land on their eastern border.
The eastern strip was turned over with the stated intention of building a railroad. The transfer was actually made to give Rhodes a platform from which to launch an invasion of the Transvaal. Leander Starr Jameson launched his shameful expedition into Kruger’s Transvaal republic from his stronghold at Pitsane in the protectorate within two months of the transfer, only to be humiliated by the Boers on January 2, 1896.
Ironically, the Jameson Raid saved northern Tswana from the same fate that had befallen the Shona and Ndebele, but it also destroyed Rhodes’ political career. In order to prevent the Tswana from being absorbed into a Rhodesian-style colony of white settlers, the British government abandoned plans to give the company a sizable portion of the protectorate following the raid. In the final fifteen years of the nineteenth century, colonialism had almost no positive effects on northern Tswana.
The eight Tswana chiefdoms inside the protectorate were intended to maintain their autonomy by virtue of their protectorate status. However, in reality, the protectorate’s tiny British government was always meddling in the internal affairs of the chiefdoms. Sir Sidney Shippard, who led that government from 1885 until 1895, was an authoritarian who demanded that the chiefs “obey the Government in all things lawful.”
Therefore, the British government reduced the authority of Tswana courts, interfered in dynastic conflicts, and overruled chiefs’ rights to sell concessions to prospectors and other businesspeople. The imperial government levied a 10-shilling “hut tax” on all homesteads in the protectorate in 1899 and arbitrarily divided the eight chiefdoms into reserves. Reducing colonial spending in the protectorate was another priority for the administration.
As a result, there was no funding allocated for development or welfare throughout these years. Health and education were not considered to be the province of the state. The local carrying trade was weakened as a result of the BSAC’s supervision of the railway’s development from Vryburg to Bulawayo between 1896 and 1897.
The final four years of the century were especially challenging for the people of the protectorate: the 1890s rinderpest epidemic destroyed around 90% of the cattle herds, followed by three years of drought and locust invasions. The protectorate was basically regarded as an imperial appendage from 1885 until 1899.
It was seen as a vital conduit for northern imperial development. It served as a springboard for bold, expansionist colonial endeavors. With the exception of annoying meddling in their domestic issues and disregard for their economic interests, imperial “protection” did little to benefit northern Tswana.
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