1
The Invention and Perpetuation of Botswana’s National Mythology, 1885-
1966
Nationalism, it has been noted many times, relies heavily on constructed histories,
signs, narratives, and identities.1 As Schlesinger has noted, “the invocation of
history is indispensable to nations and groups in the process of making
themselves.”2 Within Africa itself, the situation is probably little different. Afrikaner
Nationalism, for instance, has been the subject of several studies that demonstrated
exactly how intellectuals associated with the National Party constructed the notion
of the Afrikaners as a “chosen people” with the God-given right to create the system
of apartheid in South Africa.3 One could also point to scholarship on Zimbabwe as a
case where peasant consciousness and traditional religion shaped the ideology of
the nationalist movement.4
Nationalism in Botswana has been a highly successful unifying ideology since its
emergence in the late 1950s. Since then, people identifying as “Batswana” have to
a great extent abandoned their former ethnic and localized identities. Such factors
as identification with the South African liberation movements, and a national
schooling system using Setswana as a national language have been the key factors
involved in this shift of identity.5 Insofar as the popular use of history has
contributed to the growth of nationalist identity, this paper argues that two linked
1 Some now classic scholarship in this vein is B. Anderson, Imagined Communities:
Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. 2nd Ed. (London: Verso, 1991);
H. Bhaba, ed., Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990); and E. Hobsbawm,
The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (New York: Vantage, 1987), Ch. 6.
2 A. Schlesinger, Jr., The Dis-Uniting of America: Reflections on a Multi-Cultural
Society (New York: Norton, 1992), 48.
3 E.g. A. Du Toit, “No Chosen People: The Myth of Calvinist Origins of Afrikaner
Nationalism and Racial Ideology,” American Historical Review 88, 4 (1983): 920-52;
and L. Thompson, The Political Mythology of Apartheid (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1985).
4 E.g. see T. Ranger, Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe: A
Comparative Study (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1985).
5 See W. Edge, ed., The Autobiography of Motsamai Mpho (Gaborone: Lebopo,
1996): B. Morton and J. Ramsay, Comrade Fish: Memories of a Motswana in the ANC
Underground (Gaborone: Pula Press, 1999); T. Janson and J. Tsonope, The Making of
a National Language: The History of Setswana (Gaborone: Heinemann Botswana,
1991).
2
narratives lay at the heart of modern Tswana consciousness. These two combined
narratives, which will be referred to below as the “national mythology”, are
ubiquitous and can be recited in some version by the entire population. Because
both parts of the national mythology involve inter-ethnic collaboration and
consensus, they continue to resonate strongly with the citizens of the modern
nation-state.
In assessing the construction and perpetuation of Botswana’s national mythology,
the most striking aspect of the process is that they originated with fabrications
made by the British colonizers during the “Scramble for Africa” in order to mask
their predatory actions. Over the course of time, the peoples who came to be known
as “Batswana” took these prevarications and turned them against their colonizers in
the course of various political disputes. Batswana identity today—insofar as this
identity is derived from notions of history—is based on the belief that they asked
their colonizers to both colonize and protect them. Batswana thus internalize an
extremely passive, supplicant historical role—the complete opposite of what one
would expect in the case of one of Africa’s wealthiest democracies. As a result,
historical resistance figures who opposed colonization and conquest have been
forgotten, while “collaborators” have been enshrined as founding figures of the
nation. Such a situation is not, though, evidence of the success of a Gramsci-type
ideological hegemony. Rather, the construction of Botswana’s national mythology
supports Trouillot’s arguments from his monograph Silencing The Past—that
narratives that are alive in popular memory are created in a process contested by
both the structures of power and by their subjects. As the process unfolds, the
outcome is never a simple victory for the government or the elite, because even the
weakest groups have the ability to interpret their own history: “their subjectivity is
an integral part of the event and of any satisfactory description of the event.” 6
The Two Guarantees of Protection
Essentially, Botswana’s national mythology involves two separate (if sometimes
conflated) incidents in which Batswana of varying backgrounds begged the British
for “protection”. The first narrative involves a supplicant role in 1885 during the
“Scramble”, while the second narrative revolves around Queen Victoria’s
“guarantee” of protection to the delegation of Three Chiefs who went to see her in
London in 1895.
The first part of the narrative maintains that the Batswana invited the British to
take over their territories in 1885 in order to “protect” them from the Boers of the
Transvaal Republic.
6 R. M. Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1995), 24.
3
Your servants humbly showeth unto your Honour, that they became British
subjects not through conquest, of wars waged against the Imperial
Government, but that by choice they asked the late noble Queen Victoria
to protect them from the forces of the SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC, who
were continually threatening to molest them.7
In the last quarter of the century trouble began to break out between the
Batswana and the Boers across the border in the Transvaal. The Batswana
appealed to Britain for protection.8
In the late 19th century, hostilities broke out between the Batswana and
Boer settlers from the Transvaal. After appeals by the Batswana for
assistance, the British Government in 1885 put "Bechuanaland" under its
protection.9
Part two of the narrative maintains that in 1895 Queen Victoria
(“Mmamosadinyana”) personally guaranteed the continued “protection” of the
Botswana, an event that occurred when the visiting delegation of Bathoen I of the
Bangwaketse, Sebele I of the Bakwena, and Khama III of the Bangwato had an
audience with her at Windsor Castle. This guarantee was made in the context of
plans to hand over the Protectorate to Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa
Company (BSAC):
You will have been informed doubtless of the visit to England of certain of
the Protectorate Chiefs during the reign of your illustrious ancestress,
HER MAJESTY, the late Queen Victoria, whose memory still lives with us
,and when promises and pledges were given to the Chiefs, whereby they
and other protectorate Chiefs have ever since been bound more
indissolubly than ever in the loyalty to the throne of your fathers. 10
Our fathers were filled with a faith that can only be described as
wonderful and confidence in, and respect for British justice and fair play
crossed the seas to implore the protection of the Government of the Great
Queen. It was mere faith that made them do what they did, but we, their
7 Botswana National Archives (hereafter BNA) S. 17/1 fo. 63, Address of Acting Chief
Paul Montsioa to Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs [1929].
8 “Bechuanaland Fact Sheet,” Kutlwano 5, 5 (1966): insert.
9 “Botswana History,” Botswana Embassy, Washington,
D.C.http://www.botswanaembassy.org/page/history-of-botswana. Accessed June 28 2015.
10 BNA S. 42/2 Address by Isang to the Prince of Wales, June 1925.
4
children can now judge their actions. . . We pray that Our Mother stretch
her protecting wings all the closer about us and keep us warm, confident,
happy and helpful of growing….11
Local theatre legends also presented Botswana's long journey from a
British protectorate to an independent country…. The theatre group
showed the three dikgosi who went to Britain to ask for protection against
the Boers and John Cecil Rhodes who was constructing a railway line from
Cape to Cairo. Their mission in Britain was a success as Queen Victoria
acceded to their request after a long debate among the Queen's counsel
members.12
The Origins of Myth 1—Asking For Protection in 1885
The idea that Britain established the Bechuanaland Protectorate in 1885 at
the request of the Tswana chiefs for “protection” originated from British
government officials as a cover story for their annexation. The story sought
not only to achieve a British takeover of Tswana territory with a minimum of
military force, but also to perpetuate it afterwards with a classic Gramscian
lie that masked the true nature of events. Nor was it even the first time to
use this particular, tactic. In 1868, when the Cape Colony annexed
Basotholand following various hostilities between the Basotho and the Boers
of the Orange Free State, it allegedly did so because King Moshoeshoe
“appealed to be taken under the authority of the Queen.”13
Great Britain’s desire to annex the Bechuanaland Protectorate was made
during negotiations with Germany during the Berlin Conference. Although the
areas of modern-day Botswana were not initially on the table, British officials
grew increasingly anxious regarding German intentions once a German
presence was established in Namibia in 1884. In December of that year
British intelligence indicated that the German takeover of lands east of
Namibia was imminent. This intelligence reached Downing St. quickly and
was acted upon.
11 BNA S. 535/12/3 fo. 30 Address by unnamed group of “Bamangwato” to Patrick
Gordon-Walker, Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, [January 1951].
12 “Batswana Look Beyond 2016,” Botswana Daily News 2 March 2015.
13 Union of South Africa GP S.32791-1952-3-500 Negotiations Regarding the Union
of South Africa of the Government of Basutoland, the Bechuanaland Protectorate
and Swaziland, 5.
5
I have been confidentially told that the ultimate aim of the German
Government is to possess a belt of country stretching from the coast to
Zanzibar, so as to cut off our Colonies from the interior. Ministers consider
this information to be so important as to justify them in again urging upon
Her Majesty’s Imperial Government the necessity for preserving, in the
interests of the Empire, outlets for British trade northward of
Bechuanaland to the Zambesi. Any such course as that which it is
apprehended will be taken by the German Government would seriously
affect the expansion of British trade in South and South-Central Africa. 14
Or, as the Colonial Secretary understood the matter: “the extended protection
up to Shoshong. It was adopted mainly in view of the fear of the Germans.” 15 On the
27th of January 1885 an Order-In-Council placed the Kalahari south of the 22 nd
parallel under British control, and this declaration was made public in March when it
was announced at the Berlin Conference. 16 In order to make these declarations a
physical reality, a 5,000 man force led by General Charles Warren was assembled to
occupy the territory, while the veteran London Missionary Society preacher John
Mackenzie was attached to the military column to lead negotiations with the Tswana
chiefs.
Warren and Mackenzie’s discussions on the eve of their invasion of the new
Protectorate led them to come up with the big lie that they had been invited in.
There they debated “the course which should be taken to bring this step on the part
of Her Majesty’s Government to the notice of the chiefs whose countries and people
were affected by the announcement.”17 Warren was opposed to a naked exercise of
power, preferring the option of convincing the Tswana Chiefs to sign treaties, and in
this way to achieve “submission without bloodshed” 18 As a result he began to leak
information to members of his expedition who were moonlighting as newspaper
correspondents, and conflicting reports began to appear in South African
newspapers regarding a numerous Tswana chiefs who had requested British
14 Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO) Colonial Office (hereafter CO) 879/24/305
Encl in No 43, Thomas Upington, Confidential Minute, December 30 1884.
15 Colonial Office Minute by Lord Fairfield in London, 2 May 1885, repr in A. Dachs, ed., The
Papers of John Mackenzie (Johannesburg: University of Witwatersrand Press, 1975), 194.
16 PRO CO 870/22/292 Earl of Derby to Hercules Robinson 14 March 1885.
17 J. Mackenzie, Austral Africa: Using it or Losing It (???), II, 230.
18 Ibid, II, 230, 267.
6
“protection” from Boer aggression.19 By the time that Warren’s expedition arrived in
the new Protectorate, the Batswana leaders were already aware from these
published reports that their sovereignty had been lost—apparently at their own
request. Hence Warren’s discussion with Sebele I of the Bakwena.
(Sebele.) Why is our country to be taken from us?
(General.) What does Sechele understand by his country being taken
under protection?
(Sebele, the chief’s eldest son.) I say it has been taken, because we have
never been asked.
(General.) I read out a Protectorate had been established.
(Sebele.) What are we protected from? What is the matter?
(General.) Do you think you require no protection?
(Sebele.) What do you mean by protection?
(General.) Protection may mean protecting from outside, and at the same
time guarding you from inside…. Is there, then, nothing you want
guarding against?
(Sebele.) It may be known to you, Sir; we don’t know it…..
(General.) Does he [Sechele] wish me to tell the Queen he wants no
protection; he can protect himself?
(Sebele.) He does not want any protection; he only wants friendship.” 20
This exchange alone clearly demonstrates that Batswana had not asked Britain for
protection versus the Transvaal Boers. As the famed Tswana leader Tshekedi Khama
later noted, “when the protection was brought to us, we did not know what this
protection meant….”21 The British assertion, meanwhile, that the Tswana were in
danger from aggression emanating from the Transvaal Republic simply did not hold
water. Although a war had been fought between a Tswana coalition and the
Transvaal Republic between 1852-3, the resulting standoff led to a permanent
border being established as well as cordial relations between the two sides. From
19 See Natal Mercury 2 April 1885 and various reports in Natal Witness from
February-April 1885. These and other newspaper sources are discussed in J.
Ramsay, “The Rise and Fall of the Bakwena Dynasty of South-central Botswana
1820-1940” (Ph.D Dissertation, Botston University, 1991), 171-2.
20 PRO CO 879/24/317 Encl in No. 5 “Diamond Fields Times, Tues May 12. “Sir Charles
Warren at Sechele’s.” [April 27 1885].
21 Tour of His Excellency the High Commissioner for South Africa, Sir Herbert
Stanley CGMG, in the Bechuanaland Protectorate 17 th-31st August 1931 (Mafeking:
Government Printer, 1931), 32.
7
the time of Sechele’s 1856 visit to Pretoria and the establishment of the
Protectorate in 1885 there are no recorded incidents of violence or antagonism
between the Transvaal Boers and any Batswana living north of the Molopo River.
Meanwhile, there was considerable diplomacy, trade, hunting, and migration
between the two sides. Any suggestion that there was a state of hostility between
the Batswana and the Transvaal Republic after 1856 is simply false. 22
During May 1885 three of the Tswana chiefs, Khama III of the Bangwato, Bathoen I
of the Bangwaketse, and Sechele I of the Bakwena, were cajoled or induced to sign
treaties with the English by Warren and Mackenzie. Of the three, Khama was the
most accommodating, while Bathoen and Sechele were less than enthusiastic. No
exact laws or binding agreements were negotiated since the British wished to
“confine ourselves to preventing that part of the Protectorate being occupied… by
Foreign powers.”23 As a result, the British government’s goals were achieved:
The Bechuanaland Protectorate was destined to confer a richer benefit
upon Her Majesty’s Government in South Africa than that Government had
planned for in first assuming it. Gradually the light of reality dawned on
reluctant minds; and what was undertaken professedly on behalf of two
native allies turned out to be indispensable to the continued supremacy of
England in South Africa.24
On September 30th the situation was cemented when the Batswana south of the
Molopo River were placed under the control of the Cape Colony, while the
Bechuanaland Protectorate incorporated the areas inhabited by the Bangwaketse,
Bakwena, Bangwato and other chiefdoms further north.
Queen Victoria’s Meeting With the Three Chiefs 1895 and the origins of
Myth 2
22 See Ramsay, “Rise and Fall,” 113-6, and “The 1852-3 Batswana-Boer War: How
the Batswana Achieved Victory,” Botswana Notes & Records 23 (1991): 193-208. It
is true that “freebooters” and “filibusters” established the two short-lived republics,
Stellaland and Goshen, in the area of the modern-day Northern Cape, in the early
1880s, on land seized from the southern Tswana. None of this activity had much to
do with the peoples of modern-day Botswana. These filibusters in any case took far
less land and killed far fewer people than the British colonial forces that seized
Griqualand following the diamond discoveries.
23 British Parliamentary Papers (hereafter BPP) C. 4588, Stanley to Robinson, 13
August 1885.
24 Mackenzie, Austral Africa, II, 209.
8
British policy toward the Bechuanaland Protectorate changed very soon after its
initial annexation. The Gladstone government that had taken over the area was
soon out of office, and the successor administrations had no plan for it. The
Protectorate, according to those who inherited it, was “in its very essence a
temporary make-shift intended to fill the gap between barbarism and direct
annexation to the British Empire.”25 A minimum level of authority was established,
and life went on much as before until Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company
received its charter in 1890. From this point onwards, the British government was
obligated to hand the Protectorate over to Rhodes, since the very first clause of the
company’s charter (signed by Queen Victoria herself) expressly included the
Bechuanaland Protectorate in it.26
During the next five years the Protectorate was prepared for its transition towards
Chartered rule. Most senior officials in the Protectorate were corrupted by Rhodes,
and the area was used as a staging ground for the conquest of Zimbabwe. 27 Several
Chiefs sought to stymie Rhodes’s actions by granting concessions to rival
syndicates, while Rhodes’s men in turn used a variety of underhanded tactics to
undermine his Tswana opponents. Resident Commissioner Sir Sidney Shippard,
meanwhile, crafted plans for the wholesale alienation of Tswana land. 28 His
underlings mapped out a host of tiny reserves and reserving ninety percent of the
country for White occupancy. By early 1895 it became clear to the world that the
transfer of the Protectorate to Rhodes was imminent. Given the vague nature of the
treaties signed with the British earlier, the Tswana chiefs had no means to oppose
becoming Rhodes’s subjects—a prospect they viewed with trepidation. 29 The only
means at their disposal to overcome the situation was to appeal to public opinion in
25 African Review, 12 October 1895.
26 “Charter of the British South Africa Company,” Pall Mall Gazette December 20
1889.
27 See P. Maylam, Rhodes, the Tswana and the British: Colonialism, Collaboration
and Conflict in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1885-1899 (Westport, Conn:
Greenwood Press, 1980).
28 See Colonial Office Confidential Print (hereafter COCP) 879 No. 498 Chamberlain
to Robinson 14 November 1895 and 30 December 1895; Colonial Office to Goold-
Adams, 15 November 1895; BNA HC 196/1 Robinson to Newton, 17 December 1895.
29 Parsons, King Khama, Emperor Joe and the Great White Queeen: Victorian Britain
through African Eyes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 52-62.
9
the United Kingdom, and this they did. To do so, they decided to use Warren and
Mackenzie’s promises of “protection” to their own political advantage.
The journey of Bathoen, Khama, and Sebele to England to protest their transfer into
Rhodes’s empire has assumed mythical proportions in Botswana’s historical
consciousness. To all extent and purposes, the Three Chief’s Monument in
downtown Gaborone today is the national monument. Parsons’s monograph has
described the journey in detail, and makes clear that the Tswana leaders captured
the public’s attention in England, appearing before large crowds at appearances
arranged by their LMS hosts. Khama III, who had banned alcohol and had
established a Christian state on his territory, in particular had wide support from
temperance and evangelical voters.30 Additionally, Khama’s considerable assistance
to Rhodes in the conquest of Matabeleland—in supplies, in troops, and in allowing
his territory to be used as a staging ground—meant that he was popular with pro-
imperialist sentiment. He had “earned the gratitude of all Englishmen who are
interested in the expansion of South Africa,” and was also “the one man in Africa
who case commands the sympathy of a large section of the British public.” 31 As a
result of the popularity of the visit, the Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph
Chamberlain agreed to make some concessions to the chiefs regarding the integrity
of their territories, and the potential of land losses was mitigated. 32
Following this seeming victory in their negotiations with Chamberlain, the Chiefs
ventured to Windsor Castle in November for an audience with Queen Victoria. Once
there “they were introduced to the Queen’s presence by the Right Honourable J.
Chamberlain, M.P. (Secretary of State for the Colonies) to express their feelings of
loyalty and the desire to remain under Her Majesty’s rule to which the Queen made
a gracious reply.”33 The Queen, for her part, was unwilling to get involved in a
difficult political matter, and told the Chief’s they should obey their colonial
masters’ wishes:
I am pleased that the chiefs have had the opportunity of coming to see me
here. My minister has told me of their unswerving loyalty. I approve of the
30 Ibid.
31 See African Review, September 7 1895.
32 Parsons, King Khama, 87-90, 201-11; J. Mockford, Seretse Khama and the
Bamangwato (London: Staples Press, 1950), 123-7. The British government
essentially decided to wait until Khama’s death until reducing the size of the
reserves.
33 Cape Argus Home Edition, 23 November 1895.
10
decision of my Ministers that the sale of strong drink shall be prohibited in
your country and that those who attempt to deal in it or supply it to the
natives shall be severely punished. Chiefs, your duty is to obey my laws
and respect the officers who are put among you as my representatives. I
thank you very much for your beautiful gifts, and I wish you and your
people prosperity.34
Following this speech, gifts were exchanged between the two parties. Due to the
later importance of the items involved it is worth quoting in full:
The chiefs then presented their offerings of skins of leopards, etc, which
they had brought from South Africa. Her majesty was graciously pleased
to accept these presents, and gave to each of the chiefs a Bible in the
Sechwana language, a large portrait of herself, and an Indian shawl for
each of the chief’s wives.35
The meeting was thus routine and insignificant—very much the stock audience the
Queen gave visiting potentates from the Empire, with the short speeches, the gift of
Bibles, and the hasty exit. Nothing had actually happened, and no promises of any
sort were made.
When the Chiefs returned to the Protectorate they were met by massive crowds,
consisting of Batswana from across the Protectorate.36 There can be no doubt that
contemporary Batswana viewed the mission to England as one of critical
importance, and few events during the rest of the colonial era engendered such a
national response. The message of the Chiefs to these crowds, though, did not make
any mention of promises by the Queen.
Our dikgosi had visited the Europeans; they also went to see the Queen,
and they saw her and talked with her…. The names of the dikgosi are
Sebele, Khama and Bathoen. We were without them for five months….
They say that the nation of the Queen received them well, including the
Queen and Parliament…. We have hope that God has heard these prayers
and he will accordingly save us. Let it be like that.
34 Mockford, Seretse Khama, 128.
35 Cape Argus Home Edition, 23 November 1895.
36 For a long description of the Chief’s return see R. Motswetla, “The Arrival of the
Tswana Chiefs,” 15 January 1896, in Volz and Mgadla, eds, Words of Batswana:
Letters to Mahoko a Becwana, 1883-1896 (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 2006),
261.
11
Within two weeks of the Chief’s return home in late December they unwittingly
achieved victory. The failure of Rhodes’s mercenaries to foment a coup in the
Transvaal Republic during the Jameson Raid soon after New Year meant that Rhodes
was permanently disgraced and lost his influence with the British government. 37 The
Colonial Office reversed its plans to hand over the Protectorate to the BSAC, as were
the plans to alienate Tswana lands to White settlement. The idea that the Queen
had personally guaranteed continued British imperial rule, though, was soon to
emerge. The claim was first made within months by Khama’s right-hand man.
But we are not worried. Will the word that has been said by the great
Queen and her person, Mr. Chamberlain, change? I say, no, it will not
change, because the Great Majesty, the Queen, has told her Secretary in
London that the land has been judged to be ours. There is no one who will
enter in the controversial way that they want to. Let God wait upon the
words that have been spoken by the dikgosi Khama, Bathoen and Sebele
in front of the Queen and Mr. Chamberlain.38
The sudden collapse of Rhodes’s plans, then, gave the Batswana a reprieve. Both
elements of what would become the national mythology were known in 1895, but
would not be mentioned again until they were resurrected some fourteen years
later.
Using the Myths: The Incorporation Issue, 1909-10
If the Batswana had won a pyrrhic victory over the BSAC following the Jameson
Raid, it took a number of years before they began to claim victory as a result of the
1895 visit to England. The impetus for the development of the Tswana national
mythology lay in the political tactics of its leaders after the South African War. In the
early years of the century, following the defeat of the Boer republics, Lord Milner
and the British government decided to unify South Africa for the first time, while
also amalgamating the four South African provinces, Natal, Transvaal, Cape Colony,
and Orange Free State, with the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Basutoland, and
Swaziland.
The prospect of being incorporated into the new, unified South African state
horrified practically all Batswana within the Bechuanaland Protectorate. In large
measure this was due to the British betrayal of their African allies during the South
African War, following which Africans were denied the vote by Milner. The years
37 K. Shillington, An African Adventure: A Brief Life of Cecil Rhodes (Bishop’s
Stortford, UK: Rhodes Memorial Museum, 1993), 47-50.
38 R. Motswetla, “Khama and His Government,” 8 March 1896, in Volz and Mgadla,
eds, Words of Batswana, 261.
12
when Milner and the British government controlled South Africa, 1902-10, were the
ones in which racial segregation was imposed for the first time in South Africa, and
the British ideal of non-racial democracy, formerly enshrined in the Cape Colony,
was now abandoned. Instead, the defeated Boers were given all their land back by
the British, and Boer demands for an all-white franchise were accepted as the basis
for a unified South African dominion. In addition, white South Africans were
engaging in open discussions about "the native question" in great detail amongst
themselves, and ended up restricting black land ownership in 1913. 39
As a result of not wanting to be incorporated as part of this new and hostile Union,
leading Batswana dikgosi within the Bechuanaland Protectorate sought to join other
Africans in South Africa who opposed the passing of the South Africa Act by the
British Parliament in 1910, an act which would enshrine the policies promoted by
Milner. This led to their involvement with the Coloured and Native Peoples'
Delegation, a South African coalition opposed to the new and evolving racial order
in South Africa.
The Delegation sent a large number of delegates to England in late 1909 to lobby
politicians and educate the public, a delegation that was ultimately unsuccessful.
The Batswana chiefs did not go to England this time themselves, but Bathoen I of
the Bangwaketse instead had a South African negrophile, Joseph Gerrans, go to
England to represent him. Of all the member of the delegation, Gerrans would prove
to be the most successful.
Bathoen, who had of course some name recognition in Britain due to his visit in
1895, had Gerrans place in The Times a long story in which speeches made by
himself and Sebele to the South African High Commissioner, Lord Selborne, were
reprinted. In these speeches, both digkosi raise their objections to incorporation
based upon their alleged bond with Queen Victoria and the British people. The
theme most heavily played on by Bathoen was the seeming betrayal by the British
benefactors of their Batswana protegés, who had so innocently come to them
asking for protection before:
I am under the King--King Edward....We are thankful for the protection we
enjoy today. To be handed over--no....When a man is born under one
Government how can he be happy under another? If we go, we go simply
as a result of compulsion; but our hearts will be left behind. 40
39 L. Thompson, The Unification of South Africa: 1902-1910 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1961).
40The Times (London) July 24 1909.
13
Bathoen played up the seemingly “indissoluble” bond that existed between the
Batswana and Queen Victoria, as a result of their 1895 visit. Referring to gifts that
the Queen had allegedly given them at Windsor Palace, he noted:
A ring is the sign of an indissoluble bond. This ring was given to me by the
late Queen Victoria . . .as a proof that the promises made me would never
be broken and that the Bangwaketsi would for ever remain under the
protection of her majesty.... it is a token that what had been agreed upon
should not be upset. Is that not what a ring signifies marriage? 41
Holding his ring aloft, Bathoen then called for Sebele to raise his as well, “which the
latter immediately did by raising his hand, on which all could see a similar ring.” 42
Bathoen's appeal through the British press, limited as it was to a single newspaper
article, albeit reprinted by many other local newspapers in Britain, proved
remarkably successful. The Times, for instance, noted that “the speeches of these
barbarian chiefs, even as reported in English, are far better reading than the
speeches of most European statesmen.”43 Ordinary citizens, although in numbers
that are difficult to gauge, lobbied their MPs to oppose any move to incorporate the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, and during the debates over the South Africa Act a solid
block of MPs opposed any hint of a motion for incorporation. The matter was simply
put off, for reasons that are not yet understood. 44 So while black South Africans lost
their rights with the arrival of the Union, Batswana retained their rights to own land
within their own country, and also to maintain whatever leverage they could
politically under the auspices of indirect rule.
The Continuation of the Anti-Incorporation Rhetoric, 1911-60
41Ibid.
42BNA S. 39/7 Acting Resident Commissioner to High Commissioner, January 12th
1909. The ARC believed that the rings were in fact given to the Chiefs by
Chamberlain, not the Queen, which is probably true, since the rings were not
mentioned in press accounts of the 1895 visit. See above.
43The Times July 28 1909.
44The question of why the Bechuanaland Protectorate was excluded from the Union
is not clear. For instance, it is ignored in L. Thompson’s tome, The Unification of
South Africa. Parsons’ short investigation into the matter is probably near the truth,
maintaining that residual BSAC mining rights across the Protectorate, combined with
Khama III’s status in Britain, were the critical factors. See Q.N. Parsons, “Khama III,
the Bamangwato and the British, with special reference to 1895 to 1923,” (Ph.D
diss, Edinburgh University, 1973), 306-11.
14
Bathoen’s ability to turn the rhetoric of protection back against the British set the
tone for another fifty years of public discourse in the Protectorate. For another half
century Batswana leaders adopted some variation of his appeal, though usually in
less dramatic fashion. Still, it was the repeated use of the myth, at august and
important occasions that cemented the myth’s continuation. If perhaps, in the
earlier decades of the century, the Batswana who used the alleged compact with
the Queen were cynical in their public discourse, by the 1940s they and all their
listeners believed it wholeheartedly. This development should not surprise us, as
Hobsbawm has already noted that “inventing traditions. . . is essentially a process
of formalization and ritualization, characterized by reference to the past, if only by
imposing repetition.”45
The real reason for the continuous need to bring back the myth was the constant
threat of incorporation into the Union, a fact that hovered over the inhabitants of
the Protectorate until the late 1950s. On no less than six occasions between 1910
and 1960, the government of the Union explicitly demanded the transfer of
Bechuanaland (and the other two southern African protectorates, Basutoland and
Swaziland).46 In the minds of the Batswana, the prospect of becoming part of the
Union was just as obnoxious as the earlier possibility of living under Company rule
had been.
Hence, the visit by the Price of Wales to the Protectorate in 1925 proved a time to
convey anti-transfer sentiments. The arrival of members of the English monarchy
would always prove to be an excellent mythmaking occasion, as Batswana felt that
they could communicate directly with the descendants of “the Mother Queen of
loving and noble memory”47 and thus reinvigorate the connection of 1895.
Your welcome visit at once reminds us of how Her Majesty Queen Victoria,
whose blessed memory shall never be forgotten by us, embraced us under
her Imperial Protection to deliver us from the invasions of neighbouring
tribes. It reminds us how, foreseeing on-coming troubles, our three chiefs,
namely Bathoen, Sebele, and Khama deemed it prudent to cross the seas
unknown to them in order that they might obtain eagerly required
45E. Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in E. Hobsbawm and T.
Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (London: Cambridge University Press, 1983),
4.
46See Tshekedi Khama, Bechuanaland and South Africa. With an introduction by M.
Perham (London: Africa Bureau, 1955), 6; and also R. Hyam, The Failure of South
African Expansionism 1908-1948 (London: Macmillan, 1972).
47BNA S.4/2/2 Address by the Barolong to the Prince of Wales, 18 June 1925.
15
protection from a superior and powerful nation....We pray we may remain
as a Protectorate as long as the British flag waves.48
Although the Union government had made some efforts to incorporate the
Protectorates before, it was really in the late 1920s and 1930s that it placed greater
pressure on the British government. In 1926, at the Imperial Conference, South
African Prime Minister Hertzog got the British Secretary of State for the Colonies,
Amery, to promise to investigate the issue.49 Hence, we find that on Amery’s
subseuqent visit to the Protectorate, in 1927, the reemergence of Bathoen-type
overtures made to him directly:
Your servants humbly showeth unto your Honour, that they became British
subjects not through conquest, of wars waged against the Imperial
Government, but that by choice they asked the late noble Queen Victoria
to protect them from the forces of the then SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC,
who were constantly threatening to molest them.50
Such overtures, made fairly repeatedly by the Batswana chiefs at public gatherings
and private meetings, seem to have impressed Amery, who responded to such
overtures by Bakwena Chief Sebele II: “They can rest assured that His Majesty will
continue to accord them the privileges granted by Queen Victoria to Chief Sebele
I.”51
Subsequent visits by other notables to the Protectorate resulted in similar forms of
address, even by leaders of ethnic groups unrelated to the Bangwato, Bangwaketse,
and Bakwena. For instance, a Kalanga chief, Ramokate, pleaded to the High
Commissioner in 1931:
My tribe, called the Bakhurutshe, and I are very pleased to see one who is
great, and under whom our country the Protectorate is, and who reminds
us of the mercy of our grandmother, the Queen, who left us some years
ago. Under that flag of England overseas and with that promise to our
forefathers we live happily even now. We fully believe that under the
British Government there is protection.... May God help his excellency,
48Ibid, Address by Ntebogang to Prince of Wales. Practically the same thing is said
by Chiefs Linchwe, Sebele II, and Seboko Mokgosi, same file.
49Hyam, Failure of Expansionism, 105-6.
50BNA S. 17/1, f.63, copy of address to Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs by
Acting Chief Paul Montsioa [1927].
51Ibid, f.209 Annex D, speech of Amery at Gaberones [1927].
16
who is above us, that he be merciful, big-hearted and soft-hearted like the
Queen.52
In the early 1930s the pressure placed on Britain by the South Africans increased,
particularly after the Great Depression made it increasingly difficult for the British to
support the territory. Thus, the South Africans, with their economy booming as a
result of the gold bonanza of the times, offered to develop the region if it were given
to them. It was at this time that incorporation threat loomed its greatest.
Leading the campaign against incorporation was Khama III’s youngest son, Tshekedi
Khama, who served as Bangwato regent from 1926-52. The young regent, as Hyam
has noted, “played a larger part than any other African in anti-transfer publicity.” 53
Tshekedi, who investigated every aspect of the protection issue in his role as regent
due to several court cases he fought over the division of power between the chiefs
and the Protectorate government, was well aware that the Batswana had not asked
for protection from the British in 1885.54 Like practically all the other Batswana of
his time, he was completely against his country being incorporated into the Union.
When addressing a non-British audience, he gave his reasons for this quite openly—
he was opposed to racial discrimination and segregation in South Africa, in addition
to the fact that he feared the loss of land and political rights as a result of transfer.
Moreover, he felt that the peoples of the Protectorate were better off economically
than Africans in the various reserves in South Africa, and hence saw no reason to
want to join the Union.55 But in dealing with the British public, who had some say
over his future, Tshekedi was willing, like his predecessors, to play to the emotions
and appeal to the British to keep the promises that they had allegedly made to their
poor, humble, Batswana allies. Thus on the visit of Prince George to the Protectorate
in 1934, he drew up a large banner, with a message inscribed over the replica of a
lion kaross, reading:
We rejoice to see in our midst the Great Grandson of our never-to-be-
forgotten mother, Queen Victoria, as this is evidence of the King’s
52Bechuanaland Protectorate, Tour of His Excellency the High Commissioner For
South Africa Sir Herbert Stanley, GCMG, in the Bechuanaland Protectorate 17th-31st
August, 1931, 45. Other speeches in same volume along theme are those by Kgari
Sechele and Tshekedi Khama.
53Failure of Expansion, 143.
54See, The Case For Bechuanaland, (s.1., n.p. [1946), Ch.7.
55Tshekedi Khama, “The Protectorates: A Reply to the Propaganda for the
Incorporation of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Within the Union,” South African
Outlook 65 (May 1935): 92-5.
17
mindfulness even of a small people. May the loyal remembrances and
unswerving devotion of Khama’s widow and people be conveyed to our
King.56
Tshekedi understood and used both aspects of the protection myth in his extensive
propaganda attempts through the British press. In 1885, Warren had acted “to
protect the people from the in-rush into the country of the unruly people from
outside the territories whom otherwise the Chiefs might not have had the power to
control.”57 Such facts therefore made it highly irregular for the British to now
consider transferring the Batswana to the Union:
A protectorate would then appear to have been explained to mean
protecting from overflooding of native territories by people from other
countries; protection to keep off other civilized Powers from interfering
with the territories, and finally the British Government’s acceptance of the
position of guardianship of the rights of the native people. 58
Directly comparing the 1895 situation with the contemporary incorporation threat,
Tshekedi quoted liberally from the three chiefs:
There is no government that we can trust as we trust that of the Great
Queen.
The Queen’s government should not throw them away as if they were
troublesome children who would not listen to their mother’s words. 59
The upshot of past promises of protection, Tshekedi showed:
If these words were a sufficient reason to dissuade the Queen to hand
over to the Bechuanaland Protectorate to the control of the Chartered
56BNA BTAdmin, see drawing of banner, “To H.R.H. The Prince George, KG, etc.,”
dated 20 March 1934. Tshekedi’s address to the Prince, paraphrased in Bulawayo
Chronicle, 24 March 1934, reads: “these visits of great-grandsons of the never-to-
be-forgotten Queen Victoria were greatly appreciated....Tshekedi asked that the
arrangements made by Chief Khama and other chiefs with Queen Victoria for the
protection of British rule should be prolonged. In fact, several native chiefs made
this request to the Prince.”
57Idem, A Statement to the British Parliament and People (London: Anti-Slavery and
Aborigines Protection Society, 1935), 6.
58Ibid, 7.
59Ibid, 11.
18
Company against their wish, it is even today a stronger argument against
incorporation in view of the apparent cleavage between the British
Government and the Union Government....if such connections are annulled
by severance of the Bechuana tribes from the British people and by
handing these tribes over to the Government of the Union against their
wish, then one can reasonably say our protection by the Great King would
be lost and the tribes be left without protection which was the essence of
the agreement between the Queen of England and themselves. 60
By the time of the outbreak of World War II, the Protectorate was still under British
control, and the incorporation issue died out as the fight versus the Nazis took
precedence. In this atmosphere, even the Union government agreed that “the
question of transfer should be placed in abeyance.” 61 As a result, the mythology of
protection, which had been used so heavily since 1926, was dropped. Whereas
Tshekedi and all manner of other Tswana leaders had appealed to the myth
previously,62 during the war the old mantra of “loyalty” was trotted out endlessly in
public occasions. So as a stream of British officials visited the Protectorate to ensure
that the country was being mobilized for the war effort, not once did a single
Tswana chief raise the protection issue in a public speech, as far as can be
determined.63
After World War II, with the rise to power of the Nationalist Party in South Africa, few
British politicians seriously considered that transfer could take place. However,
despite the fact that British were no longer interested, the Nationalist leaders
continued to agitate for it, often in a belligerent manner. In this light they also
turned their League of Nations Mandate, Namibia, into a de facto province of South
Africa. Backing up such official actions was the rhetoric of the white settler farmers
in the Protectorates, who even though small in number were vocal and had equal
access to officials.64
60Ibid, 12.
61Hyam, Failure of Expansionism, 163.
62See for instance, BNA S. 423/4 various speeches enclosed in Reilly to Priestman
19 June 1935, dealing with tour of the Protectorate by the High Commissioner Sir
Henry Clark.
63See BNA S. 198/5-15, which has copious documentation of speeches delivered
from 1941-5.
64See Hyam, Failure of Expansionism, Ch. 8; Khama, Bechuanaland and South
Africa.
19
Likewise the visit to the Protectorate of the Royal family in April 1947 served as a
perfect occasion in which to affirm loyalty and to protest against potential
incorporation. The High Commissioner, whose speech in Setswana was read to a
massive throng that came to greet the royals at Lobatse, itself managed to link the
royal party, Queen Victoria, the Three Kings, and protection together within the
space of several sentences. But the highlight of the visit, from a Tswana standpoint,
was the speech of Bathoen II, the grandson of one of the original three Chiefs.
Wearing the ceremonial dress of the Royal Horse Guards, and carrying a sword of
such size that practically threatened to cause him to fall over, Bathoen addressed to
the King on behalf of the Batswana people, assembled 25,000 strong for the
occasion:
We, the peoples of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, together with our
Chiefs, express our gratification at Your Majesty’s presence in our
country....Your great-grandmother, the noble Queen Victoria, whose
memory is ever held in affectionate esteem by us. It was on that occasion
that our fathers received the great benefit of the protection of the British
Crown which we continue to enjoy in full.65
Bathoen’s uniform, which Khama III had purchased in 1895 from a theatrical
company in London, added to the occasion. Just as Bathoen I had added the rings to
the inventory of gifts allegedly granted them by the Queen, now his grandson
added military uniforms. After the formal ceremonies were over, Bathoen and
Tshekedi had a chance to chat with their visitors: “After tea the King talked to the
Chiefs for about 10 minutes. I heard him ask Tshekedi where he got his uniform and
Tshekedi trotted out the old story about Queen Victoria and Chief Khama.” 66
Following the episode, fiction became fact, as even the official account of the King’s
journey notes that Bathoen’s uniform “had been bestowed upon his grandfather by
Queen Victoria in 1895.”67
By the end of the 1950s the hysteria over incorporation faded as the spirit of
decolonization arose, and the British government distanced itself from the
65BNA S. 109/2 Address to King by Bathoen, draft. The myth is also propagated in
similar language in Naledi Ya Batswana Souvenir Brochure, Bechuanaland Royal
Visit, n.d.
66Ibid, Sillery to Baring 24 April 1947.
67D. Morrah, The Royal Family in Africa. Foreword by J.C. Smuts (London:
Hutchinson, 1947, 121, and see the uniforms in the photo, p76. On the origins of
these uniforms, and on the role of military dress in Tswana colonial pageantry, see
A. Makin, Across the Kalahari Desert (London: Arrowsmith, 1930), Ch. 22, “A Comic
Opera Army.”
20
Nationalist party in South Africa. By the time Harold Macmillan visited southern
Africa in 1960 to deliver his “winds of change” addresses, it was clear that
incorporation would never happen. As he noted in Francistown during his one hour
visit to the Protectorate:
The United Kingdom will continue to afford assistance and protection to
Bechuanaland....the obligation that we assumed when the Bechuanaland
Protectorate came into existence is one that we shall scrupulously fulfill.
There is no doubt about that.68
With the apparent end of the incorporation threat, one would have thought that
once and for all the protection myth would have died out with it. Constant
reiteration, though, had diffused the myth across the Protectorate, and the old idea
came to serve new purposes, which served the contending needs of neocolonialism
and nationalism.
Nationalism, Neocolonialism and the Renewal of the Myth, 1953-66
British officials, particularly after 1908, rarely attempted to use the mythology of
protection in order to cement their hegemony over the Batswana. In fact, they had
become mere hearers of the myth. All this changed in the 1950s as decolonization
proceeded apace, and the British sought to tie her long-time subjects to her by
incorporating Botswana into the Commonwealth, a tie which would hopefully keep
Botswana pro-western in the era of the Cold War. At the very same time the British
were proceeding with their neocolonial strategems, a fully-fledged nationalism
emerged in the Protectorate. Several avowedly nationalist political parties were
formed, and the view that the peoples of the Protectorate formed a cohesive
country called “Botswana” became dominant among the politically active.
Practically all the new activists eschewed tribalism, and sought to build up support
from across the nation.69 Nationalists, like the British, also appealed to the
mythology of protection in order to garner support.
There is no room to explore the various machinations engaged in by the British
during their last decade in control of the Protectorate. In short, they backed a group
of moderates led by Seretse Khama, the grandson of Khama III. Seretse and his
Bechuanaland Democratic Party (BDP) essentially became the protegés of the
68Address of Welcome To and Reply By the Right Honourable Harold Macmillan M.P.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom...on the occasion of his visit to Francistown,
Bechuanaland Protectorate 27th January, (Mafeking: Government Printer, 1960), 18.
69 See A. Murray, H. Nengwenkhulu, and J. Ramsay, “The Formation of Political
Parties,” in F. Morton and J. Ramsay, eds., The Birth of Botswana: A History of the
Bechuanaland Protectorate from 1910 to 1966 (Gaborone: Longman, 1987), 172-86,
and Autobiography of Motsamai Mpho.
21
British, while more radical nationalists were placed under surveillance and had their
activities hampered in a number of subtle ways. 70 A second thing that the British did
was to portray themselves as benevolent colonizers who deserved to be closely
associated with in the future. To this end it established an information department,
while also distancing itself from South Africa by ending racial segregation for the
first time. Protection mythology served both purposes well. Any focus on the role of
Khama III served to improve the image of Seretse Khama, whose radical opponents
had no comparable tradition of statesmanship in their families’ backgrounds to call
upon. Moreover, the story about the British saving the Batswana from the Boers
through the mediation of Queen Victoria only served to accentuate the difference
between England and Verwoerd’s Afrikaner regime.
The first instance of the desire of the British to renew their use of the myth was in
1953, when Queen Elizabeth was crowned as the new English monarch. This
coronation occurred at a time when British administration had reached a nadir
among the Bamangwato, the Protectorate’s largest population group and the
residents of southern Africa’s largest reserve. Tensions there from 1951-3 as a result
of the banning of Seretse Khama from the chieftaincy, as well as forcing Tshekedi
Khama out of the regency, had led to a series of boycotted meetings and agitation,
all of which made the Bangwato reserve troublesome for the British for the first time
in decades. Moreover, continued political agitation threatened to upset the
introduction of elected local councils and other British attempts to reorganize the
region.
Hence, British officials used the Queen’s coronation as an attempt to win back
loyalty in the region, especially from the younger men of the area who were perhaps
less wedded to tradition. In all, the Protectorate government spent £1,000 on
Coronation celebrations in 1953 in the Bangwato Reserve, while spending no more
than £100 in any other reserve. 71 The speeches made on this occasion do not
appear to have survived. However, it is instructive that the press release sent out
by the government for the occasion made every attempt to link Elizabeth to
Victoria:
On the great and solemn occasion of the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II we should look to the past as well as to the future. It was in
70 Monthly “Tergos” Reports of the Special Branch of the Police, located in the BNA
Divisional Commissioner files, make this evident.
71BNA S. 464/7. The only extant speech, in the same file, was made by Bathoen II,
in Kanye, and contains all the themes pursued earlier under the anti-incorporation
guise: “Many events...made it necessary for the Chiefs Sebele, Khama, and Bathoen
to visit Queen Victoria in 1895, whose name is still remembered by us all....We have
since enjoyed British protection and still continue to enjoy it.”
22
the time of another Queen, affectionately known in the Protectorate as
“Mosadiyane” (Queen Victoria) that the country of the Bechuana first
came under British protection....It is proper that at this time all of us
should pledge ourselves to strive for the common good, and so make each
our own small contribution to the greatness of another “Mosadiyane.”72
This reemphasis on the British Crown as a result of the accession of Queen Elizabeth
continued thereafter until Britain granted independence to Botswana in 1966. The
symbol of the new Mmamosadinyane, presumably as “warm and confident” and
motherly as her ancestor, was a perfect way to keep nationalism in check and to
better regulate politics in the Protectorate:
I think the Crown is a fitting symbol of the family feeling that we all of us
wish to have in a happy community.... But the Crown is a family symbol
not only within the family of Bechuanaland but also between my country
and you and the rest of the Commonwealth; it is the bond of our past
association and the ground of our future success. 73
But government spokesmen and propagandists did not have to work hard to
promote the old myths about Queen Victoria, even though they trotted them out
regularly in the run-up to independence. Batswana nationalists themselves were
heavily involved in working with the government to celebrate their forefathers’
dealings with her. In 1957 Bathoen II, at the Joint Advisory Council, declared that
public holidays like Whit Monday and Arbor Day were “meaningless”, proposed that
“this Protectorate, like other countries, should have public holidays expressive of
some events or in honour of famous men of the Territory.” 74 After Bathoen proposed
holidays in honor of Khama III and the day of the founding of the Protectorate, he
was seconded by the highly-decorated Ngwato war veteran Molwa Sekgoma:
Chief Bathoen has just mentioned a great man like Khama. I would go
further and say that they should be combined—Chief Khama, Chief Sebele
and Chief Bathoen—who are really the founders of this Protectorate. I
72Ibid, Resident Commissioner to General Manager Bantu Press, 19 May 1953.
73Bechuanaland Protectorate. Addresses of Welcome to and Reply by His
Excellency the High Commissioner Sir John Maud, GCB, CBE on the occassion of His
Excellency’s visit to Lobatsi, Bechuanaland Protectorate, 3rd February 1959
(Mafeking: Government Printer, 1959), 23.
74Minutes of the Sixth Session of the Joint Advisory Council... Mafeking, 27th & 28th
February 1957, 11.
23
think we have to remember these great men who have given us this
Protectorate.75
British officials were keen to sanction the idea. The Resident Commissioner quickly
went ahead and promulgated a new public holiday named “Protectorate Day” by
fiat. This holiday, strangely enough fell on the 30th of September, in recognition of
the day in 1885 when the British government decided to split the Batswana under
its control into two separate colonies. Thus, the Batswana of modern-day North-
West Province of South Africa were placed under the administration of the Cape
Colony, while the Batswana of modern-day Botswana became the Bechuanaland
Protectorate. By analogy, then, one could say this was equivalent to Germany
celebrating the day in which East Germany was separated from West Germany, and
it certainly bore no relationship to the day when the Protectorate was actually
declared, which was January 27th 1885.
So, on September 30 1958, the Batswana celebrated the day on which they were
split into two groups by their protectors. He, at least, viewed the event as a success:
I wish to say that this year for the first time we celebrated a day, 30th
September, as a great day. I feel we should make arrangements now that
the Bechuanaland Protectorate is about to celebrate its 75th Anniversary
as a Protectorate....that day will be celebrated if it is agreed upon by the
people of this Protectorate.76
Each year thereafter the new holiday went from strength to strength. In 1959
Bathoen and other chiefs sponsored elaborate ceremonies in which they appeared
on horseback and delivered speeches, while the government-subsidized press gave
extensive coverage, including photographs and editorials espousing the greatness
of the day and the wisdom of the Three Kings. 77 In Kanye, where the event was
photographed, Bathoen I was greeted by large numbers of horsemen and ululating
women, following which Bathoen gave a long address “speaking about the history of
the British Bechuanaland Protectorate in Setswana” to the crowd. 78
75Ibid., 12.
76Minutes of the Eighth Session of the Joint Advisory Council...3rd and 4th
November 1958, 15, remarks of Bathoen.
77See Naledi Ya Batswana, October 17 and 24 1959.
78 See photographs of the event in K. Schlosser, At the Edge of the Kalahari: Colour
Photographs of Tswana Chiefdoms and Hereros in Exile (Kiel: Museum fur
Volkerkunde der Universitat Kiel, 2001), 26.
24
Further north in Serowe a large celebration was organised by L.D. Raditladi, the
Tswana language’s most eminent living author and the founder of the Protectorate’s
first (though short-lived) nationalist party. Records indicate that the program for the
day included horse-racing, athletics, fireworks, and feasting. Raditladi, who relied
heavily on donations from traders for the event, was keen to make non-racialism the
keystone of the event. According to undercover policemen, “competition was bi-
racial in fact as well as in theory.” The culmination of the day’s festivities was the
European vs. Non-European tug-of-war, which was won by the latter group “possibly
because they had done no work all day.” 79
Here then was the success of the Protection myth, believed by both colonizer and
colonized alike. The colonized revering their ancestors who had kept them from the
grips of South African rule, while the colonizers basked in the glow of interracial
cooperation, enjoying the clear distinction between themselves and the apartheid
regime.
Meanwhile Protectorate Day clearly began to assume importance in nationalist
circles, as evidenced by the words of one of the country’s future presidents:
Bechuanaland Protectorate Day” is of much greater significance than we
think it is, for it is on this day, September 30, the Batswana remember
how our great chiefs--Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen went to London in
1895...and thus preserved the integrity of the country which is now our
heritage.... Because of the wise action of the three chiefs, we are able to
boast of being Batswana nation in Botswana.... I wish to continue to
celebrate the “B.P. Day” even after independence. That will be a way of
paying homage to our great ancestors. Protection was theirs;
independence will be our achievement.80
Can it be any wonder then, that as the days of colonial rule neared an end,
September 30th was chosen as the day of independence for the new nation of
Botswana?
Independence Day was a grand occasion with the British government, in its press
release for visiting reporters, explaining the origins of the Protectorate thus: “In the
last century trouble began to break out between the Batswana and the Boers across
the border of the Transvaal. The Batswana appealed to Britain for protection.” 81
Meanwhile, another government publication had photos of Khama III, Sebele I,
Bathoen I, Queen Victoria, and Queen Elizabeth side by side, with a caption
79BNA Div Comm North 9/2, Ngwato District Tergos Report for September 1960.
80Letter from F.G. Mogae, London, to Kutlwano 4, 8 (1964): 14.
81“Bechuanaland Fact Sheet”, printed May 1966, 2.
25
underneath describing the Three Kings as “our nation’s founders,” before describing
their legendary journey to England.82
On the evening of the celebrations, festivities were organized in the stadium of the
new capital, Gaborone. The culmination of the nights events, as the hour of
independence approached, were addresses by Queen Elizabeth (represented in
proxy by Princess Marina) and by the new President, Sir Seretse Khama.
If the Queen herself was ignorant of the myth of protection, her canned address
nevertheless played on the neocolonialist ethic of the time: “your country first
became associated with Great Britain some eighty-one years ago, when it came
under the protection of the British Crown....It is with special pleasure that I welcome
you into the Commonwealth of Nations.” 83 Seretse himself, who had been knighted
just days before, and thus could now refer to himself as “Sir”, showed that he was in
the proper spirit, alluding in full to the national myth as the clock ushered in the
new era of an independent Botswana:
we have been associated with Great Britain for over 81 years and, proud
though we may be of our newly achieved independence, in almost every
one of us there will remain a feeling of nostalgia that the former, more
intimate link, has now been severed. From time when (sic), in 1885, we
came under the protection of the Crown; and when in 1894 (sic) as a result
of the visit of Chiefs Khama, Bathoen and Sebele to see Queen Victoria our
protection was more firmly assured, there has existed in this country a
feeling of deep attachment and loyalty to the Crown... As grown children,
we now go out into the world...within the framework of the
Commonwealth.84
The next major celebration was the Independence Day dance, hosted by the new
Mayor of Gaborone, J.D. Jones, a veteran LMS minister. After more speeches, Jones
first danced with Princess Marina, Seretse then danced with Marina, though
apparently Seretse did not dance with Jones. 85 It was the old threesome again, the
Queen, the Khama royal, and the LMS, while the evil Boers lurked disapprovingly
only a couple of miles away across the border. Nothing, it seemed, had
fundamentally changed since 1885.
82Kutlwano Independence Edition No 10 (September 1966), n.p.
83Botswana Daily News, September 30 1966.
84Ibid.
85Ibid, October 1 1966.
26
Conclusion
In the fifty years since independence the national myth has gone from strength to
strength. Botswana’s most influential history text, A Primary History of Botswana,86
has now so entrenched the importance of the Boer threat in 1885 and the promise
made to the Three Chiefs by Victoria in 1895 that it seems unlikely that they will
ever be displaced as the key historical events in the national mind. Government and
official tourist web sites continue to foreground these events in their “history”
pages, as does the Wikipedia “History of Botswana” page. The national mythology is
entrenched in the speeches of its most famous President, Seretse Khama, 87 and in
the plots of its most famous novelist, Bessie Head. 88 Massive sculptures of the Three
Chiefs, meanwhile, were chosen as the national monument in 2005. While most
academic studies of Botswana’s history do not provide overt support for the
national mythology, it would appear that they are incapable of supplanting it.
As has been shown, the national mythology was created and used by multiple
actors over multiple decades in multiple political disputes. Over the course of time it
came to be acceptable to the British colonizers and their Batswana subjects, and
finally to the citizens of modern Botswana. This strange and long-lasting consensus
should not distract historians, in our view, from seeking to create a more factually
accurate nationalist narrative.
86R. Gardner, A Primary History of Botswana. Foreward by Sir Seretse Khama (Cape
Town: Longmans, 1972), Chs. 16, 19, 20.
87 G. Carter and P. Morgan, eds., From the Frontline: Speeches of Sir Seretse
Khama (Stanford: Hoover Institute, 1980), xvi.
88 B. Head, A Bewitched Crossroads: An African Saga (Johannesburg: A.D. Donker,
1984), 90-4.
