History of Botswana

The Batswana, a term also used to denote all citizens of Botswana, refers to the country's major ethnic group (called the Tswana in Southern Africa). Prior to European contact, the Batswana lived as herders and farmers under tribal rule.

Pre-colonial history

Early history

The first hominins to appear in present-day Botswana are estimated to have arrived over 186,000 years ago, when Acheulean tools were used by early hominins in the region. Study of southern Africa in the Stone Age has been limited. Agriculture and ceramics were first introduced to the region approximately 2,300 years ago, and domestication of animals first took place approximately 2,000–2,200 years ago. Among the earliest crops were pearl millet, finger millet, sorghum, Bambara groundnuts, cowpeas, and cucurbits. The earliest livestock included sheep, goats, and cattle, all of which were introduced to the region during this period.

The Kgalagadi people were the first of the Bantu peoples to settle in present-day Botswana, arriving c. 200 CE. The first Tswana people (singular Motswana, plural Batswana) are estimated to have arrived c. 400 CE. These Bantu peoples brought iron and copper tools to the region and settled along permanent waterways. Over time, the Tswana people organised themselves into separate tribes, called a morafe (plural merafe), each led by a chief called a kgosi (plural dikgosi). The early history of the Tswana people remains largely unknown because little archaeological evidence has been left. Cattle became a central part of society in the region, and ownership of cattle denoted one's status.

The Taukome people arrived in present-day Botswana by the 7th century, and their possession of glass beads indicates early connection to Indian Ocean trade. Access to the Indian Ocean trade expanded in the region during the 10th century. The Toutswe people became the predominant group in present-day Botswana during the 11th and 12th centuries as they became wealthier through ownership of cattle. Specularite mining became widespread during this period.

Neighbouring present-day Botswana during the 11th and 12th centuries were the people of Leopard's Kopje, who formed the Kingdom of Mapungubwe and projected influence throughout the region. Their influence declined by the 13th century, and they were replaced as the regional power by Great Zimbabwe as the gold trade became a driving factor in the region's economy. After the fall of Great Zimbabwe in the 15th century, several other states developed. The Kingdom of Butua, formed by the Kalanga peoples, was established on the present-day Botswana–Zimbabwe border.

Large migrations of Kalanga and Sotho–Tswana peoples into present-day Botswana occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Tswana people had a presence throughout present-day Botswana by 1600. Different Tswana tribes were able to separate and form independently from one another as the region's primary asset, cattle, is easily transported. The first Tswana state was formed by the Ngwaketse people in the mid-18th century. Subsequent states were formed by the Koena people, the Ngwato people, and the Tawana people over the following decades.

19th century

The Difaqane, a period of conflict, migration, and displacement in southern Africa, took place during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This caused the Tswana tribes to more thoroughly spread and establish a stronger presence throughout the territory of present-Day Botswana. They settled primarily in the hardveld that makes up the eastern region of present-day Botswana. The Koena and Ngwaketse peoples migrated from Transvaal to the sandveld.

Europeans missionaries first arrived in present-day Botswana in 1816 through the London Missionary Society. This and other missionary groups worked to convert the dikgosi to Christianity and and to build missionary schools. British traders arrived in the 1830s and engaged in transactions with the dikgosi. Kgosi Sechele I of the Koena people took advantage of the new trading routes, securing control of British trade for his tribe.

The merafe reestablished their nation states in the 1840s as each established several towns and villages of varying sizes. Governance was based around the kgotla, a deliberative forum in which the kgosi or a regional leader heard the concerns of all male citizens before making decisions. The first Kgatla people to settle in present-day Botswana, the Mmanaana people, migrated from South Africa in the early 19th century before settling in Moshupa and Thamaga.

The 19th century Tswana people used several economic ideas that were rare in southern Africa, including credit, service contracts, and the mafisa system of the rich loaning cattle to the poor in exchange for labour. They also had a conception of private property by the mid-19th century, and both married men and married women were entitled to land rights. The men typically herded cattle while the women grew crops. Sorghum was the region's most commonly grown crop in the 19th century. Land was widely available, but droughts meant that farming was inconsistent.

Sechele I requested a British protectorate in 1853 to end regional conflicts, but he was denied. By the 1860s, migration out of the region increased as Batswana men travelled to work in South African mines. The discovery of the Tati Goldfields triggered the first European gold rush of Southern Africa in 1868. By the late 1870s, kgosi Khama III of the Ngwato people seized control of British trade from the Koena people.

Bechuanaland Protectorate

Main article: Bechuanaland Protectorate

German map in use in 1905 still showing the undivided Bechuanaland area

A map of 1887 showing the Protectorate and British Bechuanaland

Modern Botswana. The country's borders have been stable since independence in 1966

In the late 19th century, hostilities broke out between the Shona inhabitants of Botswana and Ndebele tribes who were migrating into the territory from the Kalahari Desert. Tensions also escalated with the Boer settlers from the Transvaal. To block Boer and German expansionism the British Government on 31 March 1885 put "Bechuanaland" under its protection. The northern territory remained under direct administration as the Bechuanaland Protectorate and is today's Botswana, while the southern territory became British Bechuanaland which ten years later became part of the Cape Colony and is now part of the northwest province of South Africa; the majority of Setswana-speaking people today live in South Africa. The Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of the Matabele kingdom, was administered from the Bechuanaland Protectorate after 1893, to which it was formally annexed in 1911.

To safeguard the integrity of the Protectorate against the perceived threats from the British South Africa Company and Southern Rhodesia, the three Batswana leaders Khama III, Bathoen I, and Sebele I travelled to London in 1895 to ask Joseph Chamberlain and Queen Victoria for assurances.

When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 out of the main British colonies in the region, the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana), Basutoland (now Lesotho), and Swaziland (now Eswatini) (the "High Commission Territories") were not included, but provision was made for their later incorporation. However, a vague undertaking was given to consult their inhabitants, and although successive South African governments sought to have the territories transferred, Britain kept delaying, and it never occurred. The election of the National Party government in 1948, which instituted apartheid, and South Africa's withdrawal from the Commonwealth in 1961, ended any prospect of incorporation of the territories into South Africa.

An expansion of British central authority and the evolution of tribal government resulted in the 1920 establishment of two advisory councils representing Africans and Europeans. Proclamations in 1934 regularized tribal rule and powers. A European-African advisory council was formed in 1951, and the 1961 constitution established a consultative legislative council.

Following the British entry into World War II, the decision was taken to draw recruits from the High Commission Territories (HTC) of Swaziland, Basutoland and Bechuanaland. Black citizens from the HTC were to be recruited into the African Auxiliary Pioneer Corps (AAPC) labor unit due to Afrikaner opposition to armed black units. Mobilization for the AAPC was launched in late July 1941 and by October 18,000 personnel had arrived in the Middle East. The AAPC performed a wide range of manual labor, providing logistical support to the Allied war effort during the North African, Dodecanese and Italian campaigns. During the Italian campaign some AAPC relieved British field artillery units of their duty.

Independent Botswana

In June 1966, Britain accepted proposals for democratic self-government in Botswana. The seat of government was moved from Mafeking, South Africa, to newly established Gaborone in 1965. The 1965 constitution led to the first general elections and to independence on 30 September 1966. Seretse Khama, a leader in the independence movement and the legitimate claimant to the Ngwato chiefship, was elected as the first president, re-elected twice, and died in office in 1980. The presidency passed to the sitting vice president, Ketumile Masire, who was elected in his own right in 1984 and re-elected in 1989 and 1994. Masire retired from office in 1998. The presidency passed to the sitting vice president, Festus Mogae, who was elected in his own right in 1999 and re-elected in 2004. In April 2008, Excellency the former President Lieutenant General Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama (Ian Khama), son of Seretse Khama the first president, succeeded to the presidency when Festus Mogae retired. On 1 April 2018 Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi was sworn in as the 5th President of Botswana succeeding Ian Khama. He represents the Botswana Democratic Party, which has also won a majority in every parliamentary election since independence. All the previous presidents have also represented the same party.

See also

• List of commissioners of Bechuanaland
• Heads of government of Botswana
• History of Africa
• History of Southern Africa
• History of Gaborone
• Timeline of Gaborone
• List of presidents of Botswana
• Politics of Botswana
• Postage stamps and postal history of Bechuanaland Protectorate

References

• Beaulier, Scott A.; Subrick, J. Robert (2006). "The Political Foundations of Development: The Case of Botswana". Constitutional Political Economy. 17 (2): 103–115. doi:10.1007/s10602-006-0002-x. ISSN 1043-4062.
• Clothier, Norman (1991). "The Erinpura: Basotho Tragedy". South African Military History Society Journal. 8 (5). ISSN 0026-4016. Archived from the original on April 5, 2023. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
• Hillbom, Ellen; Bolt, Jutta (2018). Botswana – A Modern Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-319-73144-5.
• Hjort, Jonas (2009). "Pre-Colonial Culture, Post-Colonial Economic Success? The Tswana and the African Economic Miracle". The Economic History Review. 63 (3): 688–709. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00495.x.
• Holm, John D.; Molutsi, Patrick P. (1992). "State-Society Relations in Botswana: Beginning Liberalization". In Hydén, Göran; Bratton, Michael (eds.). Governance and Politics in Africa. Lynne Rienner Publishers. pp. 75–95. ISBN 978-1-55587-285-4.
• Klehm, Carla (28 June 2021). "Archaeology of Botswana". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.792.
• Matemba, Yonah Hisbon (1 January 2003). "The pre-colonial political history of BaKgatla ba ga Mmanaana of Botswana, c.l600-1881 Yonah". Botswana Notes and Records. 35 (1): 53–67. doi:10.10520/AJA052550590_131.
• Robinson, James A.; Parsons, Q. Neil (2006). "State Formation and Governance in Botswana". Journal of African Economies. 15 (Supplement 1): 100–140. doi:10.1093/jae/ejk007. ISSN 0963-8024.
• Shackleton, Deborah Ann (1997). Imperial Military Policy and the Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners during the Second World War (PhD thesis). Indiana University. OCLC 38033601.
• Sipho Simelane, Hamilton (1993). "Labor Mobilization for the War Effort in Swaziland, 1940–1942". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 26 (3): 541–574. doi:10.2307/220478. ISSN 0361-7882. JSTOR 220478.

Further reading

• Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. "An African success story: Botswana." (2002). online
• Cohen, Dennis L. "The Botswana Political Elite: Evidence from the 1974 General Election," Journal of Southern African Affairs, (1979) 4, 347–370.
• Colclough, Christopher and Stephen McCarthy. The Political Economy of Botswana: A Study of Growth and Income Distribution (Oxford University Press, 1980)
• Denbow, James & Thebe, Phenyo C. (2006). Culture and Customs of Botswana. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-33178-2.
• Edge, Wayne A. and Mogopodi H. Lekorwe eds. Botswana: Politics and Society (Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik, 1998)
• Fawcus, Peter and Alan Tilbury. Botswana: The Road to Independence (Pula Press, 2000)
• Good, Kenneth. "Interpreting the Exceptionality of Botswana," Journal of Modern African Studies (1992) 30, 69–95.
• Good, Kenneth. "Corruption and Mismanagement in Botswana: A Best-Case Example?" Journal of Modern African Studies, (1994) 32, 499–521.
• Parsons, Neil. King Khama, Emperor Joe and the Great White Queen (University of Chicago Press, 1998)
• Parsons, Neil, Thomas Tlou and Willie Henderson. Seretse Khama, 1921-1980 (Bloemfontein: Macmillan, 1995)
• Samatar, Abdi Ismail. An African miracle: State and class leadership and colonial legacy in Botswana development (Heinemann Educational Books, 1999)
• Thomas Tlou & Alec Campbell, History of Botswana (Gaborone: Macmillan, 2nd edn. 1997) ISBN 0-333-36531-3
• Chirenje, J. Mutero, Church, State, and Education in Bechuanaland in the Nineteenth Century, International Journal of African Historical Studies, (1976)
• Chirenje, J. Mutero, Chief Kgama and His Times, 1835-1923

External links

• Brief History of Botswana
• Bibliography of Botswana History
• University of Botswana History Department - various resources