result of regional ethnic conflict’ (1999: 129).
11. Cf. Kyed and Buur 2007 for a recent, comprehensive review; see also van Dijk and van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal 1999.
12. Weber did not speak of ‘patrimonial legitimacy’, but patrimonial domination and rule (Weber 1978 1020ff), the ruler's authority being predominantly – but not necessarily entirely – sourced by ‘traditional grounds’ for claim to legitimacy (ibid.: 215). Hence, it does not make sense to insist that ‘patrimonialism’ is ‘not a regime type’ but ‘a kind of legitimacy’ (Pitcher et al. 2009: 149). After all, notions of ‘patrimonial state’, ‘patrimonial administration’ and ‘patrimonial domination’ – i.e. ‘regimes’ – are indeed apparent in Weber's texts (e.g. Weber 1978: 1013ff.).
13. See Comaroff and Comaroff 1991: ch.1; Crehan 2002: 98ff ; Eagleton 1991: 112f.; Scott 1990: 77ff.
14. At Botswana's independence in 1966, there were about 550,000 people in the country; in 1975 c. 700,000, increasing to c. 1.3 mill. in 1990 and c. 1.58 mill. in 2000.
Chapter 1
THE DEVELOPMENT OF TSWANA MERAFE AND THE ARRIVAL OF CHRISTIANITY AND COLONIALISM
On 3 October 2005 Botswana's state president, Festus Mogae, unveiled what is known as the Three Dikgosi Monument in the capital, Gaborone (see cover of this book). The monument commemorates Kgosi Sechele I of the Bakwena, Kgosi Bathoen I of the Bangwaketse and Kgosi Khama III of the Bangwato, renowned for their diplomatic mission to London in 1895. The president asserted in his speech, ‘During the early years of colonialism these three distinguished monarchs played a leading role in ultimately ensuring our territory's independent future, by preventing its administrative handover to neighbouring white settler regimes’. In such terms the three dikgosi were declared as the founding fathers of the nation, ostensibly preventing the subjection of their countries to Cecil Rhodes's settler regime and the racist regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa. At the time of unveiling, which amounted to no less than a state act of establishing the principal national monument, there were minority voices in Botswana which saw this as an(other) expression of Tswana domination (Parsons 2006: 680).
Neil Parsons (1998: 255) has suggested that the best way to grasp the significance of the dikgosi's journey in 1895 ‘is to ask what would have happened if Khama, Sechele, and Bathoen had not gone to Britain’. Obviously, there were no other leaders in the country at that time representing polities of sufficient strength to engage with the British in efforts to prevent annexation to one of the settler regimes. In the first part of this chapter I shall approach this issue by identifying major historical transformations by which these merafe grew progressively in strength and scale since the late eighteenth century and appeared dominant along the eastern fringe of the Kalahari desert at the time the British decided, hesitantly, to establish the Bechuanaland Protectorate.
This approach will also serve to pursue another major issue of this chapter: the development of the Tswana merafe as a dominant force in relation to a substantial proportion of the population which were included in the Bechuanaland Protectorate and subsequently in the nation-state of Botswana. I shall first explain how, under changing historical conditions, ever-new groups of people were captured into the domain of the Tswana merafe in ways that more and more reinforced their hierarchical order, territorial control and structures of domination radiating from the Tswana royal centres. Thereafter I examine the impacts of evangelizing missionaries, before I address the significance of the British and the establishment of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. I am centrally concerned with how transformations of the major Tswana merafe1 involved a progressive increase of their strength, expansion in scale and rise of Tswana hegemony in the sense I conceived it in the Introduction.
The Development of Tswana Merafe at the Edge of the Kalahari
The Tswana merafe in focus here, as Wilmsen (1989: 101) appropriately states, ‘passed from a peripheral position in the region to almost uncontested dominance’. At first sight this seems surprising as one would not have expected settlements as populous as the royal towns of Northern Tswana merafe to exist in an area with exceptionally poor and erratic rainfall. Moreover, on examining accounts of Tswana societies in the larger region from around 1500 AD, Jean and John Comaroff found that they were characterized by a constant shifting between amalgamation and fission (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991: 127–8), centralization and decentralization (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992: 132). Nevertheless, the Tswana merafe in focus here continued, with few major interruptions,2 to develop in strength and scale from the late eighteenth century, finding their most apparent expression in very large royal towns (Gulbrandsen 2007). In this section I shall give a brief, generalized presentation of processes underpinning the formation of these small states, based, especially, upon extensive historical accounts and analysis I have published previously (Gulbrandsen 1993a, 1993b, 1995, 1996a: Ch. 3, 2007).
Since the London Missionary Society (LMS) had already been active in the region for decades, the British were well informed about the conflicts – often centred round the royal houses – that riddled these polities. On the other hand, the missionaries could also attest to the strengths of their political institutions, particularly the extent to which the Tswana rulers – and their retainers – controlled even the furthest outlying communities in a vast territory. Already in 1824 the LMS missionary Robert Moffat, on visiting the Bangwaketse, was amazed by the size and concentration of the population in well-organized, closely spaced villages: ‘[T]he [royal] town itself appears to cover at least eight times more ground than any town I have yet seen among the Bechuanas [BaTswana]’. He estimated the population to be ‘at the lowest computation, seventy thousands’ (Moffat 1842: 406)3. The kgosi (Makaba, r. 1790–1824) conducted government affairs in ‘a circle…formed with round posts of eight feet high…Behind lay the proper cattle fold, capable of holding many thousand oxen’ (1842: 399). While Makaba was widely reputed to be a dangerous warrior, Moffat conveys an atmosphere of societal harmony. He was not struck by the barracks and military exercises but rather by civic order and the presence of adult men in the kgosi's council (kgotla). Well versed in political life among the Tswana, Moffat – clearly impressed by the manner in which they conducted their meetings in the royal kgotla – speaks of their ‘parliament’, asserting that ‘business is carried on with the most perfect order’ (1842: 346). The idea of the Tswana royal towns as profound manifestations of civic order is also apparent in early missionary accounts of the Southern Tswana merafe (see Comaroff and Comaroff 1991: 129).
These qualities of the Tswana polities were most likely conveyed to the imperial power by LMS missionary Mackenzie who represented ‘a powerful voice…raised in defence of the Tswana’ (Sillery 1965: 39; cf. Dachs 1972: 653f.). Mackenzie worked closely with several dikgosi; his extensive publications reveal an impressive knowledge of Tswana political institutions and practices. For example, he offers an illuminating account of the political proceedings in the royal court of the Bangwato, asserting that they were ‘conducted with decorum and order’ (Mackenzie 1871: 373). In 1882, during the preliminaries to the establishment of the Protectorate (1885), he went to Britain in order to make the case for the Northern Tswana on a tireless campaign for British intervention.4 Sillery relates that Mackenzie's efforts included fostering ‘public enlightenment’ and enlisting ‘many prominent men and an influential section of public opinion’ (Sillery 1965: 39). As evidence of Tswana receptivity to ‘civilization’, Mackenzie could point out that – exceptionally in an African context – several of the dikgosi had been among the first of their people to accept Christianity and undergo baptism, with the consequence that many of their people followed suit (Gulbrandsen 1993a, 1993b; see below in this chapter).
