close association with the resident missionary and his consequent reform and abandonment of important ritual and social practices. Mothowagae exploited this rift by expressing adherence to Tswana cultural practices. This he allegedly articulated in a charismatic manner that prompted the missionary to accuse Mothowagae of having brought ‘Ethopianism’ to the Bangwaketse. At the same time the dikgosana exploited this development to build up a second political centre. Kgosi Bathoen prevailed, however, because Kwenaeitsile died. But there was also a perceived threat emerging toward bogosi represented by independent church movements to which the dikgosana felt equally vulnerable as the kgosi.
Apart from capturing Christianity in the effort to adding another spiritual dimension to the bogosi, it became increasingly evident that the kgosi's control over the missionary church was highly conducive – from the point of view of the royal centre – to sustaining spiritual control within the morafe. During the latter part of the nineteenth century an increasing number of young men migrating to industrial and mineral centres of South Africa were exposed to indigenous church movements, lead by people who had departed from a missionary church. Some of these church movements also attempted to expand into the Tswana merafe, where they were fiercely rejected as potentially disruptive to social order and a major challenge to kgosi authority (see Gulbrandsen 2001: 49ff. for an extensive account).
Thus, by granting a missionary society a monopoly on evangelization and taking firm control over the church and its congregation, the dikgosi virtually gave rise to state churches. Quite pragmatically, virtually all the Tswana dikgosi recognized by the British (see below) privileged the missionary churches with a monopoly since they represented a powerful instrument preventing syncretistic movements – as dangerous exterior forces – from generating rhizomic attacks. Especially the provincial communities represented potentialities of such forces (Gulbrandsen forthc.), the supervision of which was tacitly conducted by the network of clergies extending from the royal centre. In particular, to keep at bay forces giving rise to challenging independent church movements was at least as much in the interest of the missionary church as the ruling groups of the Tswana merafe. Before the dikgosi lost their control over the establishment of churches at Botswana's independence, there seems to have been only one instance (in the 1930s) when one such movement temporarily became of some significance in a dynastic conflict at the Bakgatla royal centre (Morton 1987: 88f.; Gulbrandsen 1991: 52f.).
Negotiating Protection: Threats of Annexation and the Establishment of a Colonial State
The formation of the Bechuanaland Protectorate cannot, however, be characterized as entirely a matter of ‘love at first encounter’. Negotiations with each kgosi were conducted by a colonial officer – Charles Warren – who was met by the Bakwena with some reluctance, but shown considerable appreciation by the Bangwato (see Ramsay 1998: 66ff, on whose excellent account much of the following relies). Scepticism was only to be expected in view of British expansion into the region over the past decades. Indeed, this expansion was at one point perceived as such a serious threat that initiatives were made to unite various Tswana merafe, including the Bakwena and the Bangwaketse, into a confederation to resist what they considered British aggression. Such a confederation never materialized, however. The Northern Tswana rulers Gaseitsiwe (Bangwaketse) and Sechele (Bakwena) remained spectators to the violence perpetrated by the British in order to safeguard the diamond fields in and around Kimberley.
When they eventually welcomed the British offer of ‘protection’, their acquiescence should be understood against a background of other colonizing forces at work which was perceived by Northern Tswana as an indeed dangerous threat. These were settler communities – British as well as Boers – which were by no means under British control and which pushed for expansion into the territories of the Northern Tswana merafe. This led to some violent interactions in the early 1880s (Ramsay 1998: 65).
In the context of such dangers, and given that they had no chance of resisting the British if the latter really had wanted to gain the Northern Tswana land, the three dikgosi consented to the establishment of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. The deal was after all quite acceptable, since the British had promised that ‘the chiefs…might be left to govern their own tribes in their own fashion’12 and, very significantly, the colonial power firmly restricted the establishment of white settler communities within the tribal territories. The Northern Tswana's geopolitical location had worked to their advantage: the decision to establish a British protectorate was triggered by increasing German activity in what was then South-West Africa. Was there now, the British asked themselves, a ‘danger that the Germans might join hands with the hostile Boers, or with the Portuguese, or even with other Germans who were in East Africa, cut the road to the north and thus permanently bar the Cape from access to central Africa?’ (Sillery 1974: 75). As Maylam (1980: 25) states, being ‘in danger from three sides: South African Republic, Germany and Portugal’ the establishment of the Bechuanaland Protectorate served the British imperial interests in blocking South African and German expansion. These interests were more than ‘political’ (Parsons 1985: 29) as the control over the vast territory of the protectorate helped significantly to secure economic interests further north, especially by the construction of a railway through the country which remained the only direct link between South Africa and Rhodesia until the 1960s.
That the British considered negotiating the establishment of a protectorate was also due to the existence of somebody to address. That is, somebody in sufficient control of the country and people to be recognized as a partner with enough local authority and political control. Hence the significance of the strength and scale of the Bakwena, the Bangwaketse and Bangwato merafe to be brought under the British wing in order to avoid annexation to the neighbouring violent states.
The negotiated agreement proved, however, not to be watertight. After only a few years the British saw the protectorate as a base for imperial expansion into central Africa. Meanwhile Cecil Rhodes emerged as a leading figure capable of imposing colonial rule on the protectorate. Queen Victoria paved the way for his British South Africa Company (BSACo) to take control, which encouraged the British to push for more than mere ‘protection’. In an Order-in-Council the British denied the sovereignty of the dikgosi and gave themselves absolute power over all the territories of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. This set in motion a power struggle between the dikgosi and the colonial agencies during which the former's strength was severely tested. On at least one occasion, the British and the Tswana were on the brink of war. Aware that the dikgosi might join forces, the high commissioner decided to give in, and this particular confrontation was resolved peacefully. The British, however, had not abandoned their plans to transfer the protectorate to the BSACo. Rhodes at this time was at the height of his power: ‘For him direct control of Bechuanaland was the stepping stone to the realisation of his greater ambition – to seize the gold-rich Transvaal’ (Ramsay 1998: 75).
Alarmed by the possibility of annexation, the dikgosi of the Bakwena, Bangwaketse and Bangwato embarked on the famous journey to London (September-November 1895) mentioned above. Not only did they take their case to the British government, they mounted a lengthy – and successful – campaign throughout Britain against the BSACo, accompanied by missionaries and presenting themselves as model Christian rulers. Asking what would have happened if Bathoen, Khama and Sechele had not travelled to Britain, Parsons suggests, I recall, that the protectorate would have been taken over in October-November 1895. Instead, the dikgosi's effect on the electorate made Prime Minister Chamberlain ‘obliged to make partial concessions to the chiefs’ and held him back from ‘throwing his lot completely into the Rhodesian camp’ (Parsons 1998: 255). Perhaps most significantly, their lobbying in London had such an impact on the Colonial Office that it complicated a plan by Rhodes to attack the Boer government. Since this venture subsequently failed to the extent that it became an international scandal, Rhodes's political standing was significantly reduced. The British government abandoned its plans to leave his company with most of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and renewed its promise to protect Bechuanaland. Having apparently defeated Rhodes, the dikgosi were celebrated as
