between the dikgosi and the British was, as we shall see in the following chapter, progressively riddled by ambivalence, tension and, at times, serious conflicts, this relationship was nevertheless, as I shall argue, a matter of mutual dependency. Especially because of the British determination to govern the protectorate at minimal cost and maximal implementation of principles of indirect rule, the Tswana dikgosi were substantially empowered. And their respective ruling communities manifested increasingly their positions as judicial authorities and political leaders in respect of a steadily wider span of issues throughout the different merafe, also in relation to subject communities.
This development under the British wing lasted for no less than eighty years and naturalized to a great extent Tswana leadership. Through a gradualist, often nonconfrontational approach, the ruling Tswana groups were winning hegemony also in relation to subject communities and hence capturing them, to some extent, into their structures of domination by consent. However, as I stressed in the Introduction, to win hegemony in the sense of leadership by virtue of consent (dumela) is always a matter of degree. In the present case it is patently evident that Tswana domination relied upon coercive measures as well. And these measures were not only exercised within the limits of politico-jural order. They were also exercised in a wide range of social relationship through which dominant Tswana, often by means of subtle and tacit discriminatory measures, prevented minorities from rising against their overlords. Thus, only very rarely they represented openly challenging forces during colonial times. The extent to which Tswana repressive forces had been at work before the independent state of Botswana was established with declarations of social equity and liberal individualism, is perfectly confirmed by the fact that it would, I reiterate, as we shall see in Chapter 5, take some thirty years after the independence before minority voices gained significance in the public sphere (see Chapter 5).27
1. I am here referring to Bakwena, Bangwaketse, Bangwato and Batawana which were at the establishment of the Bechuanaland Protectorate (1885) officially recognized by the British and assigned territories – ‘tribal reserves’ – that comprised the vast majority of the population. The remaining three recognized merafe were Bakgatla, Batlokwa and Bamalete, all much smaller both in terms of population and territory, especially the latter two. In addition a small area in the southeast corner of the protectorate achieved a special status as ‘Barolong Farms’ – agricultural land occupied by BaTshidi of Mafeking beyond the South African border. Map 1indicates the location of the ‘tribal reserves’ dominated by these Tswana merafe.
2. The major interruption was caused by the Matabele raids known as difaqane between c. 1825 and 1840 (e.g. see Tlou and Campbell 1984: 101ff.).
3. The royal town itself probably had more than ten thousand people. Another important nineteenth-century missionary source mentions its large population: ‘Shoshong, the [royal] town of the Bangwato, contains a population of some 30,000’ (Mackenzie 1871: 365; cf. Okihiro 1976: ch. 2; Schapera 1935; Parsons 1982).
4. These campaigns should be seen in light of Mackenzie's strategy to make the country British in order to make it Christian (Dachs 1972: 652).
5. The political signifi cance of wealth has of course been recognized by the Tswana themselves: as an early observer noticed, ‘the word kosi [kgosi] in the Sichuana [Setswana] language signifi es rich, and is by metonymy therefore used to imply a chief, as riches seem in all countries…to have been the origin of power and importance’ (Burchell 1824: 272, 347).
6. Organization of the Tswana merafe by wards was already in operation in precolonial times (Okhiro 1976: 52; Ngcongco 1977: 34), and was described extensively during the colonial period (see Schapera 1935, 1984: 91ff; Kuper 1975); even now, far into postcolonial times, it remains significant (see Schapera and Roberts 1975; Kooijman 1978: 101ff; Gulbrandsen 1996a: 27).
7. There are conflicting stories about the time and circumstances of the divisions (see Schapera 1942a: 1, 1952: 9).
8. Because of limited space, I refer the reader to the archival and other sources I rely on in matters of evangelizing missionaries and the Tswana in my previous publications Gulbrandsen 1993a and 2001.
9. As a condition for baptism these Tswana rulers were required to abandon some of their central rituals such as initiation (bogwera [male], bojale [female]) and rainmaking. They also made it unlawful to marry more than one wife without the kgosi's consent and they put an end to the practice of levirate and sororate.
10. See Mackenzie 1871: 423 ff., 1883: 238ff.; Gulbrandsen 1993a: 52ff.
11. Chief Khama to Rev. Cullen Rees (4 Aug. 1890), Chief's Papers, Folder 4, Selly Oak Public Library, Birmingham.
12. BPP C.4588, Stanley to Robinson, 13 Apr. 1885, quoted in Ramsay 1998: 68.
13. The Times, 28 July 1909, quoted in Ramsay 1998: 91.
14. Morton et al. (1989: 105) relate that ‘Proclamation 9 of 1899 established fi ve reserves: Bangwakerse, Bakwena, Bakgatla, Mmangwato, and Batawana. Three others were later created Bamalete (1909), Tati (1911) and Batawana (1933).’
15. For a comprehensive account of the features summarized in this section, see Schapera 1952.
16. The prefi x ‘Ma’(kgalagadi) – in contrast to Ba(ngwato) – is degrading and was by Botswana's independence made unlawful.
17. The kgosana who was sent by Kgosi Bathoen II to the place claimed to me in 1977 that he had repeatedly been victim of occult attacks by women of the X community.
18. Schapera and Merwe (1945: 9–10) have classifi ed this group as ‘emancipated Kgalagadi’ which distinguishes them from those living under the direct authority of a Mongwaketse authority ‘to whose immediate ancestors they were formerly attached as serfs’. On the other hand, their lack of recognition by the Bangwaketse make them distinct indeed from those communities amongst the Bangwaketse who are also categorized as the ‘Kgalagadi’ but thoroughly assimilated and accepted as full-fleshed Bangwaketse to the extent that some of them have established conjugal relationships with the royal family.
19. It is not like this everywhere, however. For example, communities located in the north-western Botswana at the Tswapong hills within the territory over which the kgosi of the Bangwato claims supremacy identify themselves as Batswapong and hence distinct from the Bangwato. Intriguingly the Batswapong are – just like people of Tswana royal towns – of mixed origin, or as Motzafi -Haller (2002: 110) asserts, they have ‘never been a uniform group with distinct historically rooted ethnic boundaries’. Wherever I have travelled in Botswana a similar statement might have been appropriate, but there are considerable differences in respect of people's willingness to identify themselves as distinct from the dominant community. This feature refl ects issues of domination, assimilation and stigmatization which I shall address in Chapter 5.
20. An important condition for sociocultural integration during this period and later was the Mwali cult (see Werbner 1989: 245ff).
21. They were allegedly under pressure from an Ndebele ruler who ‘sent his impis to collect cattle, grain and other items’ from the Kalanga living in this region. When gold was discovered in 1867, the British brought the territory under the control of a private company (the Tati Company), which divided the land up for European settlers and also marginalized and exploited the Kalanga in other ways (see Mgadla 1987: 134ff.).
22. According to the 1946 census, of the total population of 100,987, the Kalanga numbered 22,777 (c. 23 per cent) and, note, the distinctively Ngwato 17.850 (c. 18 per cent) (Schapera 1952: 65, see also
