were of course very much a product of their privileged and protected position within the colonial state, reflecting indeed the British dependency upon the ways in which they had expanded their networks of power and captured vast subject communities into the structures of the colonial state (see preceding chapter). Furthermore, the range of executive powers of the rulers of the Tswana merafe selected and privileged by the British increased steadily as the political economy of the protectorate developed. Since it ‘was an explicit policy that the British Government had no interest in the country north of the Molopo…except as a road to the interior’ (Sillery 1974: 77), the Tswana were informed that they would have to bear the costs of the protectorate themselves. A hut tax system was thus enforced,5 from which the dikgosi benefited substantially since they received a 10 per cent share of whatever they collected, over and above funds received from a number of other sources.6 Significantly in the present context, the dikgosi retained their ‘customary’ privileges, including the mobilization of age regiments (mephato, singl. mophato) and draught power for the cultivation of their large fields, as well as the receipt of hunting spoils (sehuba), ‘thanksgiving’ corn after harvest from every household (dikgafela) and, most importantly, all the unclaimed stray cattle collected in their respective territories (matimela).
All the wealth thus aggregating in the royal household was customarily justified by the virtues associated with the kgosi as motswadintle (‘the one from whom good things are coming’, see Gulbrandsen 1995 and Chapter 5, this volume). By right, therefore, he should be rich – ideally as the guarantee of everybody's welfare. His wealth was also seen as a major condition for his independence and incorruptibility as a ruler. However, as the British contributed strongly to reinforcing the dikgosi's powers, the dikgosi were not dependent on extensive networks of power by dispensing cattle widely for establishing cattle clientship (cf. Chapter 1). At most, their resources were used to ensure the support of their most important political retainers in relation to the royal centre. Moreover, as labour migration to South Africa provided most ordinary families with a stable source of basic subsistence requirements (see Schapera 1947a), there was less need to dispense grain from the royal granary during times of poor harvest.
All this meant that the dikgosi retained a number of economic sources throughout the colonial era which facilitated the accumulation of wealth – mainly in the form of cattle – that progressively attained the de facto character of private property. The British became increasingly disturbed by the dikgosi's expropriation of funds considered by the colonial power to be destined for ‘tribal’ purposes. They first attempted to separate the dikgosi's ‘purse’ from that of the tribal treasury by establishing what was known as the Native Fund. In a major administrative reform dating from 1934, it was stated that ‘[the] chief could no longer impose tribal levies without written approval from the Resident Commissioner and without agreement of the tribe in the kgotla' (Colclough and McCarthy 1980: 25). Nevertheless, although this proclamation managed to a certain extent to separate public resources from those to be held by the kgosi personally, considerable uncertainty remained over what belonged to the tribe and what was the kgosi's property.3 I shall pursue the issue of the dikgosi's apparent avarice in the subsequent section.
The institution of a ‘Native Fund’ reflected a broader British concern about the dikgosi's alleged abuse of power, a concern which should be seen in the context of the colonial empire. First, after World War I, the British initiated a revision of their previous methods of indirect rule that was extended to the Bechuanaland Protectorate in the 1930s. Secondly, at this time there appeared highly critical reports in Britain attacking prolonged neglect on the part of the Protectorate Administration that had resulted in stagnation, extreme backwardness and highly autocratic chiefs. It was argued, for example, that ‘colonial authorities had failed to bring traditional institutions in Bechuanaland into conformity “with the essential requirements of a modern civilized administration”’ (Picard 1987: 49). In addition to such broader concerns, the administration had experienced difficulties with dikgosi seen to be incompetent or otherwise unsuitable for their office: the most serious of these concerned Kgosi Sebele II of the Bakwena, who was, as we shall see in the following section, dethroned by the administration and exiled to Ghanzi in the extreme west of the protectorate.
This was the beginning of a long-term process, lasting through most of the colonial era, by which dikgosi and agents of the colonial state repeatedly confronted each other over attempts to check the dikgosi's powers by means of radical changes in the government of the merafe. I shall review some of the most important ones in order to identify processes and structural conditions that explain why the dikgosi nevertheless largely maintained – even in certain respects enhanced – their position as supreme authority figures and strengthened the structures of their respective polities.
The determination of the British to make radical reforms found a major expression in two proclamations issued by the high commissioner in 1934. These proclamations were both introduced by reference to the Order-in-Council of 9 May 1891 whereby ‘the High Commissioner is empowered on His Majesty's behalf to exercise all powers and jurisdiction which Her late Majesty Queen Victoria at any time before or after the date of that Order had or might have within the territory of the Bechuanaland Protectorate’. It was conceded that proclamations issued by the high commissioner ‘shall respect any native laws and customs by which civil relations of any Native Chiefs, tribes or populations under His Majesty's protection are now regulated’. There was, however, one important caveat: respect was to be accorded only insofar as native laws and customs were not ‘incompatible with the due exercise of His Majesty's power and jurisdiction’.7 Motivated by the experience of allegedly autocratic, incompetent or otherwise unsuitable dikgosi – the most obvious case being the deposition of Kgosi Sebele II of the Bakwena, mentioned above (see Ramsay 1987: 39f.) – the resident commissioner argued that ‘it is essential that we should legalise the position of the chief…there must be provisions for the Government to recognise the Chief and his suitability for the chieftainship in the interest of the whole tribe’.8
The first proclamation (No. 74 of 1934) stipulated channels through which ‘the tribe’ might articulate dissatisfaction with their kgosi as well as proper procedures to hear the kgosi's defence before the administration made its decision in such matters. The dikgosi rejected this and other provisions in the proclamations on the grounds that these provisions fundamentally disagreed with the Order-in-Council of 9 May 1891. As described above, this document authorized the high commissioner to legislate by proclamation; however, he was restricted by the condition that he should, I reiterate, respect any native laws or customs regulating civil relations (see Schapera 1970: 51). Thus, the new rules for the recognition and instalment of a kgosi were perceived as being in basic disagreement with the Tswana maxim Bogosi boa tsaleloa, gab o loeloe (‘A man should be born for the kingship, not fight for it’). In cases of abuse of power or misconduct in office, it was argued, they had their own procedures: Kgosi ke kgosi ka morafe (‘The kgosi is king by virtue of the tribe’).
The dikgosi feared that they had now been relegated to the lower end of the colonial state hierarchy, supervised by and committed to report to the local resident magistrate. This was obviously intolerable for powerful figures who were accustomed to being recognized by their people according to the dictum Kgosi ke modingwana, ga e sebjwe (‘The kgosi is a little god, no evil must be spoken of him’) and whose authority was sustained by another important maxim: Letswe la kgosi ke molao (‘The kgosi's word is law’). They had also been accustomed to relating directly to the high commissioner. In one of my conversations with Kgosi Bathoen II he stated that to him the resident magistrate was a foreign representative and ‘not my superior’ (cf. Picard 1987: 51).9
Furthermore, when the proclamation of 1934 mentioned above required the dikgosi to
