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Tshekedi Khama and Opposition to the British Administration of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1926-1936

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Michael Crowder
Michael Crowder
Affiliation:
Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London
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Extract

African chiefs under colonial rule are conventionally described as collaborators. Those who failed to co-operate with their colonial masters were deposed. Tshekedi Khama, Regent of the Bangwato for his nephew, Seretse, from 1926 to 1950, does not fit this description. During the first ten years of his regency, he was almost continuously locked in conflict with the British on a whole range of issues both large and small. His sustained opposition to the British is the more remarkable in that he became regent at the age of merely twenty without having been specifically prepared for the governance of the largest of the Tswana states under British rule.

This article explores the reasons for Tshekedi's opposition to the British and the way in which he conducted this opposition, and asks why the British did not depose him as they almost certainly would have deposed a chief who behaved remotely like him in one of their other African territories. It concludes that while Tshekedi basically accepted the colonial situation in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, he was determined that the British should make no inroads into the powers of the chiefs as determined at the end of the nineteenth century when his father Khama III had accepted British protection. He was also resolved to hand over the chieftaincy intact to his ward, Seretse. Furthermore Tshekedi, unlike most African chiefs of his day, was Western-educated, having attended Fort Hare, and believed that the function of the British Administration was to teach him ‘how to govern…not how to be governed’. He reacted strongly against measures that were imposed on him without consultation or explanation, especially, those which he suspected were designed to limit his power or might affect the welfare of his people. In opposing such measures, he employed both ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ resources and was as skilful as any African nationalist of the time in mobilising press, parliament and public opinion in Britain in his support.

While the British did consider deposing him, and in 1933 temporarily suspended him from office, they were confronted by the fact that there was no other leader in Gammangwato who would be accepted as a legitimate alternative by the Bangwato or who would be remotely as competent as he was. After ten years of wrangling with Tshekedi the British learnt that it was in their interests to collaborate with him. For the next decade Tshekedi and the Administration worked largely in harmony. It was only in the late 1940s that Tshekedi began to use his formidable intellectual powers and administrative experience to challenge the colonial system itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 26 , Issue 2-3 , March 1985 , pp. 193 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 See Crowder, Michael, Revolt in Bussa : a study in British ‘Native Administration’ in Nigerian Borgu 1903–1936 (London, 1973) for an account of the deposition of Kitoro Gani, Emir of Bussa, on two occasions: first for inefficiency, then for ‘corruption’.Google Scholar

2 Perham, Margery, West African Passage: A Journey through Nigeria, Chad and the Cameroons, edited and with an introduction by Kirk-Greene, A. H. M. (London, 1983), 65–66.Google Scholar

3 Ibid. 89. Margery Perham also attended the Emir's Council at which even a small and reasonable request was turned down by the Resident, who later was a little remorseful in conversation with her and ‘said he thought we ought to let them have about one in three of the things they asked for, even where we thought it rather unreasonable’. Ibid. 68.

4 Benson, Mary, Tshekedi Khama (London, 1960)Google Scholar; Sillery, A., Botswana: A Short Political History (London, 1974)Google Scholar; Robertson, Harold H. ‘From Protectorate to Republic: the Political History of Botswana’ (Ph.D. thesis, Dalhousie University, 1976).Google Scholar

5 Comaroff, John L. in ‘Rules and Rulers: Political Processes in a Tswana Chiefdom’, Man xiii (1978), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has argued on the basis of succession to office in the Tswana chiefdom of Barolong boo Ratshidi (Tshidi) that in practice ascriptive rules rarely determine the devolution of political authority. However, the contrary seems to have been the case in the major Tswana states of the Bechuanaland Protectorate during the colonial period. Among the Bakwena, Bangwato, Bangwaketse and the Bakgatla the rule of primogeniture was faithfully observed when presenting to the British successors to the chieftaincy. When the British did suspend or depose a chief and impose their own candidate, they found that he had great difficulty ruling while the rightful chief was still alive. See, for instance, Titus Ka Mbuya, ‘Legitimacy and Succession in Tswana states: the case of Bakwena, 1930–1936’ (B.A. History Dissertation, University of Botswana, 1984). Certainly, in the case of the Bangwato, when the British exiled Seretse, they could find no one to replace him and the chieftaincy remained in abeyance until 1979 when Seretse's eldest son, Seretse Khama Ian Khama, succeeded to the chieftaincy with his father's blessing.

6 Botswana National Archives, Gaborone (BNA) S433/10, ‘Confidential Annual Reports on Chiefs, Tribal, in the B.P. and Natives of outstanding influence: Acting Chief Tshekedi Khama and Chief Seretse’. G.E. Nettelton, the Resident Magistrate at Serowe, wrote in his annual confidential report on Tshekedi for 1935, when Tshekedi was at the height of his most bitter wrangle with the Administration over their attempts to restrict his powers, ‘…I am afraid I do not consider that there are any Headmen or members of the Tribe of outstanding influence or personality. There is a very wide gap between Tshekedi and his Headmen.’

7 BNA DCS 1/15, ‘Water Shortage in Serowe’, Tshekedi to Resident Magistrate, 29 November 1929.

8 The term ‘tribe’ was used both by the British Administration and the Tswana chiefs including Tshekedi. In Setswana, the equivalent is morafe though this is more accurately translated as ‘nation’. In Botswana, the word ‘tribe’ does not have the pejorative connotation it has in other African countries.

9 The administrative record suggests that this council was created at the instigation of the British, in particular the Resident Commissioner, Colonel Ellenberger, who, at a meeting of the Kgotla which he personally supervised, ‘arranged for a Council to help Gorewang. The councillors were elected from among the Principal Headmen of the tribe…’ (Ellenberger to Tshekedi in BNA S11/5 ‘Appointment of Regent during Minority of Chief’ 24 November 1925). Robertson (‘From Protectorate to Republic’, 41–2), however, argues that the Council was the idea of Simon Ratshosa who ‘prevailed’ on the Resident Commissioner to establish it. In fact, Robertson seems to be discussing a different council. There was certainly pressure from what the Johannesburg corres pondent of The Times described as ‘the more progressive leaders’ of the Bangwato on the British to establish a Regency Council. The British in turn were said ‘to view the idea very favourably’ (The Times, 23 November 1925: reference kindly supplied by Neil Parsons). However, the Council which Ellenberger established was purely an ad hoc one designed to support the weak Gorewang and was in no sense a regency council. Though the British would have liked to keep it, as Resident Magistrate Neale told its members in the presence of their Regent-elect on 19 December 1925, it depended on Tshekedi ‘whether there shall be a Council or not'. Incidentally, only Simon and John Ratshosa were members of the Council, not all three brothers as Robertson suggests.

10 BNA DCS 4/1, ‘Tshekedi Khama“. Resident Commissioner to Resident Magistrate, Serowe, telegram, 24 December 1925.

11 Ibid. Minutes of a meeting held at the Resident Magistrate's Office, Serowe, at 10.00 a.m. on 19 December 1925.

12 Ibid. Captain Neale, Resident Magistrate, Serowe, to Government Secretary, Mafeking, 8 February 1926.

13 Ibid. J. Ellenberger, Resident Commissioner to Resident Magistrate, Serowe, Mafeking, 13 February 1926.

14 BNA S176/7, ‘Native Affairs: Resident Commissioner's Report. Bamangwato Tribe: Section II. 8 November 1930’.

15 BNA S218/5, ‘Bakhurutshe, Removal from Tonota to Serowe – Request by Bishop of Kimberley’. Notes on minutes of interview with Tshekedi on 28 January 1932.

16 BNA DCS 6/1, ‘Bakhurutshe at Tonota: Complaint by’. Athlone to R. M. Daniel, Acting Resident Commissioner, 9 October 1926.

17 BNA S34/5, ‘Application of Chief Rawe to remove to the Bamangwato Reserve: Khurutshe persecution, Tonota’. Tshekedi to Resident Magistrate, 26 September 1926.

18 Tshekedi Khama Papers (TKP), ‘Pilikwe, Minchin and Kelly (Ratshosa Case)’. Tshekedi to Minchin and Kelly, 13 August 1931.

19 BNA S59/6, ‘Tshekedi, Chief: High Commissioner's letter to, 20 January 1930’.

20 TKP/Minchin and Kelly to Tshekedi, 12 November 1930.

21 BNA DCS 1/15, ‘Water Shortage in Serowe’. This was the occasion for his complaint ‘I wish to be taught how to govern my country and not to be taught how to be governed.’

22 The above account is based on BNA DCS 1/15.

23 BNA S420/12, ‘Tshekedi: Acting Chief Bamangwato. Refusal to cooperate with Chiefs of Southern Protectorate and attitude re attendance at Native/African Advisory Council’.

24 BNA S6/1, ‘Chiefs Tshekedi Khama, Sebele II and Chieftainess Ntebogang: Complaints regarding imposition of control: Witchcraft, Tribal Labour, Hereditary Servants’. Resident Commissioner Ellenberger to E.O.Butler, Resident Magistrate, Gaberones, 27 September 1927.

25 Ibid. Interview between Chiefs and High Commissioner, 21 and 22 November 1927 and letter from Tshekedi to Resident Magistrate, Serowe, 5 October 1927.

26 BNA S266/2, ‘Tshekedi – relations with Government’. Statement by Resident Commissioner, J. Ellenberger, 19 November 1927.

27 BNA DCS 10/18, ‘Mining in the Bechuanaland Protectorate’. Memorandum of interview between Resident Commissioner and Acting Chief Tshekedi, 15 June 1930.

28 Dominions (South Africa), no. 4. Confidential. Correspondence (1930–1931) relating to the [High Commission] territories. [BNB 174–8]. 1. Mineral Concessions and Mining Proclamation in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 10141/20. Travers Buxton and John H. Harris of Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, 19 February 1930, to Dominions Office, encl. memo, of 21 January 1930 by Tshekedi Khama.

29 Ibid. 10141/27 encl. in Despatch No. 16 to Dominions Office by High Commissioner of 7 February 1930.

30 BNA DCS 10/18, ‘Interview between Chief Tshekedi Khama and the High Commissioner–24 January 1930’, recorded by Tshekedi Khama.

31 Enclosure no. 4 in 10141/27, as cited in note 29.

32 Ibid., encl. no. 5.

33 BNA DCS 10/18, Nettelton to Government Secretary, Mafeking, 8 February 1930.

34 BNA 863/9, ‘Transcripts of Tshekedi Khama's interviews with Lord Passfield, Dominions Secretary, London, April, 1930’. Tshekedi was also concerned about the impact of mining on the morals of his people. ‘In fact’, he told Passfield, ‘I felt more afraid than ever of having mines in my tribe. I know what happens if Europeans of the mining class enter into a native country. Another thing which springs from mining is intoxicating drink,’ which to Tshekedi, like his father, a strong advocate of temperance, was a real horror.

35 BNA DCS 10/10, ‘Tshekedi's visit to England in connection with Mining’. Nettelton to Government Secretary, 27 May 1930.

36 Ibid.

37 BNA S63/9, as in note 34. Interview of 1 April 1930.

38 Sir Charles Rey, Monarch of all I survey: Bechuanaland Diaries, 1929–1937. Botswana Society, National Museum, Gaborone. (These are being prepared for publication by the Society by Neil Parsons and Michael Crowder). Entry for 20 November 1929.

39 He made this clear to Bathoen II, when he visited this 23-year-old chief of the Bangwaketse and friend and relation of Tshekedi in his capital at Kanye. ‘I made him a speech’, Rey noted, ‘in which I pointed out that I would always be his friend as long as he did what I told him…’. Ibid., entry for 17–21 February 1930.

40 BNA S353/13, ‘Rey's Secret Report, March 1931’.

41 Minutes of 14th Session of the Native Advisory Council 1932, p. 15.

42 Ibid. 29–30.

43 Minutes of 15th Session of the Native Advisory Council, 1933, pp. 28–29.

44 Ibid. 29.

45 TKP: ‘Native Administration Proclamations 1932–33’. Tshekedi and Bathoen to Administrative Secretary, High Commissioner's Office, Cape Town, 25 August 1933.

46 Ibid. Rey to Tshekedi, 25 August 1933.

47 See BNA S429/10, ‘Complaints by Resident Commissioner regarding Acting Chief Tshekedi writing direct to High Commissioner, 1931–1946’.

48 Rey, Diaries, entry for 1–7 September 1935.

49 See TKP 72: ‘Mclntosh 1933: Deposition of Tshekedi Khama’.

50 Ibid. and BNA DCS 11/14 ‘Intercourse between Europeans and Native Females: Complaints by Chief Tshekedi’.

51 BNA S350/11, ‘Notes of the Serowe Incident’. C. F. Rey to Lord Lugard et al., 17 October 1933, p. 1.

52 Ibid. 2.

53 TKP 72: Telegram to WRITE; Mafeking and Archives of the Council for World Mission: London Missionary Society (S.O.A.S.) Africa Odds, Box 39, Papers on Tshekedi 1933–6, Tshekedi to Charles Roden Buxton, copy of telegram of 18 Sept. 1933: ’Disquieting as recent developments have been nothing more disturbing to me to observe that my action is interpreted deliberately as determined effort to force constitutional issue between natives and crown courts stop God knows such attitude never entered my mind stop’.

54 Rey, Diaries, entry for Friday 8 to Thursday 14 September 1933.

55 Benson, Tshekedi Khama, ch. 8, has a good account of the suspension of Tshekedi based on Buchanan's own records.

56 BNA S358/5, ‘Draft Proclamations’. Tshekedi, Bathoen II, and Lotlomoreng to High Commissioner, 7 December 1933.

57 Ibid. Rey to High Commissioner, 7 December 1933, enclosing petition.

58 Ibid. E. B. Neale for Resident Commissioner to Tshekedi forwarding High Com missioner's comments, 19 December 1933.

59 Ibid. Tshekedi, Bathoen II and Lotlomoreng to Resident Commissioner, 8 January 1934, P. 1.

60 Ibid. 2–4.

61 BNA S358/6, ‘Draft Proclamations’. Tshekedi Khama to High Commissioner, 13 January 1934.

62 BNA DCS 16/19, ‘Interview between High Commissioner, Tshekedi Khama, Bathoen etc. Cape Town, 23–24 February 1934’.

63 Ibid. 24.

64 Rey, Diaries, entry for Monday, 11 February 1935.

65 BNA S358/20 Tshekedi to High Commissioner, 16 March 1935.

66 BNA S359/2 ‘Tshekedi Khama's Petition to the King and related Correspondence’. Rey to High Commissioner, 21 May 1936.

67 BNA S422/1 ‘Native Proclamations: Progress made re: Bamangwato Tribe’. Report on tour of High Commissioner, Mahalapye, 15 June 1935.

68 BNA S422/3 ‘Native Proclamations 74 and 75/1934 Bamangwato Reserve. Question of action to be taken against Tshekedi for non-compliance with Procs’. Nettelton to Assistant Resident Commissioner, Reilly, 18 November 1935.

69 Ibid. Nettelton to Reilly, telegram, 18 November 1935.

70 BNA S447/7, ‘Action brought by Tshekedi Khama against High Commissioner’. See also S422/4 and 5.

71 BNA S422/4, ‘Native Proclamations 74 and 75 of 1934. Bamangwato Reserve. Progress of Attitude of Tshekedi towards (Appointment of Councillors)’. Minutes of Kgotla Meeting, Serowe, 29 November 1935.

72 BNA S447.7 ‘Plaintiff's declaration in the Special Court of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 14 January 1936’.

73 Rey, Diaries, Entry for 6–10 July 1936.

74 The High Commission Territories Law Reports: decisions of the High Courts and Special Courts of Basutoland, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and Swaziland, 1926–1953, edited by SirHarold William, C.M.G., ’Tshekedi Khama and Another v. the High Commissioner’ (Maseru, 1955), p. 31.Google Scholar Mr Justice Isaacs, who was junior counsel for the High Commissioner in this case, has pointed out that in fact the British had more power under the Foreign Jurisdiction Act of 1890 than they did in the colonies; thus they could not have barred Seretse from returning to Bechuanaland if it had been a colony as distinct from a Protectorate. (Interview at Lobatse, 3 April 1984.)

75 Rey, Diaries, entry for Monday 23 to Sunday 29 November 1936.

76 Robertson, 166.

77 Lord Hailey, Native Administration in the British African Territories, Part v (London, 1953). 222: ‘Looking back on the history of these years, one cannot help feeling that those Chiefs who criticised the provisions of the two proclamations had some grounds for their protest…for nearly forty years the Administration gave no sign of its intention to make any material change in the procedure initiated by the Proclamation of 1891, and when the change came it appeared in consequence to be an unduly abrupt departure from tradition…In insisting on the establishment of a formally constituted Tribal Council and of Tribunals of a fixed composition to take the place of the traditional trial by Kgotla, the law made radical change in the most characteristic institution of the Bechuana people. In the former case the Chiefs resented a measure which seemed to portend official intervention in the selection of their Advisors and Councillors; in the latter, the people saw a menace to a system of trial to which they were as deeply attached as Britain is to the procedure of trial by Jury.’

78 TKP 29, ‘Correspondence: Anti-Slavery Society 1930–1956’. Tshekedi to Harris, 1 July 1935.

79 BNA S420/12, Tshekedi to Arden-Clarke, 29 October 1939.

80 BNA S433/6, Confidential Report on Acting Chief Tshekedi for 1936.