Back 4D Future For: Ecological Crisis (Part 2)

Jeff Ramsay | Monday January 18, 2016 15:00

A long-term outcome of these tribulations was an expansion in the flow of migrant labour out of the Protectorate. As bad became worse the Protectorate’s Annual report for 1897/98 noted that the territory “flooded by both white and coloured persons calling themselves Labour Agents.” While no complete set of numbers exists for calculating the total size of the exodus of migrant labour, official statements as well as missionary impressions, support the contention that it was of considerable magnitude. The 1897/98 report observed that: “So many men have gone that most villages present a quite deserted appearance.”

Throughout the ecological crisis Batswana looked for ways to survive besides labour migration. The traditional option of dispersing into smaller bands to rely on hunting and gathering was compromised by the devastation caused by rinderpest on wildlife populations. The epizootic afflicted all hoofed mammals. Initially most dikgosi tried to fulfil popular expectations by catering for the needy with their communal grain stores. As a result Bathoen, Khama and Sebele initially rejected aid offered through a Bechuanaland Relief Committee, which was sponsored by official and missionary elements. Sebele:

“The offer has come through the wrong channels. The very fact that the Government officials have written to the Missionaries for information has caused my people to look upon the offer with suspicion. The government in some of their dealings with my people have not been true to their word.”

 This posture was, however, overwhelmed by desperate circumstance. The dikgosi soon relented and sent wagons regularly to pick up relief supplies. By December 1898 over 1,400 women and children in Molepolole were receiving rations from the Committee. Khama, however, still refused to take free food, insisting that Bangwato pay for its wholesale cost.

During 1897 many Bangwato and other Batswana were able to get local jobs constructing the BSACo railway line from Mafikeng to Bulawayo. But, by the end of the year the project was largely finished. This also had an adverse effect on those Batswana who worked as transport riders along the route. For many years transport riding had been a lucrative source of income for those able to invest in an ox-wagon.

A new way was, however, found in which to raise some money. After the construction of the railway, it became possible to send wood to Kimberley by train. Batswana living close to the railway began cutting down trees and selling off the timber, usually with the permission of their kgosi who was given some of the profit. By 1910, practically all of the area along the railway had become deforested.

In Ngamiland where there was neither the railway nor free food distribution and migrant labour jobs were even further away, the Batawana Kgosi Sekgoma Letsholathebe was forced to take drastic measures. He stemmed the spread of rinderpest in certain areas by restricting travel. He exercised control over the distribution of existing food to alleviate famine. Orphaned children were sent out to places where cattle still existed.

If food for work was the carrot designed to lure Batswana into dependence on wage labour the colonial state’s imposition of Hut Tax was the stick. As one official observed at the time of its introduction: “it has a twofold advantage, it drives young men to work and it raises revenue.”

Bathoen, Khama and Sebele had, as a concession designed to preserve direct imperial control, agreed in principle to taxation during their 1895 negotiations with the Colonial Office. By the time of its actual imposition, in April 1899, most Batswana were still being pushed into labour migration by drought and the collapse of the herds and game.

When the tax was announced Bathoen protested that:

“Owing to famine not many people were left in his country; that most had gone to work or look for food, that this was the fourth year in succession that their crops had failed; that he was almost alone in the village; that the young men had gone out to the mines and were now living there.”

As the ecology of the Protectorate began to slowly recover after 1899 the increasingly rigorous enforcement of Hut Tax payments became an important factor in assuring a steady flow of migrant workers. Of the 335 criminal cases prosecuted by the Molepolole magistrate between 1921 and 1925, 262 concerned failure to pay Hut Tax.

Usually the colonial state was able to rely on the dikgosi to assure collection. By the 1920s many rulers were ordering all able bodied men who failed to pay their tax to sign contracts with local labour recruiters. Thus, in 1924 out of the £3,725 (pounds sterling) in Hut Tax receipts paid in Molepolole, £1,768 was directly remitted by labour recruiters as cash advances on 861 new contracts.