Hegemony and survival

Jeff Ramsay | Monday January 25, 2016 16:10

Those gazetted as chiefs had potential motives other than colonial pressure to see that taxes were collected. From 1899 they were allowed to annually pocket up to 10% of all the Hut Tax money in their reserves.

Many also imposed special levies and expected gifts from returning migrants. Some of this revenue was used for public projects, but probably most of it before the 1938 introduction of Tribal Treasuries was used by dikgosi for their personnel upkeep.

By the 1920s many rulers were ordering all able bodied-men who failed to pay their tax to sign contracts with local labour recruiters.  Where rulers were relatively lenient in their enforcement tax collection, as was the case of Kweneng under Kgosi Sebele II (1918-31), the colonial state directly intervened. Of the 335 criminal cases prosecuted by Molepolole’s Resident Magistrate between 1921 and 1925, 262 concerned failure to pay Hut Tax.

Notwithstanding the significant impact it had on local livelihoods there is little evidence of Batswana having protested, much less engaged in active, as opposed to passive resistance, against its introduction.

Undoubtedly, one factor for this acquiescence was the effect of the 1897 Langeberg Rebellion among the Batlhaping south of the Molopo on local thinking. In the brutal crushing of the rebellion, all Batswana had seen the consequence of open resistance to Hut Tax.

In the former British Bechuanaland region of the Cape Colony, Batlhaping, Batlharo and Barolong had also been severely affected by rinderpest and drought, while living in overcrowded locations.

In 1896, when rinderpest was coming through the Bechuanaland Protectorate, the British authorities in the Northern Cape began shooting Batswana cattle, claiming that African cattle were responsible for the disease’s spread. This continued even after rinderpest had arrived in the Cape.

In 1897, just when rinderpest and famine were at their worst, the Cape authorities also imposed their own Hut Tax on the southern Batswana. Many Batlhaping, led by Kgosi Luka Jantjie Galeshwe, then rebelled.

Following some initial skirmishes most of the rebels retreated into the Langeberg Hills, where they withstood a five-month siege.

After the death of over 1,500 defenders, the Batlhaping were defeated. Their surviving leaders were imprisoned or executed.

About 4,000 other captured Batlhaping, mostly women and children were sent to the Western Cape, where they were forced to work like slaves for white farmers.

Batswana in the Protectorate were well informed about what the British were doing to their brethren south of the Molopo River. In his kgotla, Kgosi Bathoen I openly called Luka a hero, saying “they have killed him, but they did so after he had fought.” Then turning to a Mosotho policeman named Masilo he asked: “How do the white men fight?”

The Sergeant replied “When the government fights no one gets the best against it; the Government always wins.”

Writing of the “white atrocities”, the LMS missionary Rev. Williams concluded that among his Bakwena flock: “The name of the white man must stink as from the bottom of the pit.”

In 1899 ecological crisis was immediately followed by the outbreak of the South African or second Anglo-Boer War, a conflict that although technically started by the Boers, was ultimately the product of London’s ruthless determiniation to impose British hegemony throughout the region.

At first both the British and Boers claimed they would keep Africans out of the fighting, literally saying that they were fighting a “White Man’s War”. In this respect, both sides feared armed blacks more than each other. But, blacks, including Batswana, soon became involved.

When the war broke out the Protectorate’s merafe all remained loyal to the British.

 Thereafter, the Boers decided to try and take Palapye and Gaborone in an effort to cut rail communication between the Cape Colony and Rhodesias. In the north Khama’s men were mobilised rapidly, guarding the Limpopo frontier before Rhodesian-based British troops could arrive to reinforce their position. Due to this quick response, the Boers backed off and no fighting ultimately took place in the Gammangwato.

In the south, the Boer Commandant Peter “Ramolora” Swartz reached an agreement with Kgosi Sebele I in February 1900 to keep his men east of the railway. When the Boers threatened to renege on this agreement the Bakwena and Bangwaketse mobilised their mephato, but fighting was avoided. Along with the Barolong, individual Bakwena and Bangwaketse were active in running supplies across enemy lines to the beseiged town of Mafikeng.

At the outset of the fighting, the British feared the Bakgatla bagaKgafela might join the war on the Boer side. But, Kgosi Linchwe saw no purpose in allying his people with those who had forced them to flee to Mochudi three decades earlier. As we shall see in our next instalment, the role of the Bakgatla in the war was, as a result, greater.