The 1908-10 Campaign Against Incorporation Into South Africa
Jeff Ramsay | Monday February 15, 2016 15:42
This was because there long existed a consensus among local Batswana that British overrule as a Protectorate was preferable to the likely alternative of incorporation into the white settler dominated states of the Union of South Africa and/or Southern Rhodesia.
Thus, for many decades, among nationalist minded Batswana one could find stronger advocates for the retention of imperial control than within the ranks the imperialists themselves who viewed the Bechuanaland Protectorate (BP) and a geographically strategic but economically marginal part of the Empire. This strategic significance was, moreover, reduced after 1914 with the end of German rule in Namibia.
The seminal 20th century event in the indigenous conflation of Protectorate with Protection and subsequent emergence of modern Botswana nationalism was the 1908-1910 campaign to keep the BP out of the proposed Union of South Africa.
The possibility of the BP’s inclusion in a future Union of South Africa became apparent with the July 1907 publication of the then High Commissioner Lord Selborne’s 7th of January 1907 Memorandum to the Colonial Secretary of State, Lord Crewe, whose object had been “to review the general situation in South Africa in such a manner as may enable the people of this country to appreciate the difficulties of administration under the present system, and consider whether (and if so by what means) it is advisable to establish a central national government embracing all the British Colonies and Protectorates.”
Lord Selborne’s call was fully taken up in May 1908 when representatives at an Inter-colonial Railway and Customs Conference [of British South Africa] called for the convening of a National Convention made up of delegates appointed by the parliaments of the four self-governing white settler colonies [Cape Colony, Natal, Orange River Sovereignty and Transvaal] in order to draft a for a “Closer Union or Federation of South Africa.”
In the same month, on the 23rd of May 1908 Bakwena Kgosi Sebele I forwarded the first in a series of petitions expressing his subject’s objection to becoming part of such a Union, which observed that:
“That in the event of the coming Federation or Unification becoming a reality, we should like to see our rights reserved and protected under the Imperial Government. That in the event of the coming of Federation or Unification is going to rob us of all our present rights or interests in so far as our land is concerned, we are not going to federate.
“I am the inheritance left by the late Queen Victoria the Good, under His Majesty the King Edward VII. I do not want any government except Imperial Government. Will the coming Federation be an Imperial Government? We are not going to federate unless assured by His Excellency the High Commissioner that our interests will be safeguarded”.
In forwarding his petition, Sebele was influenced by his Tribal Secretary Peter M.J. Sidzumo. The son of “a well known Mfengu preacher” who had settled in Mafikeng, Peter Sidzumo is one of the great unsung heroes of Botswana for the leading role he played in mobilising and coordinating Batswana opinion against the South African threat.
After decades of sparring with both the British and internal rivals, which had at one point resulted in active official consideration of his possible banishment to either Robben Island or the Seychelles, in the aftermath of the 1899-1902 Boer War Sebele had consolidated his local authority, while reaching an accommodation with the new Resident Commissioner Ralph Williams.
Notwithstanding his role in the removal of the independent-minded Batawana Kgosi Sekgoma Letsholathebe, Williams came to appreciate the three major Southern Protectorate Dikgosi, that is Bathoen I, Linchwe I and Sebele I, along with Khama III in the north, as vital partners for maintaining the colonial peace. It was thus during Williams’ time that the foundations of a system of “parallel” or “indirect rule” were laid whereby British authority was exercised through the Dikgosi.
While Sebele was the first kgosi to call for the retention of Imperial control, his petition was preceded by the 12th of May 1908 letter from the Basotho Khosi Letsie II, which asked: “Are we of Basutoland thought of in this unification?”
Following these separate initiatives Letsie and Sebele, with the able assistance of their respective secretaries, Phillip Modise and Sidzumo, worked together. Thus, in a 30th of May 1908 letter to Letsie, Sebele expressed his eagerness to maintain close contact and further enquired about the workings of the Basotho National Council.
Through Sidzumo’s pen, Sebele also associated himself with the then rising current of black protest politics within South Africa, which was finding its voice through a vibrant African controlled press, regional “Native” Congresses and political associations, as well as such forums as the Inter-State Native College Scheme that founded Fort Hare University.