From War To Peace

Jeff Ramsay | Monday September 4, 2017 17:11

By the end of 1853 three blocks of indigenous African resistance had in fact begun to coalesce into a strategic triangle to at least check further settler expansion.

In the south the Basotho and Batuang,

under the leadership of Morena Moshoeshoe, had successfully defended the entire

Maluti valley as well as Lesotho highlands. In the west stood the pan-Batswana alliance of Sechele and his allies, who together controlled a vast territory stretching from the Orange to Zambezi Rivers.

In addition, to the north there was also an emerging coalition that included Dikgosi Sekwati’s Bapedi, Mokopane’s Balaka and Maraba’s Baletwaba who collectively challenged the Zoupansberg Boer,

In the end, the mid-19th century survival the Boer’s South African (Transvaal) Republic (SAR), and thus the fate of its many subjugated indigenous black communities,was decided in the north.

This situation was not without some racial/ ethnic ambiguity. As already noted, British military officers, as well as ivory traders, had raised money in support Sechele’s aborted Cape Town mission, while the Boer, Jan Viljoen championed peace and open trade with the Batswana.

Moshoeshoe, too, had his white sympathisers. Under Mathinus Pretorius, the Boers had also succeeded in recruiting a number of loyal dikgosi. These prominently included the Bafokeng Kgosi Mokgatle and the Bakgatla bagaKgafela Kgosi Kgamanyane. Both of these rulers assisted the Boers in their big 1854 northern Transvaal counter offensive.

In battle, blacks “doing service” for the Boers were commonly referred to by their opponents as the “grey hairs”. This was because in battle alongside the Boers, they often identified themselves by smearing ashen clay on their heads, which created the allusion of premature agin.

The unsuccessful 1852-53 invasions of south-eastern Botswana and Lesotho had coincided with a similar attack on the Bapedi, whose Kgosi Sekwati had put up a successful defence.

The Boer campaign had been compromised by the illness of the aging Zoupansberg Commandant, Hendrick Potgieter. In 1853, Oom Hendrick died leaving command of his followers in the hands of his son Piet. Fighting in the north was rekindled in October 1854, after the Balaka wiped out a party of 22 Boers, including another of the late Hedrick’s sons, Hermanus.

Piet then organised a commando to exact revenge. The Boers cornered the Balaka in a cavern, but suffered a setback when Piet was killed. Over 3,000 Balaka died thereafter in a siege that lasted for 25 days.

The Boers then attacked the Baletwaba who reportedly lost another 2,000. Thereafter, the northern resistance temporarily collapsed. From the Natal Mercury newspaper of January 31, 1855:

“The Boers have defeated Macapan and Mapela convincingly. It is affirmed that both Secheli and Moshesh were prepared to come down upon the Boers, if this Commando against Macapan and Mapela had failed.”

Subsequently, on September 22, 1856, the paper reported: “We hear the Boers have been twice out against Secheli, but that his position [at Dithubaruba] was too strong to attack.”

Thereafter, relations between the Bakwena and Boers remained tense, threatening on a number of occasions to lead to a renewal of the conflict. Relations began to thaw in July 1857 when SAR, through Viljoen’s continuing intermediary efforts, took up Sechele’s request for new missionaries by arranging for the Hermansburg

Mission (German Evangelical Lutheran) to work in Botswana. Even before the sacking of his mission, Livingstone had decided to abandon the Bakwena in order to indulge his growing wanderlust. The failure of his

LMS sponsors to replace him created an

opening for the Lutherans. For the next five years, the German missionaries, sharing preaching responsibilities with the Kgosi and LMS affiliated Batswana lay readers, such as Hendrick Paulo and Jan Khatlane, who contributed to a remarkable growth in Christianity, as well as a flowering of economic and social ties between the Bakwena and the Boers. By 1866, when the LMS missionary, Rodger Price took over,

Sunday services had overflowed the church building, requiring that the congregation be administered to in the Kgotla.

With Sechele’s support, Lutheran proselytising spread to neighbouring merafe, such as the Balete and Bangwato, thus promoting a Christianisation process throughout much of eastern Botswana.

By 1860, the postal routes to Botswana, as well as most wagon commerce, passed through the SAR. During the same year Sechele finally travelled to the SAR as a guest of Marthinus Pretorius.

Following this summit, Bakwena work parties were occasionally contracted as paid labourers in the Transvaal. At the same time, Boer artisans began to migrate and settle in Botswana in small numbers. By 1880, Maburu children were attending Molepolole’s Setswana medium school.

While a few Boers were becoming assimilated into Setswana society, the Batswana, themselves, were assimilating aspects of Boer culture. Many, including

Sechele’s heir, Sebele, spoke Afrikaans, while knowledge of English was rare. Thus during the early years of colonial rule British officials are known to have communicated to Batswana in the language of the Boers.