The region had been drifting towards crisis since the May 1891 Order-in-Council. In October 1891 “Morena Maaka” Shippard used its authority to impose license fees on the Protectorate’s traders. When the southern dikgosi questioned his decree, they were told that they had no say in the matter. Despite this rebuke, Sebele decided to forbid Asian and Boer merchants operating in Kweneng from paying the fees, arguing that they were not the Queen’s Englishmen.
In February 1892 Shippard’s new Deputy Commissioner for the Southern Protectorate, William Surmon, tried to force the Kweneng traders to pay. Surmon’s post had also been created in October 1891 “with the view of keeping in check the somewhat turbulent Chiefs Linchwe and Sebele.”
When BBP tried to close an Asian shop for non-payment, Sebele had it reopened. Thereafter, two policemen tried to collect payment from a Boer trader but were stopped by a Bakwena mob. Sebele informed the police that “he refused to allow anyone trading on his ground to pay any license whatever; he was the man to whom licenses had to be paid, not the English Government”.
