Yes, Sechele united Batswana to defeat the Transvaal Boers in 1852-53

The above passage from James Chapman’s journal captures the predicament facing the Transvaal Boers in the Madikwe region on November 6, 1852, just sixty-eight days after the bloody standoff at Dimawe [Travels in the Interior of Africa, p. 84]. It further dovetails with numerous other accounts from the period, including Sekwena accounts, such as those found in the private papers of W.C. Willoughby and Isaac Schapera, which speak of Sechele’s post Dimawe resort to “ka bonokwane” tactics against the Boers.

At Dimawe, a Boer commando of over 1000 men, including indigenous auxiliaries, failed to overcome Sechele’s defenders in a daylong battle. In the aftermath of that battle, and his subsequent failure in a skirmish against Senthufe’s Bangwaketse at Kgwakgwe Hill, Kanye, the Boer Commandant-General Piet Scholtz was forced to disband the commando. As he acknowledged a dispatch to his superior, Andries Pretorius, dated September 12, 1852: