In our last episode the young Bangwaketse Kgosi Bathoen II had suffered a setback in October 1932 when he led a mophato into Moshupa in a vain attempt to impose his own o...
In our last episode it was observed that, at an August 27, 1930 kgotla meeting in Kanye, the new British Resident Commissioner, Charles Rey, ordered that Kgosi Gobuamang&...
In our last episode it was observed that notwithstanding the 1904 bogwera controversy, prior to the 1928 installation of Bangwaketse Kgosi Bathoen II, there had not been ...
In our last episode it, was observed that after he had moved his people back to Moshupa from Kgabodukwe, the Bakgatla bagaMmanaana Kgosi Pilane attempted to adopt a non-a...
In the aftermath of the Battle of Dimawe and subsequent Boer withdrawal from Botswana the BagaMmanaana joined the Bakwena in falling back to Dithubaruba.
In our previous episode we saw that despite their initial success in breaking through the Bangwaketse and Bakgatla bagaMmanaana lines, the August 30, 1852 Battle at Dimaw...
In our previous episode the Bakwena Kgosi Sechele had rejected the Boer Commandant Pieter Scholtz’s demand that he surrender the Bakgatla bagMmanaana Kgosi Mosielel...
In the days that immediately followed their August 17, 1852 massacre at Maanwane, Commandant-General Scholtz’s commando skirmished with Mosielele’s retreating...
We left off in 1852 with the peace and independence of the Bakgatla bagaMmanaana under Kgosi Mosielele, along with that neighbouring merafe, under threat by the Transvaal...
We left off with Bakgatla bagaMmanaana under Kgosi Mosielele having enjoyed relative peace and prosperity during the 1840s, in part due to their village’s proximity...
The Bakgatla branch of Batswana are generally divided into five subgroups. Among these the principle dikgosi and greater numbers of the Bakgatla-ba-Mmakau, Bakgatla-ba-Mo...
As we begin a new year still in the shadow of the SARS-CoV-2 or “Covid-19” virus we can hope and pray that emerging vaccines will ultimately deliver better ti...
This week we take a break from our “Blackman’s War” series to share an English translation of Ratshosa aMostswetla account, published in the February 18...
We left off on October 24, 1899, with the British officials and police under Deputy Commissioner William Surmon abandoning Gaborone Camp and Station in the face of the ad...
We left off on October 18, 1899 with the British Lieutenant Colonel Hubert Plumer having arrived from Fort Tuli with reinforcements to join Kgosi Khama’s already vi...
Last week we observed that by October of 1899 the Dikgosi of the Bechuanaland Protectorate had been directly instructed by the then British High Commissioner Sir (later L...
Last week we observed that as the ecology of the Bechuanaland Protectorate slowly recovered from the 1890s devastation of rinderpest, drought and locust infestation, as w...
We left off in 1897-98 when, in the aftermath of the rinderpest epidemic that had destroyed over 90% of the Bechuanaland Protectorate’s livestock, along with much o...
We left off last week by observing that by the time of Kgosi Sechele’s death in 1892 there were already environmental indicators of a coming crisis with drought and...
COVID-19 is certainly not the first virus to shake Botswana society. In addition to HIV/AIDS, our country has been rocked by other invasive pathogens, both viral and bact...
From 1923, Frederick Maharero (1875-1950) established himself in Mahalapye as the exiled Ovaherero paramount whose influence over the next quarter century extended into N...
