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South African Historical Journal Volume 41, 1999 - Issue 1
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Original Articles

Not Quite All Quiet on the North West Frontier: Khama's Bangwato and the Waterberg Commando

NEIL PARSONS University of Botswana,
Pages 44-55 | Published online: 14 Jan 2009

  • 1899. . School of Oriental and African Studies Library, University of London (hereafter SOAS), London Missionary Society Archives (hereafter LMS), Africa South In-Letters, Howard Williams to London Missionary Society, 1 Nov.
  • 1899 . Botswana National Archives, Gaborone (hereafter BNA), R.C.4/14, passim and SOAS, LMS, Williams (Palapye) to LMS, passim
  • Ibid.
  • 1899. . BNA, R.C. 4/14, FA Grobler to Khama, 20 Oct.
  • 1899 . BNA, R.C. 4/14, Khama to Grobler, 23 Oct. LMS, Chronicle, vol. 9 (n.s.) 41–2;‘A British Official’(pseud.), ‘In Khama's Country’, Monthly Review (London), vol. 7 (1902), 116. See also Daily News (London), 7 Mar. 1901, 27 Mar. 1901;Rhodesia (London), 1 June 1901, p. 53ff (‘Natives and the War: Chief Khama Speaks—Pro-Boer Charges’)
  • 1899 . The Times , Fri. 13 Oct., 5c,The Times, Mon. 30 Oct. 1899, 5d. See also R.F. Morton, ‘Linchwe I and the Kgatla Campaign in the South African War, 1899–1903’, Journal of African History, 26 (1985), 169–91;R.F. Morton, ‘Chiefs and Ethnic Unity in Two Colonial Worlds’, in A.I. Asiwaju, ed., Partitioned Africans: Studies in Human Relations across Africa's International Boundaries, 1884–1894 (London, 1984)
  • Makhura , T. J. 1995 . Another Road to the Raid: The Neglected Role of the Boer-Bagananwa War as a Factor in the Coming of the Jameson Raid . Journal of Southern African Studies , 21 ( 2 ) June : 257 – 67 .
  • BNA , H. 1901 . The Times Reactions of British residents of the Transvaal to the ‘Maleboch’ and ‘Woodbush’ wars or ‘atrocities’ are enclosed inC/135/5. See also (London), 19 Aug., 8e
  • van Warmelo , N. J. 1953 . Die Tlokwa en Birwa van Noord Transvaal Pretoria, Unie van Suid-Afrika, Department van Naturellesake [Ethnologiese Reeks No. 29] . (35–40 (‘An Incident during Diary on the Maleboch War’);C. Rae, Malaboch. Or, Notes Taken from my Diary on the Boer Campaign on 1894 against the Chief Malaboch of Blaauwberg, District Soutpansberg, South African Republic (London and Cape Town, 1898), passim.;J.D. Krige, ‘Traditional Origins and Tribal Relationships of the Sotho of the Northern Transvaal’, Bantu Studies (Johannesburg), 11 (1937), 354. The thesis by N.C. Wiedman, ‘Die Malaboch-Oorlog (1896)’ (University of Pretoria, 1945), and his ‘Die Malaboch-oorlog’, Historiese Studien, 7, 1 (1947), have not been consulted
  • 1896 . BNA, H.C. 182/4, J.S. Moffat (Taung) to Imperial Secretary, 4 Jan. BNA, H.C. 182/4, Secretary B.S.A. Company (Cape Town) to Imperial Secretary, 24 Dec. 1895;BNA, H.C. 182/4, High Commissioner to Colonial Office, Dec. 1895
  • Schapera , I. 1970 . Tribal Innovators: Tswana Chiefs and Social Change, 1795–1940 London (76;BNA, H.C. 182/4
  • Parsons , Q. N. and Khama , I II . 1973 . the Bamangwato, and the British…1895–1923' (PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, chapter 1, notes 24, 34, 80 and 124
  • 1896. . Zimbabwe National Archives, Harare, H.C. 3/5/37/1, Regional Commissioner to High Commissioner, telegram, 28 Mar.
  • 1896 . 14 See Zimbabwe National Archives, H.C. 3/5/37/1, High Commissioner to Colonial Office, 1 Apr. telegram State President (Pretoria) to High Commisioner, 28 Mar. 1896
  • 1896 . Rhodes House Library, University of Oxford, Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 81, Frederick Lugard Diary, 2 June, p. 146. In August of that year Khama wrote to his Assistant Commissioner complaining of Boers, stranded by the rinderpest, living near Palapye, who were stealing the few remaining cattle: Selly Oak Colleges Library, Birmingham (hereafter SO), Papers of Prof. W.C. Willoughby (hereafter WCW), File 795, Khama to Assistant Commissioner, 14 Aug. 1896
  • BNA, H.C. 73, Resident Commissioner's Minute, N. 1095
  • 1897 . SOAS, LMS, Willoughby to LMS, 11 Mar., adding: ‘But we do not place much reliance on the rumours referred to; rumours and locusts are indigenous to this country, and they are both fertile breeders.’
  • 1899. . SOAS, LMS, H. Williams (Palapye) to LMS, 27 May
  • BNA , H. 1899. . passim. Vol. 40 , 394 C. 177/6, There is no real evidence for Khama's contention that his son, Sekgoma Khama, was conspiring with the Boers to make war: SOAS, LMS, Williams to LMS, 1 Nov. See also South Africa (London), vol. (10 Feb. 1900)
  • 1899 . The Times, 20 Nov., 7e;BNA, R.C.4/14, passim;B. Gardner, Mafeking: A Victorian Legend (London, 1968;1st ed., 1966), 92–4;A.S. Hickman, ‘Journey in Search of History’, Botswana Notes and Records, 2 (1970), 106;AS. Hickman, Rhodesia Served the Queen (Salisbury, c. 1969)
  • 1899 . This and subsequent incidents at Deerdepoort were the source of Kruger's bitterness about the active use of black troops against whites by the British: see The Times, 28 Nov., 5a;The Times, 27 Apr. 1900— Dec. 1901, passim;The Times, 29 Mar. 1902, 5f;The Scotsman (Edinburgh), Mon. 19 Aug. 1901,4d. See also note 6 above—including reference to the Jules Ellenberger Papers in the Zimbabwe National Archives. (During the battle Ellenberger carried the order to attack the Boers from Holdsworth to Linchwe.) Also on the Kayesput ambush, see G.H.J. Teichler, ‘Some Historical Notes on Deerdepoort/Sikwane’, Botswana Notes and Records, 5 (1973), 125–30, and B.K. Mbenga, ‘The Bagatla-Baga-Kgafela in the Pilanesberg District of the Western Transvaal from 1899 to 1931’ (DLitt et Phil thesis, University of South Africa, 1996)
  • Gardner . Mafeking 137
  • 1899 . The Times, 22 Dec., 3a;The Times, 22 Jan. 1900, 5d;The Times, 24 Jan. 1900, 5c;The Times, 3 Feb. 1900;The Times, 10 Feb. 1900, 7d;The Times, 15 Feb. 1900, 3a;The Times, 22 Feb. 1900, 5d;The Times, 23 Feb. 1900, 5c;The Times, 26 Feb. 1900, 5c;The Times, 6 Mar. 1900, 5b;The Times, 8 Mar. 1900, 5c-d;The Times, 14 Mar. 1900, 5c;The Times, 23 Mar. 1900, 3a;The Times, 24 Mar. 1900, 7a;D. Will and T. Dent, ‘The Boer War as Seen from Gaborone’, Botswana Notes and Records (Gaborone), 4 (1972), 195–209
  • 1900. . BNA, R.C. 4/14, Assistant Commissioner to Resident Commissioner, 5 June
  • Ibid.
  • 1901. . BNA, R.C. 4/14, Assistant Commissioner to Resident Commissioner, 19 Feb. The Aborigines' Protection Society argued that since the African population of the Northern Transvaal was effectively independent of Transvaal Boer sovereignty, they should be placed under a Basutoland-type British administration: The Times, 14 Jan. 1901, 4c. and The Times, 26 Aug. 1901, 9e
  • 1903 . SOAS, LMS, ‘Notes on the Remarks of the Chief Khama and the Serowe Deacons’, E. Lloyd to LMS, 20 Aug. 1909. The money was spent on the new Serowe church: see Parsons ‘Khama III, chapter 7. It is not clear whether this £1728 is the same as or additional to the £1000 referred to by Willoughby in as being paid to Bamangwato for current construction work on military fortifications (unspecified): SOAS, LMS, Willoughby to LMS, Apr. 1903
  • 1901. . SOAS, LMS, Willoughby to LMS, 5 June
  • 1899 . SOAS, LMS, Williams to LMS, 27 May and 11 Jan. 1900. Compare these prices with 10/-to 15/- in 1888 for sheep and goats, and with £20— £30 for cattle at the height of the rinderpest in 1895. At the end of 1901 sheep and goat values at Mochudi had slipped down to between 15/- and 18/-, and cattle down to £20: Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO), CO 417/343, Linchwe to Acting Assistant Commissioner, Gaborone, 26 Nov. 1901. For Mochudi, Schapera puts the 1924 cattle price at only £3/17/-, and the Pirn Report in 1932 found the price to be £2/2/- and still falling: British Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 4368, 27. Such was to be dramatic decline in the prosperity of the people of the Bechuanaland Protectorate during the colonial period
  • 1900 . SOAS, LMS, Willoughby to LMS, 4 Oct. LMS, Chronicle, No. 108 (Dec. 1900), 297;Cmd. 4368 (Pim Report), 25. While Bangwato benefitted, white settlers in Southern Rhodesia temporarily suffered: see The Times, 31 Jan. 1900, 3e-f. The number of cattle estimated in the Bangwato Reserve by the 1921 Census was 180 608, which—given the growth of the total number in the Protectorate grew from 139 071 to 426 344 between the 1904 and 1921 Census estimates—indicates somewhere around 100 000 head in the Bangwato Reserve in 1904
  • SO, WCW, 795;SOAS, LMS, Willoughby to LMS, 4 Oct. 1900;PRO, CO 879/659, 77
  • 1901. . SOAS, LMS, Willoughby to LMS, 5 June
  • 1900. . SO, WCW, 778, ‘Notes of Conversation with Chamberlain’, 25 May
  • 1901 . Daily Mail (London), 24 Jan. SOAS, LMS, Willoughby to LMS, 27 Aug. 1901;PRO, CO 879/694, passim. See also Parsons ‘Khama III’, Chapter 7
  • 1902 . SO, WCW, 742, unidentified newspaper clipping (May or June

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