This approach will also serve to pursue another major issue of this chapter: the development of the Tswana merafe as a dominant force in relation to a substantial proportion of the population which were included in the Bechuanaland Protectorate and subsequently in the nation-state of Botswana. I shall first explain how, under changing historical conditions, ever-new groups of people were captured into the domain of the Tswana merafe in ways that more and more reinforced their hierarchical order, territorial control and structures of domination radiating from the Tswana royal centres. Thereafter I examine the impacts of evangelizing missionaries, before I address the significance of the British and the establishment of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. I am centrally concerned with how transformations of the major Tswana merafe1 involved a progressive increase of their strength, expansion in scale and rise of Tswana hegemony in the sense I conceived it in the Introduction.
The Development of Tswana Merafe at the Edge of the Kalahari
The Tswana merafe in focus here, as Wilmsen (1989: 101) appropriately states, ‘passed from a peripheral position in the region to almost uncontested dominance’. At first sight this seems surprising as one would not have expected settlements as populous as the royal towns of Northern Tswana merafe to exist in an area with exceptionally poor and erratic rainfall. Moreover, on examining accounts of Tswana societies in the larger region from around 1500 AD, Jean and John Comaroff found that they were characterized by a constant shifting between amalgamation and fission (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991: 127–8), centralization and decentralization (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992: 132). Nevertheless, the Tswana merafe in focus here continued, with few major interruptions,2 to develop in strength and scale from the late eighteenth century, finding their most apparent expression in very large royal towns (Gulbrandsen 2007). In this section I shall give a brief, generalized presentation of processes underpinning the formation of these small states, based, especially, upon extensive historical accounts and analysis I have published previously (Gulbrandsen 1993a, 1993b, 1995, 1996a: Ch. 3, 2007).
Since the London Missionary Society (LMS) had already been active in the region for decades, the British were well informed about the conflicts – often centred round the royal houses – that riddled these polities. On the other hand, the missionaries could also attest to the strengths of their political institutions, particularly the extent to which the Tswana rulers – and their retainers – controlled even the furthest outlying communities in a vast territory. Already in 1824 the LMS missionary Robert Moffat, on visiting the Bangwaketse, was amazed by the size and concentration of the population in well-organized, closely spaced villages: ‘[T]he [royal] town itself appears to cover at least eight times more ground than any town I have yet seen among the Bechuanas [BaTswana]’. He estimated the population to be ‘at the lowest computation, seventy thousands’ (Moffat 1842: 406)3. The kgosi (Makaba, r. 1790–1824) conducted government affairs in ‘a circle…formed with round posts of eight feet high…Behind lay the proper cattle fold, capable of holding many thousand oxen’ (1842: 399). While Makaba was widely reputed to be a dangerous warrior, Moffat conveys an atmosphere of societal harmony. He was not struck by the barracks and military exercises but rather by civic order and the presence of adult men in the kgosi's council (kgotla). Well versed in political life among the Tswana, Moffat – clearly impressed by the manner in which they conducted their meetings in the royal kgotla – speaks of their ‘parliament’, asserting that ‘business is carried on with the most perfect order’ (1842: 346). The idea of the Tswana royal towns as profound manifestations of civic order is also apparent in early missionary accounts of the Southern Tswana merafe (see Comaroff and Comaroff 1991: 129).
These qualities of the Tswana polities were most likely conveyed to the imperial power by LMS missionary Mackenzie who represented ‘a powerful voice…raised in defence of the Tswana’ (Sillery 1965: 39; cf. Dachs 1972: 653f.). Mackenzie worked closely with several dikgosi; his extensive publications reveal an impressive knowledge of Tswana political institutions and practices. For example, he offers an illuminating account of the political proceedings in the royal court of the Bangwato, asserting that they were ‘conducted with decorum and order’ (Mackenzie 1871: 373). In 1882, during the preliminaries to the establishment of the Protectorate (1885), he went to Britain in order to make the case for the Northern Tswana on a tireless campaign for British intervention.4 Sillery relates that Mackenzie's efforts included fostering ‘public enlightenment’ and enlisting ‘many prominent men and an influential section of public opinion’ (Sillery 1965: 39). As evidence of Tswana receptivity to ‘civilization’, Mackenzie could point out that – exceptionally in an African context – several of the dikgosi had been among the first of their people to accept Christianity and undergo baptism, with the consequence that many of their people followed suit (Gulbrandsen 1993a, 1993b; see below in this chapter).
Illustration 1. Robert Moffat, the first LMS missionary to visit the Bangwaketse royal town (1824), preaching to a Tswana local community as rendered on the title page of Moffat's Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa (1842).
So how could it be that these merafe developed such scale and strength? I shall start examining the process of centralization in these kingdoms with the point of departure in asking how they successfully overcame the conflict-generating ambiguities and contradictions that have often permeated other ‘Southern Bantu’ polities (e.g. see Schapera 1956: 176; cf. Gluckman 1963: 20). Such conflicts relate mainly to succession to office and the exercise of authority once in office. They rose primarily amongst close, rivalling agnates who were able to mobilize sufficient factional support to represent a threatening challenge. However, the conditions for generating such support varied considerably amongst so-called Southern Bantu tribes (see van Warmelo 1974: 56ff, 1930; Schapera 1965: 7f.). Sansom has described how the Tswana (as a major section of the Sotho-speaking peoples) tended to have rulers whose power lay in manipulating bonds and grants concerning people's access to land. He contrasts such ‘Tribal Estate’ regimes (as he calls them) with ‘Chequerboard’ regimes, in which land allocation was decentralized and rulers depended upon ‘reallocating products rather than means of production’ (Sansom 1974: 251). This thesis draws attention to the fact that centralization depended on certain material resources under the ruler's control. But in order to come to terms with the centralizing forces at work during precolonial times among the three major Northern Tswana merafe, we need to examine the rulers' control over cattle rather than land. This notion is by no means an obvious one. Goody, for example, has stated of Africa in general that cattle ‘easily become fused with the personal property of the incumbent; support of livestock is the formula for a very much looser polity. it is difficult to centralise cows’ (Goody 1974: 33). Nevertheless, it is my contention that the centralizing processes of the three Northern Tswana merafe were particularly powerful precisely because of their rulers' exceptional access to cattle (e.g. see Tlou 1985: 69). But note, the conundrum thus presented by the Tswana can be resolved provided we do not seek the answer in the determinist or evolutionist arguments of ecology. Instead, I shall demonstrate that the role played by cattle and cattle-based trade amongst Northern Tswana is mediated through social and political processes that favour not only state formation but a concentrated population as well.
The aggregation of cattle wealth among the ruling families may well reflect the fact that the Tswana – known as an exceptional African case (Radcliffe-Brown 1950: 55) – allow FBD (father's brother's daughter) marriages. Such marriages are practised especially among noble families (Schapera 1957). As the saying goes, ngwana rrangwane, nnyale, kgomo di boele sakeng (child of my father's younger brother, marry me, so the [bride – wealth – bogadi] cattle may return to our kraal). Schapera places particular emphasis on this custom as instrumental in transforming potential rival agnates into supportive matrilaterals, arguing that ‘intermarriage of royals is a means of reinforcing social ties between different (and potentially hostile) branches of the royal line’ (Schapera 1963: 110, cf. 1957: 157). Whether such marriages actually work in practice, however, depends – as the Comaroffs argue – on relationships being ‘skilfully