Bechuanaland

The Bechuanaland Protectorate (in English: Bechuanaland Protectorate, or BP) was a protectorate established in 1885 by the United Kingdom in the area of what is now Botswana, a country that became independent in 1966.

Bechuanaland means "country of the Bechuana" (modernly written as Batsuana or Tswana).

History and origin of Bechuanaland

During the partition of Africa, the territory of the Tswana was divided in two. The southern part, south of the Molopo River, became the British colony of Bechuanaland, which later became part of the Cape Colony and is now in South Africa. This is the area around the city of Mafikeng (then called "Mafeking"). The Bechuanaland protectorate had at its height in 1904 an estimated area of 225,000 square miles and a population of approximately 120,776, the result of northward enlargement in 1890.

In 1882 British Bechuanaland then with an area of 51,424 square miles and a population of 84,210; it suffered the secession of two Boer states, Stellaland and Goshen, although both were again subjected to British control, within a few years. In 1891 the South African Customs Union was extended to British Bechuanaland, and in 1895 the protectorate was annexed to the Cape Colony.

The British government had originally planned to hand over administration of the protectorate to Rhodesia or South Africa, but the Tswana opposition left the British protectorate until independence in 1966.

The territory of Bechuanaland was technically a protectorate and not a colony. Originally, Tswana chiefs ruled the territory, with British administration limited to protecting Bechuanaland's borders against other European colonial enterprises. But on May 9, 1891, the British Government gave the administration of the protectorate to the High Commissioner for South Africa, who began to appoint officials in Bechuanaland, a fact that de facto ended the independence of Bechuanaland.

Limits

Map of the administrative divisions of Botswana in 1980, showing the location of the Ngamiland region.

The protectorate was administered from Mafikeng, making this town a kind of second capital in southern Africa. In 1885, when the protectorate was declared, it was defined that Bechuanaland would limit to the north with the latitude of 22° south; but the northern limit of the protectorate was definitively defined with the annexation of Ngamiland, which was annexed to the Tswana territory on June 30, 1890.

This fact was formally recognized by the neighboring German colonial regime the following day by Article III of the Heligoland-Zanzibar treaty which defined the western boundary of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland with the German colony of South West Africa, furthermore this treaty declared the creation of the Caprivi Corridor, now part of Namibia.

The treaty also delimited the area of German influence under the following conditions:

• to the south, by the line that begins at the mouth of the Orange River and continues to the north of its shore to its intersection with the 20th point of east longitude;

• to the east, with the line that begins at the point mentioned above and follows the line of the 20° east length to its intersection with the 22° south latitude point;

• to the north, following the line traced from this degree of latitude to the east to its intersection with the 21° east longitude, following this direction to the north to its intersection with the 18° south latitude, running along this latitude toward the east to its intersection with the Chobe River. Descending the main channel's vague until its confluence with the Zambeze River, where it flows;

Under this treaty, the German colony will have free access to the Zambezi by means of a strip of land at least twenty English miles wide on average. The British catchment area is bounded to the west and northwest by the line described above, and includes the area around Lake Ngami. British officials did not arrive in the Lake Ngami (Ngamiland) region until 1894.

The Tati Land Distribution Act, promulgated on January 21, 1911, transferred control of the new eastern territory to the Protectorate:

The boundaries of the district are as follows: From the birth of the Shashe River to its crossing with the Tati and Ramokgwebana rivers, following the Ramokgwebana river from its birth to the point mentioned above.

This territory was claimed by Matabeleland. In 1887 Samuel Edwards obtained mining concessions in the area from Cecil Rhodes, and in 1895 the British Southern Africa Company attempted to purchase the territory, but three Tswana chiefs traveled to London to claim, and managed to prevent the acquisition. This territory constitutes the modern North-Eastern District of Botswana.

Administration

The protectorate of Bechuanaland was one of the "High Commissioner territories", the others being Basutoland (now Lesotho) and Swaziland. The administration of these territories fell to the offices of the High Commissioner. The title of Governor was originally bestowed on the Governor of the Cape Colony, and then the Governor-General of South Africa, and then on to different South African ambassadors and commissioners until Botswana's independence. In each territory there was a resident commissioner, who fulfilled the same functions as a governor, but with a little less authority.