UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN EASTERN BECHUANALAND:
THE DYNAMIC ROLE OF THE MAFIKENG – BULAWAYO RAILWAY,
FROM THE LATE 1800s to 1960s
A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies
in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
in the Faculty of Arts and Science
TRENT UNIVERSITY
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
© Bafumiki Mocheregwa, 2016
History M.A. Graduate Program
May 2016
ABSTRACT
Underdevelopment in Eastern Bechuanaland:
The Dynamic Role of the Mafikeng – Bulawayo Railway,
From the Late 1800s to 1960s.
Bafumiki Mocheregwa
This thesis offers a comprehensive look at the changing roles of a colonial built railway in
what is now eastern Botswana. It was built for the extraction of mineral wealth and
migration of cheap African labour in Southern Africa but it later assumed a different role
of shaping the modern Botswana state. The thesis deals with several other issues related
to the railway in Bechuanaland including land alienation, the colonial disregard of the
chiefs’ authority, racial discrimination and the economic underdevelopment of
Bechuanaland.
Since there were no other significant colonial developments at the time of
independence, this thesis argues that the railway was the only important feature of the
British colonisation of Bechuanaland. From early on, the railway attracted different
cultures, identities and religions. It was also instrumental in the introduction of an
indigenous capitalist class into Bechuanaland.
Keywords: Bechuanaland, colonisation, railway development, racial discrimination,
underdevelopment, society, capitalism and capitalist class, labour migration, Botswana,
trade, Rhodesia, the Rand.
ii
PREFACE
On September 30th, 1966, Bechuanaland was declared an independent country. The
discussion to make that move had begun a few years prior. The British colonial
administration had lasted for about eighty years but left very little in terms of
development. At that time the whole territory had less than four kilometres of tarred road,
education was barely in its infancy, and the new Tswana society hardly had a capitalist
class. Botswana was among the poorest countries in Africa with a GDP of about $70,
according to the World Bank.1 This measure of underdevelopment was alarming but it
was primarily because from the beginning, the British Colonial Government had no
interest in the territory. While its neighbours had some mineral deposits, Bechuanaland
had no known minerals at the time so the colonialists did not waste time and effort
investing in a barren desert country.
There had long existed a trade route: the Road to the North, which linked the Cape
to the interior of Southern Africa. It cut across the eastern side of what became
Bechuanaland because to the west of Bechuanaland lies the Kalahari Desert, a
geographical barrier which would make any sort of travel difficult. The Road to the North
was very important in the trade of late iron-age goods. During the early years of
colonialism, this iconic route became pivotal in the extraction of resources from
neighbouring countries such as Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Early pioneers and
magnates such as Cecil John Rhodes became attracted to, and pursued the idea of
building a railway line to link the Cape to Cairo. This line would be strategically
important for the British but most importantly it would serve Cecil Rhodes’ economic
1
http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/botswana/overview accessed 27 February 2016.
iii
gains. Bechuanaland was therefore only colonised because the famous “Road to the
North” traversed its eastern margin.
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
No work of this magnitude is completed by a single individual without any help from
others, for that I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to a few people who
have been instrumental in the writing of this thesis. Professor Timothy Stapleton, my
supervisor and mentor, has worked tirelessly from the day we met to the completion of
this work. It would not have been completed without his vision and supreme knowledge
of the subject matter. My thesis committee members, Professor David Sheinin and Dr.
Van Nguyen-Marshall have also been pivotal in the entire writing process of this work.
Their advice has truly been immeasurable for which I am grateful. Professor Jennine
Hurl-Eamon, and Dr. Michael Eamon have both supported me throughout my study at
Trent University and I am deeply grateful for their efforts. The staff at the Botswana
National Archives and Records Services (BNARS) have also been kind to provide the
primary material cited in this thesis.
I am also deeply grateful for the advice and support I received from Mrs. Nilima
Bakaya of Livingstone Kolobeng College as well as Professors Part Themba Mgadla and
Ackson Kanduza. I also wish to send a special word of gratitude to Rre Mokotedi
Sentsho, Ms. Thabang Boemo Emmanuel, Mr. We-Bathu Kwele as well as my good
friend Mr. Reuben Ntuluki of the Carbon Environmental Awareness Society (CEAS) for
the outstanding support rendered to me throughout my studies. My good friends Nathan
Gardiner, Cory Baldwin, and Catherine O’Brien also deserve a pat on the back for the
support they have given me throughout my stay in Peterborough.
v
This work is dedicated to my mother Faniki Seoleseng,
and my great-grandmother Mma Phenyo Tumo.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
II
ABSTRACT
III
PREFACE
V
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
VII
TABLEOFCONTENTS
1
CHAPTER1:INTRODUCTION
1
8
8
24
27
32
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
METHODOLOGICAL SYNOPSIS AND LIMITATIONS
LITERATURE REVIEW
COLONIAL BOTSWANA: AN OVERVIEW
THE POLICY OF INDIRECT RULE
CONCLUSION
CHAPTER2–RHODES,THEDIKGOSIANDTHERAILWAYENTERPRISE
33
34
39
48
58
CECIL RHODES AND THE MAFIKENG - BULAWAYO RAILWAY
THE RAILWAY IN BECHUANALAND: THE CHIEFS AND THE PEOPLE
COLONIAL EDUCATION, COMPASSION AND ENTERPRISE
CONCLUSION
CHAPTER3–THEBECHUANALANDRAILWAYINTHESOUTHERNAFRICANMINERAL
REVOLUTION
60
61
69
74
82
89
THE TSWANA PEASANTRY AND THE NEW RAILWAY ECONOMY
RAILWAYS POLITICS AND LIMITATIONS
THE JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN AND MIGRANT LIFE AT ‘EGOLI’
TSWANA WOMEN WITHIN A MIGRANT SOCIETY
CONCLUSION
CHAPTER4–THETRACKSOFMODERNITYANDCULTURALNUANCES
NEW RAILWAY HUBS AND THE RISE OF A CAPITALIST SOCIETY
THE SOUTH ASIAN TRADERS OF BECHUANALAND
CAPITALISM AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION IN RAILWAY VILLAGES
TSWANA FARMING COMMUNITIES WITHIN THE RHODESIA RAILWAY
MONOPOLY
CONCLUSION
91
92
94
103
114
127
CONCLUSION:THEBECHUANALANDRAILWAYANDUNDERDEVELOPMENT
129
BIBLIOGRAPHY
131
vii
1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The existing scholarship on development and underdevelopment is voluminous and has
for a long time captivated scholars across the world. Consequently, one must be
conversant with this body of knowledge before crafting a work based on any of them.
Since this work hinges on some of these theories, it is pivotal to explore some of them. A
very good summary of these is Ronald Chilcote’s examination of the dichotomy of
certain explanations of development and underdevelopment. He argues, on the one hand,
there are interpretations that emphasize the positive achievements of capitalism, which he
calls diffusionist theories of development. On the other hand, those that stress the
negative consequences of capitalism he refers to as theories of underdevelopment.2 His
analysis of diffusionist theories suggests that they can be categorized in at least three
types; the first associates Western models of democracy with the political aspects of
development in advanced capitalist nations. He credits early writers such as James Bryce
and Carl Friedrich, whose works emphasize the values of Western democracy and its
important role in the economic progress of the West.3 The second diffussionist theory
deals with the significance of cultural traditions as symbols of nationalism beginning with
the French Revolution and taking different forms over time until it reached Africa around
the 1960s. Although he concedes that there are different forms of nationalism, Chilcote
states that “a basic assumption runs through the literature: Nationalism provides the
2
Ronald H. Chilcote, Theories of Development and Underdevelopment, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984),
10.
3
James Bryce, Modern Democracies Volume 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1921), see also Carl J. Friedrich,
Constitutional Government and Democracy, 2nd ed. (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1950).
2
ideological impetus and motivation for development.” 4 Though some may argue that
capitalist countries usually led the pursuit for nationalism, it can also be argued that
certain communist societies have also actively participated in nationalist movements and
pursued development. The last diffusionist theory deals with the role of the Western
world in spreading its values, technology and modernisation in general. It is from this last
explanation that the dependency theory of development arises. Dependency theory is the
notion that resources flow from a periphery of poor and underdeveloped societies towards
the centre of wealthy states enriching the latter while leaving the former impoverished.5
This thesis shall employ this theoretical explanation to analyse the dynamics of
underdevelopment in Bechuanaland. It shall demonstrate that the colonisers carefully
crafted situations where the colonised became dependent on them and at the heart of that
dependency was the use of the Mafikeng – Bulawayo railway.
According to Chilcote, underdevelopment theory is a phenomenon characterised
by various trends. One of its dominant characteristics is what he calls internal
colonialism, which he suggests focuses on the dominance of the metropolitan centre of a
nation over peripheral areas that have remained marginal to national development.6 This
was an idea presented by Paul Baran in 1957. Baran claimed that the role of imperialism
was to penetrate the core of underdeveloped countries and create a political, social and
economic dependency on imperial powers. Using this neo-Marxist critique to refer to the
relationships between the United States of America and Latin America as well as Europe
4
Chilcote, Theories of Development, 10.
For a detailed explanation on dependency theory see for example: Ian Roxborough, Theories of
Underdevelopment, (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1979), 55 – 59, 69; B. N. Ghosh, Dependency Theory
Revisited, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2001), 18, 21, 30; Samir Amin, Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique
of the Theory of Underdevelopment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974), 359, 398, 488; Jorge
Larrain, Theories of Development: Capitalism, Colonialism and Dependency (London: Polity Press, 1989),
112 – 133.
6
Chilcote, Theories of Development, 11.
5
3
and its African colonies, Baran suggested that the traditional way of life had been broken
by imperialism, which destroyed any chance of self-sufficiency and prospective
development.7 Baran argued that pre-colonial societies were self-reliant until the process
of colonialism created a long lasting dependency on the imperial powers. Based on these
ideas, it shall be established that one of the main reasons for the underdevelopment of
Bechuanaland was the use of the railway to exploit labour and other resources and
develop some places in South Africa. In the same vein Andre Gunder Frank in 1966
applied Baran’s idea of underdevelopment with examples from various countries around
the world.8 Frank believed that the complex relationship between the periphery and the
metropolis was a product of mercantilist and capitalist growth since the sixteenth century.
Underdevelopment, he held, was not a new phenomenon, but a result of the destructive
nature of capitalist expansion.9 Samir Amin in his 1977 book Imperialism and Unequal
Development, also carried forward the same arguments raised by his predecessors, Baran
and Frank, but used specific examples from Africa. Amin agreed that the growth of
capital separates an area into two unequal sections: highly urbanised areas, which, thrive
in capitalist development, and peripheral areas, whose main function is to provide
resources to the urban areas whilst they suffer the brunt of underdevelopment. 10 The
classic example of this was migrant labour in Southern Africa, which left marginal areas
inactive and underdeveloped.
7
Paul Baran, The Political Economy of Growth, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957), 3, 11.
Chilcote, Theories of Development, 11.
9
Andre Gunder Frank, “The Development of Underdevelopment,” Monthly Review, (September 1966): 18
– 20.
10
Samir Amin, Imperialism and Underdevelopment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), 89. See also
Samir Amin, Accumulation on a World Scale, Volume 1 and 2, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974);
Paul Baran, “The Political Economy of Backwardness” in Robert Rhodes, ed. Imperialism and
Underdevelopment: A Reader, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), 285 – 301.
8
4
Globalisation is another theory of development that emerges from the notion of
international cooperation and the integration of world economies. One of the most
important characteristics of this theory is its focus and emphasis on cultural aspects and
their worldwide interactions rather than just the economic, financial and political ties.11
Scholars of globalisation, such as A.G. Hopkins and Barbara Kaplan, argue that the
essential elements for development are the cultural associations shared amongst
countries. Unlike diffusionist theories, the use of modern day technology contributes
significantly to the flow of ideas between countries.
Informed by these theories, the central aim of the thesis is to weigh the conflicting
positions of the British Colonial Government and the Rhodesia Railway Company in the
economic development of eastern Bechuanaland from the late 1800s to the 1960s. Apart
from Baran and Hopkins, the thesis also draws insights from Walter Rodney’s 1972 work,
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa in which he describes theories of development and
underdevelopment within the African context. Rodney suggests that development has
different levels. First he states, “development in the past has always meant the increase in
the ability to guard the independence of the social group and indeed to infringe upon the
freedom of others – something that often came about irrespective of the will of the
persons within the societies involved.”12 This suggests that development has always been
an inevitable phenomenon regardless of the people who would receive the developments.
In other words, this means that development was an agenda forced on many of the
African territories. According to him, economic development is the ability of a society to
11
See for example: Barbara Hockey Kaplan, Social Change in the Capitalist World Economy, (California:
Sage Publications, 1978), A. G. Hopkins, Globalisation in World History (London: Pimplico, 2002), see
also Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt and Jacques Hersh, introduction to Globalisation and Social Change,
edited by Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt and Jacques Hersh (London: Taylor and Francis, 2000), 1 – 16.
12
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 2nd ed. (Washington: Howard University Press,
1982), 4.
5
achieve the means to increase their capacity to deal with their immediate environment.
This can only be possible if the members of societies are able to understand and interact
with their natural environment by using tools that they created. Development is a very
broad term that describes an occurrence that has been present in the world since time
immemorial. Informed by Rodney’s explanations, the thesis shall argue that the few
colonial schemes of development introduced to the colony were never meant for the
indigenous people but they were tailored for the very small white minority, particularly
white farmers along the eastern side of Bechuanaland. The railway, which was built for
economic reasons, became a symbol of segregation and disparities among Africans and
European settlers. Much of what Rodney argues is in line with what this thesis shall
discuss. Many of the developments implemented in colonial Botswana did not necessarily
cater to the colonised, but were used to satisfy a greater colonial agenda.
Rodney makes it clear that underdevelopment is not merely a mirror image of
development but should be used as a means of comparison. He states, “underdevelopment
makes sense only as a means of comparing levels of development across economies. It is
very much tied to the fact that human social development has been uneven…”13 In other
parts of the world, the euphemistic term ‘developing countries’ is used instead of
‘underdeveloped.’ According to Rodney “one of the reasons for so doing is to avoid any
unpleasantness which may be attached to the second term [underdeveloped], which may
be interpreted as meaning underdeveloped mentally, physically, morally, or in other
respects.”14 However, since his book was first published in 1972, there has been a lot of
economic progress in most of the former colonies and this factor could render some of
13
14
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped, 13
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped, 14
6
Rodney’s arguments obsolete. It is worthwhile to mention that when the work was
published most of Africa was still on the training wheels of sovereignty with less than a
decade of self-governance.
Rodney views the colonial administration as the main economic exploiter, which
hid behind the disguise of developing the colonies in order to extract wealth for their own
gains. According to him, the introduction of taxation systems in the colonies was one of
the major ways to gain profit while the colonised remained impoverished. He adds,
“When colonial governments seized African lands, they achieved two things
simultaneously. They satisfied their own citizens (who wanted mining concessions or
farming land) and they created the conditions whereby landless Africans had to work not
just to pay taxes but also to survive.” 15 This was the case in Kenya and later some
colonies in Southern Africa. The purpose of colonial taxation was to compel Africans to
join the capitalist economy as wage labour or peasant producers and therefore creating
profit for the colonial powers.
There are significant overlaps between Rodney’s work and Frantz Fanon’s 1961
book The Wretched of the Earth, which are worth discussing. Frantz Fanon, who can be
credited as one of the earliest post-colonial theorists, was “born in 1925 into a middleclass black family in Martinique in the French West Indies”16 and became deeply mindful
of his people’s suffering as well as their potential to rid themselves of such affliction.
What is important to note is the fact that Fanon criticised the educated intellectuals or
African elites, stating that they had attained the means to remove their own people from
15
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped, 165.
Edmund Burke III, review of The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon, The MIT Press 105 No.1
(Winter 1976): 127, see also Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1967),
Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (New York: Grove Press, 1965).
16
7
affliction but continued to act like the colonial bourgeoisie.17 This, he argues, contributed
to underdevelopment of the colonies. Fanon’s work on the elite minority in Africa and its
dependencies on the metropolitan is referred to as revolutionary by Rodney. He suggests
that the presence of an African elite or ‘sell-outs’ is at the core of Africa’s
underdevelopment. 18 Fanon’s argument is applicable selectively to places where the
colonial powers established a strong presence such as the French colonies in North
Africa. In the south, particularly in Bechuanaland, there was a different picture altogether.
The British colonisers hardly established schools to create an educated African elite. Even
if there were African elites, they would have been too small in number to create any sort
of change within the Protectorate.
In order to clearly illustrate its arguments, the thesis shall constantly refer to some
of the above theoretical explanations. This is so because the phenomenon of
underdevelopment occurred at different stages and resulted from varying stimuli.
Sometimes, the colonial policies, which were marred with racial connotations and
prejudice, were too stringent upon the Africans. At other times, the natural catastrophes
that totalled an already struggling African economy led to the shift from an agrarian to the
pursuit of capital. At other times it was sheer ignorance and the total disregard of African
life by the colonisers that diminished African societies. In the end, the combination of
these occurrences resulted in the lack of developments in Bechuanaland. Because these
reasons are different, they require different theoretical perspectives.
17
Gail M. Gerhart, review of The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon, Foreign Affairs 76 No. 5 (1997):
236 – 237, see also Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (Algeria, Grove Press, 1968), 62 – 63.
18
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped, 26-27.
8
METHODOLOGICAL SYNOPSIS AND LIMITATIONS
This thesis has utilised primary sources from the Botswana National Archives and
Records Services. Most of them were letters, journals, notes and annual reports written by
colonial officials. The use of this material has been very instructive in the way the thesis
is shaped. However, most, if not all of these documents were missing the voices of the
colonised. This usually results in an uneven picture of the extent of imperialism in
Bechuanaland. However, to augment the lack of African voices from the colonial files,
the thesis turned to published and unpublished secondary sources, which range from
books, journal articles, theses and dissertations. The thesis has tried to balance the use of
both primary and secondary material in order to clarify its arguments. Some of the
primary materials at the archives of Botswana were either missing or too dilapidated to
use, which curtailed some of the primary research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Railroads in World History
Historians who wrote about railroads in the Western world celebrated and depicted them
as the most significant means of building nations. Early scholars such as William H.
Moore, Leslie Fourner, and Pierre Berton among others stand out as historians whose
works venerate the role of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in connecting eastern and
central Canada to the western territories. Moore, whose book was published in the 1917,
argues that Australia thrived from railway construction and nationalisation and thus
recommended that Canadians needed to replicate the example of Australian railways on a
9
much larger scale in order to increase its population.19 He argues that around 1819, the
population of Canada was very small owing to the fact that some areas were unexplored.
His emphasis on population growth is centred on the position of the Canadian railways in
expanding the dominion westwards.20
Fourner carries this notion of expansion and nation building forward by stating
that the objective of the Canadian Government Railways dates back to the 1867
Confederation when the government undertook construction of the inter-colonial railways
to connect the Maritime Provinces and Lower Canada. 21 Leonard Bertman Erwin and
Pierre Berton whose works appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s refer to Canada as
a pioneer country with a population that grew westward at an accelerated pace. They both
suggest that the inter-colonial railways were at the centre of realising the Canadian
national dream. 22 After the Second Industrial Revolution, Britain assumed the role of
spreading new ideas and technology to the rest of the world while expanding its overseas
empire. The works of two colonial historians, Daniel Thorner and Thomas Keefer portray
British-built Indian and Chinese railways as pivotal to the development of new nations
and identities outside of Britain.23 Thorner, though not critical, introduces an economic
outlook on these railroads by suggesting that manufacturers and merchants only became
19
William H. Moore, Railway Nationalisation and the Average Citizen (Toronto: McLelland, Goodchild ad
Stewart Publishers, 1917), 41 – 42.
20
Moore, Railways Nationalisation, 57 – 60.
21
Lesley T. Fourner, Railway Nationalisation in Canada: The Problem of Canadian National Railways
(Toronto: Macmillan, 1935), 72
22
Leonard Bertman Erwin, Pacific Railways and Nationalism in the Canadian American Northwest (New
York: Greenwood Press, 1968) see also Pierre Berton, The Last Spike: The Great Railway, 1881 – 1885,
(Toronto: Mclelland and Stewart Limited, 1971); Pierre Berton, The National Dream; The Great Railway,
1871 – 1881 (Toronto: Pierre Berton Enterprises Limited, 1970)
23
Daniel Thorner, Investment in Empire: British Railways and Steam Shipping Enterprise in India, 1825 –
1849 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950) 22; see also Thomas Keefer, “Philosophy of
Railroads”, in Philosophy of Railroads, ed. Michael Bliss, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 13
– 14.
10
interested in investing in India and China after the construction of railroads. 24 These
publications suggest that the railways were assembled specifically to shape nations by
connecting different places.
Economic historians such as Robert Fogel, Albert Fishlow and Harold Innis
provide a consistent analysis of rail transportation and the economic development of
North American economic practices. Their works were informed by Thorstein Veblen’s
philosophy and suggest that the economic progress of USA and Canada was reliant upon
the railways. 25 Similarly, Oscar Zanetti and Alejandro Garcia whose focus is Cuba’s
economic growth also carried forward the relationship of colonial railroads to
development of the Cuban sugar exports. 26 Not much economic progress can be
mentioned for Bechuanaland because the railway line there was not extensive enough to
hinge an economy upon nor did it cater for common people.
In recent years historians have been more critical of the outcomes of rail
development in different countries. This post-colonial historiography perceived railways
as a form of oppression. Richard White, Ian J. Kerr and Marian Aguiar’s works come to
24
Thorner, “Philosophy of Railroads,” 1.
Both Albert Fishlow and Robert Fogel had some interaction with Innis during his study at Chicago and it
was there that they shared research interests. It is therefore easy to see a link between their works and those
of Innis. For further reading see for example, Harold Adams Innis, A History of the Canadian Pacific
Railway (Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, LTD, 1923); Harold Adams Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada,
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); Harold Adams Innis, ‘Transportation as a Factor in Canadian
Economic History’, in Essays in Canadian Economic History, ed. Mary Quayle Innis (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1956); Harold Innis, The Idea File of Harold Innis, ed. William Christian, (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1980); Harold Adams Innis, The Problems of Staple Production in Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press Limited, 1933), 12 – 15, see also Robert W. Fogel, Railroads and American
Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1964) and Albert
Fishlow, American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante-Bellum Economy (Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1965).
26
Oscar Zanetti and Alejandro Garcia, Sugar and Railroads, A Cuban History, 1837 – 1959,trans. Franklin
W. Knight and Mary Todd (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 7 – 10, 194, see also
Jonathan Curry Machado, Cuban Sugar Industry: Transnational Networks and Engineering Migrants in
Mid-Nineteenth Century Cuba (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Christian Wolmar, Blood, Iron and
Gold: How Railroads Transformed the World, (New York: Public Affairs, 2010); Alan Dye, Cuban Sugar
in the Age of Mass Production: Technology and the Economics of the Sugar Central, 1899-1929
(California: Stanford University Press, 1998).
25
11
mind. White is critical of the construction of transcontinental railways of the United
States while Kerr and Aguiar deal extensively with the railways in relation to socioeconomic hardships in the lives of the common people of India.27 Adopting some of the
explanations from this school of thought, the thesis explores the implications of a railway
that was built for an economy outside the territory of Bechuanaland.
Colonial Literature on Railways in Africa
Most colonial historians tend to follow a diffusionist model of explaining development in
the African colonies. That is to say, their focus is on the role of the imperial West as the
bringer of civilisation to the African continent. This approach is based upon the
assumption that the colonies were important to the West and therefore their history should
reflect the good impact of imperialism, such as the spread of technology. For historians
such as E.B. Worthington, Mervyn F. Hill, and Anthony M. O Connor, rail transportation
was an efficient mode of communication and a vital link between the coast and the
interior in East Africa, particularly for Kenya and Uganda. Worthington stressed the
economic importance of providing a link between what he called the valuable fisheries of
the lakes with the traders at the coast of Kenya. He writes, “Apart from communications
the East African lakes are of great value for their fisheries. Lake Rudolf contains an
27
Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 2011), see also a chapter by Ian J. Kerr, “The Dark Side of the Force:
Mistakes, Mismanagement, and Malfeasance in the Early Railways of the British Indian Empire,” in Our
Indian Railway, Themes in India’s Railway History, eds. Roopa Srinivasan, Manish Tiwari and Sandeep
Silas (New Dehli: Foundation Books, 2006), 187 – 213; Ian J. Kerr, Engines of Change: The Railways that
Made India (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2007), Ian J. Kerr, “British Rule, Technological Change and the
Revolution in Transportation and Communication: Punjab in the Later Nineteenth Century,” in Textures of
the Sikh Past, New Historical Perspectives, ed. Tony Ballantyne (New Dehli: Oxford University Press,
2007), 157 – 184; Ian J. Kerr, “On the Move: Circulating Labour in Pre-Colonial, Colonial and PostColonial India,” in India’s Labouring Poor, Historical Studies, c.1600 – 2000, ed. Rana P. Behal and
Marcel Van Der Linde (New Dehli: Foundation Books, 2007); see also Marian Aguiar, Tracking
Modernity, India’s Railway and the Culture of Mobility (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2011).
12
enormous potential fishery which is at present quite untouched and, until communications
to the lake are improved, likely to remain so. In Uganda there are other large untouched
fisheries in Lakes Albert, Edward, and George…”28 For Worthington, building this rail
link would be beneficial to the fisheries as it would not only provide a means for
communication with the coast but also sufficiently aid the economic practices in the
interior of Uganda and Kenya. Hill in the same vein emphasizes the importance of
imperialism and rail transportation in the economic development of colonial East Africa.
His grand narrative takes the reader from the beginning of the discussions of constructing
the railway to the actual day-to-day work on the rail link between the Indian Ocean
through Kenya and Lake Victoria where the resources were located. As an official history
of British East Africa’s railways, the book is narrow, biased and misleading. Hill adds,
“this damosa hereditas (Uganda) is 600 miles from the sea coast, and to send up goods it
would cost £500 per ton. It is therefore impossible to organize a trade there … unless a
railway is built there.” 29 Raising capital, conducting lucrative trade and political
dominance were the main components of the imperial agenda and O’Connor’s two works
on colonial East Africa clearly demonstrate this. He suggests that the building of railways
in Uganda became most significant to the development of the Ugandan cash economy.
Commodities, such as cotton, coffee, tobacco, groundnuts and livestock, could be moved
with ease across the country and across borders. These railways in turn shaped Uganda’s
import-export relationship with her neighbours. He states, “The country thus depends on
28
E. B. Worthington, “The Lakes of Kenya and Uganda,” The Geographical Journal 79 No. 4 (April 1933):
290
29
Mervyn F. Hill, Permanent Way, The Story of the Kenya and Uganda Railway (Aylesbury: Hazell
Watson and Viney LTD, 1949), 95 – 96.
13
the railway as much for its import as for its export trade.”30 O’Connor links this trade
with the social development of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania in his second publication.
His argument is that the railways built in the three countries created employment
opportunities and a culture whose life was based upon the railway.31 It can then be argued
that he represents a slight shift from conventional colonial history to a more social or
perhaps materialist perspective as he focuses on the capitalist economies of colonial East
Africa and how they were hinged on colonial railways. Unlike in East Africa, the railway
in eastern Bechuanaland was hardly exploited for trade. It only served the colonial agenda
of extracting resources and moving labour from the interior of Southern Africa to the
mines in South Africa. This resulted in a narrow economy and stunted growth of a local
or Tswana capitalist class.
Several colonial apologists of the 1960s and early 1970s depicted railways as the
answer to many of Africa’s problems. The works of Lewis H. Gann, P.E.N. Tindall, and
A.J. Wills on the history of Central Africa and the works of F.A. Wells and W.A.
Wormington, as well as G.B. Kay on West Africa come to mind. Tindall and Wills
concur that the railways of Central Africa were built for the economic interests of the
Europeans.32 Gann is of the idea that the railways were a necessity to African economies
and were the answer to archaic wagon transport that Africans used prior to colonialism.33
Though the railways were a mark of innovation, efficiency and industrialisation, the
30
O’Connor, Railways and Development, 30.
Anthony M. O’Connor, An Economic Geography of East Africa (London: G. Bell and Sons LTD, 1966),
183, see also Anthony M. O’Connor Economic Development of Kenya (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press,
1963), 12, 19.
32
P.E.N. Tindall, A History of Central Africa (London: Longman Green and Co. LTD, 1967), 132-133, see
also A.J. Wills, An Introduction to the History of Central Africa: Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1964).
33
Lewis H. Gann, Central Africa: The Former British States (Englewood Cliffs: Prince Hall Inc, 1971),
107.
31
14
thesis shall demonstrate that they did nothing to improve the wagon economy of
Bechuanaland. The railway replaced wagon transport that had been booming throughout
the late pre-colonial times. It shall be demonstrated that the common African who had
benefitted from wagon trade was cut out of that lucrative enterprise. In West Africa,
Wells, Wormington and Kay have also traced the economic success of colonial Ghana,
Nigeria and the Cameroons to the railway networks that often connected distant places to
economic hubs of those respective countries. For instance, places such as Kano in the
underdeveloped Northern Nigeria were able to access markets in places where trade
happened such as the port of Lagos due to efficient transport.
34
Simon
Katzenellenbogen’s work demonstrates the importance of imperial motives in the
construction of the Benguela Railway of Angola. This railway linked one of the most
commercially significant parts of Angola, southern Belgian Congo (today’s Democratic
Republic of Congo) and some parts of the copper rich Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).
In his book, he states, “the expansion of Africa’s agricultural and mineral production to
meet the demand from growing industries of Europe and America was the key to
generating sufficient local revenue.”35 A key factor to have in mind is the role of railways
in colonial conquest and economic exploitation of the African continent and
Katzenellenbogen clearly expresses this. Anthony Sillery explains that though the
colonial government at the Cape had faced great difficulties in moving large numbers of
34
F.A. Wells and W.A. Wormington, Studies in Industrialisation: Nigeria and the Cameroons (Oxford
University Press, 1962), 109-110, see also G.B. Kay, The Political Economy of Colonisation in Ghana; A
Collection of Documents and Statistics, 1900-1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 20; for
background reading on the dynamics of the colonization of Nigeria see John E. Flint, “Nigeria: The
Colonial Experience from 1800 to 1914” in Colonialism in Africa, Vol. 1, The History and Politics of
Colonialism, eds, L.H. Gann and Peter Duignan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 220 –
260.
35
Simon Katzenellenbogen, Railways and the Copper Mines of Katanga, (London: Oxford UniversityPress,
1973), 10.
15
people across the territory, the railway enterprise was meant to serve the British South
Africa Company’s financial needs. 36 It is clear that colonial historians focused on
imperial motives of railway construction and ignored other railway related issues that
were not considered as important.
Underdevelopment Historiography
By the 1970s, historians moved away from the colonialist’s perspective of history
and toward exploring the negative impacts of colonialism on the subjected peoples. It can
be argued that it was Frantz Fanon, Walter Rodney, and perhaps more closely, Kwame
Nkrumah’s ideas about neo-colonialism 37 that inspired many of these historians to be
critical of colonisation. While some historians from the nationalist school of the 1960s
were critical of colonialism, they tended not to focus on economic history. By the 1970s,
this historiography became more economic and perhaps socially charged. Historians such
as E.A. Brett, Colin Leys and later Samuel M. Muriithi, Goran Hyden and Lasana Keita
deal with a wide spectrum of development and underdevelopment in colonial and postcolonial Africa. Brett and Leys explore the connection between colonialism and
underdevelopment, arguing that the railways of East Africa were an apparatus of uneven
development particularly in Kenya where the colonial government had clear policies of
36
Anthony Sillery, Founding a Protectorate: History of Bechuanaland, 1885 – 1895 (London: Mouton and
Co. 1965), 164 see also Anthony Sillery, Botswana; A Short Political History (London: Methuen and Co.
LTD, 1974), 97 – 99.
37
There are numerous publications on neo-colonialism. See for example, Kwame Nkrumah, NeoColonialism, The Last Stage of Imperialism (New York: International Publishers, 1965); Vasilii Vasil’evich
Vakhrushev, Neo-Colonialism Today (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1987); Samir Amin, NeoColonialism in West Africa (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974) and Chernoh Alpha M.Bah, NeoColonialism in West Africa (Bloomington: iUniverse LLC, 2014).
16
segregation.38 Brett suggests that the economic development of East Africa was unequal
from the beginning of colonialism. It was western technology that enabled the west to
dominate the African continent and eroded the traditional socio-economic structures of
pre-colonial societies. This outer domination and the dependence by African countries
formed a condition that “inevitably transformed the entire social fabric of the people
whose countries are now underdeveloped. Export oriented economies had to be created,
traditional social structures modified and existing political authorities made to accept
their subordination to the foreign invader.” 39 Leys and later Hayden, support Brett’s
argument by suggesting that Africa has always been able to develop its own measure of
economic growth instead of being compared to already highly industrialised economies of
the West. Frantz Fanon had earlier recommended that for Africans to progress, they must
develop their own models. 40 Leys concludes by emphasizing that certain economic
practices were primary and key to developing East Africa while others contributed to its
underdevelopment. Consequently, the economic development of certain East African
colonies was only confined to some areas, which led to an uneven accumulation of capital
and the underdevelopment of most areas.41
38
E. A. Brett, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in East Africa: the Politics of Economic Change, 1919 –
1939 (London, Heinemann, 1973), 1, 163, 210. See also Colin Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya: The
Political Economy of Neo-Colonialism, 1964-1971 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 1, 28.
This historiography continued to change beyond the 1990s. For more nuanced arguments on
underdevelopment of colonial East Africa see for example, Goran Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania;
Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured Peasantry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), and
chapters by Soulemayne Bashir Diagne, Lewis R. Gordon, and Lansana Keita in Philosophy and African
Development, Theory and Practice, ed. Lansana Keita, (Dakar: CODESRIA, 2011), 37-56, 57-68, 69-86.
39
Brett, Colonialism and Underdevelopment, 1.
40
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press Inc., 1963), 252 – 253.
41
Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya, 271.
17
Materialist Historiography
Historians writing in the 1970s and 1980s such as Ian Phimister argued that railways were
built solely to introduce capitalist ideas and economy into colonial Africa. Phimister
argues that Cecil John Rhodes’ motives in building the railway are best understood as
capitalist. He examines Rhodes’ attitude to railway development before 1897 as cheap
and highly cautious. He suggests that Rhodes only started pushing construction on rapidly
after 1896, when “the collapse of the speculative boom and the African risings threatened
capitalist investment in Southern Rhodesia.” 42 Because Rhodes had earlier received a
mining concession for Southern Rhodesia, his plans were to secure as much investment
for the territory as possible but with a new focus on agriculture because the Second Rand
of Rhodesia did not materialise.43 Phimister’s argument is firmly placed around Rhodes’s
capitalist expansion into Southern Rhodesia. He argues that earlier colonial historians
perceived Rhodes as a visionary and that he had the best intentions for developing the
colonies in the name of the crown. Paul Maylam had made a similar argument against that
biased colonialist explanation of Rhodes’s motives. He stated that these accounts
provided by colonial historians “obscured other important aspects of [his] Rhodes’s
Bechuanaland Railway enterprise.” 44 Maylam and Phimister suggest that Rhodes had
bigger economic incentives to build railroads across Bechuanaland and Southern
Rhodesia. Both use a Marxist approach for their arguments, and for that they can be seen
as materialist historians. Gordon Pirie also argues that the mining companies mobilised
42
Ian Phimister, 'Rhodes, Rhodesia and the Rand', Journal of Southern Afr. Studies, I (1974): 84-6 quoted in
Jon Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary Railway Construction in the Rhodesias, 1890-1911,” The
Journal of African History 33, No. 2 (1992): 241.
43
Ian Phimister, An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890-1948: Capital Accumulation and
Class Struggle (London and New York: Longman Publishers, 1988), 4.
44
Paul Maylam, Rhodes, the Tswana and the British: Colonialism, collaboration, and conflict in the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1885 – 1899 (Greenwood Press: Westport, Connecticut, 1980), 78.
18
potential employees by offering relatively inexpensive, quick, long-distance mass
transport as an incentive to establish a capitalist economy in the colonies.45 There is no
denying that the railways moved massive numbers of people across Southern Africa
during the Mineral Revolution from as far as Nyasaland (Malawi). Pirie agrees entirely
with other social historians of his time such as Elliott, Yudelman and Barber who suggest
that the railways were an essential part of establishing a capitalist economy in Africa.
Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore in 1972 argued that African labour appeared as an
attractive solution to colonial governments in search of revenue in the colonies. In order
to control this new capitalist class, the Uganda Railway from Mombasa to Kisumu had to
be built. Taxation and the availability of the railway would encourage Africans to migrate
in search of wage labour in settler farms.46 Tiyambe Zeleza gives a clear and concise
summary of the construction of railways throughout East Africa. He writes, “The impact
of the railways cannot be overemphasized. They facilitated colonization and incorporated
these countries into the world capitalist economy, altered patterns of trade, reduced
transport costs and rendered human porterage obsolete.”47
The Central and Southern African regions were well known for contributing
immense manual labour towards the south during the colonial period. Issues of land,
labour and economic problems are always linked to the migration of peoples towards
wage employment in South Africa. Montague Yudelman attributes the development of a
capitalist class in Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa societies to migrant labour. Like
Barber and Elliot, Yudelman acknowledges that railroads were at the centre of mass
45
Gordon Pirie, ‘Railways and Labour Migration to the Rand Mines: Constraints and Significance,’
Journal of Southern African Studies, 19, No. 4 (Dec. 1993): 713.
46
Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore, Africa Since 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972),
138 – 140.
47
Tiyambe Zeleza, A Modern Economic History of Africa, Volume 1, The Nineteenth Century (Dakar:
CODESRIA, 1993), 316.
19
migrations of peoples to the mines in South Africa.48 This resulted in a sudden shift from
subsistence farming at home to wage labour in the urban areas. Some African men from
Nyasaland had to travel all the way to the mines in South Africa in the pursuit of wage
labour. He points out that by 1961, close to 660 000 Africans from the Rhodesias,
Nyasaland and a few from East Africa had migrated to the south and joined the capitalist
economy.49
Newer Cultural Histories
In more recent publications, social and cultural historians have shown how the colonial
railways influenced the lives of the people in colonial and post-colonial Africa. Terence
Ranger, Jamie Monson, Christiane Reichart-Burikukiye, as well as Tokunba Ayoola’s
studies focus on different influences of these railways on different societies. Terence
Ranger, one of the leading historians in Southern Africa, views the Rhodesia Railways as
a symbol of oppression that created and intensified tensions between the elite minority
and the ‘second hand’ citizens of Bulawayo. 50 Monson explores issues related to
settlement formation and movement of peoples towards the railway in post-colonial
Tanzania. According to her, new villages were established along the railway while some
moved towards it, which resulted in rapid and significant social and cultural changes
across rural Tanzania.51 Reichart-Burikukiye argues that the railways played a significant
48
Montague Yudelman, Africans on the Land: Economic Problems in African Agricultural Development in
Southern, Central, and East Africa, with special reference to Southern Rhodesia (Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1964), 130.
49
Yudelman, Africans on the Land, 130 – 131.
50
Terence Ranger, Bulawayo Burning: The Social History of a Southern African City, 1893-1960 (Harare:
Weaver Press, 2010), 24-26
51
Jamie Monson, Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese development project changed lives and
livelihoods in Tanzania (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009), 72 – 74. Not many African social
historians focused on railway related issues. Most early Marxist historians focused on African slavery
20
role in the process of colonization and oppression in Africa. They were mechanisms of
“economic exploitation and control and encapsulated the ideas of European expansion
and domination.”52 She argues that previous accounts of European travellers were used to
present a dichotomist viewpoint that always placed the colonized in the shadows of their
colonial masters. Africans, mostly labourers and merchants who used the railway did in
fact adopt the use of the railway for everyday transportation. She concludes that African
agency was pivotal in the construction of the railways of colonial East Africa and the
lives of African travellers became centred on it. Ahmad Alawad Sikainga agrees with
Reichart-Burikukiye in his 2002 publication, which employs a Marxist critique to explain
the social changes of railway workers in Sudan’s biggest railway town. According to him,
the workers in Atbara became closely related to the communist party, which sympathised
with their struggle against the colonial and post-colonial governments.53
Many different social historians have looked at more nuanced topics relating to
rail transportation. While most focus on socio-cultural change, some such as Tokunbo A.
Ayoola attribute the spread of disease to the Nigerian Railway networks. He suggests that
trade routes particularly the Nigerian Railways were the primary channel through which
the influenza virus was transmitted. He states:
As a result of the fact that railroad transportation was the predominant means of travel
before the 1930s, it is reasonable to conclude that the influenza virus could only have
spread more quickly and over a wider land area in 1918 by it. The virus was therefore
able to travel quickly and within a short period of time to major towns and cities, which
were nodal points on the Nigerian railroad network. From these urban areas and through
during colonialism while later historians focused on social differentiation of peasants, traders and workers.
For a concise explanation of this, see Martin A. Klein, “African Social History,” African Studies Review 15,
No.1, (1972): 97 – 112.
52
Christiane Reichart-Burikukiye, “The Railway in Colonial East Africa; Colonial Iconography and African
Appropriation of a new Technology,” in Landscape Environment and Technology in Colonial and PostColonial Africa, ed. Toyin Falola, Emily Brownwell (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2012), 62.
53
Ahmad Alawad Sikainga, City of Steel and Fire: A Social History of Atbara, Sudan’s Railway Town,
1906-1984 (Portsmouth: Heineman, 2002), 1, 12.
21
the coastal shoreline, the virus spread very fast across the colony.54
Ayoola’s illuminating hypothesis illustrates the negative aspects of colonial developments
in Nigeria by showing the biological impact of railways as a fast means of spreading
diseases. This was not mentioned in the earlier histories that focused mostly on the
economic impacts of colonialism.
From the perspective of the twenty-first century, it is clear that colonial
developments in Africa were inconsistent across the continent. This is because the
continent had different colonial powers whose policies contrasted considerably and
different economies and resources. For instance, Todd J. Moss states that the British
Empire on one hand asserted its dominance through indirect rule because it never had the
aim to establish a large European presence in the colonies except in Kenya and Zimbabwe
where Europeans were encouraged to relocate and settle. In essence, this means that
“Kenya and Zimbabwe each saw greater investment in infrastructure, better-quality
schooling, and at independence each had much more advanced and diverse economies.”55
The Europeans sought to extract minerals where possible. The French, like the British,
also had a more indirect way of ruling most of their African colonies but unlike the
British, we see a closer relationship between the French colonies and France than Britain
and its colonies. Though it was limited, the French, like the Portuguese in Angola and
Mozambique, tried to employ the rhetoric of assimilation. For Moss, the Portuguese
colonies were worse off because Portugal itself was a poor colonial power.56Across the
54
Tokunbo A. Ayoola, “The Price of Modernity? Western Railroad Technology and the 1918 Influenza
Pandemic in Nigeria,” in Landscape, Environment and Technology in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa,
ed. Toyin Falola, Emily Brownwell (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2012), 154
55
Todd J. Moss, African Development: Making Sense of Issues and Actors (Colorado: Lynne Reinner
Publishers Inc, 2007), 22.
56
Moss, African Development, 22 – 23.
22
colonies railways were used to assert power and dominance but most importantly they
were essential to the extraction of resources. With time though, they became important in
the formation of social and cultural identities of post-colonial Africa.
Railroad Literature on Botswana
There has never been a full scholarly study of the history of rail transportation in
Botswana except for Neil Parsons’ work on the Ngwato of Khama III and a few academic
papers. However, the works of a few materialist historians such as Neil Parsons, Andrew
Murray, Richard Dale, and Barbara Ngwenya in the late 20th century mentioned that the
railway in eastern Botswana was purely economic in nature. Parsons and Murray are of
the view that the railway had negative effects on the economic development of the
territory because its construction undermined the powers and roles of the chiefs. They
also make significant references to the deforestation rail construction caused with its early
wood-burning locomotives. 57 Ngwenya and Dale essentially agree with Parsons and
Murray that Botswana’s capitalist economy originated from South Africa, and the railway
was the main link to the development of that economy. However, Dale states that the
ownership of the railway line in eastern Bechuanaland by the Rhodesia government
complicated matters when Rhodesia declared its unilateral independence in 1965.
According to Dale, this meant that Bechuanaland was held hostage because the Rhodesia
government controlled Bechuanland’s only means of trade.58
57
Andrew Murray and Neil Parsons, “The Modern Economic History of Botswana,” in Studies in the
Economic History of Southern Africa, Vol. 1, The Front-line States, eds, Z.A. Konczacki, Jane L. Parpat
and Timothy M. Shaw (London, Frank Gass, 1990), 182, see also Barbara Ntombi Ngwenya, “The
Development of Transport Infrastructure in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1885-1966,” Botswana Notes
and Records, Vol. 16 (January, 1984): 73-84.
58
Richard Dale, Botswana’s Search for Autonomy in Southern Africa, (Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
1995), 100. A similar argument had been made in a chapter by H.C.L. Hermans, “Botswana’ Options for
23
Deborah Ann Schmitt also sees the construction of the railways by the British
South Africa Company as a means to exploit the mineral wealth of Southern Africa. As a
response to the various cattle diseases such as rinderpest that devastated the cattle
economy of Bechuanaland, many Batswana sought wage employment in the mines so as
to join the capitalist economy and keep up with their taxes. The railway had been made
available to transport labourers to and from the mines so it was easy for a lot of them to
migrate.
59
Wazha Morapedi, like Schmitt, has discussed the role of railways in the
migration of able-bodied men and their shift from an agrarian to a capitalist economy.60
He suggests that the availability of efficient transportation and the migrant labour
experience made it possible for the lower class of society to rise through the emerging
stratifications of the Tswana, and made positive changes to the lives of the peasants in
Botswana's reserves.61
In a recent publication, Part Mgadla has challenged the role of the railway in the
social development of colonial and post-colonial Botswana. Terence Ranger had earlier
argued that the racial segregation of the Rhodesia Railways in Bulawayo followed similar
models to South Africa. In the same light, Mgadla suggests that the racial tensions in
South Africa had spilled over to Bechuanaland. In essence, there was no real difference
between the railways in South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and Bechuanaland in terms of
racial segregation. 62 The historiography of rail transportation in Southern Africa and
Independent Existence”, in Landlocked Countries of Africa, ed. Zdenek Cervenka, (Uppsala: The
Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1973), 197-211.
59
Deborah Ann Schmitt, Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, (London: Greenwood Publishing Group,
2006), 39.
60
Wazha Morapedi, “Migrant Labour and the Peasantry in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1930 – 1965,”
Journal of Southern African Studies 25 No. 2 (1999): 198.
61
Morapedi, “Migrant Labour and the Peasantry”, 1.
62
Part Mgadla, “Racial Discrimination in Colonial Botswana, 1946-1965,” Southern African Historical
Journal, 66, No. 3 (2014): 486.
24
Botswana specifically continues to grow and with time, we might see the emergence of
topics relating to the environmental impacts of railways.
COLONIAL BOTSWANA: AN OVERVIEW
Botswana is a landlocked country about the size of France and with a population just
above two million. The country today is made up of ten districts from where the various
groups of Bangwato, Bakalanga, Bakgalagari, Batawana, Bakgatla, Bangwaketse,
Bakwena among others descend. The largest in terms of the land mass is the Central
district where the Bangwato people reside. The Ngamiland district boasts the Okavango
delta, a tourist attraction rich in wildlife. The Ghanzi and Kgalagadi districts border
Namibia to the west and are the country’s driest where the Bakgaladi and various groups
of Khoe and San people or inaccurately referred to as Bushmen reside. The Chobe district
to the north is yet another tourist attraction where Botswana shares a border with Zambia
across the Zambezi river. Other districts include Northeast, Kgatleng, Kweneng and the
South East district where the capital city, Gaborone is located. The official languages are
Setswana and English but across the entire country, there are well over 25 languages.
“Most of the country is uninhabitable with the Kalahari Desert accounting for 84 percent
of Botswana’s land mass. Consequently, 80 percent of the population lives along the
fertile eastern border of the state.”63
Before the 1800s, the trade route for cattle, ivory and other goods that linked the
Cape to the interior of Southern Africa ran through what is today eastern Botswana. For
instance, the late Iron Age settlement called Toutswemogala, which is located near
63
Scott A. Beaulier, “Explaining Botswana’s Success: The Critical Role of Post-Colonial Policy,” Cato
Journal 23, No. 2 (2003): 228.
25
Palapye in the eastern part of the country is said to have existed for about five hundred
years until the fourteenth century. This settlement relied on this route for trade with other
groups in the interior of Southern Africa for artefacts such as shells from the Indian
Ocean and glass beads made in Arabia.64 It later became significant to the Cape, as it was
the most efficient link it had to the interior of Southern Africa. After the 1800s, control
over the route became highly contested as various groups tried to monopolise it in order
to expand international trade. Various Tswana groups became involved in these tensions
as Griqua slave raiders who also wanted cattle invaded them.65
Unlike other territories in the region, the territory north of the Molopo River,
which became Bechuanaland after 1885 had no known mineral wealth for the colonising
powers to exploit so there was no reason to colonise the territory. The shift in the British
perception towards Bechuanaland was primarily due to several factors: their defeat by the
Boers in the Anglo-Boer War of 1880-1881 and the 1884 arrival of the Germans in South
West Africa (today’s Namibia). The Boers had successfully defended the Transvaal from
the British and they continued to raid the Southern Tswana for cattle and slaves. 66
Another reason for the colonisation of Bechuanaland was the British imperialist dream to
construct a railway and to control Africa from the Cape Colony to Cairo in Egypt.67 Cecil
Rhodes was a British imperialist, mining magnate and Cape politician who founded of the
De Beers Mining Company in 1880. Rhodes had long called for intervention of the
64
Natasha Erlank, “Iron Age (Later): Southern Africa: Toutswemogala, Cattle and Political Power,” in
Encyclopaedia of African History, ed. Kevin Shillington (New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005), 702.
65
Kevin Shillington, The Colonisation of the Southern Tswana, 1870 – 1900 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press,
1985), 20.
66
Norman Etherington, Great Treks: The Transformation of Southern Africa (London: Longman
Publishers, 2001), 160 – 166.
67
Monageng Mogalakwe, “How Britain Underdeveloped Bechuanaland Protectorate: A Brief Critique of
the Political Economy of Botswana,” Africa Development 31 No. 1 (2006): 70 - 71. See also Scott A.
Beaulier, “Explaining Botswana’s Success: The Critical Role of Post-Colonial Policy”, Cato Journal 23,
No. 2 (2003), 229.
26
British in Bechuanaland, north of the Molopo because he saw it as vital link between the
Cape Colony and the Suez Canal, which the British had gained control over at the time.68
This move was clearly a result of military and strategic considerations rather than the
availability of wealth in Bechuanaland. Mogalakwe suggests that the threats of
annexation of the territory north of Molopo into the Boer Transvaal Republic were not
enough to warrant protection from the British government. Following a Boer incursion in
Batlhaping and Barolong territories between 1883 and 1884, “a British expeditionary
force under the command of Sir Charles Warren was dispatched from London in 1885 to
reassert control in the area and declare British protection over Bechuanaland south of the
Molopo River.”69 This came to be known as British Bechuanaland, an area that was later
incorporated into the British controlled Cape Colony and later became part of the Union
of South Africa in 1910. After growing fears of annexation by South Africa, the three
Tswana chiefs, Kgosi Khama III, Kgosi Sebele and Kgosi Bathoen with the help of
William Charles Willoughby, a British missionary in Bechuanaland, appealed to the
British for help. The territory north of that river became the Bechuanaland Protectorate,
which after independence in 1966 became Botswana.
According to Anthony Sillery, Kgosi Khama “had asked for British protection as
early as 1876 and he accepted the announcement wholeheartedly, only questioning the
northern boundary [of Ngwato territory], which, he complained, cut his country in half.”70
Gaseitsiwe, chief of the Ngwaketse another dominant Tswana group is said to have made
no fuss with the new arrangement while the chief of the Bakwena, Setshele [Sechele] was
sceptical of it. Sillery points out that Warren’s plan was to make the protectorate
68
Maylam, Rhodes, the Tswana and the British, 78 – 79.
Mogalakwe, “How Britain Underdeveloped Bechuanaland Protectorate,” 70.
70
Anthony Sillery, Botswana: A Short Political History (Suffolk: Methuen & Co. LTD, 1976), 76 – 77.
69
27
dependent on the crown for aid though he relied on “customs duties, hut tax, postal
charges and especially on rents from a settlement scheme on the land offered by the
chiefs … [but] this was the type of close administration that the British government
wished to avoid and Downing Street recoiled from it in horror.”71 As mentioned before,
the British government had no interest in Bechuanaland itself. Quoting Edward Farfield at
the High Commissioner’s office who made it clear that the British had no interests on
Bechuanaland:
It would keep us in the interior of South Africa forever … we have no interest in the
country north of the Molopo except as a road to the interior. We should therefore do as
little there in the way of administration as possible and simply content ourselves with
preventing it from being overrun by freebooters and foreigners.72
Mogalakwe argues that although military and strategic interests were the main reasons for
declaring Bechuanaland a protectorate in 1885, the British colonial government actively
followed commercial practices across the territory that mostly suited a small white settler
community. Economic policies introduced by the colonial powers such as taxation
became the most important ways to collect revenue from Batswana and forced them to
become involved in the colonial capitalist economy. As a result of this, at independence
in 1966, “the country did not have a nucleus of an indigenous capitalist class. Botswana’s
present capitalist path did not grow originally from pre-colonial Tswana civil society, but
was imposed by the departing colonial power.”73
THE POLICY OF INDIRECT RULE
During pre-colonial times, the chiefs of the various groups across the territory are said to
have enjoyed control over their people. There was no single kingdom to mount a
71
Sillery, Botswana: A Brief Political History, 76 – 77.
Sillery, Botswana: A Brief Political History, 77.
73
Mogalakwe, “How Britain Underdeveloped Bechuanaland Protectorate” 67.
72
28
significant resistance against other invading groups of people within the region but rather
autonomous groups of people spread cross the territory74. They often struggled for control
of trade as previously mentioned. This also meant that it was easy for the British
government to claim dominion over the people due to the lack of unity amongst the
Tswana groups. Zibani Maundeni writes:
Local governance in colonial and post-colonial Botswana was crafted cautiously in ways
that incorporated the traditional features of the old administrative set up that it replaced,
avoided the re-drawing of boundaries and maintained existing domination arrangements
over ethnic minorities. Initially, with the establishment of a Protectorate by Great Britain
in 1885, these independent Tswana kingdoms and other ethnic minorities were protected,
re-united in some loose way, and downgraded to chiefdoms. This meant that their
independent kings came to be regarded as chiefs, recognising only one queen or king, of
England. Political decisions had to be ratified by the British Government.75
This argument relates largely to the alienation of existing pre-colonial principles of
governance and the adoption of new and foreign ways of leadership. The state of affairs
across Africa during colonial times changed in this manner but in some parts this change
was more radicalised. According to Morton, “Colonial rule was not built on the principle
of democracy. It was built on the belief that the British alone had sufficient knowledge
and ability to rule. Africans were thought to be incapable of progress without generations
of western education and imitation of British ways.”76
In theory, the system of indirect rule was founded upon the hierarchical system of
authority, which combined military discipline, and Britain's own class system. 77 This
system of governance was pioneered in British colonial India and later applied to Africa
74
Zibani Maundeni, “The Evolution of the Botswana State: Pre-Colonial, Colonial and Post-Colonial
Periods,” Online Journal of African Affairs 1 No.2 (2012): 19 – 21. See also a very detailed study of this
policy in Christian John Makgala, “The Policy of Indirect Rule in Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1926-1957”
(PhD diss, University of Cambridge, Selwyn College, 2001).
75
Maundeni, “The Evolution of the Botswana State,” 25.
76
Morton, introduction to The Birth of Botswana, 2.
77
Schmitt, Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, 17.
29
by Frederick Lugard who implemented it in Uganda and Northern Nigeria.78 This was
because the nature of imperialism itself was militaristic. The chain of command did not
have any code of representation or consultation. At the top was the crown or parliament in
London, which gave orders to the Dominion Secretary in London (later Commonwealth
Secretary after 1948). Next in the chain of command was the High Commissioner who
after 1931 became High Commissioner for South Africa and in charge of High
Commission Territories, which included Bechuanaland. A Resident Commissioner
stationed at Mafikeng, in the Cape, dealt with Divisional Commissioners in the North
(Francistown) and the South (Gaborone). The Resident Magistrate, who became District
Commissioner after 1935, was the lowest European figure in the hierarchy before the
dikgosi (chiefs).79 Communication had to strictly follow this protocol. In Bechuanaland
the roles of the dikgosi was reduced to being mere mediators between the colonial
government and the people. “At the bottom of the colonial order sat the Kgosi (chief).
During the colonial period, the British expected dikgosi to serve the government in much
the same manner as white officials. Dikgosi were delegated tasks of controlling their
people, collecting tax and implementing changes introduced from above.” 80 In the
protectorate there were nine clearly marked reserves to which the various groups
78
Frederick D. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, (London: William Blackwood and
Sons, 1922) see also Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures, Legal Regimes in World History, 1400 –
1900, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 164, Assa Okoth, A History of Africa, Volume 1;
African Societies and the Establishment of Colonial Rule, 1800 – 1915, (Nairobi: East African Educational
Publishers, 2006), 322, and Jeffery Herbst, States and Power in Africa, Comparative Lessons in Authority
and Control, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 83.
79
Morton, introduction to The Birth of Botswana, 3.
80
Fred Morton, introduction to The Birth of Botswana: A History of the Bechuanaland Protectorate from
1910 to 1966, ed. Fred Morton and Jeff Ramsay, (Gaborone: Longman Botswana, 1987), 3.
30
belonged.81 The chiefs had no option but to accept these local borders as a means of
controlling movement of peoples as well as ethnic identity.
This new model of administration did not sit well with some chiefs such as Kgosi
Linchwe of Bakgatla, but because there was no single unified kingdom, there was little or
no resistance from the Tswana peoples. The lack of coherence among the chiefs sparked
tensions that led to the 1889 Kopong Conference where the various leaders as well as
common people expressed their dislike of the new colonial government. The biggest issue
discussed at this conference was defence and the incorporation of their individual
standing armies into one single regiment under the British military command. According
to Schmitt, Deputy Commissioner Sidney Shippard used his influence to coerce the
Tswana chiefs into accepting arbitrary agreements regarding the division of authority. In
Schmitt’s view, “As long as the region remained peaceful, the British government was
inclined to leave defense issues in the hands of the protectorate’s few appointed
administrators, a trend which would continue into the twentieth century.”82
Though Batswana did not wage any significant armed resistance against the
implementing of developments such as telegraph lines, Batswana chiefs remained vocal
that they did not authorise any sort of developments in their territories. By that time the
chiefs had lost control over the territories that they previously ruled. Schmitt writes:
In 1890 Shippard again sought cooperation from the diKgosi to construct additional
police camps and build telegraph lines with local labor. DiKgosi Sebele, Bathoen, and
Linchwe protested against the extension of the telegraph through their territories. Bathoen
had already granted concessions for the railway and telegraph rights to the Kanye
Concession Company and he refused under any conditions to part with land for a police
camp. Linchwe actually attacked the telegraph crew and refused to allow a telegraph
office to be built in his territory. Shippard was then authorized by Carrington to deploy an
additional 100 BBP in the southern part of the protectorate. Their presence was justified
81
82
Morton, introduction to The Birth of Botswana, 1, 6.
Schmitt, Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, 47.
31
to the Colonial Office by exaggerated reports of local resistance, as a manifestation of the
true source of local authority.83
The Bechuanaland Border Police (BBP) played a very important role in keeping
the peace within the territory as well as guarding the borders for any suspicious activities
of the Boers and any other invading party. According to Schmitt, the BBP was modelled
after the Cape Mounted Riflemen (CMR). “Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Carrington,
formerly of the CMR, commanded the new frontier cavalry unit. Much like the CMR, the
border police were used for imperial military duties, including town and village patrols,
guard and escort duties, and operations against the troublesome merafe (groups of
people).”84 Apart from these duties, the BBP was a way for the Cape government to avoid
direct involvement in the protectorate matters. In other words, the BBP would be sent to
deal with internal Tswana matters without the intervention of the Cape government.
83
84
Schmitt, Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, 47.
Schmitt, Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, 44-45.
32
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this section was to introduce the wider spectrum of theories of
development and underdevelopment as well as the context of the colonisation of
Bechuanaland. It has been demonstrated that the literature on rail transportation has
shifted over time and continues to change to incorporate more nuanced ideas. Most if not
all of the colonial railways in Africa were constructed purely for economic reasons with
the aim of using them for the extraction of minerals and perhaps fresh produce, as was the
case in East Africa. It should be pointed out from the onset that the railway in eastern
Bechuanaland was never seen as an entity on which the Tswana nation would be built nor
was it ever meant to establish a local economy. Its construction focused on the narrow
economy of mining. Samir Amin, Walter Rodney and Ronald Chilcote have pointed out
that the development of metropolis such as Johannesburg resulted in the
underdevelopment of places in the periphery. Significantly, the extraction of resources in
Southern Africa meant that the railways would be used to carry cheap migrant African
workers from the interior of Southern Africa to the mines of South Africa. This shall be
dealt with in detail in a later chapter.
33
CHAPTER 2 – RHODES, THE DIKGOSI AND THE RAILWAY
ENTERPRISE
Introduction
This chapter deals with several issues concerning Cecil Rhodes’s primary motivations for
constructing the railway from Vryburg through Bechuanaland to Bulawayo in the late
1800s. Ian Phimister has argued that these reasons were purely economic in nature.
According to him, the railways were meant to advance the imperial agenda of gaining
capital in Southern Africa. This chapter adds that there was a complex relationship
between the colonial government, the British South Africa Company (BSA Co), and the
local dikgosi. Initially, the dikgosi were not included in the railway negotiations, which
resulted in issues of land depravation and their total rejection of colonial developments.
Over time however, this relationship evolved as the chiefs began to gain profits from
what was established by the colonial government and made possible by the BSA Co;
taxation and labour migration. These economic changes encouraged many of the able
bodied men in the protectorate to seek wage employment and because the dikgosi stood to
benefit from collecting tax, they began to promote it. This however was not always
uniform due to resistance from some chiefs, and thus the formation of an indigenous
capitalist class took long to materialise. This chapter also deals with the later changes to
the uses of rail transportation in the Protectorate. Apart from being economic in nature,
the railway in eastern Botswana started being used for social programmes, which in most
cases benefitted the European settlers and ignored the Africans.
34
CECIL RHODES AND THE MAFIKENG - BULAWAYO RAILWAY
The history of Cecil John Rhodes has captured the imagination of many historians in the
past primarily because without his involvement in Southern Africa, British imperialism
would have taken a different shape. While many colonial historians have seen him as a
pioneer of colonial development, others have depicted nothing more than a moneygrabbing opportunist whose vision of connecting the Cape to Cairo was imposed upon the
colonial government. Whatever the case may be, the story of Rhodes’s work holds
significant value in the imperial history of Southern Africa.
In 1888 Lord Gifford who owned the Bechuanaland Exploration Company, sent a
request to the colonial officials at the Cape to build a railway through British
Bechuanaland a project that would connect Vryburg to Mafikeng. According to Paul
Maylam, Cecil Rhodes’s wallet and influence on imperial administrators in Southern
Africa consequently toppled Gifford’s claim when Rhodes bought the Bechuanaland
Exploration Company’s rights and took over the negotiations with the British
Government.85 Sir Henry Loch who in 1889 succeeded Sir Hercules Robinson as High
Commissioner at the Cape, later proposed to Rhodes the building of a railway line that
ran from Vryburg into Bechuanaland north of the Molopo River to as far as Palapye.86
Knowing that the main incentive for the colonisation of Southern Africa was the
extraction of resources, the reasons for constructing that railway can be seen as purely
economic. To build this railway, the British South Africa Company (or BSA Co) is said
85
Maylam, Rhodes, the Tswana and the British 78. See also Jon, The Political Economy of Primary
Railway Construction in the Rhodesias, 1890-1911,” The Journal of African History, 33, No. 2 (1992): 241
– 242; John S. Galbraith, Crown and Charter: The Early Years of the British South Africa Company, (Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), 107, 110 – 111.
86
Ngwenya, “The Development of Transport Infrastructure,” 73 – 74.
35
to have teamed up with limited liability companies such as the Bechuanaland Railways
Company.87
Established in 1889, the BSA Co was a merger of Cecil Rhodes’s Central Search
Association, the London based Exploration Company and several other companies owned
in partnership with Charles Rudd who in 1888 convinced Lobengula, leader of the
Ndebele peoples in what is now Zimbabwe to sign a concession for the exploration of
minerals. 88 It quickly gained momentum mainly because of Cecil Rhodes’s with and
financial prowess. Four years after its formation, the Bechuanaland Railway Company
was incorporated as a limited liability company and its first job was to assist the BSA Co
with the building of the northward line to Mafikeng. 89 Rhodes’s interest to build this
railway line is best described as purely capitalist according to Ian Phimister. However, in
a letter from Cecil Rhodes to the Colonial Office dated April 22, 1892, Rhodes explained
the several ways in which the railway could be important to the Bechuanaland
Protectorate:
Were the proposed railway to be built, the number of police might be largely reduced, as
in case of necessity reinforcements could be rapidly supplied by rail, and the necessity of
outpost duty would be much curtailed, while the expense connected with the force which
would have to be maintained would be enormously reduced by the diminished price of
transport. In the second place, without a railway, it seems hopeless to expect any
substantial development in the protectorate. There is, at present, no market for produce
87
Charles Mbohwa, “Operating A Railway System Within A Challenging Environment:
Economic History And Experiences Of Zimbabwe’s National Railways,” Journal of Transport and Supply
Chain Management, 2 No. 1 (November 2008): 25 – 26. See also Colin Newbury, “Out of the Pit: The
Capital Accumulation of Cecil Rhodes,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 10 No. 1
(1981): 25-43, Colin Newbury, “Cecil Rhodes, De Beers and Mining Finance in South Africa: The Business
of Entrepreneurship and Imperialism” ed. Raymond E. Dummet, Mining Tycoons in the Age of Empire,
1870 – 1945: Entrepreneurship, High Finance and Territorial Expansion, (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing
Company, 2009), 85 – 108.
88
See for example Robert I. Rotberg, The Founder, Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power, (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1988), 500- 502, G. Lockhart and CM. Woodhouse, Rhodes: the Colossus of
Southern Africa, (New York, 1963), and Lewis Michell, The Life of the Right Honourable Cecil John
Rhodes, 1853-1902 (London: Bibliolife, 1910).
89
Botswana Railways Timeline, www.botswanarailways.co.bw/timeline Accessed 28 October 2015 see
also Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary,”243.
36
within its borders, and the transport to the nearest available market is altogether
prohibitory.90
Whether his motivations to construct this line were capitalist or political, the process of
rail construction had to be financed somehow. This was no easy task for Rhodes with a
company that had just been incorporated. According to Lunn, Rhodes was eager to build
this line because it was directly linked to his company’s earlier acquisition of the Royal
Charter 91 for the extraction of minerals in Mashonaland. 92 Summing up Rhodes’s
financial plan, Maylam adds that Rhodes had initially estimated that the BSA Co would
require about £500,000 for the project, money that Rhodes and his company could not
come up with at the time. Lunn writes, “Capital for construction was painfully difficult to
find.” 93 As a result, he then turned to colonial officials such as Sir Henry Loch to
persuade the Cape Government to provide the bulk of that sum. He promised that upon
completion of the railway, the Cape government would have the option of purchasing the
line.94 This means that Rhodes was able to convince the Cape government to finance a
project that they would eventually have to buy back.
The railway itself was built in sections and after completion of each section the
BSA Co would hand it over to the Cape government. After reaching Vryburg in 1891, the
90
Botswana National Archives and Records Services, (hereinafter referred to as BNARS), BNB. 427,
Correspondence Respecting Proposed Railway Extension, 1893, Great Britain – Colonial Office, letter from
Cecil John Rhodes to the Colonial Office, (April 22, 1892,): 12 – 13.
91
For a detailed discussion of this, see for example, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Mapping Cultural and
Colonial Encounters, 1880s – 1930s,” in Becoming Zimbabwe: A History from Pre-Colonial to 2008, eds.
Brian Raftopoulis and Alois Mlambo, (Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2009); David Beach, The Shona and
their Neighbours, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994), 164 – 165; Terence Ranger, “African Initiatives
and Resistance in the Face of Partition and Conquest,” in Africa Under Colonial Domination, 1880 – 1935,
ed. A. Adu Boahen, (California: Heinemann/UNESCO, 1985), 45 – 62; D. Chanaiwa, “African Initiatives
and Resistance in Southern Africa,” in Africa Under Colonial Domination, 1880 – 1935 ed. A. Adu
Boahen, (California: Heinemann/UNESCO, 1985), 197, 204 – 206.
92
Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary,” 241.
93
Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary,” 242.
94
Maylam, Rhodes, the Tswana and the British, 59, 83 – 86.
37
construction was delayed because Rhodes had started to lose interest in the interior. His
hope of a Second Rand seemed to have gone adrift because of disappointing reports
concerning the lack of gold in Mashonaland and Matabeleland. 95 A few years later
however, he managed to fulfil his contractual obligations connecting Vryburg and
Mafikeng by 1893, though that section of railroad was opened for traffic in October 1894.
Rhodes and the BSA Co were running several railway projects across Southern Africa.
By December 1894 the eastward line towards Portuguese East Africa (today’s
Mozambique) reached Chimolo, 119 miles from Fontesvilla. In July 1895, Rhodes started
to link Port Beira with Fontesvilla. 96 This route to Mozambique gave Rhodes an
alternative access to ports and harbours other than South Africa and would put the BSA
Co in a better position to compete with the Portuguese in Mozambique.97 It was in this
same year that his greed and urge to gain control of the mineral wealth in the Transvaal
grew. At the same time Rhodes had completed a large portion of the northward line from
Mafikeng to Palapye. According to Lunn, he wanted a piece of land to establish a military
base within the Bechuanaland Protectorate from where he could launch his futile attack
on the Boers in the Transvaal. This came to be known as the Jameson Raid of December
1895.98 It was not easy for Rhodes to acquire the land used to launch this raid because it
originally belonged to the Ngwato Tswana under Chief Khama, who was always vocal
against Rhodes. After some difficulty, Rhodes succeeded in persuading the Cape
government to transfer ownership of the land and the railway line to the BSA Co so he
95
Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary,” 242.
BNARS, BNB 1288, Rhodesia Railways; Historic Milestones, Dates of Main-Line and Branch Line
Construction and Change of Control, (1968), 2 – 3; see also Haskins Bulawa, “The Political, Economic and
Social Impact of the Railway on Botswana, 1895 – 1970” (BA diss, University of Botswana, 1985), 5.
97
Arthur Keppel-Jones, Rhodes and Rhodesia, The White Conquest of Zimbabwe, 1884 – 1902 (Kingston:
McGill Queens University Press, 1983), 305 - 306
98
Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary,” 243. See also Eric Walker, “The Jameson Raid,” The
Cambridge Historical Journal 6, No. 3, (1940): 283 – 306.
96
38
could use it to make military advances on the Transvaal. It is here that we see the
militarist and perhaps political motivations for his construction of the railway. I agree
with Phimister and Galbraith who have explained Rhodes’s reasons for mounting the raid
as economically driven because his dreams of a Second Rand in Mashonaland had not
materialized so he wanted to control the mineral wealth in the Transvaal.99 Due to a lack
of preparation and perhaps poor communication, the raid failed. After its failure, Cecil
Rhodes lost his reputation in the eyes of the Cape and British governments. In describing
his position after the failed raid, Lunn writes:
In particular, it was a devastating blow to his political power and credibility; the very
future of the BSA Co. was thrown into doubt as the Imperial government was forced to
reconsider whether it really was such a cheap and painless way of extending the Empire.
Rhodes regularly slipped the imperial leash in pursuit of his own political goals; he was
an unreliable proxy for the British imperium.100
After this poor showing in the Transvaal, Rhodes retreated to what he knew best, building
the railway across the rest of Bechuanaland. He after all still held the charter for the
mineral exploration of Mashonaland and had conquered Matabeleland in 1893 and this
urged him to forget the events of 1895 and push much further into the interior. Between
March and November 1897, he completed the Mafikeng to Bulawayo section of the
railway through Bechuanaland. 101 Jon Lunn states that throughout the period of main
construction, the Bechuanaland railway was popularised as part of the great ‘Cape to
Cairo’ railway intended ultimately to link the British colonies of Africa.102 But with the
various obstacles that Rhodes faced, his imperial dream did not see daylight.
99
Ian Phimister, “Rhodes, Rhodesia and the Rand,” Journal of Southern African Studies 1, No. 1 (1974): 75
– 77.
100
Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary,” 243.
101
BNARS, BNB 1288, Rhodesia Railways; Historic Milestones, 2 – 3.
102
Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary,” 239.
39
THE RAILWAY IN BECHUANALAND: THE CHIEFS AND THE PEOPLE
According to A.J. Dachs, after the BSA Co received the Royal Charter for Mashonaland
and Matebeleland in 1889, the Colonial Secretary Lord Knutsford insisted that the charter
include all territory lying immediately north of British Bechuanaland. Dachs writes;
The [British] government did this deliberately to reduce its own responsibilities in the
area with the hope that the company might in the future prove sufficiently strong and
wealthy to undertake the supervision of not only the more northern territories but also the
Bechuanaland Protectorate.103
Rhodes had entertained the idea of annexing Bechuanaland north of the Molopo River on
behalf of the Cape government since 1893 but faced some significant difficulties because
the government never wanted the territory in the beginning. He saw his construction of
the railways across Bechuanaland as an investment that would go to waste if the territory
was not given over to the BSA Co. Furthermore, he had felt threatened by Lord Gifford’s
mining concession in Chief Khama’s Ngwato territory. According to Dachs, Khama was
initially antagonistic to the idea of mining in his territory but was convinced by the
prospect of creating local employment and thus reducing the problem of labour
migration. 104 However, Gifford’s concession did not hold much value because the
Ngwato people were very vocal and opposed to any scheme that involved them moving
from their traditional land to give way to mining projects. Dachs writes, “Any search for
land and administrative titles following mining rights was however a different position…
Khama himself would not tolerate [any] diminution authority among his people.”105 In all
fairness, the other two chiefs, Bathoen I and Sebele I had also been very vocal against this
103
Dachs, “Rhodes’s Grasp for Bechuanaland, 1889 – 1896,” Rhodesian History, 2 (1971): 2.
Dachs, “Rhodes’s Grasp for Bechuanaland,” 4.
105
Dachs, “Rhodes’s Grasp for Bechuanaland,” 4-5
104
40
idea of being incorporated into South Africa for a very long time.106 Rhodes used the
railway undertakings and his sway over the colonial officials to try to gain control over
Bechuanaland. By November 1895 it seemed like the chiefs would lose power in their
territory. Bechuanaland was faced with imminent seizure by the BSA Co, unless the three
chiefs who had gone to England to seek protection signed a land agreement. Barbara
Ngwenya describes the situation surrounding the signing of the settlement as unjust. She
states that the Secretary of Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, bulldozed the three chiefs into
accepting the Railway Agreement of 1895. In other words, the chiefs were forced to cede
the most fertile piece of land on which they had originally lived. It was the same piece of
land in 1896 that was described in a report by Malcolm W. Searle, an attorney based at
the Cape, as “an unimproved wasteland with no commercial value.”107 At that time, the
Tuli area had no significant commercial value to the colonial government but it became
important for Cecil Rhodes’s Jameson Raid. Ngwenya also suggests that the BSA Co
officials, Rochfort Maguire and Dr. Rutherford Harris, in a pre-arranged contract with the
British missionary Willoughby, had demanded Tuli Block in eastern Bechuanaland. 108
Fanny Sonia Arellano Lopez, however, suggests that the chiefs had willingly agreed to
“cede a strip of land for the north-south railway construction, demarcate the boundaries of
the different chiefdoms, establish legal jurisdiction of the chiefs and enact payment of the
annual government tax, the hut tax.”109 Whatever the case was, this meant that the chiefs
felt like they were losing influence over the people, and they could not do much to
106
Sandra Disung, Traditional Leadership and Democratisation in Southern Africa; A Comparative Study
of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, (Hamburg: LIT Verlang Munster, 2002), 184.
107
BNARS, RC, 2/12/6, Railway between Mafeking and Bulawayo, Report by M. W. Searle, 25 November,
1896.
108
Ngwenya, “The Development of Transport Infrastructure,” 74. See also Alec Campbell, “Khama III,
Missionaries and Old Palapye Church Building”, Botswana Notes and Records Vol. 40 (2008): 172.
109
Fanny Sonia Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade in the Bechuanaland Protectorate”
(PhD diss., State University of New York, 2008), 111 – 112.
41
dispute this. It should be made clear that most, if not all railway negotiations that took
place did not include any sort of consultation with the chiefs. For instance, in 1892, Lord
Ripon, Secretary of State for the British colonies held meetings with Sir Henry Loch to
discuss the policies of the railway line across eastern Bechuanaland.110 These meetings
bypassed the chiefs because the BSA Co and perhaps the colonial government did not
recognise traditional leadership even though the meetings concerned land held by the
chiefs. After the failed Jameson Raid, the land taken from the chiefs was not returned.
Ngwenya writes, “The present Tuli Block was temporarily held by the colonial
government which in 1904-5 transferred it to the BSAC. Subsequently, they sold it off at
a profit to individual white farmers.”111 Neil Parsons has argued that the loss of this land,
which was under Khama’s jurisdiction, gave sanctuary to Bangwato vagrants, criminals
and squatters who could easily use the railway strip to hide from the law. Because the
chief had lost control of this particular strip, the vagrants took advantage of that and
intermingled with other people in the strip so they could not be identified. However,
Bulawa’s informants were of a different view to what Parsons had posited about this land.
Citing a certain Mr. Ewing, he states that despite the fact that the railway strip was under
the jurisdiction of the railway company, nobody was above the law because they could be
easily be found and arrested.112 It should be pointed out that this land was now privately
owned by the BSA Co and its owners would have considered trespassing by the said
Ngwato vagrants to be a serious crime.
110
Dachs, “Rhodes’s Grasp for Bechuanaland,” 7.
Ngwenya, “The Development of Transport Infrastructure,” 74.
112
Neil Parsons, “Khama III, the Bangwato and the British with special reference to 1895 – 1923, (PhD
diss. University of Edinburgh, 1973), 131 quoted in Haskins Bulawa, “The Political, Economic and Social
Impact of the Railway on Botswana, 1895 – 1970” (BA diss, University of Botswana, 1985), 11.
111
42
Schmitt and other historians have amplified the outbreak of cattle diseases
between 1896 and 1897 as well as the excessive drought and famine as the main drivers
of labour migration in the Protectorate. 113 It is true that most of Bechuanaland relied
heavily on its cattle economy and when these natural disasters stuck, it was devastated.
As a result, this compelled a paradigm shift among many of the cattle herders/owners as
they were forced to seek wage employment in order to sustain themselves. Furthermore,
the colonial government had introduced taxes and levies for people living in the reserves.
For that reason, a majority of the able bodied men joined the working class in search of
wages so to keep up with the taxes. It is, however, argued that taxation had very little
effect on the lowest social levels such as malata or servants who continued to herd the
remaining cattle belonging to their overlords.114 Anthropologist Isaac Schapera had, in the
1930s, tried to demonstrate that new European models of life had failed to alter the
structure of the traditional Tswana society. Comparing the Tswana to their African
communities in neighbouring South Africa, he gave several factors relating to the
situation in Bechuanaland. For Schapera, the South Africans who found wage
employment were better off socially and economically but they had lost the essence of
traditions and culture. He writes:
The many thousands of Natives constantly employed by the mines, railways,
municipalities and other industrial organisations, on the farms and in the households of
the Europeans, inevitably acquire new tastes, new habits and new vices. They return totheir homes profoundly altered, and with an increasing detachment from the old tribal
system. The great majority of them are no longer pure herdsmen and agriculturists but
rely to a considerable extent upon their wage-earnings to satisfy the needs to which they
have now become accustomed and to pay the taxes, which have been imposed upon them.
Their regular absence at work leads to a weakening of family ties and to the disintegration
of tribal society. They cannot participate in the relative freedom of civilised life and then
come back to submit tamely to the authority and exactions of their tribal superiors. Their
old standards of morality have changed as well, and the sanctions which used to prevail
113
114
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 118.
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 112.
43
have largely broken down.115
Bechuanaland’s situation was much different because the territory was a predominantly
“native” territory with each primary “tribe” having a large reserve of its own. Also, the
area where Europeans resided in the protectorate was too small to cause any sort of
change or influence on the major reserves. There was no significant contact by the
Tswana with the Europeans who resided in the Tuli area. Lastly, Schapera added that
since the colonial government did very little in terms of administration in the protectorate,
many Batswana remained in their traditional life.116
It is quite clear that the ecological disasters that struck the territory accelerated the
turn towards wage labour for many Tswana men but Arellano-Lopez cautions that the
outcomes of the disaster were not uniform throughout Bechuanaland and therefore should
not be used as a blanket justification for the pursuit of wage labour. In the same vein, it
should be added, as observed by Peter Landel-Mills, that Schapera’s explanation of
labour migration is questionable because he did not give evidence of labour migration
coming from the poorest sections of the territory.117 There was another important factor
that led to the pursuit of wage labour. The availability of rail transportation has somewhat
been overlooked by historians though without it, migration in the first place would have
been a very difficult task. Though his argument deals with much later events, Ashley
Jackson has explained that the increase in colonial revenue was largely due to excessive
use of the railway. “Increased customs and excise revenue, due largely to the heavy use of
115
Isaac Schapera, “Labour Migration From a Bechuanaland Native Reserve: Part 1”, Journal of the Royal
African Society, 32 No. 129 (October 1933): 387.
116
Isaac Schapera, “Labour Migration From,” 386.
117
Peter Landell-Mills, “Rural Incomes and Urban Wage Rates,” Botswana Notes and Records, 2 (1970):
79 – 84.
44
the railway line that ran through the Protectorate, also contributed to increased
revenue.”118
Arellano-Lopez like Schmitt suggests that new developments such as the search
for wage labour did spark significant changes across the Bechuanaland reserves. At the
time when the railway was being built many Tswana men were compelled to seek
employment in railway construction and fencing of the railway strip to earn some income.
Their reasons for this movement to wage labour within the Protectorate and outside vary.
As discussed previously, the outbreak of cattle diseases such as Rinderpest and Foot and
Mouth Disease in the late 1800s, prolonged dry seasons and the lack of proper crop yields
meant that the Tswana farmers needed alternative sources of food and income. The
imposition of Hut Tax in 1899 further drove men from their traditional way of life to a
modern capitalist economy. Ngwenya adds that other chiefs following Khama’s example,
may have likewise encouraged their people to seek employment and provided a headmen
to supervise the work.119 This, according to Deborah Ann Schmitt, had to happen in order
to introduce Batswana to other forms of gaining capital. 120 By seeking wage labour,
Batswana slowly had started to abandon their traditional forms of wealth and began to
adapt to the modern ways of gaining wealth. The emergence of an indigenous capitalist
class is clearly explained by Onalenna Selolwane. She writes:
The history of imperialist penetration into the Bechuanaland Protectorate can be
meaningfully analysed only within the context of the character of capitalism in the
Southern African region as a whole. The emergence of an indigenous capitalist oligarchy
in the Cape Colony and the economic transformations that followed reverberated into and
shaped the socio-economic structures of the neighbouring territories. Without this context
the historian might be led to make analytically useless assertions like ‘the history of
118
Ashley Jackson, Botswana, 1939 – 1945: An African Country at War, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999),
128.
119
Ngwenya, “The Development of Transport Infrastructure,” 74.
120
Schmitt, The Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, 41 – 42.
45
Bechuanaland Protectorate is a series of accidents.’121
Lopez and Schmitt see the pursuit of wage labour not only as a means for the
Tswana men to keep up with the annual hut tax, but also resulting from the introduction
of a capitalist economy, which would shape indigenous societies. It also reshaped the
social structure within the various Tswana reserves as common men could now become
employed outside of these reserves, which could lead to their social advancement.
Though the chiefs were initially opposed to the hut tax, as recognised authorities in their
reserves “they were exempt from paying the tax, but were responsible for collecting and
maintaining the tax registers.”122 The chiefs are said to have received some commission
for the revenues they collected and the Bangwato, Bakgatla and Bakwena chiefs did very
well under this system. 123 This was a monopoly enjoyed by the chiefs and it can be
argued from this that the chiefs urged their people to seek wage employment so they
could benefit more from it. Not all wages were attained through employment but the
railway encouraged enterprise among the Tswana. Between 1896 and 1897 many
Batswana appear to have expressed their wish to acquire stores along the railway line by
applying for hawkers’ licences. The Imperial Secretary at the Cape granted applications
to “people of good character.”124
The chiefs experienced other important economic changes, which were pivoted on
the railway. Some changes were good and some were not necessarily beneficial to them.
121
Onalenna Selolwane, “Colonisation by Concession: Capitalist Expansion in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, 1850 – 1950,” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 2, No. 1 (Feb, 1980): 79-80.
122
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 111; see also Christian John Makgala, “Taxation in
the Tribal Areas of the Bechuanaland Protectorate,” The Journal of African History, Vol. 45 No. 2, (2004):
280 and Schapera, “Labour Migration From a Bechuanaland Native Reserve: Part 1”, Journal of the Royal
African Society 32 No. 129, (October 1933): 387.
123
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 111, see also Olufemi Vaughan, Chiefs, Power and
Social Change: Chiefship and Modern Politics in Botswana, 1880s – 1990s (Trenton: Africa World Press,
2003), 29.
124
BNARS, RC. 2/12/7, Government House Dispatches, Letter from Imperial Secretary, 1897.
46
Before the railway was constructed, the chiefs controlled the wagon routes used for trade.
Ngwenya writes, “Wagon trade routes developed as a response to intensified economic
demands for externally generated supply of European commodities.”125 She suggests that
the years between 1886 and 1895 were characterised by prosperous wagon trading.
However, when the railway opened this trade collapsed. 126 On the other hand, Chief
Khama III of the Bangwato is said to have used the railway to his advantage by supplying
the Kimberly mines with timber. The Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899 – 1902 provided
economic opportunities to the Tswana, particularly the Ngwato under Chief Khama. They
used the railway to supply the British military with beef. 127 In many ways, the railway
presented new markets for the Tswana though this destroyed, in some ways, the
customary way of life.
The importance of the rail connection between Rhodesia and South Africa at the
time of the Second Anglo-Boer War cannot be stressed enough. The local chiefs,
particularly Khama of the Ngwato became involved in defending the railway line within
his territory. Because of tensions between the Boers and the British, a trade embargo had
been put in effect ceasing all commercial freight between Rhodesia, Bechuanaland and
South Africa. During this war, the Boers laid siege to the town of Mafikeng, which was a
key point in the railway route between the three countries. To cut the economic lifeline
and connection between Rhodesia and South Africa the Boers destroyed the bridge over
the Metsimasuane River.128 As a result, the Rhodesia Railways operated armoured trains
that patrolled the line between Mafikeng and Bulawayo though they too were
125
Ngwenya, “The Development of Transport Infrastructure,” 73.
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 118.
127
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 118.
128
Keppel-Jones, Rhodes and Rhodesia, 593. See also Don Strack, “Railroads or Southern and Central
Africa,” http://utahrails.net/articles/central-africa-railroads.php accessed 05 Feb, 2016
126
47
occasionally attacked. 129 Further north in Khama’s territory, the Boers also attacked a
telegraph line near Palapye to try to halt communication between Rhodesia and South
Africa. Deborah Ann-Schmitt writes:
Boer commandos invaded Khama's country and cut the telegraph line near Palapye on the
first day of hostilities. The railway between Gaberones and Mafeking became another
prime target and armoured trains patrolled the tracks to prevent Boer sabotage. A week
after the outbreak of the war, Khama sent his brother, Kebailele, and two regiments to
guard the railway bridge at Mahalapye to the south. Eventually his men guarded the
whole length of the railway through BaNgwato country. Khama's capital of Palapye
became a major defensive position manned by three to four thousand armed BaNgwato.130
Khama’s position in this debacle seemed two faced. At first he was antagonistic of the
British government and Rhodes’s attempt to develop his territory. After he saw the
importance of the railway in bringing capital to his land, his position slightly shifted and
he became a supporter of what the British colonial government had intended. His effort at
defending the railway evidences that. Also, he had always been clearly antagonistic to the
Boers, for that he had to reaffirm his position on the side of the British in defending the
railway.
As discussed previously, the railway was completed in sections and the BSA Co
would hand over its ownership the Cape Government. In 1899, Rhodes reasserted control
over the entire railway line when the Bechuanaland Railways Company changed its name
to Rhodesia Railways Limited.131 This was not really a change of proprietorship because
the Bechuanaland Railway Company was an entity of the British South Africa Company
from the beginning, so the change of name did not come as a shock to the colonial
government. It meant that the railway that was completed just a few years earlier was now
a privately owned entity.
129
Schmitt, The Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, 69 – 70,
Schmitt, The Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, 69.
131
BNARS, BNB 1288, Rhodesia Railways; Historic Milestones, 4.
130
48
The absence of statistics showing employment of Tswana men in the various
railway projects makes it difficult to know the employment opportunities presented by the
railway. Given what Ngwenya describes as a lack of coherent evidence, it makes it
difficult to paint a clear picture of the nature of employment of the Tswana. She states, “It
is likely that few Batswana were employed during the colonial period. It appears that the
largest portion of unskilled workers were immigrant labour drawn from Malawi,
Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.” 132 It is known that Africans working on the
railways and indeed the mines performed all the unskilled jobs and were not allowed to
learn skilled jobs because this would warrant an increase in their wages. The available
evidence points out that some Tswana men were employed in and earned some wages
from railway construction. A chapter on the dynamics of the railway in labour migration
shall follow and discuss this issue in detail.
COLONIAL EDUCATION, COMPASSION AND ENTERPRISE
The development of education in Bechuanaland was a haphazard matter from the
beginning because it was never in the colonial programme. Between the time of declaring
protection over Bechuanaland and the late 1920s, missionary education prevailed. Then in
the early 1900s, Reginald Balfour, a representative of the new British Military
Administration of the conquered Transvaal following the Anglo-Boer War, who toured
and inspected European schools in the Protectorate and arrived at a segregationist
conclusion that European children should be taught separately. 133 It seems that the only
132
Ngwenya, “The Development of Transport Infrastructure,” 74, see also Haskins Bulawa, “The Political,
Economic and Social Impact of the Railway on Botswana, 1895 – 1970” (BA diss, University of Botswana,
1985), 11.
133
Part Mgadla, A History of Education in the Bechuanaland Protectorate to 1965, (Lanham, University
Press of America, 2002), 88 -89.
49
thing systematic in the dissemination of education in the Protectorate was to maintain the
racial divide in education. Then in the early 1930s, the Director of Education for
Bechuanaland, H. J. E. Dumbrell, who was well known for being sympathetic towards
Africans, suggested to the Resident Commissioner that it would benefit the people, both
European and Tswana, if the colonial government would consider educating the children
of railway workmen. 134 This did not mean that Dumbrell wanted both Tswana and
European children to be taught in the same classrooms. Part Mgadla’s comprehensive
work on the development of education in Bechuanaland suggests that Dumbrell
“endorsed the idea of separate schools.”135 His argument was that the railway stretched
from Bechuanaland’s southern Ramatlabama border with South Africa to the northern
Ramokgwebana border with Southern Rhodesia running along several isolated homes of a
number of railway workers who were married and had children of school going age.136 He
stated that the colonial government had constructed Government Aided European schools
[exclusive to European Children] in villages along the railway line at sub-centres such as
Lobatse, Tshesebe, Mahalapye and Francistown. However, a few of the children of
European employees of the railway companies attended school owing to the fact that their
homes were far too removed from the mentioned places. In responding to the Dumbrell’s
letter, the Resident Commissioner stated that he had been in communication with the
Railway Missionary, Reverend H.J.A. Rusbridger, who perhaps used the efficient mode
of transportation to reach many areas in the east and ascertained that indeed there was a
134
BNARS, S. 459/9, Education: European Children of Railway Workers in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, Letter from Director of Education, H.J.E. Dumbrell to Resident Commissioner, (21 March,
1936).
135
Mgadla, A History of Education in the Bechuanaland, 101
136
BNARS, S. 459/9, Education: European Children of Railway Workers in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, Letter from Director of Education, H.J.E. Dumbrell to Resident Commissioner, (21 March,
1936).
50
number of children, European and coloured (mixed race) that were isolated and unable to
attend school. Rusbridger suggested that “employing a teacher who could travel along the
railway and teach children at sub-centres” would rectify the problem.137 However, a letter
from the Department of External Affairs in Pretoria stated that the South African
Railways was not in a position to hire itinerant teachers and suggested boarding schools
for the European children. The letter also suggested the use of farm schools where if an
average attendance of at least five students could be guaranteed, the South African
Railways would be able to provide conveyance and boarding grants to them. 138 In
responding to a letter from the Administrative Secretary to the High Commissioner, P.R.
Botha, a spokesperson for the South African Railways reiterated that they would only
offer free transport to children of its European employees and expressed that it would be
impossible for them to offer transport to African children.139 Though Bechuanaland was
not as racially divided as South Africa, Dumbrell would have anticipated this negative
response. From here, it is not clear how Dumbrell responded to Botha’s refusal but we
can assume that the non-European children were taught separately. In his earlier letter, he
had noted that it would be best, at that time, to resort to what he called the Belton Plan of
teaching, a system in which “children would be trained to carry on with their studies
whilst their teacher is busy at another centre or centres.”140 The Resident Commissioner
showed his support for this model of education and perhaps this is why it is safe to
137
BNARS, S. 459/9, Education: European Children of Railway Workers in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, Letter from Resident Commissioner to H.J.E. Dumbrell, (24 April, 1936).
138
BNARS, S. 459/9, Education: European Children of Railway Workers in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, Letter from Department of External Affairs to Resident Commissioner, (23 September, 1936).
139
BNARS, S. 459/9, Education: European Children of Railway Workers in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, Letter from P.R. Botha to Administrative Secretary to the High Commissioner, (28
September, 1936).
140
BNARS, S. 459/9, Education: European Children of Railway Workers in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, Letter from Director of Education, H.J.E. Dumbrell to Resident Commissioner, (21 March,
1936).
51
assume that non-European children continued to be educated in this manner until formal
education was introduced. We cannot blame rail development for this but we can point
out that its presence deepened the wedge between whites and non-whites as its use only
benefitted the former. Dumbrell, at about the same time, made several attempts to
establish an education system for the Indian Muslim children who had settled at
Ramotswa. The details to these negotiations are discussed later in the following chapter.
Another significant use of the railway was to transport the Principal Medical
Officer along the eastern side of the territory to monitor and curb malnutrition of African
children during periods of great famine and drought.141 Just like the Railway Missionary
used it to travel, the Medical Officer in the 1930s also took advantage of its efficiency.
This can be seen as a good gesture by the colonial government though its use was only
limited to the east.
The introduction of this modern mode of transportation attracted numerous
individuals from the interior of the protectorate. In the early 1900s, the Rhodesia and
South African Railway Companies described the presence of beggars along the railway
line as a social ill that had to be dealt with. However, not all were beggars, amongst the
throngs of people were licensed indigenous curio sellers as well as European shop owners
who conducted trade at the railway sidings. At some of the bigger railway stations, it
became increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the African curio sellers and
the beggars. Apart from that, the South African Railways had received numerous
complaints from its European passengers regarding the problem of theft of property at
railway stations by people disguised as curio sellers. Correspondence between Herbert .H.
141
BNARS, S. 428/3 and S.428/4, Malnutrition in Bechuanaland Protectorate, Correspondence relating to
the use of rail transport and establishment of a dairy industry in the Protectorate, (1930 – 1943).
52
Price, the Assistant Government Secretary of Bechuanaland from 1935, and the South
African Railways shows that begging along the railway line in Bechuanaland had been
increasing rapidly therefore the South Africa Railways required assistance from the
Railway Police to arrest the so-called beggars turned mob. Chief Seboko Mokgosi of
Bamalete responded in a letter stating that while he understood the instruction to remove
all people from the railway sidings to prevent begging, he requested on behalf of the blind
that they be allowed to seek charity from railway passengers.142 This request was denied
because the chief had failed to provide sufficient justification for his proposition. Another
letter from G. E. Nettleton, the Resident Magistrate further stressed the point that “the
frequenting of beggars at the railway premises to solicit assistance from passengers was
not an advertisement to this country nor was that at all desirable.”143 This threatened not
only the image of the both railway companies but also its economic applications because
it was unsafe. As a result the Bechuanaland Railway Police was established in 1924 to
curb numerous reports of thievery, disorder and begging along the railway line.144 Whilst
the railway was intended to serve Rhodes’s economic practices and the colonial
government, it was at the heart of other social problems within the territory. Railway
sidings as a result became havens that harboured what the colonial government called
devious behaviour. Though on one hand the railway symbolised economic development
and European progress in the protectorate, it depicted a different picture for the many
unemployed Africans on the other hand. It did not create employment opportunities,
which drove them to acts of begging and thievery.
142
BNARS S.204/3/1, Begging by Natives along the Railway Line and the Licensing of Curio Sellers, Letter
from H. Cheadle on behalf of Chief Seboko to C.L.O.B. Dutton, (7 April, 1931).
143
BNARS S.204/3/1, Begging by Natives along the Railway Line and the Licensing of Curio Sellers, Letter
from G. E. Nettleton to Chief Seboko, (5, August, 1933).
144
BNARS, S.94/1, Appointment of Railway Police in Bechuanaland Protectorate, Letter from C.L.O.B.
Dutton to the Divisional Superintendent, (March 20, 1925).
53
By the early 1900s, two companies operated the railway across eastern
Bechuanaland. The northern line running from Mahalapye northwards through to
Bulawayo was operated by the Rhodesia Railway Company, while the South African
Railways ran the southern line from Mahalapye to Vryburg.145 It is not clear how the
South African Railways acquired the operation of the southern line but Jon Lunn suggests
that between 1911 and 1912, they proposed to purchase the entire line from Vryburg to
Bulawayo but the BSA Co turned down the offer. 146 The economic opportunities for
controlling this railway were endless and perhaps the South African government wished
to monopolise that.
As explained before, it was difficult for the Railway Police to distinguish between
beggars and non-European curio sellers at railway sidings. Speaking at a Native Advisory
Council Meeting held in March 1937, Acting Chief Mmusi of the Bakgatla stated that
some of the people at the railway sidings selling their curios had nothing else to do. He
mentioned that they had to sell whatever they had so that they could find money for their
taxes and to buy clothes. Most Batswana could not afford to keep up with the payments
required for the trade licences while European curio sellers could afford to pay for both
the trade licence and a lease to open a shop at the railway sidings. For example, a
European merchant called Mr. T.W. Shaw held since 1927, the leases at Artesia and
Palapye while Mrs. Maclean and Mr. G. Seaman held two other leases for Mahalapye.147
Though the railway encouraged many Batswana to engage in enterprise, a lot of them
were faced with challenges of racial prejudice and impenetrable monopolies such as this
145
BNARS, BNB 1288, Rhodesia Railways; Historic Milestones, 4 see also Arellano-Lopez, “The Social
Construction of Trade,” 115 and Susan Williams, Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and his
Nation, (New York: Penguin Books, 2006).
146
Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary,” 251.
147
BNARS S.204/3/1, Begging by Natives along the Railway Line and the Licensing of Curio Sellers, Letter
from Systems Manager of South African Railways to C.L.O.B. Dutton, (31 August, 1937).
54
one. However, the issue of partiality regarding lease applications needs to be dealt with
carefully. In 1938 the Bechuanaland Government Secretary wrote a letter stating that he
had decided to terminate all European held leases in order to invite new tender
applications from all people irrespective of colour. According to his report, he had only
received applications from Mr. Seaman and Messrs’ Dennison and Sons LTD. 148 It
appears that no indigenous people made applications to lease land or attain new licences
to sell along the railways. It is from this evidence where we can argue that the
opportunities for enterprise for Batswana along the railway were made available, but they
failed to seize them. Perhaps the procedure of sending the applications through the chiefs
prolonged the progression of these applications for the Africans and vanished somewhere
along the line of communication. As the presence of curios sellers indicate, Africans were
enterprising and willing to take part in commerce around the railway stations. The fact
that only a few of them applied for trade licences suggest that there were probably other
barriers such as lack of communication, high costs of application and perhaps distrust of
the system.
Not all Batswana ventured into selling curios along the railway. Most remained
cattle herders and sold raw or dried beef (biltong) at railway sidings. The problems with
cattle herding near the railway were the endless possibilities of stock being injured or
killed by a passing locomotive. As a way to compensate for the loss of cattle, the colonial
government between 1904 and 1928 implemented measures to compensate any owners
who claimed that their beast had been struck by a train. They were paid £40.00 for a
horse, £20.00 for a mule or cow, £12.00 for a donkey or ostrich and only £2.00 for a goat
148
BNARS S.204/3/1, Begging by Natives along the Railway Line and the Licensing of Curio Sellers, Letter
from Government Secretary to Systems Manager of South African Railways, (15, December, 1938).
55
or sheep.149 This was of course a gesture by the colonial government but it did very little
in terms of replacing the lost stock. Those prices were far less than the actual price of
small stock or livestock in the market. Most of the farmers who received this type of
reimbursement used the money for other things such as paying their taxes. This type of
compensation only existed in the eastern side of the country and targeted only farmers
whose animals had been affected by the passing locomotives, as it would not apply to
areas without a railway. The colonial government had taken note of some of the negative
aspects of rail development in the territory and sough to rectify them. Though this
compensation was far from enough, to a certain extent it showed the Tswana the
monetary value of livestock and was therefore a step in the right direction in encouraging
them preserve their livelihood. We should not overlook the fact that it was the same
colonial government that took land from the chiefs and allowed it to be sold to the BSA
Co without compensation. For that reason, the compassion that the colonial government
had for the Africans in Bechuanaland was very selective and based on people’s discretion.
This shows the lack of uniformity and the bias in carrying out developments in the
protectorate. It is therefore worthwhile to reiterate that the process of colonisation and the
introduction of rail transportation in the protectorate disrupted the Tswana way of life.
In the years that followed the declaration of Bechuanaland as a protectorate of the
Crown, the colonial government was slow to implement a clear socio-economic policy. In
most cases, a problem was identified and then measures were taken to eradicate the
problem, and this was often a very slow process. As a response to that the colonial
government established the “Native” (which later changed to African) Advisory Council
149
BNARS, S.100/1, Compensation for Stock Injured on the Railway, Letter from Resident Magistrate,
Serowe to G. E. Nettleton, (November, 1927).
56
in 1920. Its membership consisted of mainly the chiefs of the major groups of people in
Bechuanaland. It dealt with issues relating to racial discrimination in the protectorate,
agricultural improvement and above all preventing the transfer of the protectorate to the
Union of South Africa.150 Most significantly, after being formed, it became very vocal
against racial segregation in public spaces such as hospitals and railway stations. The
Union of South Africa was undoubtedly racially biased and some of that bias spilled over
to neighbouring Bechuanaland. According to Part Mgadla, the Advisory Council held a
meeting in 1946 where Chief Bathoen II of the Bangwaketse lamented that the effects of
racial discrimination in the Union of South Africa had impacted Bechuanaland. Mgadla
writes, “The Kgosi proceeded to give examples of discrimination by race and colour,
citing examples emanating from railway stations where Africans were allocated third
class train tickets through a small window even though they had preferred and could
afford, first or second class tickets. ‘Entrance through the front door’, the Kgosi
continued, was clearly out of bounds, as that place is not for Africans.”151 In other words,
Africans who used the trains for transportation had a tough time because of the
discrimination. Kgosi Bathoen’s argument was that the people who had fought in the
Second World War on the side of the British needed to be recognised as heroes and also
be given priority in the trains like all other Europeans. Though there were not necessarily
laws of segregation in Bechuanaland, the South African Railways (SAR) operated
locomotives had to strictly follow the laws of the Union even when they crossed into the
protectorate. Manungo adds:
The delegates [of Bechuanaland] attacked the Administration for the unequal treatment of
150
Kenneth R.D. Manungo, “The Role of the Native Advisory Council in the Bechuanaland Protectorate,
1919-1960,” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 13 No. 1&2 (1999): 24.
151
Mgadla, “Racial Discrimination in Colonial Botswana,” 490.
57
people who had faced equal hazards. In this session the Resident Commissioner defended
the policy of the Administration, claiming it was "class discrimination" and not racial
discrimination. He said that the different treatment [on trains] was based on social and
economic differences and not colour. He added that European salaries were "rightly"
more than African salaries because the Europeans used more money than Africans due to
different consumption patterns. This was a naive reply to demands that were so concrete.
The Resident Commissioner could not explain why colour coincided with class. He even
told the delegates that they themselves as educated people would not want to mix with
noisy and unbehaved people who always were shouting and pushing others. He concluded
by saying that in his administration he would not allow racial discrimination; but socioeconomic discrimination, he added, would be allowed.152
In many ways then it can be argued that the concerns of the African Advisory Council
represented public opinion and perhaps sparked the beginning of political awareness in
the protectorate.
152
Kenneth R.D. Manungo, “The Role of the Native Advisory Council,” 31.
58
CONCLUSION
This chapter has examined Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company’s reasons
for building the railway across eastern Bechuanaland. These reasons like Phimister has
argued were purely economic in nature though there were some instances such as the
Jameson Raid, which could be seen as Rhodes’s attempt to gain political control of the
Transvaal. However, as stated, this raid was staged so as to gain control of the mineral
wealth in that area. Several other things took place in the early period of construction
such as land alienation and the colonial government’s disregard of the power of the
chiefs. As demonstrated, Tuli Block was one such piece of land, which was never given
back to the people after the failure of the raid. Removing this land from the hands of the
Africans meant that most of them had to be moved to the reserves where life was not as
favourable and soils not as fertile to sustain their agrarian lives. Across most of eastern
Bechuanaland, there were other privately owned blocks such as the Gaborone, Tati and
Lobatse blocks, which shall be discussed in detail in the next chapter.
This chapter has also demonstrated that although the railway was constructed
primarily for economic reasons, it had unforeseen results and became the centre of some
racially biased social programmes such as the education of children of railway employees
and the selling of curios at railway sidings. The racial prejudice of South Africa was a
widespread and deeply rooted European thought that spilled over to Bechuanaland and
made most of the social programmes inaccessible to non-whites. The underdevelopment
of Bechuanaland was therefore not a carefully crafted occurrence but rather an
unfortunate result of a series of events, biased policies, and the actions of a few colonial
officials. It only appears more systematic when we look at the outcomes of imperialism in
the Protectorate. The Transvaal and the Cape, for example, had significant infrastructure
59
developments, growing economies and policies that supported growth because of the
significant investments made by the imperial powers. Though South Africa struggled with
a racist government until the early 1990s, it was, at the time of Botswana’s independence,
significantly more developed. This was because the land itself had and abundance of
mineral wealth so there was a good reason to make such investments. As mentioned
earlier, Bechuanaland was nothing more than a passage for labour resources. It was a
barren piece of land, which was more of a burden because there were no known mineral
deposits. This resulted in all the efforts being diverted to developing places of economic
significance.
60
CHAPTER 3 – THE BECHUANALAND RAILWAY IN THE
SOUTHERN AFRICAN MINERAL REVOLUTION
Introduction
Like most countries in the interior of Southern Africa, Bechuanaland was not immune to
the brunt of the late 19th century mineral revolution. Within this period of rapid
industrialisation and economic changes, the Protectorate played two significant roles first
as the rail corridor that carried the tides of labour headed to the south from the interior,
and second as a constant supplier of some of this labour itself. Scholars have in the past
dealt with labour migration as a result of the ecological disasters such as rinderpest (cattle
plague) and locusts that befell Bechuanaland as well as the colonial policies of taxation.
These are all valid points and this chapter does not refute them but it tries to highlight the
role of rail transportation in Bechuanaland’s shift from an agrarian to a capitalist
economy. It has been stated by Neil Parsons that the effects of the rinderpest pandemic
were geographically uneven and that the Ngwato in particular were almost unaffected by
it and actually improved their wagon trade economy. However, at the end of 1897 with
the opening of the railway, the Ngwato wagon monopoly collapsed, which created a
dependency on the colonial government for employment. In essence, the reasons for
labour migration varied across the regions of the territory but can be assessed as a
combination of ecological disasters and taxation, both of which coincided with the
railway age. This chapter also humbly adds to Gordon Pirie’s argument that the railway
was key in continually replenishing the workforce as Africans in the hundreds of
thousands arrived at the mines of South Africa. It also examines the distant and
immediate effects of labour migration on family life, and argues that the movement of
61
labour to the south and the backward flow of capital were never balanced, which resulted
in the underdevelopment of a labour supplying country.
THE TSWANA PEASANTRY AND THE NEW RAILWAY ECONOMY
To understand the paradigm shift that occurred in most of central, south and eastern
Bechuanaland between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one must first attempt to
explain the Tswana economy prior to the railway age. The key points we should keep in
mind include: how well established this economy was before the use of rail transportation
came to the territory, how the dawn of the railway age changed that, and how the Tswana
together with their dikgosi responded to those changes. Neil Parsons has tried to explain
that the Ngwato under Khama III (c. 1835 – 1923) had enjoyed substantial profits from
wagon trade along the road to the north in the years prior to rail construction. 153 He
suggests that Khama was able to establish and nurture a notable economy through long
and short distance wagon trade that was independent of the colonialists. As explained
previously, this wagon route had existed long before and is what connected the Cape to
the rest of Southern Africa. Furthermore, not only the Ngwato enjoyed the profits of the
wagon monopoly. Parsons states that “three [other] social groups may be mentioned as
particularly benefiting from the demand of the Road to the North – the big cattle-owning
royals or aristocrats who sold cattle on the hoof (for Kimberley) and for meat and hides,
waggoneers such as the Khurutshe, and cultivators like some Kalanga groups [of the
North East].”154 In the same vein, David Massey carries this point forward by suggesting
that the Ngwato, who resided along the trade route to the north, had previously prospered
153
Neil Parsons, “The Economic History of Khama’s Country in Botswana, 1884 – 1930,” The Roots of
Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa, ed. Robin Palmer and Neil Parsons, (Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1977), 125. See also Ngwenya, “The Development of Transport Infrastructure,” 84.
154
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 123.
62
in the trade and wagon transport that saw a great influx of Europeans into their area.155 As
a result, villages such as Shoshong and Palapye thrived due to traffic of itinerant traders
and merchants between 1888 and 1894.156
However, things started to change between 1896 and 1902. There was a rapid
decline of the profitable wagon trade, which was largely due to the outbreak of rinderpest,
or cattle plague, in most of the Protectorate. This is said to have halted the once booming
wagon operation as “hundreds of wagons were abandoned with oxen rotting in their
yokes.”157 That which was once familiar for the Ngwato, Kalanga and Khurutshe had now
become a distant memory. The outbreak of rinderpest affected Southern Africa. Pule
Phoofolo states that it ravaged Bechuanaland travelling at an astonishing twenty-five
miles per day. It also devastated other places including British Bechuanaland, South West
Africa, Lesotho, and South Africa.158
It is therefore impossible to imagine anything gainful coming out of the territory
at the time of the plague yet, Parsons claims that this outbreak “gave rise to rampant
inflation,”159 which at the end stood to benefit the Ngwato whose leader Khama is said to
have sold his remaining cattle to traders at exorbitant prices. He is also believed to have
155
David Massey, “The Development of a Labor Reserve: The Impact of Colonial Rule on Botswana,”
Boston University African Studies Center Working Paper (Boston University: 1980), 6. See also Schmitt,
Bechuanaland Pioneer and Gunners, 41.
156
Massey, “The Development of a Labour Reserve,” 6.
157
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 126. Several other historians have documented this. See for example
Schmitt, Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, 41, Wazha G. Morapedi
158
A few notable studies on the epidemic in the region include Pule Phoofolo, “Epidemics and Revolutions:
The Rinderpest Epidemic in Late Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa,” Past and Present, 138, (1993):
112-143; Shillington, The Colonisation of the Southern Tswana, 112-3,203, 209, 230; Pule Phoofolo, “Face
to Face with Famine: The BaSotho and the Rinderpest, 1897-1899,” Journal of Southern African Studies,
29, No. 2 (Jun., 2003): 503-527; Jan-Bart Gewald, Herero Heroes: A Socio-Political History of the Herero
of Namibia, 1890 – 1923, (Oxford: James Curry Ltd, 1999), 130-131; Nils Ole, Oermann, Mission, Church
and State Relations in South West Africa under German Rule, 1884 – 1915, (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
Verlag, 1999), 84-85; Phuthego Phuthego Molosiwa, “White Man’s Disease, Black Man’s Peril?:
Rinderpest and Famine in the eastern Bechuanaland Protectorate at the end of the 19th Century,” New
Contree, 71, (December, 2014): 1-24;
159
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 126.
63
replenished some of his livestock from Lewanika, leader of the Barotse (Lozi) people,
whom he had befriended a few years prior.160 He adds:
Khama’s country emerged relatively unscathed from the rinderpest. It was spared the
locust of the south and the revolts of the north and received better rains than its
neighbours in the 1896-7 and 1897-8 seasons: in mid-1898 Phalapye was selling plentiful
mealies at 20s per bag of 200lb to buyers from abroad.161
The mere idea that Khama’s economy stood firm after the cattle plague therefore made
him a very prominent figure in the eyes of the colonial government and perhaps the entire
protectorate. He had established himself as an independent entity and therefore could
survive without his people seeking mine labour.162 This resulted in Khama placing a ban
on all labour migration from his territory. The mining companies could not recruit labour
from his lands until the impact of the railway started to be felt. He only allowed most
men, in age regiments, or mephato between 1896 and 1897 to work in the construction of
the Mafikeng – Bulawayo railway. The age regiments were traditional military structures
that would often perform tasks unrelated to defence or military during the dry seasons. It
was also within these structures that Ngwato men were later recruited by the BSA Co to
construct the railway line along the road to the north. After that line was completed, those
regiments collected firewood for export to Kimberley and to fuel the locomotives
themselves.163
Clearly there were environmental issues related to rail development within the
territory and Parsons links the rapid causes of deforestation along the Bechuanaland line
160
See for example Gerald L. Caplan, The Elites of Barotseland; A Political History of Zambia’s Western
Province, 1878 – 1969, (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1970), 40 – 42, and Mutumba Mainga,
Bulozi under the Luyana Kings: Political Evolution and State Formation in Pre-Colonial Zambia, 2nd ed.
(Lusaka, Bookworld Publishers, 2010), 124 – 5.
161
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 127.
162
Schmitt, Bechuanaland Pioneer and Gunners, 41. Schmitt agrees with Parsons that the effects of the
cattle plague rose more than a few eyebrows and the obsession of labour recruiters. Even missionaries in the
Protectorate supported the idea of a capitalist economy.
163
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 126.
64
of rail between 1897 and 1904 to the use of wood burning locomotives. “The greatest
demand was from the ‘ravenous maw’ of the Kimberley mines and it was rejoiced in
1897 that Khama’s country would not be exhausted of wood for fifteen years.”164 It is
therefore clear to see that this set up the foundation for the significant development of the
South African metropolis at the expense of the Protectorate. The building of Kimberley at
the expense of Bechuanaland resulted in adverse effects on the environment such as the
deterioration of pastures due to soil erosion. Parsons points out that by the end of 1902,
Khama’s country, particularly Old Palapye, was heavily eroded, which led to its
abandonment.165
When rail transportation started gaining momentum it replaced the now obsolete
wagons and Khama lost control of trade along the route to the north. Although the
Kalanga could still sell their produce along the railway strip, the Khurutshe wagon drivers
were cut completely out of the more lucrative north to south route as well. Their only
means for wages was ferrying goods and people towards the railway considering that
Khama’s land “covered 130 000 sq. km. and had developed infrastructure of wagon
roads.”166 The railway then dealt a heavy blow to Khama’s economy to the point where
he was forced to raise his restriction on labour recruitment from his land after 1904.167
“As a result, within a year, 600 Ngwato were recruited through Khama to work on the
mines, railways and cantonments of the Transvaal.”168
John Taylor states that the first record of labour migration from Bechuanaland
dates back to the Tswana’s earliest contact with white settlers. “As early as 1844,
164
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 129.
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 129.
166
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 131.
167
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 131 see also, Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 714.
168
Parsons, “The Economic History,” 131
165
65
Bakwena, were hired as farm hands by Boer farmers in the western Transvaal and
migration to work as labourers, guides and porters in the farms and towns of the Cape
Colony was not uncommon.” 169 It is worth mentioning however that the numbers of
migrants involved were too insignificant to warrant any sort of documentation. According
to Taylor, who cites David Livingstone’s missionary travels and Gary Okihiro’s doctoral
work, such migration was not common and only took place during times of drought and
famine, “a practice consistent with the Tswana cultural tradition of pereko or food for
work.” 170 So from early on, the Tswana were not necessarily exposed to wage
employment.
From the beginning of the railway negotiations, Cecil Rhodes had highlighted the
efficiency of the railway in moving large numbers of people across the subcontinent. In a
letter to Sir Henry Loch, he also reiterated the political, military and commercial
advantages of using rail transportation. 171 Rhodes had also convinced the colonial
officials that the railway in eastern Bechuanaland would benefit economy of the Tati area,
around what is today’s Francistown. He stated that the Tati Company possessed gold
reefs which were not being mined because of the lack of transportation.172 From this
evidence we can reiterate that Rhodes had always carefully planned for his railway to
capitalise on the mineral boom of Southern Africa. His ideas started to take shape as soon
169
John Taylor, “The Reorganization of Mine Labor Recruitment in Southern Africa: Evidence from
Botswana,” International Migration Review, Vol. 24, No. 2, Special Issue: Labor Recruiting,
Organizations in the Developing World, (Summer, 1990): 251.
170
David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, (London: John Murray 1857)
and Gary Okihiro, “Hunters, Herders, Cultivators and Traders: Interaction and Change in the Kalahari,
Nineteeth Century,” (PhD diss, University of California, Los Angeles), 1976, both quoted in John Taylor,
“The Reorganization of Mine Labor Recruitment in Southern Africa,” 251 - 252.
Organizations in the Developing World, (Summer, 1990): 251.
171
BNARS. BNB 427, Correspondence relating to Proposed Railway Extension in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, Sir Henry Loch to Lord Knutsford, (September 19, 1891): 1.
172
BNARS. BNB 427, Correspondence relating to Proposed Railway Extension in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, Enclosure No. 1, Sir Sidney Shippard to Sir Henry Loch, Cape Town, (September 1891): 3
66
as the railway project in eastern Bechuanaland was completed in 1897. Over the
following years his Bechuanaland railway and indeed other Southern African railways
would ferry massive numbers of African labourers to and from the South African gold
mines. This however should not mislead people into thinking that the railways easily
collected people from railway stations and transported them to the mines. From the early
stages, a systematic way of acquiring labour involved the chiefs and informal labour
recruiters in the various reserves across the territory. Later, recruiting agencies were
established and built labour recruiting offices. Gordon Pirie points out that shallow gold
mining on the Rand had a slow start therefore the railway was yet to prove its worth
which means that labour recruitment in the Protectorate had not yet intensified.173 It is
suggested that even though the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA) was
established in 1901, formalised labour recruitment in the Protectorate did not commence
until the incorporation of the Native Recruitment Agency (NRC) in 1912 by the Chamber
of Mines.174 Both these labour recruiting agencies were bodies of the Chamber of Mines,
which itself was an employers’ association that dealt primarily with consolidating their
authority in the Transvaal gold fields.175 By 1912 the Vryburg to Bulawayo railway had
been operational for at least fifteen years therefore it was a wise move for the Chamber of
Mines to harness its potential to move massive numbers of African workers. It was also a
time when the NRC employed European recruiters who according to Taylor, “provided
recruits with cash advances and rail tickets to Mafikeng where formal attestation took
173
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 714
John Taylor, “The Reorganization of Mine Labor Recruitment,” 252, see also R. Mansell Prothero,
“Foreign Migrant Labour For South Africa,” International Migration Review, Vol. 8, No. 3, International
Migration in Tropical Africa, (1974): 385.
175
Jonathan Crush, Alan Jeeves and David Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire; A History of Black
Migration to the Gold Mines, (Boulder, Westview Press, 1991), 5.
174
67
place.” 176 Also, the South African legislation at the time restricted these European
recruiters to villages in south-eastern Bechuanaland or what is known as ‘below the 22°
south latitude’ but does not clearly state why there was a focus on those areas. He only
alludes to the proximity of the diamond-mining town of Kimberley in Griqualand West to
those areas of Bechuanaland. It seems that the thinking behind such a recruitment pattern
was to create an economic system whereby labour supplying villages were in the margins
while Kimberley turned into a diamond-mining metropolis. Such an economic system is
what developmental historians such as Walter Rodney and Samir Amin have incessantly
associated with the underdevelopment of the labour supplying territories.
Though the migration to Griqualand West was not necessarily distinct from the
migration of the Tswana men to the Transvaal gold mines, it should be noted that the
acquisition of labour from Bechuanaland for the Kimberley diamond mines predated and
was not as intensive as that of gold mining at Witwatersrand. This is perhaps due to the
fact that there was more gold to be mined. After all, the Mineral Revolution of South
Africa occurred in phases and had varying impacts across South Africa and the rest of the
subcontinent. It began with the early mining of copper in Namaqualand in 1852, which
was followed by the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867 and then gold in the
1870s and 1880s.177 The majority of African labour was obviously channelled towards the
more profitable resources. It is important to note that at a later stage, following the
scattering of the WNLA recruiting offices across the Protectorate, enlistment of labour
was not as intense as it was in other places such as Mozambique and the Rhodesias
176
Taylor, “The Reorganization of Mine Labor Recruitment,” 252. See also Schapera, Migrant Labour and
Tribal Life, A Study of Conditions in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, (London, Oxford University Press,
1947).
177
Tiyambe Zeleza, A Modern Economic History of Africa, Vol. 1: The Nineteenth Century (Senegal,
CODESRIA, 1993), 227.
68
because of its small population. Evidence suggests after the discovery of diamonds at
Kimberley in Griqualand West in the late 1860s, recruitment expedition was put together
by the Griqualand administration “to grant assurances of protection for migrants in transit
and secure promises of labour supplies from the various Tswana chiefdoms lying between
Kimberley and GaBulawayo.” 178 It was necessary for the recruiters to grant these
assurances of protection, and in many ways it guaranteed that the labourers would arrive
in the same numbers as they departed from the Protectorate. Pirie explains that desertion
was a common occurrence among many men but it was due to two reasons; first, some
men would just simply evade the recruiters, and second, some farmers and other
employers would seize the labourers as they made their way to the mines.179 To curb this,
in what Zeleza refers to as a systematic dejection of African labourers, certain restrictive
laws were enacted which essentially increased the companies’ control over the workers.
In the mid-1890s, the pass law in the South African Republic required African workers to
carry a document containing his personal and employment information; they could not go
anywhere without it.180 It made it impossible for Africans to search for the best paying
jobs and as a result, they had to settle for less. This, as Zeleza suggests, represented an
attack on the rights of African workers and was systematic because the racist government
of South Africa introduced it to help secure good paying jobs for the white mine workers.
To the mining magnates, the railway could be used to secure cheap labour from the
178
Taylor, “The Reorganization of Mine Labor Recruitment,” 252.
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 715, see also Zeleza, A Modern Economic History,” 235.
180
Zeleza, A Modern Economic History,” 235. See also Frederick Johnstone, Class, Race and Gold, A
Study of Class Relations and Racial Discrimination in South Africa, (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1976), 24, 35-39. This is one of the most notable works on the issue of systematic segregation of nonwhites in South Africa. He suggests that laws such as the Master Servant Law, Native Land Act of 1913
forced non-whites into economic compulsion. See also Andre Proctor, “Class Struggle, Segregation and the
City: A History of Sophiatown, 1905-1940,” Labour, Townships and Protest, Studies in the Social History
of the Witwatersrand, ed. Belinda Bozzoli, (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1979), 49-89 and John Pampallis,
Foundations of New South Africa, (Cape Town, Maskew Miller Longman, 1991).
179
69
territory without fear of desertion while to the African it resembled a removal of all of
their civil liberties and a downturn in their lives.
RAILWAYS POLITICS AND LIMITATIONS
The development of a modern South Africa was always dependent on the exploitation of
its mineral wealth. “If large numbers of low wage unskilled migrant miners had not been
recruited from throughout the subcontinent there would never have been deep level gold
mining in South Africa.”181 The shape of the subcontinent would be different altogether.
In order to recruit these many people, the railway had to play a key role but there were
several other factors that hindered the use of this new mode of transportation despite all
its benefits. Pirie writes;
Steel and steam did not constitute a handmaiden to the mining industry: the part that
trains could play in filling the compounds, mills, stores and stopes with men from remote
corners of the subcontinent was neither straightforward nor unlimited. Notwithstanding
their awesome power, railways could never mobilise labourers who evaded recruiters and
resisted mine work. In addition, there were dimensions and contexts of railway
operations, which were even inimical to mobilising cheap, plentiful labour.182
Amongst the many restraints that the railway faced was the lack of harmony between the
railway companies and the mining companies. These were at times in conflict with one
another resulting in the irregular flow of railway traffic. Nonetheless, both of these had a
single objective of making revenue so those disagreements should not have lasted long.
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman state that the Chamber of Mines controlled most of the
proceedings regarding recruitment, so presumably it was a body that settled conflicts
181
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire; A History of Black Migration to the Gold
Mines, (Boulder, Westview Press, 1991), 1.
182
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 715.
70
between companies.183 Another limitation was their locations. Pirie states that a few of
the railways in Southern Africa gave a ready access to labour markets. In Bechuanaland
for instance, the railway ran only through the east, which greatly curtailed recruitment of
labour from other remote areas. Officials in places far away from the railway such as the
Chobe and Ngamiland reserves in the north and northwest of Bechuanaland had to find
means of getting the labour to the railway hubs. For instance, in 1905 labour recruiters
and traders were at Makalamabedi, a very small village on the edge of Khama’s country
attempting to induce Samuel Maherero, leader of the Herero who had just migrated from
German South West Africa.184 These recruits had to be transported from that area towards
the east where they would be carried by train to the mines. Perhaps the daunting journey
from the village to the railway town is what led some men to evade labour recruiters.
Pirie also adds that “labour did not feature in passenger traffic calculations that were
overwhelmed by catering for settlers, government officials, business people and holiday
makers; labour was not even a ‘factor of production’ equated with farm, industry and
building supplies.”185 This was because the labour was treated as third class citizens with
very limited rights.
Further, the line from Vryburg to Bulawayo was completed in 1897, over a decade
after the gold mining had started and the railways did not immediately pick miners up. It
also took several years for the rest of the railway to reach other places in Southern Africa.
Pirie states that the railway line from Krugersdorp reached Zeerust in 1904. In most cases,
the journey between Mafikeng and Krugersdop lasted a painful six days due to the
183
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 3.
Gewald, Herero Heroes, 180.
185
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 715.
184
71
continuing construction on it that lasted until 1912.186 There were gaps between labour
supplying places too, which made the railway ineffective in some areas. For instance, the
Umtali to Beira line had been completed by 1898 and two years later, the Salisbury
railway line was connected to Umtali, which according to Pirie enabled Mozambican
labourers to use that link. It wasn’t until after 1900 that the railway across Bechuanaland
was used to its full potential but in the end, it formed part of an enormous railway
network that covered a very significant part of the sub-continent. As mentioned before, it
was the only rail link between the mines of South Africa and sources of labour such as
Northern and Southern Rhodesia (Zambia and Zimbabwe), Nyasaland (Malawi), and
Mozambique. However, the number of Tswana men employed in the Rand mines
between 1903 and 1920 barely made 5000, which amounted to about 3% of the total
workforce.187 These numbers were far less than the hundreds of thousands coming from
Mozambique alone.188 Perhaps this was due to the fact that Bechuanaland was scarcely
populated, and had no internal roads, which made recruiting a tough job. Table I shows
the number of Tswana men employed in the labour districts of the Union of South Africa
between 1910 and 1940. After 1920 there is a clear increase resulting from the intensified
efforts of the Chamber of Mines to expand its labour pools with migrants from the
tropical regions. Earlier, it could not recruit from these areas due to a ban by the South
African government resulting from disastrous rates of mortality of migrants from tropical
186
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 717.
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 717, see the migrant labour statistics in Alan H. Jeeves,
Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy; The Struggle for the Gold Mines’ Labour Supply, 1890
– 1920, (Kingston, McGill-Queens University Press, 1985), 265-70. See also Camilla M. Cockerton, “Less
a Barrier, More a Line: The Migration of Bechuanaland Women to South Africa, 1850 – 1930,” Journal of
Historical Geography, 22 No. 3, (1996).
188
J.S. Harrington, N.D. McGlashan and E.Z. Chelkowska, “A Century of Migrant Labour in the Mines of
South Africa,” The Journal of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, (March, 2004),
http://www.saimm.co.za/Journal/v104n02p065.pdf Accessed on 26 February, 2016. This brief study details
the extent of labour migration to the Rand mines from 1896 to 1996.
187
72
areas.189
Table I: Tswana men employed in the labour districts of the Union of South Africa
between 1910 and 1940.190
Year
Number
Percentage Increase
1910
2266
1920
2578
13.7
1925
3820
48.2
1930
4712
23.4
1935
10314
118.9
1940
18411
78.5
Although it seemed that there was a reciprocal relationship between the mines and
the labourers, the scales were not balanced. For instance, the sharp increase of Tswana
labourers between 1930 and 1935 indicates that labour migration was the answer to the
many economic problems in the territory. But because the table does not reflect the
number of Tswana men who returned from the mines it can be assumed that many of
them chose either to stay there for longer periods or settle permanently. That leads us to
the assumption that labour migration aided in the displacement of many Tswana people.
In the Chamber of Mines, everything was led by whoever had the most capital.
“Monopoly capitalism held sway, and the Chamber of Mines controlled everything. Thus
the WNLA and the NRC developed smoothly, almost inevitably as instruments of the
189
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 33 – 34.
Schapera, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life, 32. See also BNARS. S. 436/22, Labour Migration, Social,
Moral, Economic and other Effects in Bechuanaland Protectorate, (1935- 43).
190
73
industry’s control of black labour.”191 With time it became relatively easier to recruit
people because migration served the interests of more than the workers. The chiefs for
instance, Khama III of the Ngwato, Sebele I of the Bakwena, as well as Maherero of the
Herero in Bechuanaland were all induced at some point to supply labour to the mines. For
Khama and Sebele, it was their role as tax collectors that drove them to encourage many
of their subjects to join the capital class and earn wages. This meant that the more men
enrolled, the more revenue for the colonial government and more commissions for
them.192 “Very often, it was the regional governments, African chiefs, and local recruiting
interests rather than the Chamber of Mines which determined the way black labour was
mobilised and used at the Rand.” 193 Knowing the benefits of wage labour, “fathers
contracted their children; chiefs their followers; traders their indebted customers.” 194
Throughout the subcontinent, colonial governments ended up supporting the mining
industry. Jeeves adds:
Hoping to secure for their territories a share of the bonanza by delivering contract labour
to the mines … in doing much to promote labour migration to the Rand from Basutoland
(Lesotho) and Bechuanaland from the turn of the century, the British administrations
there worked not primarily to promote the interests of the mining industry, but rather to
serve their own desperate need for revenue.195
Even then, the scale of recruitment from Bechuanaland reserves was small, which
meant that the flow of capital back home was also minimal and led to very few socioeconomic improvements of Tswana life. At most, the only development that occurred
from wages of mine labour was largely sporadic and at an individual level.
191
Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy, 6.
Makgala, “Taxation in the Tribal Areas,” 282.
193
Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy, 5.
194
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 5.
195
Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy, 4.
192
74
THE JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN AND MIGRANT LIFE AT ‘eGOLI’
Placing different migrants within the socio-economically contested environment of South
Africa was of course a ticking time bomb. The mining corporations did not care much
about the living conditions of the workers nor did they care about their wages. Their main
concern was to maximise profits and at the heart of that was the railway. As mentioned
earlier, its availability made it easy for the mines to replenish workers and access the most
remote migrant pools. It “offered a reliable and speedy way of taking migrants to eGoli,
or Johannesburg returning them home when their contracts terminated, and replenishing
the temporary mine workforce consistently.”196 This means that they were simply tools in
the eyes of their employers. Despite the fact that the development of gold mining in
Witwatersrand symbolised an achievement of high-level “ore-extraction, technology,
corporate organisation and financial arrangements, by contrast, the industry’s
management of its workers, for most of its history, was characterised not only by a lack of
compassion but by gross inefficiency and wastefulness.”197
The ill treatment of African labourers epitomised an inescapable, prejudiced and
draconian society. It soon “became the industry’s most notorious feature” 198 with the
exploitation of black labour being assured by the racial division of South Africa. Gordon
Pirie had suggested that future works on labour migration need to focus on the importance
of the journey by rail on the migrant worker; a probe beyond the mechanical role of the
railway in ferrying workers. He states that the migrant workers were “often treated as
animals, or worse, as pieces of cargo, but they were not unconscious. Before the
abominable conditions began to improve in the 1920s, the trek in overcrowded and badly
196
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 714
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 3.
198
Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy, 5.
197
75
equipped cattle cars was not just anaesthetised relocation; at the very least it was
enervating and disillusioning.”199 He suggests that life for the migrant worker began to
change as soon as he entered the rail car. In moving between the periphery and the
metropole, “men changed more than just their address”200 but the lack of oral evidence
heavily curtails what we can say exactly about the psychological effects of migration on
the labourer. Pirie adds:
The notion that migrancy was a masculine rite of passage holds true irrespective of how
migrants actually went to the mines. The particular social experience of a train journey is
a supplementary issue. In the absence of oral testimonies, one can only speculate that the
depersonalisation with which railway ticketing was universally associated was
exaggerated in batch-register transport. More particularly, the possibility exists that the
appointment of gang leaders for the Rand rail journey initiated social stratification among
mine workers, and that crowded railway wagons were the incubators of new social and
gender identities.201
Labour migration did not occur because of the excitement of moving to a new place to
find wages. It happened because the Tswana had very few options. Rinderpest had wiped
out their livelihood, the colonial government had imposed annual taxes and levies, crops
had been failing for years in some parts of the Protectorate, and for that they had nowhere
else to turn but pursue wage employment in the Rand mines.202 Labour migration was not
a last resort for Africans, it was the only option. Though Nyasaland’s agrarian economy
had been relatively good, it was a very small but densely populated country. 203 In
Southern Rhodesia and Bechuanaland, many Africans were thrown into unfertile reserves
where the rains hardly came and crops failed. Many of them had very little left, and had
to turn to the pursuit of wage labour.
199
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 729.
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 729.
201
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 729.
202
Mogalakwe, “How Britain Underdeveloped Bechuanaland Protectorate,” 75 – 79.
203
Kenneth Good, “The Direction of Agricultural Development in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi,”
Studies in the Economic History of Southern Africa, Volume One; The Frontline States, eds. Zbigniew A.
Konczacki, Jane L. Parpart and Timothy M. Shaw, (London, Frank Cass, 1990), 149.
200
76
The African migrant labourer was portrayed as a “raw but willing peasant,
attracted by city lights, eager to prove himself, save enough money to acquire cattle and
land, and, on his return, marry and start a family.”204 Although most men would have had
this wish, it was hardly the reality for them. All the excitement and anticipation of a new
and bright life was wiped out as soon as they reached the trains and realised what sort of
transportation had been waiting for them. The overcrowded cattle cars they travelled in
would have presented a grim and gloomy sight of what lay ahead. In these fourth class
coaches, it was lamented that men had to stand for long hours and suffer indignity. This
led to lewd and undesirable behaviour resulting from drunkenness, which most men often
turned to in order to numb the pain of the journey.205 Furthermore, Jonathan Crush, Alan
Jeeves and David Yudelman state, “this view concealed a darker reality of dispossession,
social dislocation, disease and death.” 206 It promised dreams but instead delivered
nightmares to the families left behind. Many of these men were trying to escape hunger
and famine in the reserves but only followed a path into an unappealing setting, the most
treacherous living conditions, immense health risks both in the mines and at the
townships and even imminent death. This, in many ways, damaged the moral fibre of the
Tswana society. “Young men frequently left the rural homestead to escape dependency
relationships with their elders … migrancy’s varied causes and ambiguous impacts help
explain why so many of them were unrecruited ‘voluntaries’ who made their own way to
204
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 3.
BNARS. S. 535/4, Accommodation on trains for Africans, “Minutes of the Joint Advisory Council held
in Mafikeng, (May 1953). In the prior years, some of the trains operated only fourth-class coaches across
the territory. Some migrants had earlier complained that they were being transported in coaches that they
had not paid for and it seems that the South African and Rhodesia Railway Companies ignored that. At this
meeting, Kgosi Bathoen II of Bangwaketse had asked that the colonial government provide special coaches
with necessary accommodations for the labour recruits.
206
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 3. See also Schapera, Migrant Labour and
Tribal Life, 80.
205
77
the mines.”207 After a while, the new recruits would have learned of the perils at the
mines from those that returned. This did not reduce the number of recruitments in any
way so we can assume that most men who went to work in the later years were making
rational decisions based on situations in the reserves.
Pirie adds that the shared spaces and anxiety on the trains are what began the idea
of worker bonding and solidarity across all migrants irrespective of origin. In his attempt
to give insight on the personal and social effects of rail transportations, he asks a few key
questions:
Was it perhaps that the switch from slow walking to speedy trains diluted social
coherence and delivered a relatively divided and more pliant workforce to the Rand
mineshafts? Was it on trains that the characteristic regimentation and social control of
mine life and work became second nature? In all probability the sociology of railway
travel meant that migrants' first encounter with the industrialised world was telling despite
its brevity.208
By 1910, more than 200,000 unskilled workers were carried yearly by rail to the mines of
Witwatersrand.209 They landed in a place where a strict Colour Bar had to be maintained.
In the realm of statistics, which we cannot escape when dealing with numbers of people
carried by rail, about 600,000 train journeys would have been made yearly by the African
labourers. “Official railway statistics are that an annual average of 638,000 Africans were
transported ‘in batches’ or ‘by goods trains’ between 1911 and 1920; for the period 19211930 the figure is 708,000.”210 Pirie states that rail transportation was inexpensive and
easily accessible by most migrants. He argues that with its continued access of distant
labour pools from as far as Angola, Katanga (southern Congo), Nyasaland (Malawi) and
even southern parts of Tanganyika (Tanzania), it is therefore tough to imagine these pools
207
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 3.
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 729.
209
Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy, 3.
210
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 728. Here Pirie cites the South Africa (Union), Annual Reports
of the General Manager of Railways and Harbours, Statistical Appendices.
208
78
being exhausted entirely “and sustained by weary men filing along footpaths in the veld.
Animal-propelled carting would have been seasonal, slow and too limited in capacity.”211
On that note, rail transport had to be inexpensive. Though I do not disagree with Pirie’s
focus on the importance of rail transportation in the region, I differ with the notion that it
was inexpensive. In the first instance, there was a gap of control between the railway
companies that operated the different rail lines across the subcontinent, which means that
there were different railway tariffs. Even Pirie agrees, “the special rates at which migrant
miners were transported varied from one administration to another and were altered
periodically.” 212 He also mentions that the dynamics of negotiating the right carrying
capacity, frequency and schedules for the trains was a complicated task because of these
carriers, which often operated within their inherent national interests. 213 For instance,
South Africa and perhaps Southern Rhodesia were likely to be more racially segregated,
which would have affected their railway policies. Adding to that, other carriers such as
the Bechuanaland Railways worked within a very small population and there were no
large-scale economic practices except trade of certain commodities so in order to make
profits, they had to hike their tariffs. 214 That being said, we should not suggest that
railways provided inexpensive transport. Secondly, it is well known that the migrant
labourers received very minimal wages, which meant that expenses such as travel
exhausted most of their funds. For instance, between 1910 and 1919, an African mine
211
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 728
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 723; see also Yonah N. Seleti, “The Development of
Dependent Capitalism in Portuguese Africa,” Studies in the Economic History of Southern Africa, Volume
One; The Frontline States, eds. Zbigniew A. Konczacki, Jane L. Parpart and Timothy M. Shaw, (London,
Frank Cass, 1990), 40.
213
BNARS. S. 123/1 Railway Control Legislation, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, (1926-1929), see also
BNARS. S. 302/8 Railway Legislation, (1932), and Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 721-22
214
BNARS. S. 535/4, Accommodation on trains for Africans, “Minutes of the Joint Advisory Council held
in Mafikeng, (May 1953).
212
79
labourer made on average 23.4 pence per shift.215 A report by Leonard Barnes in 1933
stated that in order to maintain a reasonable economy, the Bechuanaland colonial
administration required close to £170 000 a year from labour abroad. On average, a mine
worker earned £14 a year, a third of which was used on travel fees while some of it was
used on personal and living expenses. 216 Travel for the average Tswana man was
therefore expensive based on the wages they earned. At times, some of the migrant
workers did not even receive payments, which means that they were left with very little
money to send back home, which made a small difference in the homestead. It also meant
that a lot of them failed to return home because of expensive travel.217
In an economic system where the core or metropolis became developed at the
expense of the periphery or villages that supplied labour, there was bound to be
inadequate diffusion of capital. As Walter Rodney has pointed out, “the kind of
relationship which Africa has had with Europe from the very beginning has worked in a
direction opposite to integration of local economies.”218 The workings of this economic
structure made sure that many of the Africans were deprived of everything including the
little wages they had earned. This is what would result in the eventual underdevelopment
of many of the labour supplying countries such as Bechuanaland.
eGoli, or at the place of gold, the miners had very little liberties and they were
only to provide unskilled labour because the society they found themselves in could not
allow any sort of growth for Africans. The South African Colour Bar or the Mines and
215
Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy, 122.
Leonard Barnes, “The Crisis in Bechuanaland,” The Journal of the Royal African Society, 32, No. 129,
(Oct. 1933): 344 – 345.
217
BNARS. S. 436/22, Labour Migration, Social, Moral, Economic and other Effects in Bechuanaland
Protectorate, (1935- 43). See also Schapera, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life, 61.
218
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped, 109.
216
80
Works Act of 1911, was a legislation that helped protect the labour interests of white
mine workers.219 Though it had very little to do with the essence of rail transportation, it
was a complementary element of migrant labour and continued to haunt African workers
for a very long time. Marginalised at the workplace and everywhere else, the black miners
started to rekindle the solidarity they had established in the trains. They began to identify
themselves as separate from a system that protected white mine workers. “Although
largely rightless and unorganised, black miners resisted with a long series of strikes, work
stoppages, go-slows (work slowdowns), and riots that showed they were far from passive
or oblivious to the erosion of their position.” 220 For Walter Rodney, “the notions of
revolution and class consciousness must be borne in mind when it comes to examining
the situation of the modern worker and peasant classes in Africa.” 221 Rightly so, the
African labourers became frustrated and took to the streets222 but in most cases, this fell
on deaf ears mainly because the rail network built originally by Cecil Rhodes allowed the
workers to be easily replaced. With very few options and a system that worked against
them, the African labourers had to concede defeat and continue working in a crooked
system
Apart from the dreadful living conditions, there were numerous health issues
connected with working in the mining environment. The railways of Southern Africa
were instrumental in carrying diseases back to the homesteads. Charles van Onselen’s
219
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 7.
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 7.
221
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 8.
222
Philip Bonner, “The Black Mineworkers’ Strike,” in Labour, Townships and Protest, Studies in the
Social History of the Witwatersrand, ed. Belinda Bozzoli, (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1979), 273 – 297. It
is important to note that the white mine workers protested even more about the perceived advancement of
Africans. In 1922 white mine workers rose up in arms against their employers and the state. This was the
outcome of fears of black consciousness in the mines. See a very good study of this by Jeremy Krikler,
White Rising, The 1922 Racial Killing and Insurrection in South Africa, (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2005).
220
81
two-volume work, Studies in the Social History of the Witwatersrand has documented
some of the negative impacts of rail development in Southern Africa, in particular, the
rise of prostitution in the late 19th century. From as early as 1896 Witwatersrand attracted
prostitutes from as far as Germany, Belgium and New York. 223 This encouraged the
spread of sexually transmitted diseases within the townships of Johannesburg that were
later carried by rail across the borders back to the homesteads.
Pneumonia was also a cause for great concern in the mines. In 1913, the South
African government imposed a ban on the recruitment of workers from tropical areas or
north of 22° south latitude because it was the main cause of their mortality.224 Other
health issues included tuberculosis, miners’ phthisis or silicosis caused by prolonged
exposure to rock dust. To the Africans, these were major killers.225 Morapedi’s work has
clearly documented the severity of these diseases in Bechuanaland after the opening of
recruitment from areas above the 22° south latitude in 1933:
In 1934, there were 348 cases of tuberculosis and this was viewed as a ‘very disturbing
state of affairs’. In 1935, Resident Commissioner Charles Rey warned that ‘there is a risk
of the Protectorate becoming a hot-bed of the disease if preventative measures are not
taken’ In the first five months of 1940, 1,446 new cases of tubercular infection were
reported, while in 1956 there were 1,673 new cases. By 1959, the number of new cases
was reported to have gone up by 148 per cent over the 1956 figure.226
Certainly, the railway facilitated the spread of tuberculosis in the Protectorate. In cases
where death was the ultimate result, the railways were used to repatriate bodies of the
deceased and became, to those at home, a symbol of abhorrence and death. The legendary
223
Charles van Onselen, Studies in the Social History of the Witwatersrand, Volume One, New Babylon,
(New York, Longman Group, 1982), 16-17. See also Schapera, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life, 174-175.
224
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 10.
225
Crush, Jeeves and Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire, 41.
226
Wazha Morapedi, “Migrant Labour and the Peasantry in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1930 – 1965”,
Journal of Southern African Studies, 25 No. 2, (1999): 212. He also cites a note from the Resident
Commissioner, Charles Rey BNARS S. 438/2/1, Note from the Resident Commissioner’s Office, 18 June
1934.
82
South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela, in a song called Stimela narrates a haunting
yet captivating verse concerning the symbolism of hatred and loathing attached to the
train by those who had gone to seek employment in the Rand. Many had left in search of
a better life but returned with nothing, some never returned at all while for some, they
returned in coffins. The trains were at the heart of this social displacement of people and
this symbolism resonated in the minds of those who lost loved ones much like the noise
made by the steam engine. Railways as the carriers of civilisation brought to many people
dreadful consequences. Pirie accurately likens the noisy and disorderly passage by train to
the mines to an inorganic and dangerous underground where most workers spent the rest
of their lives. For the women remaining at home, it was the beginning of a new life.227
TSWANA WOMEN WITHIN A MIGRANT SOCIETY
The effects of labour migration on societies of the subcontinent have been well
documented by a number of historians. The focus has been on the removal of able-bodied
men from traditional life. The report by Barnes stated early on that migrant life ruptured
the very nature of traditional life. It affected the moral structure of an individual while
ripping open the conventional way of life.228 In the patriarchal society of Bechuanaland, it
was well known for the men to do as much as they could in providing for the homestead
even though it means that women were automatically subordinates of their spouses.229
Traditionally, the men tended to the cattle while women cultivated crops and at the end,
both provided sustenance for the family. When male labour migration became the trend
227
Pirie, “Railways and Labour Migration,” 729.
Barnes, “The Crisis in Bechuanaland,” 345.
229
Throughout history, Tswana women had a very limited social role which was cemented by the
patriarchal restrictions of society. Traditionally and legally, the status of women in Bechuanaland was very
minimal and centred around their subordination to men. See Lily Mafela, “Botswana Women and Law.
Society, Education and Migration, (c. 1840 – c.1980), Cahiers d'Études Africaines 47, Cahier 187/188, Les
femmes, le droit et lajustice (2007): 523-566.
228
83
among the Tswana, the burden of agriculture was thrown onto the hands of the women,
children and the elderly.230 This is by no means the only problem that befell the territory
resulting from migration. Colin Murray has reiterated this point and stated that the
lengthy absence of spouses and fathers was linked to the increased rates of “conjugal
breakdown and desertion; it induced a repetitive cycle of illegitimacy and instability in
arrangements for rearing children.” 231 He also mentions that the earning capacity of
returning young men disrupted the authority of the elders as they now wielded some
monetary power. They forgot their cultural definitions and identities as they learned new
ones at the mines. They even developed Fanakalo/Fanagalo, a pidgin used for everyday
communication. In essence, labour migration according to Murray drove deeper the
wedge between traditional and modern principles of social life in Bechuanaland.232
Barbara Brown’s work on The Impact of Male Labour Migration on Women in
Botswana has noted that labour migration greatly reduced the numbers of marriages. She
highlights Isaac Schapera’s work, which suggests that in the 1920s Tswana people
married when they were very young. Spouses were selected for the children at an even
earlier age during pre-colonial times. Though it is not within the scope of this thesis,
Brown states that by 1970 this had changed dramatically due to migration of men to the
Rand.233 Isaac Schapera also suggests that Tswana women, as a response to the migration
of their spouses became liberated from the bonds of marriage. He suggests that after
1918, or the end of First World War, many women opted to leave the harsh situations in
230
Ruth First, “The Gold of Migrant Labour”, Review of African Political Economy, (1982): 15.
Colin Murray, “Migrant Labour and the Changing Family Structure in the Rural Periphery of Southern
Africa,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 6, No. 2, (1980): 140.
232
Murray, “Migrant Labour and the Changing,” 140.
233
Barbara Brown, “The Impact of Male Labour Migration on Women in Botswana,” African Affairs 82,
No. 328, (1983): 371. see also Isaac Schapera, Married Life in an African Tribe, (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1971), 38, 62
231
84
the reserves though “the chiefs prohibited women from leaving the ‘reserve’ by rail”234
without their permission. This means that since most of the labour recruiting happened
through them, from early on, the chiefs had control over who could access rail
transportation. It also means that the migration of women is more likely to have happened
independently unlike the men who were recruited. It was in the interests of the chiefs for
the women to remain behind because the livelihood of the society now remained in the
hands of the women. Their departure would have meant a total disruption of traditional
life. Perhaps that is why some chiefs such as Linchwe of Bakgalta had rejected rail
development in the first place. Nevertheless, the urge to provide for their children and the
low productivity from arable agriculture is what eventually drove some rural women from
the reserves. Defying orders “some women left anyway, sometimes sneaking away with a
female friend to go to Johannesburg to see the life there and look for work.” 235 The
railway then was important in the migration of women to the Rand.
A study by Camilla Cockerton mentions the substantial number of women who
had migrated from the villages along the south-eastern part of the Protectorate including
Lobatse and Barolong farms. 236 This reinforces both Schapera and Brown’s assertions
that indeed there was a sizeable presence of Tswana women employed as domestic
workers in South Africa and the Rand in particular. Cockerton also indicates that these
women had started migrating earlier to the Kimberley diamond mines, which sometimes
was a response to the absence of their spouses. She adds:
This movement augmented the network of Tswana women’s migration streams. African
234
Schapera, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life, (London: Oxford University Press, 1947), 90, see also
Brown, “The Impact of Male Labour Migration,” 384.
235
Brown, “The Impact of Male Labour Migration,” 385. She cites a personal interview with one informant
who had snuck and travelled by train to Johannesburg in search of labour.
236
Camilla M. Cockerton, “Less a Barrier, More a Line: The Migration of Bechuanaland Women to South
Africa, 1850 – 1930,” Journal of Historical Geography, 22 No. 3, (1996): 296.
85
women’s movement to South African mines was small, perhaps a few women
accompanying husbands and a few early “runaways”. Throughout Africa where industries
or mines were set up, women appeared to seek jobs, often outnumbering the male jobseekers in the early years of industrialization.237
Cockerton adds that between 1911 and 1921, the recorded number of Tswana women in
South Africa had increased by 2536.238 She argues that most of these women crossed the
border by foot or by ox-drawn wagons and completely ignored that the railway was at
that time available to transport people between borders.239 There is no other plausible
way of explaining the mode of transportation used by these women except rail. It is a very
substantial number considering that the numbers of Tswana men in the mines between
1903 and 1920 barely made 5000. Table II shows the number of adult females absent
from home by 1943 according to Schapera.240
Table II – Numbers of Adult Females Absent from Home by 1943.
Ethnic
group
Ngwato
Kwena
Ngwaketse
Tlokwa
Malete
Kgatla
Totals
Numbers in Sample
Number of
Number away
women
1332
36
529
19
737
56
520
55
475
71
833
106
4426
343
%
2.7
3.6
7.6
10.6
14.9
12.7
Estimated Totals
Women Number away
33 300
10 300
9 000
590
2 450
5 500
61 140
900
370
685
60
365
700
3 080
237
Cockerton, “Less a Barrier, More a Line,” 296.
Cockerton, “Less a Barrier, More a Line,” 292.
239
Cockerton, “Less a Barrier, More a Line,” 293.
240
Schapera, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life, 65. He also stated that a majority of these women went to
seek employment in the Rand and Western Transvaal while a select few went elsewhere in the Union of
South Africa.
238
86
Though I do not necessarily refute Cockerton’s assertions regarding these movements, it
is difficult to imagine alternative ways of travel apart from the railway. Another thing to
point out is that these numbers reflect the absentee women from the groups of people that
lived in the eastern side of the country where rail transport was easily accessible. It is
important to reiterate that Bechuanaland had just emerged from a cattle plague that almost
wiped out the entire cattle herds, which would have made ox-drawn transport difficult.
The areas she focuses on, Borolong, Lobatse and Gangwaketse and Kgatleng were among
the most severely stricken. Lewis Mtonga added that Chief Sibele [Sebele] of the
Bakwena lost all but seventy-seven head of cattle from a herd of ten thousand.241 It has
also been demonstrated that the Ngwato wagon trade was severely paralysed by the
arrival of rail transportation as well as rinderpest to some extent. Ox-drawn transport
would have been very minimal at that time leaving rail transportation as the plausible
explanation for the migration of women.242
Cockerton also disregards the significance of the Vryburg to Bulawayo railway
line when she mentions the presence of Tswana school going girls at Tiger Kloof after
1919. Though less significant to the migration of women to the Rand, it is worth
mentioning that school-going girls at Tiger Kloof used this colonial railway line. Tiger
Kloof was an institution of higher learning located in South Africa where a large number
of Tswana students, including females, learned various trades. In its establishment by the
241
Lewis Mtonga, “A Southern African Society under Stress: The Southern Tswana in the Rinderpest
Pandemic of 1896-1897,” Communities at the Margins; Studies in Rural Society and Migration in Southern
Africa, 1890 – 1980, eds. Alan Jeeves and Owen J. Kalinga, (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2002), 28.
242
BNARS. S. 535/4, Accommodation on trains for Africans, “Minutes of the Joint Advisory Council held
in Mafikeng, (May 1953). At this meeting, it was stated that African women who frequently travelled at
night with children required better accommodation on these trains. The available archival evidence suggests
that indeed some women employed rail transportation to travel between Francistown and Mafikeng.
87
London Missionary Society, the railway was said to be of key significance.243 The school
was built in such a way that the railway line passed right through.
Apart from responding to hunger in the reserves, some women migrated to the
mines under orders of their spouses. Prolonged separation and perhaps the lack of
conjugal liberties or isolation led the men to ‘order’ their wives to migrate to the mines.
Cockerton adds:
Most of the early female Tswana migrants to South Africa in the early-twentieth century
were married women. They rarely migrated alone to South Africa unless their husbands
were already there. As Motlapele Tabane explained, “Those married women who went
that side it was because their husband called them. They had to obey their husband.”
Married women also accompanied or followed their husbands to South Africa’s urban
areas. Most of the early female migrants were married and probably fell into this
category. These wives “called” to particular towns and farms by their husbands formed
another migration stream.244
That being said, some women who migrated to South Africa during the years of labour
migration were responding to their husbands’ requests. Perhaps because the miners
earned very little wages, they could not afford to travel back and forth so they asked their
women to join them and perhaps settle in the Rand permanently. However, authorities at
the Rand and the entire South Africa did not want the creation of an urban black working
class. They made life difficult for them and wanted to keep the men away from their
families.245 The railways made this position even stronger by keeping the husbands away
at work. While this resulted in dislocation of the Tswana society, it added to the
243
Part Mgadla, “The Relevance of Tiger Kloof to Bangwato, 1904 – 1916,” Pula Botswana Journal of
African Studies, 8 No. 1, (1994): 33.
244
Cockerton, “Less a Barrier, More a Line,” 299.
245
See for example, John Pampallis, Foundations of New South Africa, 202-203; Charles van Onselen,
Studies in the Social History of the Witwatersrand, 5 and Kelwyn Sole “Class, Continuity and Change in
Black South African Literature, 1948 – 1960, in Labour, Townships and Protest, Studies in the Social
History of the Witwatersrand, ed. Belinda Bozzoli, (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1979), 143-182.
88
population of South Africa. The intention of this economic system was after all geared
towards improving the metropolis at the expense of the periphery such as Bechuanaland.
In the end, the most pertinent question to ask is why there was migrant labour in
the first place because South Africa had a large number of blacks that could have been
employed in the mines themselves. Why was it necessary for the railways to bring in
other Africans in those massive numbers? Zeleza has addressed that question by stating
that “South Africans were generally reluctant to work in the mines. For many of them it
was work of last resort. This is one reason why the Chamber [of mines] turned its
attention to neighbouring countries.”246 It seems that the Chamber of Mines had struggled
to compete with private recruiters within South Africa so it had to focus on recruiting
from neighbouring countries. Another reason, as explained earlier, was that the railways
had been laid across the subcontinent, and labour was relatively cheaper to acquire.247
Though it might not have been Rhodes’s initial intention, his Southern African rail
network made it seem like the mine economy of South Africa had deliberately created
reservoirs for labour in different countries of the subcontinent. Poor places such as
Nyasaland and Mozambique certainly became mainly labour pools due to their abject
poverty. Foreign labour was cheaper and more vulnerable and open to whatever
opportunities even though they almost guaranteed hardships and misfortunes for the
labourers.
246
247
Zeleza, A Modern Economic History of Africa, 237.
Jeeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy, 57.
89
CONCLUSION
Though the railways across the subcontinent were built for economic reasons, there were
numerous unforeseen consequences. The migration of labour across most of Southern
Africa formed a key part of Rhodes’s master plan, which was to maximise capital for his
company and improve his position in the eyes of the colonial government. All of a
sudden, his credibility and reputation grew. It has been demonstrated that the railways
were indeed vital in the migration of not only African male mine workers but women as
well who mostly followed their spouses. Migration from Bechuanaland occurred not
because of a single reason but because of a sequence of occurrences including ecological
disasters and the imposition of taxes and levies. However, this chapter highlighted the
fundamental function of the railway in moving people from the few reserves to the mines.
Despite the fact that the railway was limited by its location in the east of the territory, it
still managed to move massive numbers of people from Bechuanaland and elsewhere. It
should also be noted that in the migrant economy, there was never a focus on developing
labour supplying areas such as Bechuanaland. This point shall be reiterated throughout
the thesis! The railways were never meant to serve the common people in any way. They
disrupted the Tswana economy in some ways and also contributed significantly to the
separation of families.
Pirie has lamented the haphazard manner in which railways were used and stated
that they would have been better effective in a narrower economy. That was never the
objective! They were never built for the development of nations. They were instead
tailored for the extraction of resources. Not all was negative however; the railways did
introduce an efficient way of transport, which provided better means for trade. Though
this demonstrated a notable adaptation of rail transportation, the fact that the line was
90
privately owned reinforced disparities among the people. It shall be demonstrated in the
following chapter that the Tswana for instance were almost always marginalized and
would hardly be allowed to conduct trade around railways. The large-scale employment
of foreigners in the mines meant that the subcontinent was dependent on the South
African economy.
91
CHAPTER 4 – THE TRACKS OF MODERNITY AND CULTURAL
NUANCES
Introduction
This chapter grapples with the diverse social aspects of railway development in colonial
Botswana, which includes the migration of people towards rail resources, the formation of
new settlements as well as the expansion of old ones. With the introduction of rail
transportation to Bechuanaland, significant changes to the traditional socio-economic
practices of the indigenous people resulted. While there were many benefits to adopting
rail transport for economic practices such as trade, many people were often barred in one
way or another by the colonial government from using it. This chapter argues that the
expansion of certain settlements was due to the direct and indirect influence of rail
development. In trying to describe the causes of economic underdevelopment in eastern
Bechuanaland, this chapter attributes the failure of various schemes introduced by the
colonial government to the way they were tailored for the European settler elites and not
the African farming communities that settled along the railway. There were a few notable
but minor attempts between the early 1930s and late 1940s aimed at improving the way of
life of the Africans that eventually failed due to the uneven manner in which they were
implemented resulting in African underdevelopment. It concludes with the argument that
the colonial government deliberately structured the dairy industry and other social
programmes of Bechuanaland in a biased manner, which led to their eventual demise a
few years after being implemented.
92
NEW RAILWAY HUBS AND THE RISE OF A CAPITALIST SOCIETY
Paul Baran once wrote, “For it is not railways, roads, and power stations that give rise to
industrial capitalism: it is the emergence of industrial capitalism that leads to the building
of railways, to the construction of roads, and to the establishment of power stations.”248
This means that in order for infrastructure to be established in an area, there must be an
industry stimulating that development and not the other way around. In other words, for
Bechuanaland, which had no known mineral wealth during colonial times, the incentive
to develop and build towns did not exist. It is for this reason that we see the railway
cutting straight across the eastern side of the country. The incentive for the colonial
government and the railway companies was the emergence of industrial capitalism in the
mines of South Africa and the acquisition of cheap labour in the interior. No major towns,
power stations or any significant infrastructure developments could be made in
Bechuanaland. As explained before, the purpose of the territory was to serve as a passage
and nothing more. However, the pace and brunt of industrialisation in South Africa
somehow stimulated the growth of a few places in eastern Bechuanaland. It would be
unwise to assume that the emergence and expansion of modern settlements, villages and
towns in the east were not reliant upon the railway. Certainly, the growth of modernity
and civilisation in some of these places occurred without much influence from the
colonial government, but they needed the railway to do so. There were no town plans, nor
were there grand schemes to introduce a local capitalist class into these places. This
however, does not mean that the people could not do it themselves. In most cases, the
emergence of capitalism in villages such as Mahalapye, Francistown and Lobatse
happened because the common people saw its necessity.
248
Paul A. Baran, The Political Economy of Growth, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957), 193.
93
Haskins Bulawa states that one of his informants asserted that some of the major
towns such as Palapye, Mahalapye, Mochudi, Tonota, Lobatse, Francistown and
Gaborone were not in existence or very small before railway construction.249 I agree with
some of what Bulawa suggests; however, it needs to be noted that before the railway was
constructed, the trade route to the interior of Africa from the Cape lay along the same
path. Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that during the railway negotiations, places
like Palapye, Mochudi and Mahalapye were mentioned therefore acknowledging their
existence prior to construction. The now deserted settlement, Old Palapye and the later
Iron Age settlement of Toutswemogala for instance, predate the railway therefore it
would be unwise to suggest that these places did not exist completely. Present day
Palapye is not where Old Palapye was. The settlement is believed to have moved west
towards the railway sometime after 1902.250
The railway did attract people of different colours, creeds and identities to settle
nearby, which broke the conventional settlement patterns. Many communities of
Bechuanaland only migrated towards the railway to seize the opportunity to use it for
trade and by doing so it simultaneously changed their way life. Most of the communities
of colonial Botswana prior to their relocation had lived largely sedentary lives and
engaged in short distance trade with other groups within the region. 251 Even though
smaller settlements mushroomed along the railway, they never turned into permanent
villages because people were attracted to major villages or railway hubs such as Palapye
and Lobatse. For instance, small settlements such as Sese in the early 1900s were only
249
Haskins Bulawa, “The Political, Economic and Social Impact of the Railway on Botswana, 1895 –
1970” (BA diss, University of Botswana, 1985), 13.
250
Alec Campbell, “Khama III, Missionaries and Old Palapye Church Building”, Botswana Notes and
Records Vol. 40 (2008): 172.
251
Stefan Goodwin, Africa’s Legacies of Urbanization: Unfolding Saga of a Continent, (New York:
Lexington Books, 2006), 222,226.
94
temporary and existed to serve as railway sidings but soon became deserted because
people or moved towards these larger railway hubs. As the traditional socio-economic
practices declined, new identities and improved methods of raising capital wealth were
introduced to Bechuanaland. THE SOUTH ASIAN TRADERS OF BECHUANALAND
The history of South Asians or Indians in Bechuanaland has not been given much
attention by historians though it forms an integral part of the British imperial history of
Southern Africa. Also, the historical development of South Asian enterprise within the
protectorate is unique and noteworthy for several reasons. Firstly, I argue that it was the
South Asian diaspora that introduced modern forms of enterprise to what is now
Botswana. Their business acumen and ingenuity were arguably very influential to the
introduction and development of trade in the territory. Secondly, they managed to harness
the negative and often ambivalent attitudes from the colonial government and establish a
firm affinity with locals. This, as a result, is what led to the success of their businesses. A
third but not final aspect relates to the fact that they came from different parts of British
Colonial India where rail transportation had probably been employed for various socioeconomic facets of their lives. In this case, their migration into the protectorate was
directly linked to the availability of the railway in eastern Bechuanaland. They were
amongst the first people to migrate into the protectorate but life for them would not be
easy. Arellano-Lopez’s doctoral work documents numerous hurdles and loops they had to
overcome in their attempt to establish themselves in early Bechuanaland. She states that
the South Asians of Bechuanaland were part of the South Asian community of traders
95
who had arrived earlier in South Africa as “free passengers” unlike the indentured
labourers from various places:
Although, it is possible to affirm that the first [South] Asian settles who arrived in the
Protectorate were “free passengers,” there are no historical records that can document
certainly their birthplace. When indentured labourers and free passengers arrived to South
Africa, for the British colonial administration as well for the South African white
population, they had the legal identity of a homogenous immigrant group, but they were
in fact religiously and culturally heterogeneous. They included Hindus of different sects,
Muslims, mainly Sunni, and Christians most of whom were Catholic.252
She goes further to explain that there were differences amongst these South Asians but
they were often looked at as a collective by the Cape government. It appears that they
came from the different Indian castes and amongst them were the Sudra, who were
mostly artisans and labourers, Vaisya or merchants, Kshatriya who were mostly military
or government officers and Brahmins who were elites. 253 Perhaps it was the lack of
interest or plain ignorance of the colonial government that led to the lack of knowledge
and proper documentation regarding their places of origin and socio-cultural
backgrounds. This is what Bala Pillay’s 1976 work had decried about the Indians of the
Transvaal and perhaps the entire South Africa. Pillay locates their arrival into the South
African Republic or the Transvaal around the early 1880s as an extension of the South
Asians who had established businesses in the Cape and Natal.254 Goolam Vahed agrees
with Arellano-Lopez that the title Gujaratis, which has been used synonymously with
traders and free passengers in the literature of South Asians in South Africa, does not
correspond to a homogenous community. He suggests that it instead refers to merchants
from different regions of Gujarat in India, (Kutch, Kathiawar, Surat), whose religious
252
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 186, see also Bala Pillay, British Indians in the
Transvaal, Trade, Politics and Imperial Relations, 1885 – 1906, (London: Longman Publishers, 1976), 1.
253
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 186,.
254
Pillay, British Indians in the Transvaal, 1.
96
backgrounds varied from Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. 255 It is suggested that a
portion of the passenger Gujaratis who were largely Muslim had begun to expand their
“commercial operations from Durban into the hinterlands of the Transvaal and Northern
Cape since the 1870s, with the expansion accelerating during the mineral revolution.”256
From here onwards the work by Lukas Spiropoulos seems to suggest that South Asian
families arrived from Gujarat to join their relatives who had earlier immigrated to South
Africa. He writes:
In the 1880s, a group of men of the Chand family arrived from Gujarat to join their
relatives in Dinokana, a niche rural area in northwestern South Africa near to the border
of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and the railway from the Cape to Bulawayo. Shortly
after arriving they were advised to follow the leapfrog pattern from Dinokana into a new
and untouched niche market in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. They would settle in
Moshupa and Ramotswa, and proceed to expand in a similar pattern further inland. Once
settled in each location, the family would then have other members of the family and
other families join them and proceed in similar fashion. Many people who came to the
Protectorate also operated on both sides of the border. They would set themselves up first
on one side, around Dinokana, Zeerust, Mafikeng or other nearby towns and then try their
luck on the other side. Alternately, they would expand their own businesses from one area
into the other either personally or through a relative or other representative.257
It is suggested that the Chand family was one of the pioneer families to find a market in
the protectorate though it was never an easy task to expand further into Bechuanaland.
Standing in their way were several factors such as the small and sparse population of the
protectorate and the strict legislation put in place by the colonial government, which
greatly curtailed the livelihood of the South Asians.258 Though it may not have been as
noteworthy, the harsh and unforgiving reality of racial tensions in neighbouring South
255
Goolam Vahed, “An ‘Imagined Community’ in diaspora: Gujaratis in South Africa,” South Asian
History and Culture, Vol. 1 No. 4 (2010): 615.
256
Lukas Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging: Indian Migration, Settlement and Trade in Botswana,
1880-2012,” (MA diss, Witwatersrand University, 2014), 27. This study is very interesting, detailed but not
at all exhaustive. It is one of the very few that discuss the significance of Asian trade in the protectorate.
257
Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging”, 27-28.
258
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 186
97
Africa, the Transvaal in particular, often spilled into the protectorate and presented a
daunting task of penetrating these new markets for the South Asians. Areas with larger
European settler communities such as Tuli and Gaborone blocks were almost impossible
to access for South Asians. The white settler farmers of these areas had for a long time
enjoyed a lucrative beef trade via the railway with the mining towns of Kimberley,
Witwatersrand and perhaps Southern Rhodesia.259 It was their monopoly, which could not
be shared with common Africans, let alone South Asians who had arrived in the
protectorate around 1886.
Spiropoulos states, “Indian immigration into the Bechuanaland Protectorate was
fundamentally a response to opportunities for trade” 260 but suggests that in order to
understand the presence of South Asian immigrant traders in the territory one has to put it
in the broader context of trade within the region. He goes back to explain that apart from
railway development, the people of what became Bechuanaland traded in skins, ostrich
feathers and some ivory. Cattle or beef only became an important trade commodity after
the South African War (Second Anglo-Boer War) and the development of the
Witwatersrand. He cites and agrees with Arellano-Lopez that while capitalist expansion
in Southern Africa was led by the discovery of minerals, its development in
Bechuanaland was reliant on the railway.261 This suggests that the South Asian traders
grew wise about the trade activities at the mines of the Witwatersrand and possibly traced
it back to the protectorate and eventually migrated there.
Arellano-Lopez laments the South Asian hardships once they landed in the
259
Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging”, 25
Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging”, 25
261
Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging”, 25. See also Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of
Trade,” iii.
260
98
protectorate. She points out that most of them usually after some serious hardships were
provided with hawkers and retail licences which allowed them to buy commodities from
South African wholesalers and travel great distances to deal directly with the African
consumers. 262 There were similar hardships for Africans who aimed to conduct some
trade in the protectorate. Spiropoulos is of the view that Africans were denied the right to
engage in trade altogether.263 This assertion is risky and perhaps farfetched because he
inaccurately refers to all Africans in the protectorate. I believe that the evidence needs to
be closely examined before such conclusions are drawn. He suggests that the colonial
government had policies that denied all Africans the right to trade, particularly along the
railway because the “issue of licences was seen as beyond the capacity and willingness of
Africans.”264 However, some evidence suggests that African curio sellers were indeed
encouraged to apply for hawkers and trade licenses through their local chiefs but none of
them applied for these licenses perhaps due to a lack of knowledge.265 For that reason
they could not be allowed to trade at railway sidings. The colonial government may have
deliberately put in place strict conditions that Africans would not live up to, but it needs
to be acknowledged that there were some efforts to engage Africans in trade at the
sidings. That being pointed out, it can be correctly mentioned that Africans encountered
difficulties in establishing themselves as traders in the protectorate but were not
completely barred from trade practices. These difficulties in accessing trading rights and
the reality of the unwillingness of white settler traders to share their markets with
262
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 187.
Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging”, 25.
264
Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging”, 25.
265
BNARS S.204/3/1, Begging by Natives along the Railway Line and the Licensing of Curio Sellers, Letter
from H. Cheadle on behalf of Chief Seboko to C.L.O.B. Dutton, (7 April, 1931) see also BNARS S.204/3/1,
Begging by Natives along the Railway Line and the Licensing of Curio Sellers, Letter from G. E. Nettleton
to Chief Seboko, (5, August, 1933).
263
99
everyone else created a market opportunity for South Asian traders. Though “with certain
administrative factors, [the railway] encouraged some small scale Indian trading
operations to expand into the territory and ultimately, consolidate their positions there.”266
This is what led some of them northwards to places such as Mahalapye.
With the slow influx of South Asian traders into the territory, Islam and Hinduism
were introduced to the territory. Utlwanang Maano and Muhammed Haron state that a
large number of Muslim traders settled in Ramotswa, a small village in the South East
district of Botswana as early as 1886 where they engaged in trade and other businesses
with the local people.267 Most of them are likely to have engaged in trade by opening
shops along the railway siding at Ramotswa, which connected them to the already large
markets of Lobatse and Mahalapye in the north. As far as Maano and Haron’s informant
could recall, “these individuals, who came from different parts of India, were the ones
who unknowingly planted the seeds of Islam in the village of Ramotswa that eventually
became the centre for Muslims during the early period.”268 As a result, the village became
one of the most multicultural and religiously tolerant places from the late 1800s to today.
While serving their adopted communities and spreading Islam and Hinduism, they also
employed locals in some of their shops and shared the knowledge of enterprise with many
of them. Though they were hit with many stringent laws, they responded positively to
their various communities.
Spiropoulos suggests that most of the South Asians who migrated into the
protectorate were of Gujarati origin who found ways to “enter, settle and prosper in new
266
Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging”, 25
Utlwanang Maano and Muhammed Haron, “Botswana’s Muslims in the Towns of Ramotswa and
Lobatse: Their Arrival, Settlement and Current Demographics,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 31
No. 2, (June, 2011): 263.
268
Maano and Haron, “Botswana’s Muslims”, 263.
267
100
territories.”269 He suggests that upon establishing trade connections with people, usually
close to a border or key transport infrastructure such as the railway, the business would
begin to serve a local market. He writes, “Family and shop assistants could then be
summoned or recruited to work in the store. In many cases these shop assistants, brothers
and cousins would use the opportunity of the income, bed and board at the shop as a
springboard into new markets either across the border or further down the railway line or
road.”270 With their numbers constantly rising, their children had to be educated within
the proper confines of their culture. According to Maano and Haron, the Director of
Education, H.J.E. Dumbrell in 1936 wrote to the Resident Magistrate at Gaborone to
request a South Asian teacher from the Union Government. Again, the emphasis on
ignorance needs to be noted here. They had arrived in the late 1800s but it was only in
1936 that someone in the colonial government took note of their needs. While awaiting a
response, the South Asian community in Ramotswa started seeking land to establish an
Islamic based school with the hope to receive a teacher for their children. Their efforts at
acquiring land were however not successful due to the stern legislation regarding land
ownership that was conveniently put in place by the colonial government.271 Those who
had aimed to move into the protectorate to establish their businesses struggled to do so
because “the colonial administration enacted a proclamation for the prohibition of any
type of land transfers to [South] Asians. Therefore no land could be registered in the
name of any [South] Asian trader/settler unless [South] Asians had written approval of
the colonial authorities.” 272 This kind of problem was nothing new to them. The
269
Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging”, i.
Spiropoulos, “The Business of Belonging, 28.
271
Maano and Haron, “Botswana’s Muslims”, 265
272
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 201-202.
270
101
Transvaal government, which shared its border with Bechuanaland, had always been
antagonistic towards them and had earlier enacted laws that banned them from entering,
settling and trading in the Transvaal. The ripples of racial segregation in neighbouring
Transvaal reverberated and crossed into the protectorate. This presented yet another
obstacle for the South Asians. They were hit with tight migration, movement and working
policies that made it difficult for the colonial government to dispatch a teacher into the
protectorate. After nearly twenty years of waiting for a response, they managed to obtain
some land for a school in 1950 at Lobatse.
273
Arellano-Lopez states that the
Bechuanaland colonial government was not openly biased against the South Asian
community and that their voices in the protectorate, usually through petitions, were
responded to with ambiguity and ambivalence.274 This further frustrated their effort to
develop themselves and the communities in which they had landed.
According to Arellano-Lopez, the colonial government and other Europeans
considered hawking, which was done by South Asians, an inferior type of trade. It
required learning the African languages, customs and culture of the people and dealing
with them in person. She says, “white traders could not lower themselves to cross class
and race boundaries in their relations with Africans; but [South] Asians could because
they were neither black nor white, and their relationship with Africans was tolerated.”275
Initially, these South Asian traders were attracted to the protectorate by the railway and
had hoped to establish shops along the line at sidings and railway stations such as
Ramotswa, Lobatse, and perhaps Mahalapye. After their arrival, the laws governing them
made it immensely difficult for that to happen, so instead, they turned to building a local
273
Maano and Haron, “Botswana’s Muslims”, 264-265.
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 201.
275
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 187 – 188.
274
102
market for their goods and enjoyed close relationships with the various Tswana people.
As a result, the chiefs usually advocated for them in matters relating to renewal of trade
and hawkers licenses. Arellano-Lopez states that even the chiefs’ petitions were met with
great ambiguity. “The colonial administration first verified that no British traders’
economic interests would be harmed by the [South] Asian trader presence.”276 Because
the colonial government disregarded the authority of the chiefs, they did not consult them,
which made them helpless to the South Asians. All matters had to be reported to the
colonial administration.277 These deliberate restrictions led to the minimal establishment
of trade centres and the eventual underdevelopment of some of the major railway hubs.
For Walter Rodney, the integration of various societies is essential to development
because of the exchange of ideas, culture and trade amongst the groups.278 In other words,
the interaction of South Asian merchants and traders with the Tswana people across the
territory was also essential to the development of new ideology. This in many ways
contributed to the formation of the modern Botswana state. As they traded closely with
the Tswana, they shared their religion, culture and most importantly the knowledge of
enterprise and encouraged them to venture into trading. This was one of the major
occurrences that created an indigenous capitalist society, introduced class relations as
well as cultural diversity to Bechuanaland. Integration did not happen because the
colonial government implemented it; it instead happened because of the circumstances
that both South Asian traders and the Tswana found themselves in. Furthermore, the
travel and immigration restrictions led to a shortage of Asian women and as a result it
276
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 210-211.
BNARS. S. 7/11, “Resident commissioner report to the High Commissioner at the Cape,” March 1927,
and reply from High Commissioner at Cape Town to Resident Commissioner at Mafikeng, BNARS S. 7/11,
24, March 1927.
278
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped, 3.
277
103
pushed “the [South] Asian traders to look for temporary concubinage with Tswana
women. These liaisons had the consent of the ward headmen.” 279 The white settlers
snubbed this and many other practices that Asian traders engaged in and considered
anything relating to South Asian traders as crude and unwanted.280 The main agenda for
the imperial powers was the extraction of minerals and the use of African labour. Walter
Rodney suggests that this single-minded focus on capital wealth led to the economic
backwardness of Africa. 281 The colonial government implemented these restrictions
because it was never in their agenda to develop places of no value to them.
CAPITALISM AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION IN RAILWAY VILLAGES
This section argues that the concept of modernity was tied to the everyday use of
the railway in the later years of colonisation. The emergence of a capitalist class in these
railways villages was spurred by the movement of people via rail along many of these
villages.
Mahalapye is located in today’s Central District of Botswana, an area that was
referred to as part of Ngwato Territory under Khama. It lies halfway between Plumtree, in
Zimbabwe, and Mafikeng in South Africa along the railway line and thus became a
convenient spot for the Bechuanaland Railways and Rhodesia Railways to establish it
first as a railway siding and later turned into a major railway station.282 Because of its
central location, Mahalapye also became a place where official mail from both directions
changed hands. The usage of the railway for postage services made significant
279
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 211.
Arellano-Lopez, “The Social Construction of Trade,” 211.
281
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped, 14
282
Boammaruri Bahumi Kebonang, “The History of the Herero in Mahalapye, Central District: 1922 –
1984”, Botswana Notes and Records 21 (January, 1989): 44.
280
104
contributions to reduction of mail tariffs.283 In other words, the railway was used as an
efficient mode of communication. Lauri Kubuitsile writes that the train used Mahalapye
to restock its coal supplies. “When it stopped, Batswana from surrounding areas came to
sell cattle and milk. Over time some set up temporary and then permanent homes to do
business at the railway station.”284
The railway line itself had reached Mahalapye as early as 1897; in addition, the
then Bechuanaland Railways attained a strip of land alongside Mahalatswe River for
maintenance and residential purposes. Kubuitsile states that the Rhodesia Railway
Company needed someone to tend to the property they had attained and they chose a
Xhosa man, Samuel Giddie. Giddie had been employed in the construction of the railway
and chose to remain in Mahalapye with his family. In order to settle there Giddie had to
travel to Serowe to seek a resident permit and some land from Kgosi Khama III.285 He
became one of the first people to be employed by the railway company and settle at
Mahalapye. As a result of the minor developments in the village it began to attract a
continuous migration of people from various parts of Bechuanaland and other parts of
Southern Africa.286 Kubuitsile states further, “The Bakaa and Baphaleng from Shoshong
were some of the first larger groups of settlers in the area. The Batalaote, the tribe from
which Kgosi Tshipe is from, and Bakonyana, both tribes who had followed Khama III
from Old Palapye to Serowe, decided to move back to the Mahalapye area, primarily
because they had cattle posts east of the village.”287 It is these farmers that had hoped to
283
BNARS, HC. 149, High Commissioner Files, Letter from Resident Commissioner to High
Commissioner at the Cape, 25 January, 1899.
284
Lauri
Kubuitsile,
“Mahalapye:
Ko
Diponeng,”
mmegi.bw,
17
August,
2007,
http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=6&aid=53&dir=2007/august/Friday17
285
Kubuitsile, “Mahalapye: Ko diponeng”
286
Kebonang, “The History of the Herero,”44.
287
Kubuitsile, “Mahalapye: Ko Diponeng”
105
engage in beef and dairy trade along the railway. A discussion on the importance of the
railway to European and African cattle farmers will follow later in this chapter.
Moreover, a few of the Bangwato of Khama, some Lozwi from as far as Nyasaland
(Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), as well as a few Xhosa from South Africa,
who were said to have been employed in Khama’s cattle post to tend to his horses,
inhabited the area prior to the 1922 arrival of the Herero from German South West Africa
(Namibia).288 Zibani Maundeni is also of the view that Khama III had grown fond of the
Barotse (Lozi) who hailed from western Zambia. He cites a report of a local democracy
workshop held by the Serowe Administrative Authority in August 2010 when he states:
It was also reported that Khama III liked the hardworking Barotsi people and invited their
young and strong men from Barotsiland Protectorate in Zambia to come and work on the
railway line that was being constructed in the Bechuanaland Protectorate in the 1890s and
onwards, ending up establishing villages along the railway line. Most of these Barotsi
men married local women and were also incorporated into the Maaloso Ward in
Serowe.289
Furthermore, Gerald L. Caplan states that Lewanika, King of the Barotse people of
Zambia had grown fond of Khama because of his leadership models and wished to follow
that example.290 For that he wanted Khama’s friendship and in 1883, he sent a letter to
Khama through his missionaries and Khama is said to have replied positively. The two
leaders began to collaborate on various occasions and also exchanged gifts.291 Up to 1893
Khama and Lewanika also had a common enemy in the Ndebele of Lobengula.292
288
Kebonang, “The History of the Herero,”44, see also a chapter by Deborah Durham, “Uncertain Citizens:
Herero and the New Intercalary Subject in Post-Colonial Botswana,” in Post Colonial Subjectivities Africa,
ed. Richard P. Werbner, (London& New York: Zed Books, 2002), 145.
289
Maundeni, “The Evolution of the Botswana State,” 22.
290
Gerald L. Caplan, The Elites of Barotseland; A Political History of Zambia’s Western Province, 1878 –
1969, (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1970), 41.
291
Mutumba Mainga, Bulozi under the Luyana Kings: Political Evolution and State Formation in PreColonial Zambia, 2nd ed. (Lusaka: Bookworld Publishers, 2010), 125.
292
Richard Brown, “Aspects of the Scramble for Matabeleland,” The Zambesian Past, Studies in Central
African History, ed. E. Stokes and Richard Brown (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966), 63 –
93.
106
Mahalapye then from the onset became a heterogeneous community of which the
railway company employed many of these people. According to Kebonang, many of the
immigrants eventually intermarried with Tswana women and opted to settle in Mahalapye
permanently. 293 For the Herero under the leadership of Samuel Maherero, it was the
devastation of rinderpest of 1897 and their unsuccessful rebellion against the German
colonial government and the genocide of 1904-1907 that forced many of them out of what
is today Namibia eastwards into north-western Bechuanaland.294 According to Jan BartGewald, “to escape raiding, debt collecting, hungry relatives, hunger, new legislation,
evictions, forced labour and disease, many of the Herero [rinderpest] survivors abandoned
their ancestral homes and sought a future elsewhere.”295 Some of those who fled found
themselves in Ngamiland, where according to Kebonang they were later expelled by
Kgosi Sekgoma and migrated southwards into Khama’s territory. Kebonang adds that
they were attracted to Khama because they had learned of his good reputation and the size
of his land from the leadership of Ngamiland. He adds that other sources have stated that
they left Ngamiland because Maherero was not recognised as the legitimate leader of all
Herero in Bechuanaland. For that reason he left with some of his followers and ended up
as far as Serowe where Kgosi Khama resided while his eldest son Frederick led others to
the railway village of Mahalapye.296 With them came their customs, traditions, and socioeconomic practices, which had to be altered to suit the new environment, in particular, the
293
Kebonang, “The History of the Herero,”44.
See for example, Jeremy Sarkin, Germany’s Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhem II, His General,
His Settlers, His Soldiers, (Cape Town: UCT Press, 2011), Michael LeMahieu, Fiction of Fact and Value:
The Erasure of Logical Positivism, in American Literature, 1945 – 1975, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013), 164-165, Paul R. Bartrop and Steven Leonard Jacobs, Modern Genocide: The Definitive Resource
and Document Collection Volume 2, (Santa Barbara: ABC – Clio, 2015), see also Helmut Bley, South West
Africa Under German Rule, 1894-1914, (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971).
295
Gewald, Herero Heroes, 130.
296
Kebonang, “The History of the Herero,” 45-46
294
107
use of the railway. The Herero have always been known to be excellent cattle herders,
and when they arrived in Mahalapye they continued this practice though it is said that
they had to purchase cattle from the Ngwato. 297 Some of them are said to have been
encouraged by Maherero himself to move further south in pursuit of wage employment in
the Transvaal mines and join the capitalist class while others remained behind and
became involved in hawking believed to have taken place at the railway station where
there was an endless stream of clientele.298
The Herero of Mahalapye have a very rich history, most of which has not been
documented. Their interaction with other groups of people in the village steered the
formation of modern day Mahalapye, Botswana’s railway centre. Isaac Schapera and
Kebonang agree that the Herero voluntarily placed themselves under Khama because of
his good leadership and the fact that he allowed them to maintain their cultural practices
freely.299 Kebonang also suggests that Mahalapye was selected for the Herero because
Khama had known about their diligence and excellence in cattle herding. They had been
already exposed to a cash economy from the Germans in Namibia and the Boers who
lived in the Bechuanaland border. For those reasons, it was only right for Khama to place
them in a location where they could re-establish their economy and perhaps trade with the
white farmers of the east.300
The village was truly diverse. As Kubuitsile states, foreigners almost exclusively
owned the first businesses in the area. Referring to the first South Asian settlers there he
writes, “The Bhamjees originated from Johannesburg. [Mohammed] Bhamjee heard that a
297
Kebonang, “The History of the Herero,”49. See also Gewald, Herero Heroes, 180-181
Kebonang, “The History of the Herero,”49.
299
Isaac Schapera, The Ethnic Compositions of Tswana Tribes, (London School of Economics and Political
Science, 1952), 22 – 23, and Kebonang, “The History of the Herero,” 49.
300
Boammaruri Bahumi Kebonang, “The History of the Herero,”41.
298
108
certain man named Milan had a shop in a village in Bechuanaland that he wanted to sell.
Much to the surprise of their family, Mohammed decided that he would move to
Bechuanaland and take up ownership of the shop.” 301 The railway was key to their
migration and survival as one of Kubuitsile’s informants, Aneesa Bhamjee, the daughter
to Mohammed, recalls how they had to be at the railway station at midnight to collect
bread from the passing train.302 The presence of South Asians in Mahalapye seems to
have grown steadily soon after the arrival of the Bhamjees. According to Kubuitsile, most
of them established shops along the railway siding.303 Today Mahalapye still boasts a
similar kind of diversity but at a much larger scale. There are more Asians who still run
the same types of shops and serve the community in various ways.
Unlike Mahalapye, the situation further north in Francistown was entirely
different. It seems that historians don’t agree about when it was founded. Part Mgadla
suggests that it originated in the 1870s with the discovery of gold deposits in the Tati and
Ntshe rivers. 304 Paul Landau suggests that it was founded in 1880 while Boga Thura
Manatsha gives a much later date of 1897.305 According to Landau;
In 1880 Daniel Francis founded Francistown, subsequently known for its ‘hordes of
ruffians and desperadoes’ cantering through the town and sacking the general store. After
the railway arrived, missing the all but dead Tati Town ‘capital’ by fifty kilometres,
Francistown benefitted, but still remained a place visited by men intending to go
306
somewhere else.
301
Kubuitsile, “Mahalapye: Ko diponeng”
Kubuitsile, “Mahalapye: Ko diponeng”
303
Kubuitsile, “Mahalapye: Ko diponeng”
304
Part Mgadla, “The North-East and South East,” The Birth of Botswana: A History of the Bechuanaland
Protectorate from 1910 to 1966, eds. Fred Morton and Jeff Ramsay, (Gaborone: Longman Botswana,
1987), 136.
305
Boga Manatsha, “The Politics of Renaming Colonial Streets in Francistown, Botswana,” Botswana
Notes and Records 44 (2012): 70.
306
Paul Landau, Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400-1948, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), 146.
302
109
Martin Legassick describes early 1960s Francistown as a place where South
African refugees from apartheid found temporary solitude before filtering into Northern
and Southern Rhodesia. According to him, it was common that the refugees converged at
Francistown from the south on their way to Tanganyika (now Tanzania).307 To him it was
one of many towns that sprung up along the easterly railway that ran through the fertile
part of the territory. In essence, Legassick tells us that its strategic location next to the
border with Rhodesia made it a convenient pit stop for many people who were on their
travels. In a chapter by Part Mgadla, he alludes to the crowding of Africans in reserves as
a result of Europeans taking all the fertile land along the railway.308 Most of the NorthEast was owned by the Tati Concession Company, a European owned mining
organisation that had won the mineral rights around the same time of Lobengula’s signing
of the Rudd Concession in 1888.309 This land belonged exclusively to European farmers.
(See Map. 1 below)
307
Martin Legassick, “Bechuanaland: Road to the North,” Africa Today, Vol. 1 No. 4, (April 1964): 7.
Mgadla, “The North-East and South East,” 134, see also Alan Pim, “The Question of the South African
Protectorates,” International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939), Vol. 13, No. 5,
(Sep-Oct. 1934): 669 and Richard P. Werbner, “Local Adaptation and the Transformation of an Imperial
Concession in North-Eastern Botswana,” Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan.,
1971).
309
For further reading on the Tati Concessions and ownership of land, see for example, Arellano-Lopez,
“The Social Construction of Trade,”109; Paul Landau, Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 177178; Richard P. Werbner, “Local Adaptation and the Transformation of an Imperial Concession in North
Eastern Botswana,” Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 41, No. 1, (1971): 32-41.
308
110
Map 1. The North-East District (Tati District)310
According to George Winstanley, early Francistown had only one street adjacent to the
railway station and a few small houses belonging to colonial administrators mostly to the
east of the railway line. Racial discrimination defined most of Francistown as there were
hotels and other areas reserved for white people only. It seemed like what was taking
place in neighbouring white minority ruled Southern Rhodesia was spilling over into
Bechuanaland.311 In Sir Charles Rey’s memoirs, he points out that Francistown was very
310
Mgadla, “The North-East and South East,” 135.
George Winstanley, Under Two Flags in Africa: Recollections of a British Administrator in the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1945 – 1972, (Blackwater Books, 2000), see also Richard P. Werbner,
Reasonable Radicals and Citizenship in Botswana; The Public Anthropology of Kalanga Elites,
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 162 – 123.
311
111
secluded with a distinct racial divide. A wealthy European family called the Haskins
owned and ran most of the Francistown enterprises.312 Mgadla agrees with this and states
that the place was a mainly a trading town because of the railway, which brought many
passengers and created a good market. It served the interests of the Company and
Europeans of that area. “All trade was in the white hands, the terms of trade were
arranged to favour them and all land was reserved for their businesses and homes.”313 The
trains were not only used for economic purposes. The white minority at times used them
for leisurely travel and sightseeing. In Rey’s memoir, he explains how the affluent whites
travelled between Francistown and Mahalapye to attend the annual sporting events in
June 1930. Those who could afford to pay for a train ticket entered the competitions,
which included “shooting at the ranges, pigeon shooting, golf, tennis, dancing, concerts
and general merriments.”314
Further south was a small town called Lobatse, which was one of the major
economic hubs of the territory. This was perhaps due to several reasons; its proximity to
the border with South Africa, a large population of white settlers and the availability of an
efficient mode of transportation, the railway, which linked Bechuanaland and South
Africa. According to Mgadla, Lobatse was a haven for local European farmers and
traders. “The latter took advantage of the railway station and set up business to serve the
farmers in the block.”315 He states that most of the settlers who had come from South
Africa in the early 1900s were not well off. They were among the poorest of Boer farmers
from the Transvaal and perhaps migrated north in search of new means to overhaul their
312
Charles Rey, Monarch of all I Survey; Bechuanaland Diaries, 1929-1937, eds. Michael Crowder and
Neil Parsons, (Gaborone: The Botswana Society, 1988), 31.
313
Mgadla, “The North-East and South East,” 138.
314
Rey, Monarch of all I Survey, 27.
315
Mgadla, “The History of the Town and Area of Lobatse from Pre-Colonial times to 1965,” (BA diss,
University of Botswana and Swaziland, 1978), 9.
112
economy. This might have been due to them losing their farms in the South African War
of 1899-1902. They however had the necessary farming skills to survive and eventually
thrive in new areas such as Lobatse. 316 Mgadla however does not mention how they
attained land for growing crops and raising livestock. Perhaps it is safe to assume that
since they were European or white, they joined the ranks of the settler elites thus it was
easy for them to gain land. (See Map. 2) Mgadla mentions that their agricultural
enterprise succeeded not only because of their skills but also because they depended on
cheap African labour in their farms. We can already see the link between the migration of
the Boers into Lobatse, their farming establishments and their use of rail transportation to
facilitate the movement of their commodities. 317 Though the railway station employed
most Africans in Lobatse, the low wages meant that the Europeans took the bigger share
and left Africans impoverished. Mgadla writes:
Between 1905 and 1920, small European owned shops sprang up around the railway
station to serve the European community and Africans of the area. One of the first
European traders was R.G. Transveldt. Himself a farmer, Transveldt took advantage of
the railway station and opened up a wholesale shop that later came to be known as the
Bechuanaland Store. Transveldt also collected and sold timber by rail to Mefeking and
organised transport for miners to and from the platinum mines of Zeerust.318
316
Mgadla, “The History of the Town and Area”, 7.
Mgadla, “The History of the Town and Area”, 9.
318
Mgadla, “The History of the Town and Area”, 7-8.
317
113
Map 2. The South East District319
Furthermore, more businesses between 1907 and 1910 grew around the railway station.
Mgadla states that Lobatse Hotel was built partly to serve the white train passengers and
the European community of the Lobatse area. Many of these businesses thrived and
consequently, African squatter settlements or townships sprung up along the railway
319
Mgadla, “The North-East and South East,” 143.
114
station.320 In many ways, the settlement of the Europeans in Lobatse and the manner in
which African settlements later responded was centred on the railway. According to
Mgadla, Europeans were encouraged to migrate and settle in Lobatse “to resolve the
contradiction of their economic dependence on South Africa and their political
dependence on Bechuanaland Protectorate.”321
TSWANA FARMING COMMUNITIES WITHIN THE RHODESIA RAILWAY
MONOPOLY
Not a lot of the Tswana and other local African communities knew the economic potential
of the railway prior to its construction. They had knowledge of trade but may not have
known how to maximise the use this new mode of transportation. According to Barbara
Ngwenya, the use of the wagon for long and short distance trade was common among the
Tswana some years before the railway was constructed.322 During pre-colonial times the
Tswana may have used horses, donkeys or just long distance walking to conduct trade.
With the construction of the railway however, the many local communities started to see
its importance in bringing capital. For instance, some of the men who had been earlier
employed by the BSACo earned wages from its construction. A majority of the Tswana
men who worked on railway construction were believed to be cattle owners from
Khama’s land.
I now focus on how elitist cattle farming, colonial schemes of cattle improvement
as well as dairy production from the early 1900s were hinged on the use of rail
transportation. The focus will be on dairy produce because beef production has been dealt
320
Mgadla, “The History of the Town and Area”, 8.
Mgadla, “The History of the Town and Area”, 8.
322
Ngwenya, “The Development of Transport Infrastructure,” 76.
321
115
with in the past while crop production has always been trivial in the semi-arid climate of
Bechuanaland. In most cases, white settlers enjoyed easy access to outside markets
because their cattle and cattle by-products were preferred to what was referred to as
substandard African produce. In order to explain this, we need to look at the intentions of
the African Dikgosi as well as the prejudice and attitude of the colonial government
towards African enterprise. This is no easy task because after a careful examination of
archival material, it is clear that there was an ambiguous relationship between the two. At
certain times, the colonial government expressed interest in attempting to improve the
lives of the Africans while at the same time other colonial officials took no part in it. This
is because colonialism was justified as a civilising mission, which some colonial officials
believed in, but there were limits to these as racism and economic greed became more
important. I concur with Makgala and carry his argument forward that in the early 1920s,
it was Kgosi Isang Pilane, a Bakgatla regent who initiated the idea to improve the cattle
of his people by sending a request to the colonial government for bulls that would breed
with the Tswana cattle in his community. 323 The idea behind that was to introduce
different breeds of cattle and perhaps more importantly for his people to start trading
cattle and cattle products just like the white settlers had been doing for many years.
Pilane, a village named after Kgosi Pilane and Mochudi in the Kgatleng district are some
of the many places that could have benefitted from access to an outside market due to the
railway running through. Kgosi Pilane grew wise of this and like Khama tried to use the
railway to introduce a local capitalist economy by encouraging trade and diversity among
his people. A letter from W. H. Chase, the Chief Veterinary Officer in the Protectorate to
323
Christian John Makgala, ‘The policy of Indirect Rule in Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1926-1957’ (Ph.D.
diss., University of Cambridge, 2001), 263.
116
the Resident Commissioner describes Kgosi Isang and his people as “intelligent and more
energetic than other tribes.”324 Mafela has however observed that the idea of importing
new breeds for cattle improvement had very little success because “these animals needed
special care, and the African population did not have sufficient knowledge and means of
providing this; nor did the colonial administration have enough manpower to go around
teaching about this.”325 Phuthego Molosiwa has argued that these schemes of cattle and
dairy improvement brought disillusionment among the African farming community
because they were not tailored for them in the first place.326 They only meant to serve the
settler elites as previously stated. Apart from those schemes, Hut Tax and several other
forms of taxation had been in effect from the late 1800s meaning that Africans had to
seek the means to raise capital and keep up with their payments. 327 As previously
explained, a response to these taxes was the pursuit of wage employment in the South
African mines. On the other hand some farmers started to see that the Dikgosi were
implementing new strategies of cattle improvement and hastened their desire to access
new markets for their products as alternative means to raise capital. With the availability
of the railway, and the 19th century mineral revolution, many of the African cattle owners
in the protectorate had high hopes for a boom in the demand of beef and dairy from the
mines. This is after all what the settler farmers were doing. Lily Mafela writes, “Cattle
324
BNARS, S.130/11 “Mr Jousse’s interview with the Resident Commissioner at Mahalapye during Bisley:
Matters connected with the Diary Industry, 1930.
325
Lily Mafela, ‘Colonial Initiatives and African Response in the Establishment of the Dairy Industry in the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1930-1966,” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1&2,
(1999): 78.
326
Phuthego Molosiwa, ‘Illicit Trade in Botswana; The Case of Cattle Smuggling in Kgatleng, 1920-1960’
(MA thesis, University of Botswana, 2003), 30.
327
See for example Makgala, “Taxation in the Tribal Areas,” 279-303, Schmitt, Bechuanaland Pioneer and
Gunners, 47,59, 68; O. Selolwane, “Colonization by Concession: Capitalist Expansion in Bechuanaland
Protectorate, 1885-1950,” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, (Feb. 1980): 75-124
and David Massey, “A Case of Colonial Collaboration: The Hut Tax and Migrant Labour,” Botswana Notes
and Records, Vol. 10, (1978): 95-98.
117
and cattle products were to play an important role in the export - import commodity
exchange in order first to raise the necessary tax levy, and later on as a simple response to
capitalism which gained momentum during the twentieth century.”328 While it seemed
like most African cattle owners had no systematic mechanism in place, Europeans whose
large farms were spread along the railway line in the east engaged in what Mafela called
dairy ranching. She adds:
This practice was even more pronounced in the Lobatse blocks where the Boer settlers
had arrived as early as 1904. Lobatse's proximity to both the South African market and
the railway line gave these settlers, in particular, more advantage in marketing their
products.329
As previously mentioned, the colonial government had no clear economic plans to
develop Bechuanaland. There were a few individual officials who tried to implement
some changes aimed at helping the Africans but working within an antagonistic system
eventually overwhelmed their efforts leading to stunted and uneven development.
Between the late 1920s and mid 1940s there was a complex relationship of
Bechuanaland’s cattle economy and a colonial government that never made any solid
plans to improve the lives of people.
I concur with Lily Mafela’s analysis of the meagre dairy industry of the territory
and posit that it was the deliberate effort of the colonial government to sabotage whatever
attempt the African dairymen aimed for. In any situation, the objective of the dairymen
was to get their produce to external markets through railway hubs at Mahalapye, which
was the midpoint between to two entry points: Francistown in the north and Lobatse in
the south. Walter Rodney alludes to economic inequality in colonial Africa as another
mechanism used by the imperialists to grab as much resources for themselves while
328
329
Mafela, “Colonial Initiatives”, 77.
Mafela, “Colonial Initiatives”, 80 – 81.
118
depriving the African an opportunity to overhaul himself.330 Mafela, who explains that it
was hard for Africans to beat the white monopoly of dairy trade in the protectorate,
demonstrates this very clearly. She states, “Tuli block farmers had, in the late 1920s,
managed to get the colonial government to build a road along which they transported their
dairy products to Debeeti (Dibete) railway station, then to Lobatse Creamery.”331 This
would not have happened if Africans had made the request. Leonard Tarr, a settler farmer
and businessman, had started a chain of milk-buying depots along the railway line which
would buy milk from African dairymen and hold it temporarily while waiting for the next
train. 332 European farmers such as Mr Leonard Tarr and Hoare controlled the dairy
monopoly in the east, and this encouraged Africans to abandon their own milk handling
areas due to competition:
Leonard Tarr owned in all 32 milk-buying cream depots in the Mahalapye-Palapye area and
constructed a road from Sefhare to Mahalapye to link his depots to railhead; while by the end of
1935, Hoare had established over 70 milk-buying depots in the Bamangwato Reserve and Tati
area. Hoare served an area of 5,000 square miles. Over a thousand Africans supplied milk to his
depots and in the process, abandoned their own premises. This was a symptom of colonial
government policy of encouraging European economic domination of African enterprise. Africans
were discouraged from owning private dairies because "it was inadvisable to encourage the
production of cream in individual dairies as apart from the capital outlay, the product was
invariably of low quality.333
The necessity of the railway in the dairy monopoly of the east cannot be overemphasised.
It was the only means of access to outside markets for dairymen but at the same time it
became a symbol of bias and discrimination. Though it has been argued that milk-buying
depots helped some African dairymen economically and that there was some form of
cooperation between them and settler farmers such as Tarr, it goes without saying that
330
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 5, 39.
Mafela, “Colonial Initiatives”, 81.
332
Mafela, “Colonial Initiatives”, 81.
333
Mafela, “Colonial Initiatives”, 81 see also BNARS, S.451/1/1, ‘Dairy Industry of the Bechuanaland
Protectorate: E. G. Hardy’s tour of Bechuanaland Protectorate, August 1942.
331
119
most of the Africans, like Mafela mentions, were put out of work due to pressures by the
colonial government as well as economic competition.
There were even bigger dairy corporations in Francistown and Lobatse. These
were the Rhodesia Cooperative Creameries (RCC), a European owned company based in
Southern Rhodesia and the Imperial Cold Storage Company based at Lobatse. The inner
workings of those two major dairy companies in colonial Botswana are not the main topic
of discussion. This thesis is rather concerned with their ease of access to rail
transportation and how they wielded control of trade through the railway as well as the
restrictions put in place by the colonial government that favoured these companies while
depriving the Africans of the equal opportunity to expand their capitalist endeavours. It is
however worth mentioning that the RCC by the early 1930s had a well-established dairy
trade network between Southern Rhodesia and Bechuanaland. It had opened a butter
factory in Francistown that purchased milk at low prices from Africans in the Tati areas
and processed it before exporting it to Southern Rhodesia at a profit. 334 In 1935 the
company was then taken over by Mr. P. Lavin, a settler farmer and businessman who had
been successfully running Tati Creamery LTD and several other ventures in Lobatse
including the Imperial Cold Storage Company.335 Some months before the de-registration
of the RCC, its Managing Director Mr Gordon Cooper wrote a letter expressing the desire
for Mr. Lavin’s company to attain control of the factory at Francistown.336 At that time of
course no African could compete against Mr Lavin’s financial muscle. His intentions
were to control all creameries of the east as a pool thus destroying all competition and
334
BNARS, S.451/1/1, ‘Dairy Industry of the Bechuanaland Protectorate: E. G. Hardy’s tour of
Bechuanaland Protectorate, August 1942.
335
BNARS, S.255/13, ‘Cold Storage at Francistown; De- Registration of, Agreement with Tati Creamery
Limited’, August 1935.
336
BNARS, S.255/13, ‘Cold Storage at Francistown; De-Registration of, Agreement with Tati Creamery
Limited’, August 1935.
120
controlling the dairy market.
In his 1931 report on the state of the Bechuanaland dairy industry, Dr. Thornton,
the Director of African Agriculture, stated that the reason African produce was not
preferred was because it took a long time for his milk to fill up the container. Because it is
so perishable, its grade would decline within a day or two while waiting to be picked up
by the passing train.337 Even after a long wait, it is believed that some of that milk was
inadmissible on the trains, as it would have already started to turn. If it were accepted it
would have passed as low-grade milk and be used for things such as butterfat, which gave
the Africans very little returns.338 Making matters worse was the Dairy Control Board and
the new customs agreements between the governments of Southern Rhodesia,
Bechuanaland and the Union of South Africa in 1930. These new agreements put in effect
the Dairy Products Marketing Scheme, which blocked individual dairy producers from
selling milk or any other dairy products. The new scheme stipulated that dairy producers
would only be recognised if they sold in pools.339 This scheme was put in effect after
there had been several complaints in Rhodesia and South Africa that dairy products from
Bechuanaland had been found to be unhygienic. An article in the Bulawayo Chronicle
decried the dangers to public health of milk imported from the protectorate and suggested
that it was contaminated. It linked the outbreak of Tubercular lesions prevalent among
children to the unhygienic milk from Bechuanaland.340 It would not be wise to assume
that this was a deliberate move by the colonial government to eliminate African produce
337
BNARS, S. 218/8, ‘Agriculture Dairy Industry; Reports by Dr. Thornton’, (1931): 1.
BNARS, S. 218/8, ‘Agriculture Dairy Industry; Reports by Dr. Thornton’, (1931): 1-3.
339
BNARS S. 427/9/1, Customs Agreement: Bechuanaland Protectorate – Southern Rhodesia, Letter from
C.H.A. Clarke to Resident Commissioner titled “Entering of Butter into Southern Rhodesia (1930) see also
BNARS. S. 151/3 Dairy Control Board, Letter from Charles Rey to High Commissioner, 20 September,
1930.
340
BNARS, S. 451/1/1, “Drastic Reorganisation of Dairy Industry, “The Bulawayo Chronicle, Saturday,
February 7, 1936
338
121
but it can be said that the government officials knew that Africans did not have the ability
to sell in pools. They were distrustful of cooperation and always chose to venture
individually into dairy trade.341
I argue that the colonial government had always known about this and adopted
this new policy either to deceitfully single them out or to encourage growth through
cooperation. In any case, this was the new law, cooperation amongst African dairymen
never happened and the colonial government never made any efforts to encourage it. The
dairy industry in the protectorate was stratified in this manner; the settler farmer was at
the top and so were his products while the African producer remained at the bottom. For
this reason, the Africans were not able to access external markets through rail resources.
Mafela adds to this point by stating that “In most cases, African-produced cream ranked
half a grade lower than European produced cream because the determining factor between
a high grade and lower grade product was the amount of time cream spent in a depot
before transportation [via rail] to the creamery.”342 This meant that African dairymen had
to move their operations to within the vicinity of the railway in order for their products to
not go to waste or they had to rely on the European middleman who often bought their
milk at very low prices and sold it at a profit directly to his already established markets in
South Africa and Rhodesia. Margery Perham observed that the African dairymen
produced mostly low-grade milk and “their internal communications are scanty; markets
and ports are far away; and they are embedded among countries which compete with the
same products and control the lines and conditions of export.”343 The African farmers had
341
BNARS, S. 218/8, ‘Agriculture Dairy Industry; Reports by Dr. Thornton’, (1931): 1.
Mafela, “Colonial Initiatives”, 82.
343
Margery Perham, Colonial Sequence 1930 - 1949: A chronological Commentary on British Colonial
Policy in Africa (London: Methuen 1967), 7 cited in Mafela, “Colonial Initiatives”, 82
342
122
the means of production in terms of cattle but they lacked the access to markets. Another
reason for grading African milk in that fashion was that they did not have the means to
pasteurize their milk. There had been numerous cases of outbreaks of cattle diseases such
as Foot and Mouth disease that usually devastated the Tati and surrounding areas. After
1930, any milk that came from the north had to be accompanied by a signed note from a
northern divisional veterinary official that it had been pasteurized.344 This was another
disadvantage to African dairymen as they lacked the knowledge and the tools to
pasteurize their dairy products.
The attitude of the colonial government towards African dairymen is shown in
what they called Kaffir creameries. This was the name given to all native creameries that
were always described to be in a state of chaos. In the inspector’s report, “a majority of
them were not able to maintain standards prescribed by the dairy regulations.” 345 Of
course the high standards of cleanliness and hygiene when handling dairy had to be
maintained. However, there is no indication that the colonial government made any effort
to teach the Africa dairymen what was expected. Stemming from racial prejudice, this
was a mechanism for the European dairymen to control the dairy monopoly. By 1933, the
amount of dairy carried via rail from Bechuanaland, which was mostly from European
farmers, was more than double the amount of dairy produced in South Africa and sold to
the mineworkers, army camps and naval bases of South Africa.346 This dairy produce was
carried by rail from large European farms in the Tati, Tuli, Gaborone and Lobatse blocks
towards Mafikeng. From there it moved along the rail stations between Mafikeng,
344
BNARS, S.255/12/1, Colonial Government notes, Letter form Department of Animal Health, Central
Research Station. 11 August 1933
345
BNARS, S. 8/7, Kaffir Cream: Inspector Reports, The economic position of the Butter Industry in the
Protectorate, 1926.
346
BNARS, S. 151/16, Dairy Control Board, 14th and 15th Conferences, Payment of Butter and Cheese
Levies, Report by Stuart Bennie, 20 June 1933.
123
Vryburg, Maribogo and many other places until it reached Kimberly. This formed a very
lucrative distribution line that was essential to the European enterprise. In 1931, it had
been estimated that a total of 3 million pounds of cheese would be required by the entire
mining industry of South Africa. Bechuanaland dairy producers, mostly European, would
supply a large portion of this cheese, which would be carried by rail to the mines. The
transport costs of this large amount of cheese was about £ 375 000 of which African
dairymen did not have.347 The rail network across the subcontinent also meant that the
European dairymen were able to sell their produce as far north as the Congo. About half a
million pounds of butter, valued at £ 45 000 was carried to the Union while 110 000
pounds of cheese valued at £ 7 000 was exported to the Rhodesias and Congo. 348
Essentially, the inability of African dairymen to penetrate these external markets led to
them being deprived of tremendous business opportunities.
Another problem with the so-called Kaffir creameries had to do with malnutrition
and the dissemination of health services in the protectorate. It appears that most African
dairy producers, with a lack of proper knowledge of nutrition had taken to engaging in
dairy trade while they deprived their children of the essentials in milk. A lot of the milk
producers as a result of dairy restrictions chose to sell to other local Africans and even
illegally to creameries so as to earn some profit. As a result, in the 1930s, malnutrition
and diseases such as scurvy and tuberculosis were cited by the Principal Medical Officer,
Dr. Dyke as major problems in the protectorate that were caused by a lack of calcium in
347
BNARS, S. 151/2, Dairy Control Bill, Union Government and the question of Bechuanaland
Protectorate Cooperation, 28 February, 1931.
348
BNARS, S. 151/3, Dairy Control Board, Letter from Charles Rey to High Commissioner, 20 September,
1930.
124
the children’s diet.349 He held the view that the owners of indigenous creameries became
preoccupied with selling milk and ignored that they also had to eat. 350 Though he
supported the development of the dairy industry in the protectorate, Dyke encouraged the
Resident Commissioner to stress to the chiefs the need to inform their people of the
importance of reserving some milk for children’s consumption. Dr. Dyke’s task together
with the Agricultural Department was to employ the railway services to travel along as
many villages as possible checking on the health of the population though in most cases
this task was overwhelming. Considering Dr. Dyke’s 1935 report, the colonial
government agreed that it would be feasible to obtain supplies of milk and cheese at
reasonable prices and distribute to schoolchildren. Serowe was not along the railway
route, but its close proximity to Palapye allowed its school going children to benefit from
the distribution of dairy products. However, this project would see the European schools
at Serowe, Lobatse, Pitsane, Francistown and several others benefit first from this even
though they had a total of 209 pupils compared to the 4500 African pupils in other
schools.351 Because these villages lay along the railway line, it was easier for the colonial
government to transport those supplies to the school going children. Dr. J.W. Stirling,
Russell England and H.J.E. Dumbrell all agreed that it was necessary to combat
malnutrition and scurvy in the protectorate through the distribution of diary products to
school going children. These individuals felt at heart, “the intention to build up the
national health through increased consumption of dairy products by the children of school
349
BNARS, S. 428/3, Malnutrition in the Bechuanaland Protectorate – Cream Industry, Letter from Acting
Resident Commissioner, R. Reilly to High Commissioner, 3 April, 1935.
350
BNARS, S. 428/3, Malnutrition in the Bechuanaland Protectorate – Cream Industry, Dr. Dyke’s Annual
Medical and Sanitary Report - 1934.
351
BNARS, S. 428/4, Malnutrition in the Bechuanaland Protectorate – Cream Industry, Native – Danger of
developing to the detriment of native health, Notes of Conference held at Mafeking, Feb, 1936.
125
going age.”352 Evidence suggests that the problem of deficiency diseases in school going
children persisted until the late 1950s.353
It was easy for colonial officials such as H.J.E. Dumbrell, Dr. Dyke and perhaps
Sir. Charles Rey to sympathise with the Africans because they spent a significant amount
of time travelling to and from African reserves and railway towns. This allowed them the
first-hand experience of African life unlike the colonial officials at the Cape who made
decisions based on little or no experience. I do not refute the fact that the semi-arid
conditions and the persistent natural disasters that plagued Bechuanaland led to the
collapse of the dairy industry. Those were natural occurrences that could not be impeded
but the introduction and collapse of this industry was primarily caused by the negative
attitudes of some colonial officials and the uneven manner it was put in place. Many of
the African farming communities who had aimed to trade failed at this because of those
attitudes as previously mentioned. The use of the railway to aid the trade of dairy could
have proven profitable for individual Africans.
Lastly, it is worth mentioning that within the colonial government there were
some people with good intentions such as H.J.E. Dumbrell and perhaps Sir Charles Rey
who surely stood out as champions of social change in the protectorate. They deserve to
be credited for their attempts to instigate social and economic integration. However, some
historians have described Rey as a power hungry dictator whose interest was to further
the settler agenda. It might be worth mentioning that Philip Steenkamp suggests that the
development policies of Bechuanaland under Charles Rey set the foundation of what
Botswana is today. He writes:
352
Ibid
BNARS, S. 418/1/2, Milk Buying Depots in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Letter from Director of
Medical Services to the Government Secretary at Mafeking, 28 June 1955
353
126
Rey's intention was to promote a large, prosperous ‘middle’ peasantry. The fact that his
development projects instead enhanced socio-economic differentiation is evidence, not of
underdevelopment, but rather of the uneven development of capitalism in Botswana. The
development policy, along with programmes of administrative reorganization and
political reform, confirmed Botswana’s autonomy, and the Territory, until then an
imperial ‘envelope’ of heterogeneous African polities, began to assume the character of a
coherent state. The foundations for a democratic capitalist order were laid in this
period.354
Several other historians and social scientists have weighed in on this issue and have
varied opinions of Rey’s economic policy. 355 This debate around the effectiveness of
Charles Rey’s developmental policies in the protectorate during his tenure is not the
primary concern of this chapter. However, moving forward, Rey’s policies were well
known to most people and some important economic changes happened during his tenure.
These did not last because he left the post after seven years and even Steenkamp points
out that “colonial policy was therefore discontinuous and often inconsistent.” 356 As
argued in the earlier chapter, the underdevelopment of Bechuanaland was therefore a
result of its unfortunate lack of known mineral wealth so there were few efforts to
improve its local societies.
354
Philip Steenkamp, “Cinderella of the Empire? Development Policy in Bechuanaland in the 1930s,”
Journal of Southern African Studies, 17, No. 2, (June 1991): 292.
355
See for example Neil Parsons, “The Economic History of Khama's Country in Botswana, 1844-1930”, in
R. Palmer and N. Parsons (eds.), The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1977), 113-143, Jack Halpern, South Africa’s Hostages: Basutoland,
Bechuanaland and Swaziland, (Hammondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), Louis Picard, The Politics of
Development in Botswana, (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1987), see also Mogalakwe, “How Britain
Underdeveloped Bechuanaland Protectorate,” 66-88
356
Steenkamp, “Cinderella of the Empire”, 307.
127
CONCLUSION
This chapter has tried to highlight several social aspects of railways development in
eastern Bechuanaland. It has been put forward that the railway contributed significantly to
the formation of the local capitalist class through trade and attempts to access external
markets. It has also been explained that the migration of various peoples from across the
territory as well as neighbouring countries such as German South West Africa in the case
of the Herero and South Asians from as far as Gujarat was reliant upon the railway. It
was not the main reason for migration in the case of the Herero but it became
economically significant to them and other settlers of colonial Botswana. The presence of
the South Asian traders brought more significant changes to the local communities than
the colonial government itself. Through economic cooperation and spirit of togetherness,
they managed to introduce the Tswana people to modern forms of trade while bringing in
a new capitalist class. Furthermore, the railway linked small settlements, villages and
large towns such as Francistown in the north, Mahalapye in the heart of the territory and
Lobatse in the south to the rest of Southern Africa. Urbanization of these places could not
have happened without rail developments. It needs to be reiterated that the colonial
government had no formal plans for town developments and as a result people just
migrated towards these railway hubs and settled haphazardly. As Mgadla highlighted in
Lobatse, squatter camps or townships, which later became formalized wards,
mushroomed next to places where enterprise was booming because of trade along the
railway. The relative proximity to either the South African or Rhodesian borders also
seems to have influenced the pattern of urbanization.
Lastly, it has been demonstrated that the underdevelopment of the Bechuanaland
dairy industry was a result of several antagonistic ideas and actions. Its survival depended
128
on access to efficient rail transportation in order to sell produce to the Union of South
Africa and Southern Rhodesia. These were all good markets that African producers were
denied. It may not have been written explicitly but certain restrictions, which the colonial
government doctored, made it almost inaccessible for Africans.
129
CONCLUSION: THE BECHUANALAND RAILWAY AND
UNDERDEVELOPMENT
The phenomenon of underdevelopment, as demonstrated, takes various forms. The
overlap between Paul Baran, Walter Rodney and Frantz Fanon’s notions on
underdevelopment is that it is the crafting of conditions where a nation is unable to haul
itself out of a despairing situation. They all seem to suggest that the arrival of a stronger
colonising power destroyed the traditional norms and economic practices of the colonised
and created a dependency of the latter on the former. However, because Bechuanaland’s
colonisation was based on its strategic position rather than its economic potential, the
imperial process distinctive from the onset. The British government, mighty as it was, did
not have the funds to invest in the territory; they also expressly stated that they had no
interest in the desolate desert land that became Bechuanaland.
The geographical position of Bechuanaland, along the route to the north was one
of the key reasons behind its annexation by the British government. It was seen as the
passage for Cecil Rhodes’s vision of building a line of rail that connected the Cape to
Cairo. This railway of Bechuanaland became symbolic in many respects. First, it served
its intended purpose, which was to aid in the extraction of resources from Southern
Africa. In the Mineral Revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries for instance, the
railway was instrumental in the moving of large numbers of migrant workers to the mines
of South Africa and back. It has been demonstrated that there were certain constraints and
unforeseen circumstances around the adoption of rail as the mode of transportation. Like
Baran, Rodney and Fanon have argued, the use of rail for transport eroded the traditional
economic practices of the Tswana and created a dependency on the colonial government
130
for employment. There were other ecological factors that led to the migration of peoples
but all of those elements were tied to the use of rail transportation.
The emergence of a local capitalist class was also centred on the use of rail
transportation for the success of trade. The thesis has established that the arrival of South
Asians to Bechuanaland was hinged on their use of the railway for trade. In their places of
settlement, enterprise, cultural diversity and religious tolerance are held with high regard.
Their inability to trade freely was somewhat a blessing in disguise as they later
established sturdier networks with the locals within a short time of their arrival. It can
then be argued that the few developments of railway villages such as Mahalapye and
Ramotswa were done without the colonial government. There was never any fair
treatment of people, though racial tensions were not as pronounced as South Africa, there
were definitive undertones of segregation throughout the territory. In most cases the
colonial government supported these through strict and restrictive policies and
legislations. For instance, the laws that governed the movement of the South Asians and
their ownership of land led to the stunted growth of their merchant based economy. The
ambiguous colonial plans resulted in the abandonment of farming areas in eastern
Bechuanaland and the haphazard sprawling of townships near railway centres. Many
Tswana dairy farmers had hoped to be able to use the train to sell their goods to larger
markets. This would have created a self sufficient and self-reliant Tswana economy and
capitalist class. However, these hopes vanished not because the Tswana were unable to
see them through, but because the railway of Bechuanaland was meant to focus on a
narrow mining economy. All of these conditions and a colonial government that paid very
little attention to the people, led to devastating effects of underdevelopment.
131
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ARCHIVAL MATERIAL (Primary Sources)
Botswana National Archives and Records Services (BNARS)
BNARS. BNB 427, Correspondence relating to Proposed Railway Extension in the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, Sir Henry Loch to Lord Knutsford, September 19, 1891.
Enclosure No. 1, Sir Sidney Shippard to Sir Henry Loch, Cape Town, September
1891
Letter from Cecil John Rhodes to the Colonial Office, April 22, 1892.
BNARS, RC, 2/12/6, Railway between Mafeking and Bulawayo, Report by M. W. Searle,
25 November 1896
BNARS, RC. 2/12/7, Government House Dispatches, Letter from Imperial Secretary,
1897.
BNARS, HC. 149, High Commissioner Files, Letter from Resident Commissioner to
High Commissioner at the Cape, 25 January, 1899
BNARS, S. 94/1, Appointment of Railway Police in Bechuanaland Protectorate, Letter
from C.L.O.B. Dutton to the Divisional Superintendent, March 20, 1925.
BNARS. S. 7/11, “Resident commissioner report to the High Commissioner at the Cape,”
March 1927.
Letter from High Commissioner at Cape Town to Resident Commissioner at
Mafikeng, 24, March 1927.
BNARS, S. 8/7, Kaffir Cream: Inspector Reports, The economic position of the Butter
Industry in the Protectorate, 1926.
BNARS, S.100/1, Compensation for Stock Injured on the Railway, Letter from Resident
Magistrate, Serowe to G. E. Nettleton, (November, 1927).
BNARS. S. 123/1 Railway Control Legislation, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, 19261929
BNARS, S.130/11 “Mr Jousse’s interview with the Resident Commissioner at Mahalapye
during Bisley: Matters connected with the Diary Industry, 1930.
132
BNARS S. 427/9/1, Customs Agreement: Bechuanaland Protectorate – Southern
Rhodesia, Letter from C.H.A. Clarke to Resident Commissioner titled “Entering of Butter
into Southern Rhodesia, 1930.
BNARS. S. 151/3 Dairy Control Board, Letter from Charles Rey to High Commissioner,
20 September 1930.
BNARS, S. 428/3 and S.428/4, Malnutrition in Bechuanaland Protectorate,
Correspondence relating to the use of rail transport and establishment of a dairy industry
in the Protectorate, 1930 – 1943.
BNARS, S. 218/8, ‘Agriculture Dairy Industry; Reports by Dr. Thornton’, 1931.
BNARS, S. 151/2, Dairy Control Bill, Union Government and the question of
Bechuanaland Protectorate Cooperation, 28 February, 1931.
BNARS S. 204/3/1, Begging by Natives along the Railway Line and the Licensing of
Curio Sellers.
Letter from H. Cheadle on behalf of Chief Seboko to C.L.O.B. Dutton, 7 April
1931.
Letter from G. E. Nettleton to Chief Seboko, 5, August 1933
BNARS. S. 302/8 Railway Legislation, 1932
BNARS, S. 255/12/1, Colonial Government notes, Letter form Department of Animal
Health, Central Research Station. 11 August 1933.
BNARS, S. 151/16, Dairy Control Board, 14th and 15th Conferences, Payment of Butter
and Cheese Levies, Report by Stuart Bennie, 20 June 1933.
BNARS, S. 255/13, ‘Cold Storage at Francistown; De- Registration of, Agreement with
Tati Creamery Limited’, August 1935.
BNARS. S. 436/22, Labour Migration, Social, Moral, Economic and other Effects in
Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1935- 43.
BNARS, S. 428/3, Malnutrition in the Bechuanaland Protectorate – Cream Industry,
Dr. Dyke’s Annual Medical and Sanitary Report - 1934.
Letter from Acting Resident Commissioner, R. Reilly to High Commissioner, 3
April 1935.
BNARS, S. 451/1/1, “Drastic Reorganisation of Dairy Industry, “The Bulawayo
Chronicle, Saturday, February 7, 1936
133
BNARS, S. 428/4, Malnutrition in the Bechuanaland Protectorate – Cream Industry,
Native – Danger of developing to the detriment of native health, Notes of Conference
held at Mafeking, February 1936.
BNARS, S. 459/9, Education: European Children of Railway Workers in the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1936.
Letter from Director of Education, H.J.E. Dumbrell to Resident Commissioner, 21
March 1936
Letter from Resident Commissioner to H.J.E. Dumbrell, (24 April, 1936)
Letter from Department of External Affairs to Resident Commissioner, 23
September 1936
Letter from P.R. Botha to Administrative Secretary to the High Commissioner, 28
September 1936
Letter from Systems Manager of South African Railways to C.L.O.B. Dutton, 31
August, 1937
BNARS S.204/3/1, Begging by Natives along the Railway Line and the Licensing of
Curio Sellers, Letter from Government Secretary to Systems Manager of South African
Railways, (15, December, 1938).
BNARS, S.451/1/1, ‘Dairy Industry of the Bechuanaland Protectorate: E. G. Hardy’s tour
of Bechuanaland Protectorate, August 1942.
BNARS. S. 535/4, Accommodation on trains for Africans, “Minutes of the Joint Advisory
Council held in Mafikeng, (May 1953).
BNARS, S. 418/1/2, Milk Buying Depots in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Letter from
Director of Medical Services to the Government Secretary at Mafeking, 28 June 1955.
BNARS, BNB 1288, Rhodesia Railways; Historic Milestones, Dates of Main-Line and
Branch Line Construction and Change of Control, 1968, issued by the Public Relations
office of Rhodesia Railways Company.
Other Primary Material
Barnes, Leonard “The Crisis in Bechuanaland,” The Journal of the Royal African Society,
32, No. 129, (Oct. 1933): 342 – 349, http://www.jstor.org/stable/716416
SECONDARY SOURCES
134
BOOKS
Aguiar, Marian. Tracking Modernity, India’s Railway and the Culture of Mobility.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Amin, Samir. Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of
Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.
Amin, Samir. Neo-Colonialism in West Africa, (New York: Monthly Review Press,
1974).
Amin, Samir Imperialism and Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press,
1977.
Ayoola, Tokunbo A. “The Price of Modernity? Western Railroad Technology and the
1918 Influenza Pandemic in Nigeria,” In Landscape, Environment and Technology in
Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa, edited by Toyin Falola and Emily Brownwell, 148172. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2012.
Baran, Paul. The Political Economy of Growth. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957.
Baran, Paul “The Political Economy of Backwardness.” In Imperialism and
Underdevelopment: A Reader, edited by Robert Rhodes, 285 – 301. New York: Monthly
Review Press, 1970.
Bartrop, Paul R. and Jacobs, Steven Leonard. Modern Genocide: The Definitive Resource
and Document Collection Volume. Santa Barbara: ABC – Clio, 2015.
Beach, David. The Shona and their Neighbours. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994.
Benton, Lauren. Law and Colonial Cultures, Legal Regimes in World History, 1400 –
1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Berton, Pierre. The Last Spike: The Great Railway, 1881 – 1885. Toronto: Mclelland and
Stewart Limited, 1971.
Berton, Pierre. The National Dream; The Great Railway, 1871 – 188. Toronto: Pierre
Berton Enterprises Limited, 1970.
Bley, Helmut. South West Africa Under German Rule, 1894-1914. Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1971.
Bonner, Philip. “The Black Mineworkers’ Strike.” in Labour, Townships and Protest,
Studies in the Social History of the Witwatersrand, edited by Belinda Bozzoli. 273 – 297.
Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1979.
135
Brett, E. A. Colonialism and Underdevelopment in East Africa: the Politics of Economic
Change, 1919 – 1939. London, Heinemann, 1973.
Brown, Richard “Aspects of the Scramble for Matabeleland,” The Zambesian Past,
Studies in Central African History, edited by E. Stokes and Richard Brown, 69 – 93.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966.
Bryce, James. Modern Democracies Volume 1. New York: Macmillan, 1921.
Caplan, Gerald L. The Elites of Barotseland; A Political History of Zambia’s Western
Province, 1878 – 1969. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1970.
Chanaiwa, D. “African Initiatives and Resistance in Southern Africa.” In Africa Under
Colonial Domination, 1880 – 1935, edited by A. Adu Boahen, 194 – 220. California:
Heinemann/UNESCO, 1985.
Chilcote, Ronald H. Theories of Development and Underdevelopment. Boulder:
Westview Press, 1984.
Crush, Jonathan. Jeeves, Alan and Yudelman, David. South Africa’s Labour Empire; A
History of Black Migration to the Gold Mines. Boulder, Westview Press, 1991.
Dale, Richard. Botswana’s Search for Autonomy in Southern Africa. Connecticut:
Greenwood Press, 1995.
Diagne, Soulemayne. Bashir, Gordon, Lewis R. and Keita, Lansana. Philosophy and
African Development, Theory and Practice, edited by Lansana Keita. Dakar:
CODESRIA, 2011.
Disung, Sandra. Traditional Leadership and Democratisation in Southern Africa; A
Comparative Study of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Hamburg: LIT Verlang
Munster, 2002.
Dragsbaek, Johannes Schmidt and Hersh, Jacques. Introduction to Globalisation and
Social Change, edited by Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt and Jacques Hersh. 1 – 16.
London: Taylor and Francis, 2000.
Durham, Deborah. “Uncertain Citizens: Herero and the New Intercalary Subject in PostColonial Botswana.” In Post Colonial Subjectivities Africa, edited by Richard P.
Werbner. 139 - 170. London& New York: Zed Books, 2002.
Dye, Alan. Cuban Sugar in the Age of Mass Production: Technology and the Economics
of the Sugar Central, 1899-1929. California: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Erlank, Natasha. “Iron Age (Later): Southern Africa: Toutswemogala, Cattle and Political
Power.” In Encyclopaedia of African History, edited by Kevin Shillington. 702. New
York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005.
136
Erwin, Leonard Bertman. Pacific Railways and Nationalism in the Canadian American
Northwest. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968.
Etherington, Norman. Great Treks: The Transformation of Southern Africa. London:
Longman Publishers, 2001.
Fanon, Frantz. A Dying Colonialism. New York: Grove Press, 1965.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press, 1967.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Algeria, Grove Press, 1968.
Fishlow, Albert. American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante-Bellum
Economy. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Flint, John E. “Nigeria: The Colonial Experience from 1800 to 1914.” In Colonialism in
Africa, Vol. 1, The History and Politics of Colonialism, edited by L.H. Gann and Peter
Duignan. 220 – 260. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
Fogel, Robert W. Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric
History. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1964.
Fourner, Lesley T. Railway Nationalisation in Canada: The Problem of Canadian
National Railways. Toronto: Macmillan, 1935.
Friedrich, Carl J. Constitutional Government and Democracy. 2nd edition. Boston: Ginn
and Company, 1950.
Galbraith, John S. Crown and Charter: The Early Years of the British South Africa
Company. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974.
Gann, Lewis H. Central Africa: The Former British States. Englewood Cliffs: Prince Hall
Inc, 1971.
Gewald, Jan-Bart. Herero Heroes: A Socio-Political History of the Herero of Namibia,
1890 – 1923. Oxford: James Curry Ltd, 1999.
Ghosh, B. N. Dependency Theory Revisited. Farnham: Ashgate, 2001.
Good, Kenneth. “The Direction of Agricultural Development in Zambia, Zimbabwe and
Malawi.” In Studies in the Economic History of Southern Africa, Volume One; The
Frontline States, edited by Zbigniew A. Konczacki, Jane L. Parpart and Timothy M.
Shaw. 127 – 158. London, Frank Cass, 1990.
Goodwin, Stefan. Africa’s Legacies of Urbanization: Unfolding Saga of a Continent.
New York: Lexington Books, 2006.
137
Halpern, Jack. South Africa’s Hostages: Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland.
Hammondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965.
Hyden, Goran. Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania; Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured
Peasantry. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Herbst, Jeffery. States and Power in Africa, Comparative Lessons in Authority and
Control. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Hermans, H.C.L. “Botswana’ Options for Independent Existence”, in Landlocked
Countries of Africa, edited by Cervenka, Zdenek. 197 – 211. Uppsala: The Scandinavian
Institute of African Studies, 1973.
Hill, Mervyn F. Permanent Way, The Story of the Kenya and Uganda Railway.
Aylesbury: Hazell Watson and Viney LTD, 1949.
Hopkins, A. G. Globalisation in World History. London: Pimplico, 2002.
Innis, Harold Adams. A History of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Toronto: McLelland
and Stewart, LTD, 1923.
Innis, Harold Adams. The Fur Trade in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1999.
Innis, Harold Adams. “Transportation as a Factor in Canadian Economic History.” In
Essays in Canadian Economic History, edited by Mary Quayle Innis. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1956.
Innis, Harold. The Idea File of Harold Innis, edited by William Christian. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1980.
Innis, Harold Adams. The Problems of Staple Production in Canada. Toronto: Ryerson
Press Limited, 1933.
Jackson, Ashley. Botswana, 1939 – 1945: An African Country at War. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1999.
Jeeves, Alan H. Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy; The Struggle for the
Gold Mines’ Labour Supply, 1890 – 1920. Kingston, McGill-Queens University Press,
1985.
Johnstone, Frederick. Class, Race and Gold, A Study of Class Relations and Racial
Discrimination in South Africa. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976.
Kaplan, Barbara Hockey. Social Change in the Capitalist World Economy. California:
Sage Publications, 1978.
138
Katzenellenbogen, Simon. Railways and the Copper Mines of Katanga. London: Oxford
University Press, 1973.
Krikler, Jeremy. White Rising, The 1922 Racial Killing and Insurrection in South Africa.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005.
Kay, G.B. The Political Economy of Colonisation in Ghana; A Collection of Documents
and Statistics, 1900-1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Keefer, Thomas. “Philosophy of Railroads”, in Philosophy of Railroads, edited by
Michael Bliss. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972.
Keppel-Jones, Arthur. Rhodes and Rhodesia, The White Conquest of Zimbabwe, 1884 –
1902. Kingston: McGill Queens University Press, 1983.
Kerr, Ian J. “The Dark Side of the Force: Mistakes, Mismanagement, and Malfeasance in
the Early Railways of the British Indian Empire.” In Our Indian Railway, Themes in
India’s Railway History, edited by Roopa Srinivasan, Manish Tiwari and Sandeep Silas.
187 – 213. New Dehli: Foundation Books, 2006.
Kerr, Ian J. Engines of Change: The Railways that Made India. Westport: Praeger
Publishers, 2007.
Kerr, Ian J. “British Rule, Technological Change and the Revolution in Transportation
and Communication: Punjab in the Later Nineteenth Century.” In Textures of the Sikh
Past, New Historical Perspectives, edited by Tony Ballantyne. 157 – 184. New Dehli:
Oxford University Press, 2007.
Kerr, Ian J. “On the Move: Circulating Labour in Pre-Colonial, Colonial and PostColonial India.” In India’s Labouring Poor, Historical Studies, c.1600 – 2000, edited by
Rana P. Behal and Marcel Van Der Linden. 85 – 110. New Dehli: Foundation Books,
2007.
Landau, Paul. Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400-1948. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Larrain, Jorge. Theories of Development: Capitalism, Colonialism and Dependency.
London: Polity Press, 1989.
LeMahieu, Michael. Fiction of Fact and Value: The Erasure of Logical Positivism, in
American Literature, 1945 – 1975. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Leys, Colin. Underdevelopment in Kenya: The Political Economy of Neo-Colonialism,
1964-1971. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.
139
Livingstone, David Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, (London: John
Murray 1857). Quoted in Taylor, John “The Reorganization of Mine Labor Recruitment
in Southern Africa: Evidence from Botswana,” International Migration Review, Vol. 24,
No. 2, Special Issue: Labor Recruiting, Organizations in the Developing World,
(Summer, 1990): 250 - 272.
Lockhart, G. and Woodhouse, CM. Rhodes: the Colossus of Southern Africa. New York,
1963.
Lugard, Frederick D. The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. London: William
Blackwood and Sons, 1922.
Machado, Jonathan Curry. Cuban Sugar Industry: Transnational Networks and
Engineering Migrants in Mid-Nineteenth Century Cuba. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2011.
Mainga, Mutumba. Bulozi under the Luyana Kings: Political Evolution and State
Formation in Pre-Colonial Zambia, 2nd ed. Lusaka, Bookworld Publishers, 2010.
Maylam, Paul. Rhodes, the Tswana and the British: Colonialism, collaboration, and
conflict in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1885 – 1899. Greenwood Press: Westport,
Connecticut, 1980.
Mgadla, Part. “The North-East and South East,” The Birth of Botswana: A History of the
Bechuanaland Protectorate from 1910 to 1966, edited by Fred Morton and Jeff Ramsay.
134 – 146. Gaborone: Longman Botswana, 1987.
Mgadla, Part. A History of Education in the Bechuanaland Protectorate to 1965. Lanham,
University Press of America, 2002.
M.Bah, Chernoh Alpha. Neo-Colonialism in West Africa. Bloomington: iUniverse LLC,
2014.
Monson, Jamie. Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese development project changed
lives and livelihoods in Tanzania. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009.
Moore, William H. Railway Nationalisation and the Average Citizen, (Toronto:
McLelland, Goodchild ad Stewart Publishers, 1917).
Morton, Fred introduction to The Birth of Botswana: A History of the Bechuanaland
Protectorate from 1910 to 1966, edited by Fred Morton and Jeff Ramsay. 1 – 10.
Gaborone: Longman Botswana, 1987.
Moss, Todd J. African Development: Making Sense of Issues and Actors. Colorado:
Lynne Reinner Publishers Inc, 2007.
140
Mtonga, Lewis. “A Southern African Society under Stress: The Southern Tswana in the
Rinderpest Pandemic of 1896-1897.” In Communities at the Margins; Studies in Rural
Society and Migration in Southern Africa, 1890 – 1980, edited by Alan Jeeves and Owen
J. Kalinga. 11 – 40. Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2002.
Murray, Andrew. and Parsons, Neil. “The Modern Economic History of Botswana.” In
Studies in the Economic History of Southern Africa, Vol. 1, The Front-line States, edited
by Z.A. Konczacki, Jane L. Parpat and Timothy M. Shaw. 159 – 199. London, Frank
Gass, 1990.
Michell, Lewis. The Life of the Right Honourable Cecil John Rhodes, 1853-1902.
London, Bibliolife, 1910.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. “Mapping Cultural and Colonial Encounters, 1880 – 1930s.”
In Becoming Zimbabwe: A History from Pre-Colonial to 2008, edited by Brian
Raftopoulis and Alois Mlambo. 39 – 74. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2009.
Newbury, Colin. “Cecil Rhodes, De Beers and Mining Finance in South Africa: The
Business of Entrepreneurship and Imperialism.” In Mining Tycoons in the Age of Empire,
1870 – 1945: Entrepreneurship, High Finance and Territorial Expansion, edited by
Raymond E. Dummet. 85 – 108. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2009.
Nkrumah, Kwame. Neo-Colonialism, The Last Stage of Imperialism. New York:
International Publishers, 1965.
O’Connor, Anthony M. An Economic Geography of East Africa. London: G. Bell and
Sons LTD, 1966.
O’Connor, Anthony M. Economic Development of Kenya. Baltimore: John Hopkins
Press, 1963.
Oermann, Nils Ole. Mission, Church and State Relations in South West Africa under
German Rule, 1884 – 1915. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1999.
Oliver, Roland. and Atmore, Anthony. Africa Since 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1972.
Okoth, Assa. A History of Africa, Volume 1; African Societies and the Establishment of
Colonial Rule, 1800 – 1915. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 2006.
Pampallis, John. Foundations of New South Africa. Cape Town, Maskew Miller
Longman, 1991.
Parsons, Neil. “The Economic History of Khama’s Country in Botswana, 1884 – 1930,”
The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa, edited by Robin Palmer and
Neil Parsons. 113 – 143. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1977.
141
Phimister, Ian. An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890-1948: Capital
Accumulation and Class Struggle. London and New York: Longman Publishers, 1988.
Picard, Louis. The Politics of Development in Botswana. Boulder: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 1987.
Pillay, Bala. British Indians in the Transvaal, Trade, Politics and Imperial Relations,
1885 – 1906. London: Longman Publishers, 1976.
Proctor, Andre. “Class Struggle, Segregation and the City: A History of Sophiatown,
1905-1940.” In Labour, Townships and Protest, Studies in the Social History of the
Witwatersrand, edited by Belinda Bozzoli. 49 – 89. Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1979.
Ranger, Terence. “African Initiatives and Resistance in the Face of Partition and
Conquest.” In Africa Under Colonial Domination, 1880 – 1935, edited by A. Adu
Boahen. 45 – 62. California: Heinemann/UNESCO, 1985.
Ranger, Terence. Bulawayo Burning: The Social History of a Southern African City,
1893-1960. Harare: Weaver Press, 2010.
Reichart-Burikukiye, Christiane. “The Railway in Colonial East Africa; Colonial
Iconography and African Appropriation of a new Technology.” In Landscape
Environment and Technology in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa, edited by Toyin
Falola, and Emily Brownwell. 62 – 86. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2012.
Rey, Charles. Monarch of all I Survey; Bechuanaland Diaries, 1929-1937. Edited by
Michael Crowder and Neil Parsons. Gaborone: The Botswana Society, 1988.
Rotberg, Robert I. The Founder, Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1988.
Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington: Howard University
Press, 1982.
Roxborough, Ian, Theories of Underdevelopment. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1979.
Sarkin, Jeremy. Germany’s Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhem II, His General, His
Settlers, His Soldiers. Cape Town: UCT Press, 2011.
Schapera, Isaac. Migrant Labour and Tribal Life. London: Oxford University Press, 1947.
Schapera, Isaac. The Ethnic Compositions of Tswana Tribes. London School of
Economics and Political Science, 1952.
Schapera, Isaac. Married Life in an African Tribe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.
142
Schmitt, Deborah Ann. Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners. London: Greenwood
Publishing Group, 2006.
Seleti, Yonah N. “The Development of Dependent Capitalism in Portuguese Africa.” In
Studies in the Economic History of Southern Africa, Volume One; The Frontline States,
edited by Zbigniew A. Konczacki, Jane L. Parpart and Timothy M. Shaw. 30 – 74.
London, Frank Cass, 1990.
Shillington, Kevin. The Colonisation of the Southern Tswana, 1870 – 1900.
Braamfontein: Ravan Press, 1985.
Sikainga, Ahmad Alawad. City of Steel and Fire: A Social History of Atbara, Sudan’s
Railway Town, 1906-1984. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2002.
Sillery, Anthony. Founding a Protectorate: History of Bechuanaland, 1885 – 1895.
London: Mouton and Co. 1965.
Sillery Anthony. Botswana; A Short Political History. London: Methuen and Co. LTD,
1974.
Sole, Kelwyn. “Class, Continuity and Change in Black South African Literature, 1948 –
1960.” In Labour, Townships and Protest, Studies in the Social History of the
Witwatersrand, edited by Belinda Bozzoli. 143 – 182. Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1979.
Thorner, Daniel. Investment in Empire: British Railways and Steam Shipping Enterprise
in India, 1825 – 1849. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950.
Tindall, P.E.N. A History of Central Africa. London: Longman Green and Co. LTD,
1967.
Vakhrushev, Vasilii Vasil’evich. Neo-Colonialism Today. Michigan: University of
Michigan Press, 1987.
van Onselen, Charles. Studies in the Social History of the Witwatersrand, Volume One,
New Babylon. New York, Longman Group, 1982.
Vaughan, Olufemi. Chiefs, Power and Social Change: Chiefship and Modern Politics in
Botswana, 1880s – 1990s. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2003.
Wells F.A. and Wormington. W.A. Studies in Industrialisation: Nigeria and the
Cameroons. Oxford University Press, 1962.
Werbner, Richard P. Reasonable Radicals and Citizenship in Botswana; The Public
Anthropology of Kalanga Elites. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America.
New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.
143
Winstanley, George. Under Two Flags in Africa: Recollections of a British Administrator
in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1945 – 1972. Blackwater Books, 2000.
Williams, Susan. Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and his Nation. New York:
Penguin Books, 2006.
Wills, A.J. An Introduction to the History of Central Africa: Zambia, Malawi and
Zimbabwe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964.
Wolmar, Christian. Blood, Iron and Gold: How Railroads Transformed the World. New
York: Public Affairs, 2010.
Yudelman, Montague. Africans on the Land: Economic Problems in African Agricultural
Development in Southern, Central, and East Africa, with special reference to Southern
Rhodesia. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964.
Zanetti, Oscar and Garcia, Alejandro. Sugar and Railroads, A Cuban History, 1837 –
1959. Translated by Franklin W. Knight and Mary Todd. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1987.
Zeleza, Tiyambe. A Modern Economic History of Africa, Volume 1, The Nineteenth
Century. Dakar: CODESRIA, 1993.
ARTICLES AND BOOK REVIEWS
Beaulier, Scott A. “Explaining Botswana’s Success: The Critical Role of Post-Colonial
Policy.” Cato Journal 23, No. 2 (2003): 227 - 240.
Brown, Barbara. “The Impact of Male Labour Migration on Women in Botswana.”
African Affairs 82, No. 328, (1983): 367 – 388.
Burke, Edmund III. Review of The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon, The MIT
Press 105 No.1. (Winter 1976): 127 – 135.
Campbell, Alec. “Khama III, Missionaries and Old Palapye Church Building.” Botswana
Notes and Records 40 (2008): 172 - 175.
Cockerton, Camilla M. “Less a Barrier, More a Line: The Migration of Bechuanaland
Women to South Africa, 1850 – 1930.” Journal of Historical Geography, 22 No. 3
(1996): 291 – 307.
Dachs, A. J. “Rhodes’s Grasp for Bechuanaland, 1889 – 1896.” Rhodesian History, 2
(1971): 1 – 9.
144
First, Ruth. “The Gold of Migrant Labour.” Review of African Political Economy (1982):
5 – 21.
Frank, Andre Gunder. “The Development of Underdevelopment.” Monthly Review
(September 1966): 1 – 11.
Gerhart, Gail M. Review of The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon, Foreign Affairs
76 No.5 (1997): 236 – 237.
Kebonang, Boammaruri Bahumi. “The History of the Herero in Mahalapye, Central
District: 1922 – 1984.” Botswana Notes and Records 21 (January, 1989): 43 – 60.
Klein, Martin A. “African Social History.” African Studies Review 15 No.1 (1972): 97 –
112.
Landell-Mills, Peter. “Rural Incomes and Urban Wage Rates.” Botswana Notes and
Records, 2 (1970): 79 – 84.
Legassick, Martin “Bechuanaland: Road to the North.” Africa Today 1 No. 4 (April
1964): 7 – 12.
Lunn, Jon. “The Political Economy of Primary Railway Construction in the Rhodesias,
1890-1911.” The Journal of African History 33, No. 2 (1992): 239 – 254.
Maano, Utlwanang and Haron, Muhammed. “Botswana’s Muslims in the Towns of
Ramotswa and Lobatse: Their Arrival, Settlement and Current Demographics.” Journal of
Muslim Minority Affairs 31 No. 2 (June, 2011): 259 - 271.
Mafela, Lily. “Colonial Initiatives and African Response in the Establishment of the
Dairy Industry in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1930-1966.” Pula: Botswana Journal of
African Studies 13, No. 1&2 (1999): 77 – 92.
Mafela, Lily. “Botswana Women and Law. Society, Education and Migration, (c. 1840 –
c.1980), Cahiers d'Études Africaines 47, Cahier 187/188, Les femmes, le droit et lajustice
(2007): 523-566.
Makgala, Christian John. “Taxation in the Tribal Areas of the Bechuanaland Protectorate,
1899-1957”, The Journal of African History 45, No. 2 (2004): 279 – 303.
Manatsha, Boga. “The Politics of Renaming Colonial Streets in Francistown, Botswana.”
Botswana Notes and Records 44 (2012): 70 – 80.
Manungo, Kenneth R.D. “The Role of the Native Advisory Council in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate, 1919-1960.” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 13 No. 1&2,
(1999): 24 – 45.
Massey, David. “A Case of Colonial Collaboration: The Hut Tax and Migrant Labour,”
145
Botswana Notes and Records Vol. 10, (1978): 95 – 98.
Massey, David. “The Development of a Labor Reserve: The Impact of Colonial Rule on
Botswana.” Boston University African Studies Center Working Paper (Boston University:
1980).
Maundeni, Zibani. “The Evolution of the Botswana State: Pre-Colonial, Colonial and
Post-Colonial Periods.” Online Journal of African Affairs 1 No. 2 (2012): 17 – 28.
Mbohwa, Charles. “Operating A Railway System Within A Challenging Environment:
Economic History And Experiences Of Zimbabwe’s National Railways.” Journal of
Transport and Supply Chain Management, 2 No. 1. (November 2008): 25 – 40.
Mgadla, Part. “Racial Discrimination in Colonial Botswana, 1946-1965.” Southern
African Historical Journal, 66, No. 3 (2014): 486 – 503.
Mgadla, Part. “The Relevance of Tiger Kloof to Bangwato, 1904 – 1916.” Pula Botswana
Journal of African Studies, 8 No. 1, (1994): 30 – 52.
Mogalakwe, Monageng. “How Britain Underdeveloped Bechuanaland Protectorate: A
Brief Critique of the Political Economy of Botswana,” Africa Development 31 No. 1
(2006): 66 – 88.
Molosiwa, Phuthego Phuthego. “White Man’s Disease, Black Man’s Peril?: Rinderpest
and Famine in the eastern Bechuanaland Protectorate at the end of the 19th Century.”
New Contree, 71 (December, 2014): 1 – 24.
Morapedi, Wazha. “Migrant Labour and the Peasantry in the Bechuanaland Protectorate,
1930 – 1965.” Journal of Southern African Studies 25 No. 2 (1999): 197 – 214.
Murray, Colin. “Migrant Labour and the Changing Family Structure in the Rural
Periphery of Southern Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies, 6, No. 2 (1980): 139
– 156.
Newbury, Colin. “Out of the Pit: The Capital Accumulation of Cecil Rhodes.” Journal of
Imperial and Commonwealth History, 10 No. 1 (1981): 25 – 43.
Ngwenya, Barbara Ntombi. “The Development of Transport Infrastructure in the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1885-1966.” Botswana Notes and Records, 16 (January,
1984): 73 – 84.
Phimister, Ian. “Rhodes, Rhodesia and the Rand”, Journal of Southern Afr. Studies, I
(1974): Quoted in Jon Lunn, “The Political Economy of Primary Railway Construction in
the Rhodesias, 1890-1911.” The Journal of African History 33, No. 2 (1992): 239 – 254.
Phimister, Ian. “Rhodes, Rhodesia and the Rand.” Journal of Southern African Studies 1,
No. 1 (1974): 74 – 90.
146
Phoofolo, Pule. “Epidemics and Revolutions: The Rinderpest Epidemic in Late
Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa.” Past and Present, 138 (1993): 112 – 143.
Phoofolo, Pule. “Face to Face with Famine: The BaSotho and the Rinderpest, 18971899,” Journal of Southern African Studies 29 No. 2 (2003): 503 – 527.
Pirie, Gordon. “Railways and Labour Migration to the Rand Mines: Constraints and
Significance.” Journal of Southern African Studies 19 No. 4 (Dec. 1993): 713 – 730.
Pim, Alan. “The Question of the South African Protectorates,” International Affairs
(Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939 13, No. 5 (Sep-Oct. 1934): 668 – 688.
Prothero, R. Mansell. “Foreign Migrant Labour For South Africa.” International
Migration Review, 8 No. 3, International Migration in Tropical Africa (1974): 383 – 394.
Schapera, Isaac. “Labour Migration From a Bechuanaland Native Reserve: Part 1”,
Journal of the Royal African Society 32 No. 129 (October 1933): 386 – 397.
Selolwane, Onalenna. “Colonisation by Concession: Capitalist Expansion in the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1850 – 1950.” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 2,
No. 1 (Feb, 1980): 79 – 80.
Steenkamp, Philip. “Cinderella of the Empire? Development Policy in Bechuanaland in
the 1930s.” Journal of Southern African Studies 17, No. 2 (June 1991): 292 – 308.
Taylor, John. “The Reorganization of Mine Labor Recruitment in Southern Africa:
Evidence from Botswana.” International Migration Review 24, No. 2, Special Issue:
Labor Recruiting, Organizations in the Developing World (Summer, 1990): 250 – 272.
Harrington, J S. McGlashan, N.D. and Chelkowska, E.Z. “A Century of Migrant Labour
in the Mines of South Africa.” The Journal of the South African Institute of Mining and
Metallurgy (March, 2004): 65 – 71. http://www.saimm.co.za/Journal/v104n02p065.pdf
Accessed on 26 February 2016.
Vahed, Goolam. “An ‘Imagined Community’ in diaspora: Gujaratis in South Africa.”
South Asian History and Culture 1 No. 4 (2010): 615 – 629.
Walker, Eric. “The Jameson Raid.” The Cambridge Historical Journal 6 No. 3 (1940):
283 – 306.
Werbner, Richard P. “Local Adaptation and the Transformation of an Imperial
Concession in North-Eastern Botswana.” Journal of the International African Institute 41
No. 1 (Jan. 1971): 32 – 41.
Worthington, E. B. “The Lakes of Kenya and Uganda.” The Geographical Journal 79 No.
4, (April 1933): 275 – 293.
147
UNPUBLISHED SOURCES (Theses and Dissertations)
Arellano-Lopez, Fanny Sonia “The Social Construction of Trade in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate.” PhD diss., State University of New York, 2008.
Bulawa, Haskins, “The Political, Economic and Social Impact of the Railway on
Botswana, 1895 – 1970.” BA diss., University of Botswana, 1985.
Makgala, Christian John “The policy of Indirect Rule in Bechuanaland Protectorate,
1926-1957.” Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 2001.
Mgadla, Part. “The History of the Town and Area of Lobatse from Pre-Colonial times to
1965.” BA diss., University of Botswana and Swaziland, 1978.
Molosiwa, Phuthego “Illicit Trade in Botswana; The Case of Cattle Smuggling in
Kgatleng, 1920-1960.” MA thesis, University of Botswana, 2003.
Okihiro, Gary. “Hunters, Herders, Cultivators and Traders: Interaction and Change in the
Kalahari, Nineteeth Century.” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles,1976.
Quoted in John Taylor “The Reorganization of Mine Labor Recruitment in Southern
Africa: Evidence from Botswana,” International Migration Review, 24, No. 2, Special
Issue: Labor Recruiting, Organizations in the Developing World, (Summer, 1990): 250 –
272.
Parsons, Neil “Khama III, the Bangwato and the British with special reference to 1895 –
1923.” PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1973. Quoted in Haskins Bulawa, “The
Political, Economic and Social Impact of the Railway on Botswana, 1895 – 1970.” BA
diss., University of Botswana, 1985.
Spiropoulos, Lukas “The Business of Belonging: Indian Migration, Settlement and Trade
in Botswana, 1880-2012.” MA diss., Witwatersrand University, 2014.
ONLINE SOURCES
Botswana Overview, http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/botswana/overview accessed
27 February 2016.
Botswana Railways Timeline, www.botswanarailways.co.bw/timeline Accessed 28
October 2015
Strack, Don “Railroads or Southern and Central Africa,”
http://utahrails.net/articles/central-africa-railroads.php accessed 05 Feb, 2016
Kubuitsile, Lauri “Mahalapye: Ko Diponeng,” mmegi.bw, 17 August, 2007,
http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=6&aid=53&dir=2007/august/Friday17