A Kora warrior, mounted and armed. Mankurwane, the Thlaping chief, attacked the Kora in 1881.
For the southern Tswana too this was a time of conflict. The Tlhaping and Rolong occupied territory north of Griqualand West, between the Vaal and Molopo rivers. After the annexation of the ZAR by the British in 1877, Montshiwa of the Rolong felt safer from ZAR aggression. But after the republic regained its independence in 1881, full-scale war broke out between the mercenaries on one side – mostly Boers from the Transvaal and a number of adventurers from Britain and other European countries – and the Tshidi- Rolong on the other. Montshiwa himself recruited British mercenaries to assist him. One of these men, Christopher Bethell, was an aristocrat with strong political connections back in England. Bethell, who took a Tswana wife, was killed in an engagement with the freebooters shortly before peace was brokered.
In 1882 Montshiwa, facing starvation, was forced to surrender to the authorities of the ZAR. He was presented with an impossible list of demands by Commandant J.P. Snyman of Marico – the cession of all Rolong land south of the Molopo and payment of £16 000 in compensation. The short-lived Republic of Goshen was established in Montshiwa’s territory in 1882. Like Goshen, Stellaland comprised mainly white former mercenaries, united under a rudimentary form of government.
To the south, the Tlhaping chief Mankurwane antagonised the Transvaalers by attacking a Kora settlement at Mamusa in 1881. The Kora enlisted the support of Transvaal ‘volunteers’, who were themselves interested in gaining a foothold on Tlhaping land, and seized the chance to come to the aid of the Kora. Expected British intervention never came and Mankurwane was forced to give up many of his farms to the Stellaland Republic in 1883. Spurred on by the humanitarian urgings of John Mackenzie of the London Missionary Society, by a growing momentum for imperial intervention in Britain in the face of Boer intervention in Griqualand West, and by German expansion from southwest Africa, the British sent an expeditionary force of 4 000 men under General Charles Warren to remove the Republics of Goshen and Stellaland.
The scene after a big hunt. As land was expropriated and taxes increased, more people, both black and white, turned to hunting. Game was exterminated in large numbers.
British Bechuanaland – an area that included these two republics – was annexed to Britain in 1885. As elsewhere, however, protection came at a cost. Only 8% of the Colony’s land was reserved for African occupation. Most of the Stellalanders’ land claims were recognised. By 1885 the Crown Colony was in debt, the ‘native reserves’ were seen as bottling up much needed labour for the Cape, and Cecil Rhodes agitated for the transference of Be chuanaland into the hands of his British South Africa Company. The Colonial Office in London approved an nexation directly to the Cape Colony in 1895, provided ‘native interests’ were guaranteed. Both Mankurwane and Montshiwa expressed reservations about annexation to the Cape, realising they would be subject to a far harsher Cape ‘native policy’.
The distinction was made almost immediately apparent. Taxes were more effectively gathered, further land was expropriated, cattle that strayed from the locations were impounded and more game was exterminated. The southern Tswana, in the face of african kingdoms: conquest and survival 173 growing impoverishment, turned to their traditional leaders. Several of them began to vent anger against local storekeepers and tear down beacons marking their reserves. Rumour and fear filled Bechuanaland.
Then in 1886 the authorities ordered the shooting of cattle to prevent the spread of rinderpest. Full-scale rebellion broke out. The eight-month Langeberg campaign was launched to wipe out any African opposition to the colonial regime. The chiefs who led the rebellion – Toto, Luka Jantjie and Galeshewe – were captured. Luka was beheaded and the others imprisoned. To the north, Montshiwa stayed out of the hostilities, but his followers were confined to smaller reserves and to the demands of the Cape government. The last remnants of southern Tswana independence effectively had been removed.
