First Contact with Botswana

[1] www.voanews.com

          Batswana, a word used to represent all citizens of Botswana(mainly referring to the Tswana). Before European contact the people of Botswana lived as farmers and herders based under each other’s tribal rules.[2]  “Between the arrival of the first European missionary among Batswana in 180 I and the writing of the above passage by the missionary Willoughby in 1905, 'Becwana' acquired 'general use' as label for a large number of people inhabiting the interior of southern Africa. Although the word 'Batswana' did not likely originate as 'white man's terminology'”  We can see by this passage, how the term may have came about and the understanding for both European and the Africa alike.  Also to note that the missionaries in Botswana identified the people of Botswana as not like other Africans or European, but a separate identity of themselves.[3]

[4]  21548675.weebly.com/

 Early Missionaries

Several missionaries early in the 1700’s began to form views in union with early Europeans who were in search of cattle and other resources to bring back to the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa.  They began settling along the Batlhaping. In 1801, with the Dutch government and several members of the Griqua, two missionaries, Jan Kok and William Edwards affiliated

with the LMS, began an  2 week long expedition in hopes of evangelizing further North. The government hopes were different than that of the missionaries, where they hoped to expand trade further North.[5]

[7]www.Mazungue.com

Bechuanaland Protectorate
 Hostilities broke out in the late 1800’s between the Shona and the Ndebele who were migrating from the Kalahari Desert and the Boers from South in Transvaal. After several appeals to the British from Khama the 3^rd and Sebele the 1^st, the Crown on the 31^st of March 1885 put Bechuanaland under its protection. The territory in the North remained under the direction of the Bechuanaland Protectorate(currently Botswana), while the Southern territory became control under the Cape Colony(currently South African Northern province)
[6]











[1] voanews.com
[2] "A Brief History of Botswana" http://africanhistory.about.com/od/botswana/p/BotswanaHist1.htm(accessed: 2-20-2016)
[3] Steven Volz "Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies vol.17 (2003) nO.1 European Missionaries and Tswana Identity in the 19th Century"(accessed:2-2-2016)
[4] 21548675.weebly.com/
[5] Volv
[6]"Bechuanaland Protectorate" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Botswana#Bechuanaland_Protectorate(accessed: 2-20-2016)
[7]www.Mazungue.com











Botswana identified the people of Botswana as not like other Africans or European, but a separate identity of themselves.