History of Botswana

Early pastoral and farming peoples

For many thousands of years, people who speak Khoisan languages have been living in
Botswana. The Depression Shelter in the Tsodilo Hills has proof that the Khoisan people lived
there from about 17,000 years ago to about 1650 years ago. In the last few hundred years before
the year 0, some of the Khoi (Tshu-khwe) people in northern Botswana started herding cattle and
sheep on the grassy land that appeared when the lakes and wetlands dried up.

Bantu-speaking farmers

At the same time, people started to grow grain and speak Bantu languages as they moved south
from the Equator. Around 20 BCE, farmers were creating and using iron tools near the Zambezi
River. The first Iron Age site in Botswana is a place where iron was made, located in the
Tswapong Hills near Palapye. It was made around 190 CE and was likely used by Iron Age
farmers from the Limpopo valley. The old houses made of grass were found in Molepolole and
were built by farmers during the early Iron Age around 420 CE. Early farmers settled in the
Tsodilo Hills, next to Khoisan hunter and pastoralist sites, around 550 CE. This is west of the
Okavango delta. Archaeologists are having a hard time understanding the many rock paintings in
the Tsodilo Hills. These paintings were thought to be made by "Bushman" hunters who had no
contact with farmers or herders. The Tsodilo Hills are now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Iron Age states and chiefdoms

Around 1095 CE, a new culture started in southeastern Botswana, mainly at a place called
Moritsane hill near Gabane. The Moritsane culture is linked to the Khalagari (Kgalagadi)
chiefdoms, which are a group of people who speak Sotho (or Sotho-Tswana) and live in the
western part.

Between the 7th and 13th centuries, there were a lot of farms near Serowe, which is about 50 or
60 miles (80 or 100 km) away. The rulers who lived on Toutswe hill were in charge of this area.
The state became rich because they raised a lot of cattle. They had big pens for the cattle in the
main town and in many smaller villages on top of hills. Old cattle enclosures are spotted by the
unique grass that grows on them. The Toutswe people also hunted towards the west in the
Kalahari and traded towards the east along the Limpopo River.

The Toutswe state was taken over by the Mapungubwe state in the 13th century. But
Mapungubwe's success didn't last long, because a new state called Great Zimbabwe became
more important and took over. After Great Zimbabwe, the Butua state took over around 1450. It
was based in Khami near Bulawayo in western Zimbabwe. Butua was in charge of trading salt
and hunting dogs from the eastern Makgadikgadi Pans. They also built stone-walled command
posts around this area.

Western chiefdoms

Around the year 850, farmers from the upper Zambezi, who are ancestors of the Mbukushu and
Yei peoples, traveled to the southern and western areas as far as the Tsodilo Hills (Nqoma). The
Herero and Mbanderu people have stories passed down through generations about how they were
separated from their original Mbandu group by Tswana people who raided their cattle in the 17th
century.

Rise of Tswanadom
In the 13th and 14th centuries, some strong families started to become important among the
Tswana in the western Transvaal area. The Rolong leader's territory expanded to the west into
lands owned by the Khalagari people. The Khalagari leaders either agreed to be ruled by the
Rolong or went to live in the western part of the Kalahari.

The main Tswana families, like the Hurutshe, Kwena, and Kgatla, came from the Phofu family.
The Phofu family started in the western Transvaal area in the 16th century. In the Transvaal
region, archaeology studies have shown that after 1700, people built villages with stone walls
and big towns on hills. These states were likely fighting over who gets the most cattle,
controlling people, hunting and minerals, and controlling trade with the east coast.

Growth of Tswana states

Kwena and Hurutshe people moved and started the Ngwaketse chiefdom in southeast Botswana
with the Khalagari-Rolong by 1795. After 1750, this group of people became a strong military
government that controlled hunting, stealing cattle, and making copper in the Kalahari region, to
the west of Kanye. At the same time, more Kwena people had moved to Molepolole, and another
group of Kwena people called Ngwato settled even further north at Shoshong. Around 1795, a
group of Ngwato, known as the Tawana, had created a state near Lake Ngami in the northwest.

Times of war

Starting around 1750, people started to trade and steal ivory, cattle, and slaves further inland
from the coasts of Mozambique, the Cape Colony, and Angola. By 1800, people from the Cape
started attacking the Ngwaketse. In 1824, the Ngwaketse people were under attack from the
Kololo, who were a military group that had been forced to move northwest because of attacks
from the east. The brave Ngwaketse warrior king Makaba II was killed, but the Kololo were
driven even further north by a counterattack in 1826.

The Kololo went from Shoshong to the Boteti River and made the Tawana leave and go north.
Around 1835, the Kololo people made their home on the Chobe River and expanded their control
to the upper Zambezi. However, they were eventually defeated by their Lozi subjects in 1864.
The Kololo people were replaced by the Ndebele, who were a strong military group led by
Mzilikazi. They settled in the Butua area of western Zimbabwe in 1838-40, after defeating the
local Rozvi state.

Prosperous trading states

After the wars, the Tswana states of Ngwaketse, Kwena, Ngwato, and Tawana were
reestablished in the 1840s. The states tried to outdo each other to get more ivory and ostrich
feathers from the new roads to the Cape Colony in the south, where they were being traded. The
roads also brought Christian missionaries to Botswana, and Boer trekkers settled in the Transvaal
to the east.

The best Tswana king during this time was Sechele, who was the ruler of the Kwena people near
Molepolole from 1829 to 1892. He became friends with British traders and missionaries and was
baptized by David Livingstone. He also fought against the Boers, who were trying to capture
people escaping from Transvaal to join Sechele's state. In the late 1870s, the Kwena lost control
of trade to the Ngwato led by Khama III. His power reached to the borders of the Tawana in the
northwest, the Lozi in the north, and the Ndebele in the northeast.
British protectorate

White miners and explorers came to Botswana in 1867-69 to start digging for gold in Tati near
Francistown. The gold rush didn't last long, and the diamond mines at Kimberley in southern
Botswana became the first big industrial area in Southern Africa starting in 1871. Workers from
Botswana and other countries came to Kimberley and then went to work in the gold mines in
Transvaal.

In the 1880s, many European countries wanted to take control of land in Africa. This led to
Germany taking over South West Africa. The new German settlement was going to connect with
the independent Boer republic of the Transvaal across the Kalahari. The British in the Cape
Colony worked with the Tswana states through missionaries and trade to keep the roads in
Botswana open for British expansion towards Zimbabwe and the Zambezi River. In 1885, the
British took control over their Tswana friends and the Kalahari area up to the Ngwato. In 1890,
the control was expanded to the Tawana and the Chobe River.

The British South Africa Company took over the land in Rhodesia in 1890. They used the road
through Bechuanaland Protectorate to do this. However, the protectorate stayed under British
control, and white people were only allowed to settle in a few border areas. In 1895, a delegation
of three Tswana kings stopped an attempt to give control of the land to a company in London.
The kings had to agree to let the company build a railroad through their lands to Rhodesia.

The British government thought of the protectorate as a temporary solution until it could be
given to Rhodesia or to the new Union of South Africa after 1910. So, the main government
center was in Mafeking (also known as Mafikeng) which was actually outside the borders of the
protectorate in South Africa from 1895 to 1964. The amount of money put into growing and
managing the area was kept very low. It became just a part of South Africa, where it sent
workers and allowed trains to travel to Rhodesia. In the 1930s, there were attempts to make
changes in the government and start mining and farming. But the Tswana chiefs didn't agree with
it because they thought it would give more power to the colonizers and lead to more white
people settling in the area. The land was split into eight areas where tribes were in charge and
five areas where white settlers farmed. The rest of the land was owned by the government.
In 1950, it became clear that Bechuanaland Protectorate was controlled by South Africa's
interests. The British government stopped Seretse Khama from being the leader of the Ngwato
and made him leave Botswana for six years. This made a lot of people in Britain and the empire
argue about it. This was done to make the South African government happy because they didn't
like that Seretse Khama married a white Englishwoman. This happened when racial segregation
was being made stronger in South Africa during apartheid.

Advance to independence

In the late 1950s, it was clear that Bechuanaland couldn't be given to South Africa anymore. It
needed to become independent and self-sufficient in politics and economics. Seretse Khama's
supporters started planning political actions in 1952, and even older "tribal" leaders were feeling
a strong sense of nationalism. The Ngwato tribe agreed to start copper mining in 1959 after
negotiations. A group of people who make laws was created in 1961 after only some people were
able to vote in the entire country. The Bechuanaland People's Party started in 1960, and the
Bechuanaland Democratic Party, led by Seretse Khama, began in 1962. Later it became the
Botswana Democratic Party.

After resisting for a long time, the British started to make changes to their government in 1964
because their economy could handle it. A new government city was quickly constructed in
Gaborone. Bechuanaland started ruling itself in 1965. The BDP government, led by Seretse
Khama, won the election and took over as the leaders. In 1966, the country changed its name to
Botswana and Seretse Khama became its first president.

For the first five years after Botswana became independent, it relied on Britain to pay for running
the country and making improvements. Economic development started in 1967-71 after
diamonds were found in Orapa. The first thing that needed to happen was to talk again about the
customs union with South Africa. This way, the government could make more money from
capital imports and mineral exports, instead of getting the same amount from the customs union
no matter what. This deal was made again in 1969.