Statement by the Under Secretary of State, Baron Henry De Worms, M.P., before the British Parliament on the 6th of March 1888: –
“…A certain portion of the inhabitants of Bechuanaland known as the Bakalahari stand, or rather stood, in an ill-defined relation of dependence and servitude towards the Bechuanas proper.
According to native custom these persons can, and do, hold property of their own. Their servitude towards the Bechuanas takes the form partly of actual labour rendered, and partly of tribute paid in kind. They themselves stand in a position towards the Bushmen somewhat similar to that which they occupy towards the Bechuanas.
“The Secretary of State has laid down the following principles for the guidance of the Local Authorities on the subject: – (1) Within the British border all these people are in the eye of the law already free men. (2) He takes for granted, as far as Courts held by magistrates are concerned, that any magistrate would, as a matter of course, refuse to recognize or enforce any claim arising out of the supposed relation of master and slave, and would punish, as an infringement of personal rights, any attempt to exercise forcibly the claims of a master over a supposed slave. (3) The Local Administrator is to take every opportunity of informing Chiefs and Headmen, who exercise jurisdiction, as to the state of the law, and to warn them against recognizing or enforcing rights which are incompatible with it.”
Our last instalment looked at the role of the Ratshosa brothers, more especially Simon Rashosa, as opponents of Tshekedi Khama’s alleged autocracy. In his writings Simon did evolve a rather comprehensive critique of colonial era bogosi. But, his perspectives were largely confined at a small elitist circle.
Simon Ratshosa did, however, gain the attention of a much wider audience, both at home and abroad, when he began to publicly proclaim that the condition of Basarwa servants kept as malata by Bangwato and others was equivalent to slavery.
As slavery was against international as well as imperial law, the charge that bolata reduced Basarwa to mere property of their masters was very embarrassing to colonial administrators, who knew that it was well founded.
In 1923, for example, a Mosarwa, known to officials as “Charlie”, had taken the bold step of appealing to the Government because his Mokgalagadi master (who was himself the servant to a well-to-do Mokwena) had sold his family from him.
Other cases of murder and rape committed against Basarwa by their overlords also reached the ears of Magistrates, though prosecutions were rare notwithstanding London’s 1888 instructions on the matter.
In 1926 the High Commissioner, Earl of Athlone, toured the Protectorate reaffirming Government’s opposition to Basarwa servitude, but still nothing effective was done to enforce it. His action had in fact been motivated from London in the context of the passage of the League of Nation’s ILO Convention on Slavery.
It was not until 1932, after Simon had threatened to “astound the whole civilized world” with proof that slavery was still practised under the British flag, that officials began to seriously concern themselves. Their outward response remained one of denial. In the same year they thus released an official report denying that bolata was slavery, while also arguing that the institution was disappearing.
The report, however, failed to bury the issue. The trial of some prominent Bangwato for flogging a Mosarwa to death kept allegations of slavery in Bechuanaland alive in newspaper headlines and colonial dispatches.
Further official reports denying the existence of Basarwa slaves followed a high profile visit by a group of liberal human-rights activists (accompanied by the journalist Leonard Barnes previously referred to) who fully embraced Ratshosa’s allegations. Thereafter the London Missionary Society as well as a Government was obliged to send reports to the League of Nations in an effort to downplay the issue.
Yet, notwithstanding their denials, in 1936 the Bechuanaland authorities once more felt compelled to issue a legal proclamation affirming the abolition of slavery in the territory.
As in his other criticisms, Ratshosa’s own focus of bolata arose from his highly personalized conflict with Tshekedi. It was only after Tshekedi had freed Simon’s own malata that he took up the issue in a seeming attempt to embarrass his nemesis.
Besides Simon, there were other early voices calling for democratic change through some form of national council with real legislative authority. At the inaugural 1921 session of the Native Advisory Council (NAC) the Resident Commissioner dismissed Motswareledi-Kgosi Isang Pilane’s call for the body to be invested with genuine legislative powers through the adoption of a Constitution based on that of the African National Congress.
But the issue remained. By 1931 Drs. Silas and Sebophiwa Molema were able to present themselves before the NAC as the popular choices of the Barolong booRatshidi lekgotla. But, their appeal to both the imperialists and dikgosi to adopt this supposedly democratic practice elsewhere fell on deaf ears, as did their further calls for the creation of a two chamber council divided between Chiefs and commoners.
