Throughout history, criminals have always used deceptive language to con their marks. In the case of European ones who came to Southern Africa to ply their dark trade, one such word was “protectorate.”
When Europeans discovered gold at Tati (present-day Francistown) in 1866, Gammangwato territory was immediately overrun with young men from the west on their way to or from the gold fields. Bangwato’s Kgosi Macheng got as worried as to write Sir Phillip Wodenhouse, Governor of the Cape Colony, pleading with him to ensure that this influx didn’t become a law enforcement challenge. In his letter, Macheng stated that if large numbers of Europeans would come to his territory, he expected Wodenhouse to send an officer “to control them and prevent them from taking the law into their own hands.”
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