Black Prince: A Biography of Tshekedi Khama by Michael Crowder

Here, in answer to several enquiries, is all that was found of his much-heralded biography of Tshekedi Khama in Michael Crowder's papers after his death in August 1988. There was no handwritten manuscript, only the computer diskettes covering six initial chapters, which are printed out below.

These pages were printed out for Michael Crowder's literary agent and literary executor, Andrew Best of the Curtis Brown agency, who then referred them to Prof. Isaac Schapera. Schapera pointed out the unfinished nature of the project, with these chapters barely covering up to 1937, and spotted a number of minor errors. The chapters also duplicate much of the history to be found in Michael Crowder's book The Flogging of Phinehas McIntosh (Yale University Press, 1988). Unfortunately Schapera's comments were only seen by Andrew Best, and were subsequently mislaid.

The typescript is presented "as is". Some pages and paragraphs are unfinished; there are repetitions and notes and some author's personal comments such as "DEVELOP" incorporated in the unfinished text. The typescript gives a good idea of a writer in progress, with more drafts yet to go before a satisfactory draft is produced. Unfortunately, Michael Crowder did not go first make a rough draft of a whole book, but preferred to draft one section after another.

Neil Parsons, 2002

On Easter Monday, 1926, Tshekedi Khama, twenty-year-old Regent of the Bangwato ordered three of his nephews, who were brothers, to attend his kgotla or court. On arrival he peremptorily sentenced them to a flogging for disrespect and refusal to obey his commands, even though all three were some twenty years his senior. When he ordered them to take off their shirts and lie down to be thrashed, they refused to do so. Instead the eldest brother admonished Tshekedi 'Chief, according to our tribal law princes of the royal blood are never beaten. If we have done something wrong we should be fined.' At this the kgotla broke into uproar, as the enraged Bangwato, who in Tshekedi's words 'did not want to see me being despised', set about the brothers with any weapon they could lay hands on. The eldest brother was seized and beaten, but the two younger brothers escaped from the crowd and fled home. Soon afterwards they returned to the kgotla, one with a Mauser rifle, the other with a pistol, and tried to shoot Tshekedi. As they fired at him, hitting his right side above the hip, attendants tried to hustle him to safety. Resisting their ministrations he cried out: 'If I must die I will do it in my father's kgotla'.

Tshekedi had been formally installed as Regent less than three months before the attempted assassination. And so began a turbulent career during which Tshekedi was to take on royal rivals and British overlords including the most senior of these, the Dominions Secretary himself. In 1951, his protests against the exile into which he had been sent by the British Administration nearly brought down the Labour Government of the day. And when he died in a London hospital on 10 June 1959, one distinguished campaigner for colonial freedom remembered him as the 'most outstanding' of the many African leaders he mad met.

he chieftaincy that he believed they might lead to violence. For this reason he reluctantly accepted that the Administration deal with the matter rather than bring it before his kgotla. But he was at pains to insist that normally this was a matter that should be dealt with by the Chief according to Native Law and Custom.

Tshekedi Khama was revising for his matriculation examinations in the South African Native College at Fort Hare when he received a telegram that that his half-brother Sekgoma had died on 15 November 1925. The news could have been no surprise to the twenty-year old student, since Sekgoma had been gravely ill since July. But for Tshekedi, the death of his fifty-five year old half-brother who had ruled the Bangwato of the Bechuanaland Protectorate for past two years had grave implications for his plans to pursue a University career. Sekgoma's heir, Seretse, was only four years old, and Bangwato custom was that the next adult male in line of succession should act as Regent for him. As the only surviving brother of Sekgoma, Tshekedi was therefore the natural choice to guide the affairs of the largest of the eight Tswana states that had been brought under British protection at the end of the nineteenth century.

Tshekedi was very reluctant to abandon his studies. His Principal, Alexander Kerr, was anxious that he matriculate and read for his Bachelor's degree since `it would appear to me to be a mistake if he were prematurely recalled to any position of responsibility in the life of the tribe.' Tshekedi's mother, Semane, widow of Khama III who had presided over the Bangwato for fifty years before his death in 1923, was also concerned that her only son should continue with his studies and do some travelling before he took on what she well knew would be the very onerous duties of the Regency. The British Resident Commissioner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Jules Ellenberger, put no pressure on the young man either way. In the long letter he addressed to `Prince Tshekedi Khama' on 24 November he described the tense political situation in the capital following the death of his brother and told him that the Bangwato had agreed that he should act as Regent until Seretse was old enough to take on the Chieftaincy. While Tshekedi made up his mind about the Regency, Ellenberger informed him that his cousin, the one-eyed Gorewan, would act for him. Since Gorewan had shown himself a weak man, and had panicked during the disturbances that followed Sekgoma's death, the Bangwato had agreed to appoint a Council of Headmen to assist him. Should Tshekedi decide to stay at Fort Hare Gorewan and the Council would administer Gamangwato for him until he graduated.

The young prince seems to have been more concerned with revising for his matriculation examinations than coming to a decision about the Regency. It was not until the middle of the following month that he set off by train for Serowe, the capital of Gamangwato. On the way he called in to see Ellenberger at the Headquarters of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, which were situated in a special reserve in the South African town of Mafeking, fifteen miles outside the Protectorate border. Tshekedi told him that he planned to return to College, and seemed happy with the arrangements that had been made with regard to Gorewan and the Council. In turn Ellenberger assured him that when he decided `personally to take over as Acting Chief I would not object to the Council being abolished if he and the tribe desired it.'

From Mafeking Tshekedi left for Serowe. He had not spent more than two days in the troubled capital before he decided to abandon his University career and assume the Regency. He quickly appreciated that if he did not immediately grasp control of affairs in the faction ridden capital, he would never be able to do so. To the surprise of many, both Bangwato and British, the slightly built and wistful looking young man, who was only five foot five inches tall, and still had a slight stutter, showed himself to be one who made quick and firm decisions, and was not afraid to reject the advice of others whether Bangwato or British, or however important they might be. For Tshekedi it was a great wrench to have to abandon his studies, but in his eyes there was no alternative if he were to protect his young nephew's inheritance. And in protecting that inheritance he was to clash on many occasions with both the Bangwato royal family and the British Administration, whose representatives he took to task right up to the level of Whitehall and Westminster.

The birth of Tshekedi Khama on 17 September 1905 when his father was in his late sixties added a new dimension to the intense rivalries that had torn the royal family apart over the past decade. Although Khama had married three times, only his first wife, his much loved Mma Bessie, had born him a son, whom he named Sekgoma after his own father. But when Sekgoma attained his majority he proved as strong willed as his father and the two began to clash over issues affecting the administration of the state. In 1898 Sekgoma acccused his father of grooming his son-in-law, Ratshosa Motsetle, the husband of his eldest daughter Bessie, to succeeed him. Khama denied that he was contemplating such a flagrant violation of the Ngwato laws of succession which held that as his only son Sekgoma was his lawful heir. But Sekgoma continued to see Ratshosa as a rival, especially as it seemed that his imperious sister, Bessie, was determined to exploit his estrangement from their father to seek the succession for herself and her children. Khama entertained such a possibility and even threatened Sekgoma with it, though there was no precedent either for the succession of a woman to the office of kgosi or of sucession through the female line. On that occasion Khama had declared `And to you Sekgoma I swear that you will never get the chieftaincy...I must warn you that I can deny you the chieftaincy and pass it to the Ratshosas if I like.' Sekgoma's apprehensions cannot have been diminished when Ratshosa replaced him as his father's Secretary. Eventually relations between father and son became so strained that Sekgoma went into exile taking a number of followers and their cattle with him. He set himself up as an independent ruler and was recognied as such by the British administration.

At the time Sekgoma went into exile, disowned as he was by his father, there was naturally considerable concern in the morafe or nation about the succession. Khama's first two wives had died, while the third he had divorced. All his other children by them had been daughters. But his marriage in 1900 to a young new wife, Semane, gave prospect to the birth of a second son and real rival to Sekgoma. In September 1901, a year after their marriage, Semane gave birth but it was to a daughter, Victoria Bonyerile. It was not until four years later that she bore Khama the son who could, if he reached his majority before his father's death, prove a real threat to Sekgoma's chances of succession and provide a further focus for factionalism within the state.

The basis of this factionalism was the rivalry between Khama and a group of relatives led by his half-brothers, Raditladi and Mphoeng. The ostensible origin of their quarrel was over Khama's claim to be head of the Church in Gamangwato. Khama was a devout Christian, who had been converted in 1860. When he finally became ruler of Gamangwato in 1875, he had made Christianity the official religion of the state, and had given the London Missionary Society a virtual monopoly of proselytisation in his country. But he insisted that in return the missionaries should accept his authority in matters spiritual as well as temporal. In their challenge to his claim to supremacy in the Church, Raditladi and his followers were supported by the local representative of the London Missionary Society, James Hepburn, with whom Khama had recently fallen out over what Khama considered Hepburn's usurpation of his overall authority in matters affecting the state. As far as Hepburn was concerned this was a classic struggle between Church and State with Khama interfering in matters which should be the exclusive concern of the former. Raditladi and Mphoeng shared Hepburn's point of view : but the crisis between ruler and missionary presented them, as it were, with a God-given opportunity to challenge the authority of their elder brother and further their own political ambitions either to replace him or to hive off, in the classic pattern, and set up their own state. The latter proved to be the solution and the Raditladis seceded, eventually being granted land in British South Africa Company Territory. Among those who rejected Khama's authority was Mphoeng's son, Phethu, who two years before Tshekedi's birth, was among the first of the exiles to return to Gamangwato where conditions for Africans where infinitely preferable to those in Rhodesia. Meanwhile Raditladi and old Mphoeng kept up the feud with their brother.

These factions were struggling for control of what was the largest of the eight Tswana states that had been brought under British Protection in 1885 to form the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Nearly half of the two hundred thousand inhabitants of the Protectorate lived within the borders of the Bamangwato Reserve as the British designated Gamangwato. These borders stretched from the Limpopo river in the East deep into the Kalahari desert in the West. To the North the Reserve was bounded by the self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia. To the South it was bounded by the lands of the Bakgatla and of the Bakwena, from whom the Bangwato were said to have broken away under their eponymous leader, Ngwato, in the sixteenth century. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that `the people of Ngwato' moved to their present territory after Khama's father, Sekgoma I, had driven the Bakaa from the Shoshong hills in the 1840s. Like all the other Setswana-speaking peoples in the area they were cattle-keepers. They successfully survived the difiqane, the massive and bloody upheavals of the early nineteenth century in southern Africa that followed the wars of conquest led by Shaka, the Zulu king.

By the 1850s the Bangwato had established a recognisable state with its capital at Shoshong. They subjugated the various peoples living in the area, ruling them through district governors appointed by the king. Most important of all, they expanded westward into the Kalahari thirstlands where there was grazing for their cattle and plentiful game which they hunted with the aid of the Basarwa, more often known by the derogatory name of Bushmen. Demand from traders at Cape Town for ostrich feathers, ivory and skins for the European and American fashion trade brought considerable profit as did the strategic position of Shoshong astraddle the road to the North along which wagons passed from the Cape into the interior.

From the time he came to the throne in 1875 Khama set about transforming Gamangwato into a Christian state. That year was the last the bogwera or male circumcision rite was held in Gamangwato. And when Khama was installed in the kgotla as ruler of the Bangwato, it was not the priest-doctors who officiated but his missionary, James Hepburn. Thenceforth all meetings in the kgotla were preceded by Christian prayers and Khama encouraged his headmen to follow his innovation in their ward and village dikgotla. He also discouraged polygamy and did his best to restrict the practice of medicine by Bangwato priest-doctors. He did effectively neutralise their role at the national level, but he was unable to do so at the local level since the one missionary doctor could not hope to attend to everyone's needs. He forbade brewing of beer. He also outlawed the practice of giving bogadi or bridewealth for marriage.

By the time of Tshekedi's birth the Ngwato state was formally a Christian one presided over by a monarch who enjoyed an international reputation as `one of those miracles of modern mission work.' Contemporary photographs of Serowe, the new capital to which the Bangwato moved in 1902 and in which Tshekedi was born, show a society that had adopted European dress almost to a man, the richer of them wearing dark suits with their women in bustles and black bombazines. The ruling classes sent their children to the local mission school while the wealthier among them arranged for the further education of their sons in mission schools in South Africa. Sekgoma, for instance, had been sent by his father to Lovedale, the Church of Scotland school for Africans in the Eastern Cape, to which Tshekedi was to be sent later. The social changes brought about the Khama's conversion of the state to Christianity were profound and were to be a formative influence on the young Tshekedi who was to be unswerving supporter of the London Missionary Society throughout his Regency. The political and economic changes that took place in the first years of Khama's rule were no less profound.

Tshekedi was born in his father's lolapwa or compound in the new capital. This was built in Tswana style, like the houses of every other Mongwato in Serowe, and consisted of a group of rondavels with thatched roofs enclosed within a stout fence of wooden poles. It was distinguished from other houses only by its size, the quality of its construction and its central position in the capital close to the kgotla at the foot of the Serowe hill. The only European-style houses in Serowe at that time belonged to the small group of white traders and the missionary. Later Khama was to build himself an imposing brick house, but Tshekedi's early childhood was passed in surroundings little different from those of a child of any other important Tswana family.

Serowe itself sprawled on open but undulating ground to the west of the twin Tswaneng hills, known as Rra and Mma, Sir and Madam. The kgotla was sited beneath a rocky outcrop, and the buildings of the mission station and church clustered round huge granite boulders. The kgotla, a wide open space fenced round with poles, was the focal point of life for the fifteen or so thousand inhabitants of the capital. There at dawn every morning Khama dispensed justice, fining miscreants or in cases of serious crimes sentencing offenders to a flogging. There, too, he dealt with disputes that could not be settled in the dikgotla of the headmen in the wards of the capital and the outlying districts or heard appeals against their judgements. It was in Khama's kgotla, too that administrative and political decisions affecting the state were made, with royal headmen and commoner alike allowed to express their opinion on the matter in hand.

Khama, now in his late sixties, was preoccupied with his work in the kgotla, his relations with the British administration, and the management of his extensive herds of cattle. He can have had little time for his small son. He must have seemed to Tshekedi more like a grandfather than a father, kindly and considerate, but of a totally different generation from Semane. That he was entirely devoted to his new son was made clear when he wrote a will in 19O7 disinheriting Sekgoma and making Tshekedi heir to what in its time was a major fortune largely vested in cattle. He did not, however, formally declare Tshekedi heir to the kingship or chieftaincy as the colonial rulers now designated it. Whether Khama liked it or not, Sekgoma was the legitimate heir, and there was little he could do to change the fact. For the Tswana kgosi is born, he is not chosen nor is he elected. Nevertheless, Sekgoma's position was not improved in January 1909, when semane gave birth to a second son, Ewetse, a sickly child who soon died.

For Tshekedi, day to day contact was with his mother and his sister, both of whom he adored. His mother brought him up much as any early Edwardian child of the upper classes in England would have been at the time. He may have been a prince but no special treatment was accorded him. As Bonyerile was later to recall, their mother believed in those old-fashioned virtues of `early to bed and early to rise' and `spare the rod and spoil the child'. Semane must certainly have instilled something of the Protestant work ethic in her young son, for though according to Bonyerile he disliked going to school, he became in his twenties what a later generation would describe as a workaholic and constantly sought further to educate himself through an amazingly wide range of books.

Although he was Khama's son, he does not seem to have set himself apart from his peers either at the local primary school or on the playing field. Those who remember him as a child all concur that he mixed freely with other boys of his age and was particularly good at football. They all recall his energy and especially that early love of cattle that was to dominate his later life. He would put his hands to anything and hated to fail in any task he set himself. Despite his humility, he early on showed qualities of leadership. But he did have a terrible handicap for one who would one day become a royal headman, if not chief, with the principal task of presiding over his kgotla. He stammered so badly that his fellow students never believed he would get over it. This stammering contributed to his shyness, which he combined with a politeness that rarely left him in his relations with his fellow men, senior or junior to him. In short he was indoctrinated with both the Christian and traditional Tswana virtues that held however important or wealthy a man might be, he should treat his fellow beings with unfailing courtesy.

Tshekedi was sent to the kgotla school founded by his father and sometimes known as the Serowe Public School. Tshekedi was seven years old at the time, starting school comparatively early in the context of a society that often did not send its children to school until they were ten or eleven. The school was run by Tsoegang Sebina, the first Mongwato teacher and cousin of Tshekedi's closest friend and adviser in later years, Peter Sebina. One of Tshekedi's teachers was Simon Ratshosa, son of Ratshosa Motswetle and Tshekedi's late half-sister, Bessie. Most weekends he spent at one or other of his father's cattle-posts helping herd his cattle. There he joined the Basarwa herdboys, eating and, as he was later to recall, sleeping with them and sharing the same blanket. From these Basarwa he must have also learnt some of his considerable skills as a hunter.

In 1916, Khama nearly died after falling from his horse and breaking his leg. When Sekgoma heard that his father was gravely ill, he came to visit him on his sickbed and the two effected a reconciliation that survived Khama's recovery, though Sekgoma continued to live in his place of exile. While Khama did not formally announce to the British administration that he and his son had become reconciled, the Resident Magistrate at Serowe reported to the Resident Commissioner that the two had resumed friendly relations. Nor did Khama alter his will in his elder son's favour.

It was not until he was eleven, then, that Tshekedi met his elder half-brother. A year later he was sent away to school at Lovedale, and can have thus seen little of Sekgoma, who was nevertheless said to have bcome fond of his young half-brother.

Tshekedi was accompanied on the journey to Lovedale by Peter Sebina. There they joined a number of other Batswana students, including his distant relative, Bathoen II, the young heir to the Bangwaketse throne, with whom he developed a life-long friendship. The majority of students came from South Africa. There were, however, other children from the High Commission Territories. Among these the most notable was Sobhuza II, the young King of the Swazi. Z.K. Matthews, the South African pupil teacher at Lovedale, who later came to the forefront of African nationalist politics in his country, had a grandfather who came from Serowe. He was to become a close friend, correspondent and mentor of Tshekedi. Z.K., as he was popularly known, recalled later that of the many young African chiefs at Lovedale `Tshekedi was the most impressive of them all. He was intelligent, quiet, modest of his behaviour, always neat and tidy, always a master of himself and of any situation in which he happened to be.'

Not long after Tshekedi got to Lovedale there was an outbreak of typhus in a neighbouring village. News of this got to Khama who decided to withdraw his son and other Bangwato students there despite assurances from the Principal that there was `no occasion at all for sending the pupils home'. Khama was not convinced and Tshekedi and the other Bangwato boys returned to Serowe to the regret of one of the teachers, Dr. Alex Roberts, who wrote to Khama that it had been a long time since I have had students so diligent and so quick as your children'. Henderson, the Principal, was furious that Khama had ignored his advice and informed him that it had been decided that none of the pupils who had been withdrawn should be allowed to return, though if they did so within a week an exception might be made. This concession did `not apply to Sebina, who will not be received back on any condition'. He regretted that if the pupils did not return this would be the end of the long connection between Khama and Lovedale. Khama wrote a pained letter in reply, stating that his primary concern was for the children's safety and that in his opinion the village where typhus had broken out was `a bit too near for safety'. Once Henderson let him know that the area was free from typhoid fever, then he would send the pupils back. Henderson relented and Tshekedi returned to his studies.

At Lovedale Tshekedi was smaller than many of the boys of his age. He still stammered terribly especially when angry and sometimes could not even utter a word. Before sending his son to Lovedale, Khama had recalled a Tswana proverb for him: `Tlou fha utodile molape ke tlotswana' - `when an elephant has crossed a river it is smaller' - suggesting that while he was away from home he was no longer of particular importance among his fellows. But when the students rioted in August 1921 against the poor food they were receiving at Lovedale, Tshekedi reluctantly gave his support to his fellow Batswana, saying `as the son of a brave chief and leader of a big tribe he would be regarded as a coward who left his people in trouble and he himself remained free'. The riot was so violent that the school was closed down. Some students were arrested by the police, sent for trial and fined. But Tshekedi was just expelled. Khama was furious with his son but he did not neglect his education therafter, sending him to study privately under Mrs. Clark, the former Miss Johnston, who had taught for the L.M.S.,and to whom Tshekedi was later to entrust his nephew Seretse's early education. Her school, where Tshekedi was a boarder, was at Moijabane on the edge of the Kalahari, a day's journey by wagon from Serowe. For Tshekedi this was tantamount to exile and he did not see his father for a year.

While he was away at Lovedale a momentous development had taken place in the politics of the morafe. In 1920, Khama called a pitso or general assembly of the people at which he formally presented Sekgoma to his people as his heir. Then on 18 August of the same year Khama formally introduced Sekgoma to the Resident Commissioner, Sir James Macgregor, as his rightful heir. Sir James reported this to Prince Arthur of Connaught, the Governor-General of South Africa, to whom in his capacity of High Commissioner for the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Basutoland and Swaziland, he was directly responsible. `I was never in any doubt about the succession, as that, in the last resort, is always decided by the people the bulk of whom would surely support the heir; but if the Chief had died before having taken the action I am now reporting, a good deal of trouble and bickering which might well have serious consequences would have been inevitable', he wrote to the Prince. He also informed him that Khama and Sekgoma were on their way to Cape Town to see him for the same purpose.

Then one month before he returned to Serowe from Lovedale a development of even greater import for Tshekedi took place. On 1 July 1921 Tebogo, the young third wife of Sekgoma, gave birth to his first legitimate son, Seretse. Khama was so delighted that he presented the infant to the kgotla declaring : `Your king has been born'. In May 1922 Sekgoma and his followers settled back in Serowe. The reconciliation was complete. Tshekedi, now fifteen years old, was thus removed from the immediate burden of having to succeed to the kingship. His elder brother was fully restored to his father's favour and formally acknowledged as his successor with the infant Seretse proclaimed his successor in his turn.

During his holidays from Mrs. Clark's school, Tshekedi no doubt accompanied his father on some of his tours of inspection of his cattle posts, just as later his own children were to accompany him. The elderly Khama was an indefatigable horse rider, even in his eighties, and used his frequent visits to his cattle posts which were strung along the borders of his sparsely populated territory to supervise his district governors in their work and keep an eye generally on the affairs of a domain the size of Holland. We cannot be sure which of Khama's cattle posts Tshekedi visited, but it is certain that he rode with him along the Tswapong hills to Moeng, due East of Serowe, where Khama had an orange grove. For Tshekedi Moeng, set in a bowl of hills, lush with grass and well watered by a stream, in stark contrast to Khama's cattle posts on the edge of the Kalahari, was the corner of Gamangwato that he most loved. In later years he was to realise his greatest dream, the building of a National College there for his people which would be the equal of Lovedale. NO DOUBT TALKED OF ENGLAND - MODEL FOR TK

It was not until he was eighteen that Tshekedi went back to formal schooling, when on February 14 1923 he boarded the train at Palapye Road station and set off in a specially reserved second class coach for Alice to attend the South African Native College at Fort Hare, near Lovedale. Travelling with him as scholar attendants were the two sons of Headman Leburu.

Just over a week after his arrival in Fort Hare, Tshekedi received the news that his father was dead. Khama had caught a chill as a result of being drenched in a downpour while on a long distance ride. On the 16 February he began to have stomach pains which were put down to gastritis. No great importance was attached to this. But on the eighteenth his heart began to give him trouble. Two European doctors attended him and from Sunday onwards his collapse became rapid. He passed away peacefully at 7.45 in the morning of the 21 February. There was some discussion as to how the venerable chief should be buried. Traditionalists argued that he should be buried in the royal cattle kraal next to the kgotla itself. In the end he was buried in neither fashion, but appropriately for one who had been a great innovator a grave was hewn out of the solid rock of the hill overlooking the kgotla, while plans were made to erect a monument fitting for a king who had reigned over the Bangwato for nearly half a century and had brought to them an international fame that many African peoples much larger in population did not enjoy. Sir James Macgregor, the Resident Commissioner, attended the funeral and concluded his speech with a warning to the new ruler, Sekgoma: `He who remains with the orphans should never get angry'. This of course, as he explained in his report to Prince Arthur, was an allusion to Sekgoma's step-mother, Semane, and her young children, `who as far as I have yet been able to gather, are left dependent on his bounty'.

As it was, Sekgoma II treated his step-mother and half-brother well. Indeed he seems to have been fond of Semane, whom along of his close women relatives he allowed to nurse him during his later illness, while he encouraged Tshekedi to continue his studies at Fort Hare. In any case Khama had provided handsomely for both his children by Semane. He had set up a fixed deposit account for Tshekedi which was worth the considerable sum for those days of £2957.19.Od., while Bonyerile's was worth £999.l.6d., again a handsome sum especially for women who before Khama changed the law did not inherit from their fathers. Semane herself received between two and three thousand pounds as well as eight cattle posts according to Sekgoma. The will Khama wrote in 1907 was not executed. Had it been Tshekedi would have become a very wealthy young man indeed. When the will was brought to Sekgoma's attention in 1924 he stated that it had been verbally amended by Khama in kgotla when he allotted his cattle and horses to his elder son. As far as the new Resident Commissioner, Jules Ellenberger, who had been brought up in Basutoland and spoke fluent Setswana, was concerned the matter appeared to be one for the Chief and Tribe to deal with. Traditionally, all the property of the king devolved on his heir and the cattle he owned were essentially part of a royal herd that passed to his successor rather than personal property that could be disposed of as the monarch liked. But one of the major changes that the penetration of Gamangwato by the capitalist economy had brought about was in attitudes towards private property and its disposition. Khama had accumulated a great deal of wealth for himself as distinct from the state and for some time had backed a trading company to compete with the largest European trading company, the B.S.A. Co until the Administration, under pressure from the latter, deemed it improper for the ruler of the Bangwato to be involved in trade. The issue of the will was not entirely resolved by Sekgoma before his death, but it was to prove a bitter legacy twenty-five years afterwards when Seretse took his uncle to court over the ownership of Khama's herds.

Tshekedi returned home to Serowe in time for the funeral of his father and spent some days there comforting his mother and his sister. He had lost a father to whom he had not been particularly close because of the great difference in their age and the heavy burdens of state the old man carried until his death, but whose life had been an inspiration to him and whose example would influence him throughout his regency. Whenever he was in doubt as to what he should do he would ask himself what his father would have done in similar circumstances. He became as a result a student of the history of his father's life and times. Mary Benson tells the story that when women began to wail in the traditional fashion at his father's funeral, Tshekedi told them to stop for he knew that at the funeral of his twins Khama had similarly reproved people: `God has given and God has taken away and you must be quiet'.

Tshekedi was away at Fort Hare pursuing his studies when Sekgoma was formally installed as Chief of the Bangwato. Sekgoma had, however, been effectively recognised as Chief by his people from the time of his father's death. His appointment nevertheless had to be ratified by the British authorities. Accordingly, Sekgoma's installation on 19 April was carried out by his Uncle Mphoeng, assisted by his cousins,including Gorewan and Phethu, in the presence of Sir James Macgregor, the Resident Commissioner. Sekgoma cut a regal figure, being tall like his father though much more heavily built. He was fifty-four years old and apparently in good health. There was no reason for his people to anticipate anything but a long reign.

The first months of Sekgoma's reign passed peacefully and he proved a popular monarch with both his people and the British administration. The local European traders held him in their affection too, but not so the missionaries, who found him less fervent a Christian than his father and less supportive of their interests. Indeed in an LMS sponsored biography of Khama by John Charles Harris, Sekgoma had been described as `weak in character, easy-going in disposition'. Harris had gone on to write that `his lack of strong principle has been a great grief to his father, while his moral laxity has been a scandal in the tribe... those who know him best are most apprehensive for the future of the tribe under his chieftainship'. Sekgoma had been deeply offended by these remarks and, not surprisingly, instead of using the local missionary as his chief adviser as his father had done, he kept his distance from him. Even despite his anger with the missionaries, all seemed set for a peaceful reign. And in 1924 his succession was doubly secured with the birth of a second son, Botswaletse, to his Queen, Tebogo. Tshekedi, still away at Fort Hare, was now third in line of sucession to the throne.

Unfortunately Sekgoma, who was much less assiduous in his duties than Khama had been, left much of the business of state in the hands of the capable Ratshosa brothers a factor that was to cause yet another great rift in the royal family and have a dolorous influence on the early years of Tshekedi's regency. Sekgoma confirmed the eldest Ratshosa brother, Johnny, as his Tribal Secretary, while Simon, his son-in-law and now headmaster of the Khama Memorial School, as the Serowe Public School had been renamed in a curiously anticipatory way in 1922, was in and out of his house and often helped with state papers. With the youngest Ratshosa brother, Obeditse, acting as `native clerk' and interpreter for the Resident Magistrate and therefore the principal intermediary between the British and Bangwato administrations, the Ratshosas had entrenched themselves in key positions of power in the Ngwato state. They also profited from their position as royal advisers and relatives to amass cattle and build fine European style houses which were lavishly furnished. It was little wonder then that they became the object of resentment, especially on the part of members of the royal family who were closely related to Sekgoma but felt themselves cut off from their traditional role as advisers to their ruler. One who felt most bitter at the monopoly of power acquired by the Ratshosas, was Phethu Mphoeng.

Phethu, like the Ratshosas, had married into the immediate royal family, when he took Khama's daughter Millie as his wife in 1911. Khama had made him governor of the important district of Mmadinare. When Sekgoma succeeded to the throne, Mphoeng understandably `stood in dread of losing the assurance of patronage on Khama's death'. His apprehensions were fully justified when Sekgoma, at the instigation of the Ratshosas, accused Phethu and his younger brother, Oteng, as well as two other cousins, Lebang and Keletlokhile Raditladi, of plotting to assassinate him while he was going to the bioscope as cinemas were known. He further accused Phethu of trying to kill him through witchcraft.

Back in Serowe the Ratshosas consolidated their power in such a way that even Sekgoma began to resent their all-pervading influence. Though Sekgoma had been sent to Lovedale by his father, he had done little more there than learn to speak English and to read and write a little. But as Chief he was impatient with paper work and left this to Johnnie. Simon also had had access to his father-in-law's papers, which were kept in his brother's house, and helped with the secretarial work involved in running Gamangwato. The growing tension between Sekgoma and the Ratshosas came into the open when Phethu sought, in Sekgoma's own words, `to come and give in'. Phethu had met Simon at Francistown, a modern settlement in the Tati District just outside the Bamangwato Reserve. There he told him of his desire to make peace with Sekgoma. According to reports Sekgoma had received - no doubt from Phethu - Simon asked Phethu why he did not go to Serowe anyway since no one would stop him as `there is no chief in Serowe'. Sekgoma also advised the Resident Magistrate that he could no longer trust Johnnie as an interpreter and that letters should not be sent through Obeditse since `John, Simon and Obeditse are one thing'.

Phethu was forgiven by Sekgoma who was now clear that the Ratshosas were at the bottom of his trouble with his cousins. `When trouble does begin it will be through the Ratshosas (sic)', he wrote to the Resident Commissioner prophetically. In particular he denounced his son-in-law, Simon, who `is in the habit of reviling me to the people wherever he goes and wherever he writes to them from...' Phethu duly made submission to Sekgoma and promised among other things not to brew beer and to come whenever Sekgoma sent for him.

For the Administration this was as a matter of great concern, as it was for the morafe since Seretse, Sekgoma's heir, was only four years old while Tshekedi, who would normally act as regent for him as the adult male closest in line of succession to him, was only nineteen and away at Fort Hare. For the next two months, therefore, doctors were in constant attendance on Sekgoma, doing their utmost to keep him alive. They diagnosed that he was suffering not from Jacksonian epilepsy but from grand mal, complicated by an acute urethral stricture that was of gonococcal origin. They dismissed ideas that he might be suffering from cerebral syphilis and this was confirmed for them by the negative reaction of his Wassermann test. Above all they felt he needed a rest from his administrative duties and family worries. He had been particularly burdened by the arrangements for the recent visit of the Prince of Wales.

Worst of all the effect of the bromide with which Sekgoma was being treated dulled his brain and led to mental confusion and amnesia. There was considerable relief among the British administration and some of his headmen when he agreed to go to Cape Town for treatment and a rest. He left on 9 September accompanied by Dr. Drew. Meanwhile in Serowe, concern about the health of their ruler had led to divisions among both the headmen and the people. The majority believed that the only explanation for the illness was that Sekgoma had been bewitched, for traditionally the Batswana attributed illness and misfortune to witchcraft - as Tshekedi was to confirm shortly after he came to power when he protested to the High Commissioner about the recently introduced Witchcraft Proclamation. Though the attitude of the Tswana to medicine was an eclectic one and whichever available method of treatment proved successful was accepted, Western medicine was not proving effective as far as the Chief was concerned and there was a growing feeling that he should be treated by the dingaka or priest-doctors. His immediate family, in particular his daughter and son-in-law, as well as his step-mother Semane, who nursed him for most of his illness, were adamant that he should continue to be treated exclusively by the British doctors. Matters only came to a head when he returned from Cape Town where the doctors had failed to get him to appreciate the pain and lengthy recuperation that would be involved in an operation to relieve his urethral stricture. They were also very frightened that he might die on the operating table. This would prove a major setback for Western medicine in the eyes of the common people in Serowe, and embarrass the Administration which had given full backing to treatment of the Chief by Western doctors. Though the Resident Commissioner was prepared to take the political risk of an operation on the Chief in Cape Town he wanted the onus for the decision to be placed on the Headmen attending him and also his daughter and son-in-law who had travelled from Serowe to his bedside in Cape Town. Oratile, however, expressed the wish that her father return to Serowe and be operated upon there. So he set off by train for Serowe accompanied by two European male nurses and Dr. Drew.

The British were by now becoming convinced that Sekgoma would never be able to resume his duties as Chief. Simon seemed both to share this view and be preparing the ground for the power struggle that must ensue on Sekgoma's death or abdication. Before he left for Cape Town he had written an article for the Johannesburg Star undermining the position of his uncle-in-law, the one-eyed Gorewan, who had been acting for Sekgoma during his absence. `Khama's country, the only portion of South Africa that knew complete prohibition, has reverted to the debauchery of beer-drinking', he declared.

Factions in the Tribe now began to jockey for power as it seemed their Chief might not live. Some said he was being bewitched, others said the European doctors were trying to kill him. In the circumstances the Administration agreed with Dr. Drew's suggestion that Sekgoma be asked to abdicate. Apart from the fact that it seemed that he was now permanently deranged, abdication would put an end to the scheming in the royal family. This was also the view taken by Semane, whose enemies believed she was poisoning Sekgoma so that Tshekedi might succeed him. The immediate question was, of course, who would act as regent for Seretse if Sekgoma did agree to abdicate? In a lucid moment Sekgoma had told Major Hannay that if anything happened to him he would like Tshekedi to act for him. `I do not want to force him on the tribe', the Resident Commissioner wrote to the High Commissioner, `but I think it will be generally admitted by the headmen and people that in the circumstances he is the proper person to take charge of the tribe'.

There were others interested in the Regency, however. Oratile, no doubt urged on by her husband and anxious to keep power in her own house rather than let it go to that of her step-mother during the minority of her half-brother, Seretse, asked her father to name her as his immediate successor. This he refused to do. Similarly, Baboni, his half-sister, pressed the claim of his illegitimate son, Gasetshware, to succeed him. This again he rejected. It looked, then, as though Tshekedi would soon have to take over control of tribal affairs.

The Tribe was not yet convinced that Sekgoma was dying or irretrievably insane or indeed that he could not be cured. Epilepsy was not viewed with the dread it was amongst some African peoples. It was believed that it could be treated and its cause was ascribed to a pigeon in the victim's head which produced the fits. Dingaka claimed to be able to remove the cause of the epilepsy. Thus early in the morning of Thursday 29 October a kgotla was held in the presence of Major Hannay, Dr. Drew and the local missionary, Rev.R. Haydon Lewis. Some eight to nine hundred men were present along with many headmen. The business before them was the treatment of their ruler. Despite the Magistrate's warning that` if anything happens while under the treatment of the Witch Doctor, you and your alone, Gamangwato, will be to blame', the majority of headmen urged tratment of their chief by the dingaka.

When the Magistrate concluded the kgotla by calling on all those in favour of treating the Chief by traditional medicine to step back, only the Ratshosas, Acting Chief Gorewan and a few other headmen held their ground. They were later referred to in the Cape Argus as `the fearless and enlightened eight who strongly opposed the replacing of the European doctor's services by those of the native medical men'. For their part the Ratshosas had merely increased their unpopularity within the Tribe while Phethu, who had backed the traditional doctors, conversely increased his influence.

Under the treatment of the Native Doctors Sekgoma appeared to make a rapid recovery and the decision to ask him to abdicate was put into suspension. Only four days earlier Dr. Drew had recommended that he be certified insane. Now he was attending to his duties, and was even having letters written for his signature up until the 10 October. Resident Commissioner Ellenberger attributed the sudden improvement to the fact that the `use of a native doctor to remove any spell which Sekgoma might think had been cast over him through witchcraft would naturally relieve his mind and this would produce a change for the better in his condition but it is very doubtful that such a change will be of a permanent character'. Ellenberger and Drew were soon proved correct in their prognostications. On Friday 13, after nearly two weeks of treatment by Native Doctors, Sekgoma sent for Rev. Lewis, with whom he had mended relations. Lewis found him 'prostrate and in the condition in which he was before his visit to the Cape'.

Despite the departure of the European nursing orderlies, Semane had continued to attend Sekgoma, though according to Lewis the traditional doctors had made her life a misery. Sekgoma asked the missionary for medicine, which he gave him. But after he had left, the traditional doctors returned. But the next afternoon Sekgoma took a turn for the worse, sent the traditional doctors away and called for Lewis and Dr. Drew. They arrived to find him in a critical condition. His kidneys had ceased to function and he suffered a further series of fits. At 2.45 the next morning, a Sunday, some Headmen called in Dr. Drew, who asked them why they did not send for their own doctor. They did not reply. Drew nevertheless went with them and found the Chief having a fit. From then on until 11.40 a.m. he had one fit after another in rapid succession. Finally he died attended in his last hours by the practitioner of western medicine.

The word went out almost immediately that the Whitemen had killed the Chief. The distraught Bangwato punched, shoved and cursed Dr. Drew and Rev. Lewis. Neither was in fact hurt. Gorewan, whom they threatened with his life, fled to the police camp for protection. Semane who had so conscientiously nursed Sekgoma even though she stood most to gain by his death, was openly accused of poisoning him and her house was attacked. The Ratshosas helped save her from the wrath of the hysterical women, led by Sekgoma's sisters Baboni and Mmakhama, who were bitter that she had prevented them from seeing their brother while she was nursing him. The Ratshosas' efforts on Semane's behalf only served to increase resentment against them for, as proponents of the treatment of their Chief by Western Doctors, they were also objects of the vengeance of a mob that had clearly been little affected by Khama's hostility to dingaka. They escaped it only by firing rifles above the crowd's head when their house was attacked. Worse violence was averted by a downpour of rain and Semane was able to take refuge in the mission with the Lewis's. Thereafter, Captain Neale, the Resident Magistrate, who had only just returned to duty, restored order. Meanwhile Resident Commissioner Ellenberger, alerted about the situation by telegram, set off from his headquarters at Mafeking for Serowe to sort out the problem of who would act as Regent for the infant Seretse. He also sent a telegram to the Principal of Fort Hare asking him to advise Tshekedi of his brother's death.

Despite the attacks on him, Dr. Drew had managed to make the necessary arrangements to preserve Sekgoma's body until the funeral. Early in the morning of Tuesday 17 November, after a service in the LMS Church, he was buried alongside his father. The mourners numbered some two to three thousand. In the afternoon, the Resident Commissioner accompanied the frightened Gorewan into the kgotla. There he asked the people whom they looked on as their Chief. They `unanimously declared that, by virtue of his birth and rank, Gorewan was the proper person to lead them until Khama's son, Tshekedi, could take over from him and until Sekgoma's son .... could himself occupy the Chief's chair'. Because the Resident Commissioner and indeed many of the headmen considered Gorewan a weak man - a weakness he had so patently demonstrated in the hours of crisis following Sekgoma's death - he proposed that a Council be formed by the best men of the tribe to assist him. This would be responsible to Government for the management of Tribal affairs and the maintenance of peace and good order in the Tribe 'until Tshekedi could assume duty as Regent'. The twelve members of the council included the two elder Ratshosa brothers as well as Phethu Mphoeng. On 24th November, Ellenberger wrote formally to Tshekedi at Fort Hare, giving him a full account of events in Serowe and informing him that the Tribe wanted him to act as Chief. Meanwhile Gorewan, assisted by the Council, was occupying the Chief's chair until his arrival.

Tshekedi had not proved a particularly brilliant scholar at Fort Hare. His final `Report on Progress and Proficiency' for his Matriculation Year issued in December 1925 had him failing History, Latin, Mathematics and Science with a `Good' in English and a `Very Good' in Bantu Languages. He had, even so, impressed Kerr as a student who was `sincere and I believe absolutely single-minded in the performance of his duty ... modest and gentle of speech. But that will not in the eyes of the discriminating observer mislead as to the firmness of character beneath'.

Back in the capital the two factions awaited his arrival with apprehension, both determined to be the first to secure his ear. Simon Ratshosa set off to welcome him at Palapye Road, the station where passengers for Serowe normally alighted before taking a horse, a car or ox-drawn transport to complete the twenty-five mile journey. Phethu and his collaborators had been more cunning. They had sent Headman Golekanye as an emissary, or as he later described himself, `spy', to Mafeking to escort Tshekedi to Serowe and, as the Ratshosas were convinced, to poison his mind against them. Golekanye was to make sure Tshekedi got off the train at Mahalapye, a station some thirty miles to south of Palapye Road, and some sixty miles from Serowe. The pretext for this was that there were robbers on the road from Palapye to Serowe. Golekanye was subsequently more frank about the real reason: `I was afraid of the troubles he might meet here from these people'. From Mahalapye Tshekedi would be driven by car to Serowe. Tshekedi thus arrived in Serowe while Simon Ratshosa was still waiting for him at Palapye Road. Undoubtedly Golekanye had made good use of the long hours on the journey from Mafeking to Mahalapye to recount the recent turbulent developments in Serowe from the point of view of Phethu and his allies, though Tshekedi later stoutly denied that this had been so. For all their formidable intelligence the Ratshosas in their bid to be the chief advisers to Tshekedi - as they had been to his father and half-brother - were outmanoeuvred by their rivals' skilful manipulation of the rudimentary colonial communications system.

Tshekedi was away at Fort Hare pursuing his studies when Sekgoma was formally installed as Chief of the Bangwato. Sekgoma had, however, been effectively recognised as Chief by his people from the time of his father's death. His appointment nevertheless had to be ratified by the British authorities. On 10 April 1923 he sent some royal spears and a kaross to the Resident Commissioner for presentation to George V, making it more than clear that he would be as loyal a subject of the King-Emperor as his father had been:

When Khama became the Chief of the Bamangwato he found that Assegais were no match for Martini Rifles and Maxim guns, he therefore made up his mind that loyalty to the Great White Queen was his only duty and safe position and ever since these Spears have been lowered down and ordered to sheath their bloody blades which for many years had terrified other tribes. And though might African Princes had foolishly opposed the British Supremacy, he, wiser than they, acknowledged it and remained Chief; as Chief he ruled his people in the fear of God, and encouraged truth, devoutness, and Loyalty to His Majesty The King.... This kaross marks unswerving loyalty that his heirs and people may be still protected with this warm blanket down to the remotest generations of mankind.

Sekgoma's installation on 19 April was carried out by his Uncle Mphoeng, assisted by his cousins, including Gorewan and Phethu, in the presence of Sir James Macgregor, the Resident Commissioner. It was filmed by Albert Carrick of African Films Productions Ltd. Sekgoma cut a regal figure, being tall like his father though much more heavily built. He was fifty-four years old and apparently in good health. There was no reason for his people to anticipate anything but a long reign.

The first year of Sekgoma's reign passed peacefully and he proved a popular monarch with both his people and the British administration. The local European traders held him in their affection too, but not so the missionaries, who found him less fervent a Christian than his father and less supportive of their interests. Indeed in an LMS sponsored biography of Khama by John Charles Harris, Sekgoma had been described as 'weak in character, easy-going in disposition'. Harris had gone on to write that 'his lack of strong principle has been a great grief to his father, while his moral laxity has been a scandal in the tribe... those who know him best are most apprehensive for the future of the tribe under his chieftainship'. Sekgoma had been deeply offended by these remarks and not surprisingly, instead of using the local missionary as his chief adviser as his father had done, he kept his distance from him. Soon after he became kgosi he wrote a bitter letter to the LMS accusing them of interfering in education in his country. 'I understand that you are anxious to further Education amongst my people. Do you mean to carry it out on the same base of abuse and insult as you have painted in your book edited by the Revd. Mr. Harris.... The Schools are mine. I have never asked a help from you. You have your own school at Tiger Kloof and you will never see me interfering in its administration as you have built it with your own money. Therefore let us alone in our own things'. Even despite his anger with the missionaries, all seemed set for a peaceful reign. And in 1924 his succession was doubly secured with the birth of a second son, Botswaletse, to his Queen, Tebogo.

Unfortunately Sekgoma, who was much less assiduous in his duties than Khama had been, left much of the business of state in the hands of the capable Ratshosa brothers. He confirmed Johnnie as his Tribal Secretary, while Simon, his son-in-law and now headmaster of the Khama Memorial School, as the Serowe Public School had been renamed in a curiously anticipatory way in 1922, was in and out of his house and often helped with state papers. With the youngest Ratshosa brother, Obeditse, acting as 'native clerk' and interpreter for the Resident Magistrate and therefore the principal intermediary between the British and Bangwato administrations, the Ratshosas had entrenched themselves in positions of power in the Ngwato state. They also profited from their position as royal advisers and relatives to amass cattle and build fine European style houses which were lavishly furnished. It was little wonder then that they became the object of resentment, especially on the part of members of the royal family who were closely related to Sekgoma but felt themselves cut off from their traditional role as advisers to their ruler. One who felt most bitter at the monopoly of power acquired by the Ratshosas, was Phethu Mphoeng. Phethu, like the Ratshosas, had married into the immediate royal family; he was the powerful governor of the important Mmadinare district; and after his reconciliation in 1903 had enjoyed the favour of his uncle and father-in-law, Khama. He, therefore, 'stood in dread of losing the assurance of patronage on Khama's death', as Neil Parsons has put it. His apprehensions were fully justified when Sekgoma, at the instigation of the Ratshosas, accused Phethu and his younger brother, Oteng, as well as two other cousins, Lebang and Keletlokhile Raditladi, of plotting to assassinate him while he was going to the bioscope as cinemas were known. He further accused Phethu of trying to kill him through witchcraft.

Sekgoma was so convinced that his life was in jeopardy that the British Administration (which after exhaustive enquiries could not share his conviction) reluctantly agreed to Sekgoma's request that the Mphoeng and Raditladi brothers be sent into exile. For them this was a crippling blow. Like the Ratshosas they had large herds of cattle in the Reserve and had taken advantage of the opportunities provided by British rule: they had been educated in South Africa and Oteng Mphoeng ran a prosperous creamery. The root of the problem seems to have been Phethu's resentment of the Ratshosas' interference in his administration of Mmadinare district where he was accused of setting himself up almost as an independent ruler. At the back of Sekgoma's and many others' minds must have been the recent assassination in his kgotla of Seepapitso II of the Bangwaketse by his younger brother in 1916. Assassination traditionally had been one way a brother or son could secure the succession for himself. But far from succeeding to the throne Seepapitso's brother had been hanged for murder by the British. In any case, as Sekgoma himself pointed out, Phethu was not genealogically very close to the throne. Phethu, for his part, strenuously denied that the had any intention of killing his chief. 'As for witchcraft, I do not believe in it', he declared. Rather he saw the whole affair as a plot by the Ratshosas to rid themselves of the main threat to their control of Sekgoma. In a petition to the Resident Magistrate the exiles accused the Ratshosas among other things of trying to monopolise education in Serowe. In particular Kelethokile felt bitter about a case he had lost against Simon Ratshosa because 'Chief Sekgoma always favoured the Ratshosas'. Phethu was clear in his own mind that the 'talk of banishing us from the Country is not the Chief's words they are Simon Ratshosa's words'.

Back in Serowe the Ratshosas consolidated their power in such a way that even Sekgoma began to resent their all-pervading influence. Though Sekgoma had been sent to Lovedale by his father, he had done little more there than learn to speak English and to read and write a little, though contrary to later malicious missionary propaganda, he had comported himself well, showing, according to the Acting Principal, 'superior intelligence'. He was also considered 'careful and earnest' with 'good sense and modesty'. But as Chief he was impatient with paper work and left this to Johnnie. Simon also had had access to his father-in-law's papers, which were kept in Johnnie Ratshosa's house, and helped with the secretarial work involved in running Gamangwato. The growing tension between Sekgoma and the Ratshosas came into the open when Phethu sought, in Sekgoma's own words, 'to come and give in'. Phethu had met Simon at Francistown, a modern settlement in the Tati District just outside the Bamangwato Reserve. There he told him of his desire to make peace with Sekgoma. According to reports Sekgoma had received - no doubt from Phethu - Simon asked Phethu why he did not go to Serowe anyway since no one would stop him as 'there is no chief in Serowe'. Sekgoma also advised the Resident Magistrate that he could no longer trust Johnnie as an interpreter and that letters should not be sent through Obeditse since 'John, Simon and Obeditse are one thing'.

Of course Phethu's account of his meeting with Simon at Francistown may have been no more than calumny. If it had been intended as such it fell on fertile ground for Phethu was forgiven by Sekgoma who was now clear that the Ratshosas were at the bottom of his trouble with his cousins. 'When trouble does begin it will be through the Ratshosas (sic)', he wrote to the Resident Commissioner prophetically. In particular he denounced his son-in-law, Simon, who 'is in the habit of reviling me to the people wherever he goes and wherever he writes to them from...' Phethu duly made submission to Sekgoma and promised among other things not to brew beer and to come whenever Sekgoma sent for him.

The Administration lifted the banishment order on the Mphoengs and Raditladis on 24 July at what proved to be politically a strategic moment for their faction. In the early afternoon of 30 July Sekgoma had an epileptic fit outside Parr's store in Serowe, the first of four that day. Dr. Drew, the local doctor was instructed by the Principal Medical Officer of the Protectorate to keep him under close observation. Less than four weeks later he had further fits at one of his cattle posts some thirty miles from Serowe and when Dr. Drew brought him into Serowe concern began to develop about his long term health. For the Administration this was as great a worry as it was for the morafe since Seretse, Sekgoma's heir, was only four years old while Tshekedi, who would normally act as regent for him as the adult male closest in line of succession to him, was only nineteen and away at Fort Hare. For the next two months, therefore, doctors were in constant attendance on Sekgoma, doing their utmost to keep him alive. They diagnosed that he was suffering not from Jacksonian epilepsy but from grand mal, complicated by an acute urethral stricture that was of gonococcal origin. They dismissed ideas that he might be suffering from cerebral syphilis and this was confirmed for them by the negative reaction of his Wassermann test. Above all they felt he needed a rest from his administrative duties and family worries. He had been particularly burdened by the arrangements for the recent visit of the Prince of Wales, whom one missionary had unflatteringly described to his sister as having 'the appearance of an assistant grocer'. The Prince had opened the Khama Memoria but generally was indifferent to his Bangwato hosts and all the arrangements they had made for him.

Worst of all the effect of the bromide with which Sekgoma was being treated dulled his brain and led to mental confusion and amnesia. There was considerable relief among the British administration and some of his headmen when he agreed to go to Cape Town for treatment and a rest. He left on 9 September accompanied by Dr. Drew, since 'his own attendants get into an absolute panic when there is anything wrong with the Chief'. Meanwhile in Serowe, concern about the health of their ruler had led to divisions among both the headmen and the people. The majority believed that the only explanation for the illness was that Sekgoma had been bewitched, for traditionally the Batswana attributed illness and misfortune to witchcraft - as Tshekedi was to confirm shortly after he came to power when he protested to the High Commissioner about the recently introduced Witchcraft Proclamation. Though the attitude of the Tswana to medicine was an eclectic one and whichever available method of treatment proved successful was accepted, Western medicine was not proving effective as far as the Chief was concerned and there was a growing feeling that he should be treated by the dingaka or priest-doctors. His immediate family, in particular his daughter and son-in-law, as well as his step-mother Semane, who nursed him for most of his illness, were adamant that he should continue to be treated exclusively by the British doctors. Matters only came to a head when he returned from Cape Town where the doctors had failed to get him to appreciate the pain and lengthy recuperation that would be involved in an operation to relieve his urethral stricture. They were also very frightened that he might die on the operating table. This would prove a major setback for Western medicine in the eyes of the common people in Serowe, and embarrass the Administration which had given full backing to treatment of the Chief by Western doctors. Though the Resident Commissioner was prepared to take the political risk of an operation on the Chief in Cape Town he wanted the onus for the decision to be placed on the Headmen attending him and also his daughter and son-in-law who had travelled from Serowe to his bedside in CapeTown. Oratile, however, expressed the wish that her father return to Serowe and be operated upon there. So he set off by train for Serowe accompanied by two European male nurses and Dr. Drew.

The British were by now becoming convinced that Sekgoma would never be able to resume his duties as Chief. Simon seemed both to share this view and be preparing the ground for the power struggle that must ensue on Sekgoma's death or abdication. Before he left for Cape Town he had written an article for the Johannesburg Star undermining the position of his uncle-in-law, the one-eyed Gorewan, who had been acting for Sekgoma during his absence. 'Khama's country, the only portion of South Africa that knew complete prohibition, has reverted to the debauchery of beer-drinking', he wrote. His original report was said to have been full of scurrilous abuse of Sekgoma, which the editors deleted leaving only his allusion to the 'shameful and humiliating conditions which have arisen since his unfortunate illness'.

On his return Sekgoma looked much worse, and this gave further ammunition to those who wanted him treated by the traditional doctors. Accordingly a delegation consisting of the Acting Chief and several headmen called on the Acting Resident Magistrate, Major Hannay, and in the presence of Dr. Drew asked whether the Chief could be handed over to traditional doctors for treatment. Major Hannay said he would have to refer their request to the Resident Commissioner. But, he warned them, they would have to realise that once a Mongwato doctor was called in the Administration would abandon all responsibility for their Chief's treatment. As Dr. Drew wrote afterwards, 'I hope they will not get an opportunity for if they overdo things, I shall get the blame'. Meanwhile Simon Ratshosa, though still committed to Dr. Drew treating his father-in-law, was adding to the sense of crisis by going round the town 'giving it out to certain members of the tribe that to all intents and purposes the Chief is as good as dead'. Factions in the Tribe began to jockey for power as it seemed their Chief might not live. Some said he was being bewitched, others said the European doctors were trying to kill him. In the circumstances the Administration agreed with Dr. Drew's suggestion that Sekgoma be asked to abdicate. Apart from the fact that it seemed that he was now permanently deranged, abdication would put an end to the scheming in the royal family. This was also the view taken by Semane, whose enemies believed she was poisoning Sekgoma so that Tshekedi might succeed him. The immediate question was, of course, who would act as regent for Seretse if Sekgoma did agree to abdicate? In a lucid moment Sekgoma had told Major Hannay that if anything happened to him he would like Tshekedi to act for him. 'I do not want to force him on the tribe', the Resident Commissioner wrote to the High Commissioner, 'but I think it will be generally admitted by the headmen and people that in the circumstances he is the proper person to take charge of the tribe'.

The Tribe was not yet convinced that Sekgoma was dying or irretrievably insane or indeed that he could not be cured. Epilepsy was not viewed with the dread it was amongst some African peoples. It was believed that it could be treated and its cause was ascribed to a pigeon in the victim's head which produced the fits. Dingaka claimed to be able to remove the cause of the epilepsy. Thus early in the morning of Thursday 29 October a kgotla was held in the presence of Major Hannay, Dr. Drew and the local missionary, Rev.R. Haydon Lewis. Some eight to nine hundred men were present along with many headmen. The business before them was the treatment of their ruler. The Magistrate opened the proceedings by telling the assembled Tribe that he understood that there had been a Native Doctor, Mathobe, present at the Cattle post the second time Sekgoma had had his epileptic fits.

'Why, if you have so much faith in your Native Doctors', the Magistrate asked them accusingly, 'did you send for the White Doctor? I admit that some Native Doctors have a good knowledge of various herbal remedies and are able with the help of these to cure wounds, colds, stomach troubles etc. But I know your doctor is going to make use of the "Bones" and in this I have no faith whatsoever and am strongly opposed to it. I warn you that the day a Native Doctor enters the Chief's house Dr. Drew leaves and the two European nurses are withdrawn. And please understand that if anything happens while under the treatment of the Witch Doctor, you and your alone, Gamangwato, will be to blame'.

Gorewan, the Acting Chief, replied by trying to appease both factions. He reported that Oratile was still strongly opposed to the use of traditional doctors. Moreover he and the Magistrate had together seen the Chief, who 'made us to understand that to him, all doctors, whether White or Black, were the same, but if the Magistrate were not willing to have a Native Doctor called he was quite willing to remain in the hands of Dr. Drew. Personally, I have nothing against Witch Doctors but I do not wish to have the Chief treated solely by a Native doctor'.

Other speakers were less equivocal. Headman Baipedi wanted to know who had 'spoilt matters' for he had been under the impression that at their earlier meeting with Major Hannay the latter had agreed that the Chief could be treated by a Native Doctor.

Headman Disang Raditladi, bravely going against the majority view of the assembly, declared: 'I have great faith in European doctors and very little in Native Doctors'. Thus he joined hands with those who had sent his brother and son into exile, whether on principle alone or because he was married to a sister of the Ratshosa brothers.

His view was shared by the Mongwato ordained minister, Rev. Baruti Kalaakgosi, who declared that native doctors were useless. Then the senior Ratshosa brother, Johnnie, also defied the general consensus when he lamented:

'I do not know what has happened to us Bamangwatos. In Khama's time no Witch Doctors were allowed in the place but today not only are they allowed among us but they are allowed to practice. I have been brought up by Khama and know that he hated Native Doctors. As a boy when I fell ill he placed me in the hands of European Doctors'.

'Your words are false, for I Boiditswe, was once called by Khama to treat the Chief's children who were suffering from ear-ache - the Chief's wife can bear me out in this. What is more, I am firmly convinced that I am able to cure the Chief himself. I have treated similar cases before and have been successful

When the Magistrate concluded the kgotla by calling on all those in favour of treating the Chief by traditional medicine to step back, only the Ratshosas, Acting Chief Gorewan and a few other headmen held their ground. They were later referred to in the Cape Argus as 'the fearless and enlightened eight who strongly opposed the replacing of the European doctor's services by those of the native medical men'. But Native Doctor Boiditswe had won the day. For their part the Ratshosas had merely increased their unpopularity within the Tribe while Phethu conversely increased his influence.

Under the treatment of the Native Doctors Sekgoma appeared to make a rapid recovery and the decision to ask him to abdicate was put into suspension. Only four days earlier Dr. Drew had recommended that he be certified insane. Now he was attending to his duties, and was even having letters written for his signature up until the 10 October. Resident Commissioner Ellenberger attributed the sudden improvement to the fact that the 'use of a native doctor to remove any spell which Sekgoma might think had been cast over him through witchcraft would naturally relieve his mind and this would produce a change for the better in his condition but it is very doubtful that such a change will be of a permanent character'. Ellenberger and Drew were soon proved correct in their prognostications. On Friday 13, after nearly two weeks of treatment by Native Doctors, Sekgoma sent for Rev. Lewis, with whom he had mended relations for some time now. Lewis found him 'prostrate and in the condition in which he was before his visit to the Cape'.

Despite the attacks on him, Dr. Drew had managed to make the necessary arrangements to preserve Sekgoma's body until the funeral. Early in the morning of Tuesday 17 November, after a service in the LMS Church, he was buried alongside his father. The mourners numbered some two to three thousand. In the afternoon, the Resident Commissioner accompanied the frightened Gorewan into the kgotla. There he asked the people whom they looked on as their Chief. They 'unanimously declared that, by virtue of his birth and rank, Gorewan was the proper person to lead them until Khama's son, Tshekedi, could take over from him and until Sekgoma's son .... could himself occupy the Chief's chair'. Because the Resident Commissioner and indeed many of the headmen considered Gorewan a weak man - a weakness he had so patently demonstrated in the hours of crisis following Sekgoma's death - he proposed that a Council be formed by the best men of the tribe to assist him. This would be responsible to Government for the management of Tribal affairs and the maintenance of peace and good order in the Tribe 'until Tshekedi could assume duty as Regent'. The twelve members of the council included the two elder Ratshosa brothers as well as Phethu Mphoeng. On 24th November, Ellenberger wrote formally to Tshekedi at Fort Hare, giving him a full account of events in Serowe and informing him that the Tribe wanted him to act as Chief. Meanwhile Gorewan, assisted by the Council, was occupying the Chief's chair until his arrival. Tshekedi had meantime written to Ellenberger to announce that he would be visiting him at Mafeking, the Protectorate capital, on Monday 14th December.

The young man who set off by train from Alice to see the Resident Commissioner was not yet sure whether he would take on the regency. Semane, contrary to those who believed she was ambitious for the power the regency would bring her house, wanted her son to continue his studies, obtain his B.A. and travel a little before taking up the burdens of office. As soon as he had heard the news of Sekgoma's death, Tshekedi's Principal at Fort Hare, Alexander Kerr, had written to the Resident Commissioner that it would appear to him 'to be a mistake if he were prematurely recalled to any position of responsibility in the life of the tribe'.

Tshekedi had not proved a particularly brilliant scholar at Fort Hare. His final 'Report on Progress and Proficiency' for his Matriculation Year issued in December 1925 had him failing History, Latin, Mathematics and Science with a 'Good' in ENglish and a "very Good' in Bantu Languages. He had, even so, impressed Kerr as a student who was 'sincere and I believe absolutely single-minded in the performance of his duty ... modest and gentle of speech. But that will not in the eyes of the discriminating observer mislead as to the firmness of character beneath'.

At the age of twenty Tshekedi was a slenderly built young man, unlike the more familiar thickset figure he was to become a few years later. His eyes had a somewhat wistful look and there was little indication of the powerful personality that would impose itself on opponents, British and Bangwato alike, over the next thirty years. Although he had not travelled outside his continent, his education in South Africa had broadened his horizons and given him insights into the politics of the powerful neighbour with which as both a Motswana and Mongwato he would have to deal throughout his regency. As a student in the Cape, the only Province in the Union where blacks, albeit only the few with the appropriate educational and financial qualifications, still had the franchise, he was acutely aware of the attempts to deprive them of the vote. Before he left Fort Hare, General Hertzog's Nationalist Party with its allies from the Labour Party had defeated Smuts' South Africa Party and formed the 'Pact' Government. Hertzog had come to power with the openly declared intention of consolidating the segregationist policies of his predecessor and removing the Cape Franchise for Africans. Fort Hare, where there was much discussion of 'segregation', was a nursery for the future black politicians and professional classes of South Africa. These groups had been particularly incensed by the Native Urban Areas Act which Smuts introduced in his last full year of office. This complemented the Natives Lands Act of 1913??? which had forbidden blacks to own landed property outside their reserves which constituted less than 10% of the Union. Under the terms of the new Act Africans were herded into locations in the cities and again were forbidden to own property there. Anger at this further act of segregation had led to widespread protests by, among other political organisations, the South African Native National Congress which changed its name that year to the African National Congress. Throughout his life, Tshekedi was to have close contacts with the leadership of the Congress, and his experiences at that early age informed him with a deep loathing of the segregationist system he encountered in South Africa while studying there. It helps to explain the uncompromising stand he took from the beginning of his regency against any proposal for the incorporation of his country into the Union, whatever the apparent economic benefits might be.

For Resident Commissioner Ellenberger and the other officials with whom Tshekedi had to deal, the contrast between this shy youth of twenty and his brother, the tall and strong-willed Sekgoma, or the equally tall and venerable Khama III, was dramatic. And their natural tendency was to treat him in patronising terms despite the fact that he was educated where his father had been illiterate and his half-brother nearly so. He must have seemed to them little more than a schoolboy and their approach to him may be understood if not condoned. It was to take some officials many years before they appreciated, as Principal Kerr and his staff had quickly done, that they were dealing with a young man who was very much the son of his father. Nevertheless Ellenberger received him in Mafeking in the manner that befitted the potential Regent of the largest of the Tribes with which he had to deal. At the time Tshekedi himself seems to have been anxious to return to College, and Ellenberger merely advised him that when he eventually did take over as Acting Chief, he would not object to the abolition of the Council he had established to help Gorewan. But his own advice was that he should retain its services.

After his interview with the Resident Commissioner Tshekedi left for Serowe by train. Back in the capital the two factions awaited his arrival with apprehension, both determined to be the first to secure his ear. Simon Ratshosa set off to welcome him at Palapye Road, the station where passengers for Serowe normally alighted before taking a horse, a car or ox-drawn transport to complete the twenty-five mile journey. Phethu and his collaborators had been more cunning. They had sent Headman Golekanye as an emissary, or as he later described himself, 'spy', to Mafeking to escort Tshekedi to Serowe and, as the Ratshosas were convinced, to poison his mind against them. Golekanye was to make sure Tshekedi got off the train at Mahalapye, a station some thirty miles to south of Palapye Road, and some sixty miles from Serowe. The pretext for this was that there were robbers on the road from Palapye to Serowe. Golekanye was subsequently more frank about the real reason: 'I was afraid of the troubles he might meet here from these people'. From Mahalapye Tshekedi would be driven by car to Serowe. Tshekedi thus arrived in Serowe while Simon Ratshosa was still waiting for him at Palapye Road. Undoubtedly Golekanye had made good use of the long house on the journey from Mafeking to Mahalapye to recount the recent turbulent developments in Serowe from the point of view of Phethu and his allies, though Tshekedi later stoutly denied that this had been so. For all their formidable intelligence the Ratshosas in their bid to be the chief advisers to Tshekedi - as they had been to his father and half-brother - were outmanoeuvred by their rivals' skilful manipulation of the rudimentary colonial communications system.

Although Ratshosa remained in office as Tribal Secretary he began to hedge his bets by offering support to Sekgoma's house, to which he was affiliated

Tshekedi effectively took up his duties as Regent almost immediately after his arrival in Serowe on 19 December, but while the people accepted his authority as Regent for Seretse he had to be formally recognised as such by the British Administration. Accordingly that same day Gorewan, who was still Acting Chief as far as the British were concerned, requested that the Resident Commissioner should come to Serowe and instal Tshekedi as Regent. Meanwhile, Tshekedi had called a kgotla over which he, rather than Gorewan had presided. His purpose was to find out what the Tribe as a whole thought about the Council which had been formed to help Gorewan. He was left in no doubt that they were vehemently opposed to it. Only three spoke in support of keeping it and these included Johnnie and Simon Ratshosa. Then at 10 a.m. Tshekedi, accompanied by all the members of the Council including the two Ratshosa brothers and their enemy Phethu Mphoeng, went to see Captain Neale, the Resident Magistrate.

When Tshekedi informed Neale that the Tribe wanted the Council abolished, Neale advised caution:

`Let it be clearly understood that the Government has no wish to interfere in the government and customs of the Tribe, nor does it wish to weaken the power of the Chief or the acting Chief. Remember that your Chief is young and inexperienced and is therefore in need of such a Council from which he could obtain reliable advice'.

The Magistrate then asked members of the Council their opinions about it. Only one member, Simon Ratshosa, spoke in favour of retaining. He declared:

`I am a Councillor and I am a strong supporter of the Council because it answers my every wish and desire, and also because I am convinced that if run on the right lines it would prove a great help in the government of our country. The Council does not as some of you seem to think eliminate the Chief's power, but, in my opinion, it strengthens it'.

It soon became clear that others feared that the Council would in fact strengthen the power of the Ratshosas and reduce that of the young Regent. After objecting strongly to being interpreted to the Resident Magistrate by Johnny Ratshosa, Phethu spoke for the majority when he declared that the Council should have been formed when Tshekedi was present. He was supported by Headman Mathiba, the Chief Tax Collector, who without qualms for Gorewan's feelings said that as far as he was concerned the purpose of forming the Council had been `to protect and advise the acting Chief Gorewan. Gorewan as is well known is a weak Chief and was in dire need of such a Council'.

Unabashed, Gorewan confirmed that this was so. His grievance was that no one had ever explained to him what the functions and duties of the Council were : `Now that Tshekedi has come his wish and not mine is to be considered.'

Captain Neale concluded the meeting by telling Tshekedi that it depended on him `whether there shall be Council or not'.

Although Tshekedi had been careful not to reveal his intentions at the meeting, he had made up his mind that it should be abolished. In this course of action he had the support of Phethu and the majority of the Tribe who were persuaded that the Council would merely be a vehicle for the the Ratshosas to continue their domination of affairs in Gamangwato. Indeed rumour in Serowe had it that they were responsible for its formation in the first place, seeing it as a means to acquire a formal rather than just an advisory role in relation to their Chief. Simon Ratshosa later flatly denied this, and was supported by his elder brother Johnnie who he confirmed that it was the Resident Commissioner not they who had first mooted the idea. Indeed Johnnie had advised the kgotla meeting when the establishment of the Council was first mooted that it `should not be formed, but the people then said that it must be formed...' Likewise Simon alleged that although he had been elected to the Council, `I objected to be a member. I did not like to be among untruthful people'. Neither, however, denied that once formed they supported the continued existence of the Council not only as a means of helping Gorewan but of assisting the young and inexperienced Tshekedi. But as far as the people were concerned the real reason the Ratshosas were in favour of the Council `was a trick to break down the Chief's power, and that he would not have the same power as his forefathers, and that the power would be in the hands of the white men'.

Tshekedi was not as unaware of the political situation in the morafe as his absence at Fort Hare over the past two years might suggest. He had after all been in Serowe from 1920 to 1923, and while at Fort Hare spent his holidays at home. He was on good terms with his half-brother, Sekgoma II, while his mother, Semane, was an astute woman who had lived at the centre of palace politics and intrigue for a quarter of a century. Several headmen had personally instructed him in `native custom', while he himself had attended kgotla on a number of occasions and participated in regimental work. Tshekedi must also have been aware how Councils had been used by the British in collaboration with jealous royals to limit the powers of Sebele II, ruler of the neighbouring Bakwena state. If he were to maintain the Council set up to help Gorewan it would become a barrier between himself and the people in kgotla, and be resented as much by them as Councils had been by the Bakwena, who perceived them not so much as a means of limiting the powers of the chief but as vehicles for ambitious anti-democratic elements.

Though the Council could not be formally dissolved until the High Commissioner gave his consent, it ceased to exist after the meeting with Captain Neale since all its members except the Ratshosas resigned. Though Tshekedi insisted that he personally had nothing against the Council, and that in recommending its abolition he was merely following the wishes of the Tribe, there can be little doubt that he was only too glad to be rid of it. If he were to be effective ruler of the Bangwato rather than a puppet of the Ratshosas, they had to be broken. A first step towards achieving this was to abolish the Council in which they would be a dominant force. As far as the British administration was concerned Tshekedi seemed to giving into reactionary elements in the morafe, for as Captain Neale lamented, there were `many progressive Natives in the Bamangwato Reserve, who apart from the Ratshosas, wish the old style of autocratic rule to be definitely finished with. There seemed to be an excellent change for a more progressive system to be tried upon the young Regent's accession'.

While he was irritated that his advice about maintaining the Council had been ignored by Tshekedi, Resident Commissioner Ellenberger nevertheless agreed to come to Serowe and instal him as Chief Regent with all the powers of a hereditary Tswana ruler until the day Seretse was judged by the morafe to be old enough to take office. Shortly before for the installation, Sekgoma II's second son, Botswaletse, died from whooping cough. Tshekedi was now only a heartbeat from the throne.

On Tuesday 19th January 1926, the day chosen for Tshekedi's installation, the inhabitants of Serowe awoke to a steady downpour of rain. But the skies were beginning to clear when Colonel Ellenberger arrived in Serowe by motor-car. He was met on the outskirts of the capital by Tshekedi and an escort of mounted horsemen. The Chief was dressed in a peaked cap, a dark tunic with scarlet facings and gilt epaulettes and what the correspondent of the Johannesburg Star assured readers were well-fitting breeches. A few hundred yards on Ellenberger was greeted by the main body of the Bangawto regiments, each dressed in a different uniform freely modelled on those of British regiments, including some consisting of yellow tunics with blue facings, and scarlet riding breeches, topped by white busbies. Many of those who waited for the Resident Commissioner had been soaked by the rain, but this in no way worried them for rain on such a day was the best of omens in this drought stricken country where the very word for rain, pula, was the royal greeting.

The installation of Tshekedi took place in the kgotla at the foot of the hill in which Khama's grave had been dug. A canopy of white canvas had been erected above a table covered with a magnificent kaross of animal skins. Behind this sat the new ruler with the Resident Commissioner and the Resident Magistrate. The signal for the beginning of the hour-long ceremony was a call on the flute. Most of the inhabitants of Serowe and many from the outlying districts had assembled to see their young chief installed. Women, who usually had no place in the kgotla except as plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses, sat on the fringes of the crowd. The European community had also turned out in full force and were given special seating.

An elaborate programme had been drawn up for the installation. Tshekedi was first introduced to the Resident Commissioner by his uncle and future father-in-law, Moloi, a strikingly tall figure. Then speeches were made by Gorewan, the former Acting Chief, and by Tshekedi's cousins Edirilwe, Phethu and Baipedi. No formal place was found for a Ratshosa in the programme, but Simon took advantage of the custom that at the installation of a new ruler older people could stand up and give him free advice. He delivered an attack on the reactionary factions in the Tribe and urged the new Chief to put a spoke in their wheel by sternly repressing witchcraft and beer drinking. `If you are going back to those devilish tricks which are abolished by your father, then you will not rule us', Simon told his young Regent. `But if you enforce his laws, and practice them yourself, then you will certainly rule us'.

The European community played an important role in the morning's ceremony : an address was delivered by Mr. Kirkham on behalf of the local Chamber of Commerce while the Reverend A.J. Haile brought a message of good will from the directors of the London Missionary Society. Then the Resident Commissioner stood up before the huge crowd: `I thank you for asking me to come here today, but you must remember it is not my place to instal your chief. By your own ancient custom you must instal your own chief'. Ellenberger then called on Moloi to come forward. The old man took a fine leopard skin and wrapped it about the shoulders of Tshekedi at which a great shout of `Pula, Pula, Pula' rose from the people. Ellenberger then turned to Tshekedi and just as the headmen had done urged him to follow in his father's footsteps.

The final speech of the day was given by Tshekedi, himself, who made no extravagant promises, but hoped that he would indeed be able to follow in his father's footsteps as all the preceding speakers had urged. Then, as chiefs by custom always did at their installation, he assured the kgotla that he would `be led by the wise counsels of the older men of the tribe and the assistance of the government to rule the nation rightly. Great honour had been done him by placing the skin on his shoulders, but it must be remembered that this really belonged to his young nephew'.

Tshekedi had been installed with panoply of a full chief and it was a full chief that he intended to reign until the time came to hand over to Seretse.

Tshekedi was simultaneously made leader of the new Regiment formed for his age group, the MaLetamotse. Slender and still a little nervous on public occasions, he had made a favourable impression on all those who recorded their impressions of the ceremony. The correspondent of the Bulawayo Chronicle thought him `a quiet, thoughtful unpretentious young man...[who] betrayed the mannerisms and a quiet presence that inevitably led one to exclaim "Khama lives again in this boy". The similarity was remarkable'.

Evoking the difficult times they had experienced during the reign of Sekgoma II, and no doubt thinking back to their happier experiences under Khama III, the London Missionary Society declared : `We hope and trust a new era is dawning, in which the Regent will be able to stand firm and prove his worth, and the Tribe and Mission working in closer sympathy and harmony may see much good fruit to their endeavours'.

For the Bangwato, a new era was indeed dawning. Despite his youth and inexperience Tshekedi was soon to demonstrate that he intended to be sole ruler of his people. He now began to plan the downfall of those whom he perceived to be the main threat to his position as Regent : the Ratshosa brothers. His first step was to inform the Resident Magistrate that the people wanted Johnny Ratshosa replaced as Secretary to the Tribe. Neale cautioned Tshekedi against making a hurried decision and advised him to wait until the Resident Commissioner had been informed before dismissing him. As Neale wrote to Ellenberger, `it is of course a tribal matter and as such to be decided by the Chief. I anticipate, however, that a dangerous faction will arise and I would rather have seen Tshekedi well established and in a position to judge before rushing his fences'. But already Johnny's position had been made untenable by his brother Simon whose attitude towards Tshekedi was one of open defiance. He had walked out of a kgotla meeting without observing the customary courtesies. This gave Phethu the opportunity for which he had been patiently waiting : he had come back to Serowe with the fixed intention of taking revenge on the Ratshosas.

Further complications with the Ratshosa family had developed. Oratile, Tshekedi's domineering niece and wife of Simon, had seized a young Mosarwa girl from her father's widow, Queen Tebogo. This girl had originally been a gift to Oratile from her father, but he had taken back the child at a time when his relations with the Ratshosas were becoming increasingly tense. As Chief, he had the right to dispose of any Basarwa, who were treated by their rich Bangwato owners as property to work for them on their cattle posts without pay. It was customary to bring in Basarwa children to Serowe to work as domestic servants. Oratile had been further enraged when Tshekedi opened up her father's house preparatory to settling his estate. When Oratile raised the matter with the Resident Magistrate, Tshekedi told him it was not her affair.

When Ellenberger learnt that Tshekedi had brought the question of appointing a new Tribal Secretary in kgotla without first discussing it personally with Johnny he was very upset. When Tshekedi had raised the matter with him after the installation, he had not objected to Tshekedi's planned repalacement of Johnny. But he had supposed that Tshekedi would inform Johnny of his dismissal privately and not make it a matter for public discussion. He now urged Tshekedi to tell Johnny that he had no intention of appointing anyone in his place for some time and that even when he did so he hoped that Johnnie would `remain by his side and help him'.

When Captain Neale conveyed the Resident Commissioner's advice to Tshekedi, he promised to follow it. But to Neale's surprise Johnny came to him on the 8 February to tell him that he had been summarily dismissed from his post in the kgotla that very morning. Johnny was convinced that Phethu and his supporters were behind Tshekedi's decision.

An hour later Tshekedi arrived at Captain Neale's office, and told him that he had indeed seen Johnny privately and thanked him for his services. He had then called a kgotla meeting at which he reminded the people that he had promised to give them a decision about replacing Johnny. `I told them', he informed the Magistrate, `that they could get their own [Secretary] and that Johnny was no longer in this work and that it was in accordance with their request. I reminded the people that in the previous Meeting they asked me [to] take the Ratshosas out of their work but I said that I did not think that would be fair on my part and I beseeched them to let Obeditse continue his work at the kgotla issuing permits. In the meantime I told them to elect their own [Secretary] and tell me whom they have chosen'.

Captain Neale was very irritated that Tshekedi had not taken the Resident Commissioner's advice and told him as much. But Tshekedi replied that he had found it `impossible as he had gone too far and that if he retained Ratshosa the other faction would arise'. Neale informed the Resident Commissioner that Tshekedi had then changed his tune - a tactic he was to use many times therafter - by saying that he had not understood the Resident Commissioner's advice. `I cannot too strongly represent that unless Tshekedi alters his attitude as Regent trouble will ensue...He apparently takes no responsibility as Chief and is swayed and led by any faction as was to be expected when the Council was dissolved.'

Please give my greetings to Tshekedi and tell him that when he seeks my advice and I give it to him, I expect him to act on it, and that I am somewhat disappointed at his not having done so in this instance as it would have saved a good deal of ill feeling in the tribe....my advice to him is, as I have already told him, not to give a decision in any matter before he has consulted you or me, if at any time he is in doubt as to what he should do.

What neither the Resident Magistrate or Resident Commissioner realised was that far from being swayed to and fro by the Tribe or needing their advice Tshekedi had set off on a very clearly marked path of consolidating his own power which meant the elimination of the Ratshosas and the neutralisation of all other close relatives of his half-brother Sekgoma. He intended taking sole charge of the upbringing of the young Chief Seretse and running the affairs of the morafe as he, not the Ratshosas or the British, saw fit. And to get his own way he was prepared to dissemble and prevaricate.

Although the Council had been abolished and Johnny removed as Secretary of the Tribe, the Ratshosa brothers were still influential in Serowe. Obeditse still held the post of Native Clerk and Interpreter to the Resident Magistrate while Simon was Headmaster of the Khama Memorial School. They had the support of a powerful group of women in the royal family who bitterly resented Tshekedi and in particular his mother Semane. Simon dis not bother to disguise his contempt for Tshekedi and went around Serowe saying there was no Chief who could control him. Johnny, understandably embittered by his treatment, began to emulate his brother. Only Obeditse, who was probably circumscribed in his behaviour by his official position in the Magistrate's office, seems to have controlled his resentment of Tshekedi publicly.

For his part, Tshekedi, who had strong vengeful streak in his character, deliberately set about provoking the Ratshosas. On Saturday 3 April he sent some men to remove two Basarwa girls from Oratile. One of these was the girl Oratile had seized from Queen Tebogo. When Oratile refused to give them up, Tshekedi ordered that they be taken by force. The following Monday, he asked Mr. Cuzen, who had recently taken over from Captain Neale as Resident Magistrate, to attend a kgotla at which he would explain to the Ratshosas why he had taken away Oratile's Basarwa girls. Mr. Cuzen duly attended the kgotla with the Reverend Haydon Lewis as his interpreter. But the Ratshosas were busy getting dressed for a wedding of one of Tshekedi's nephews, which was being jointly organised by Baboni, Tshekedi's half-sister and one of Semane's bitter enemies. When Tshekedi sent a second summons to the Ratshosas, they still refused to come. So he closed the kgotla, no doubt delighted that they had now openly disobeyed him and could be called to account. As he told Mr Cuzen : `I wanted you to understand why I had taken those girls away, but now that the Ratshosa brothers have disobeyed me by refusing to attend the kgotla I will offer them no explanation. I am finished with them'. Then, clearly abusing his authority, he provoked the Ratshosas into a further act of disobedience by having Simon summoned in the middle of the wedding to undertake some work with his Regiment. Simon refused to come, for the cake was just being cut. But the Regiment made such a commotion outside and so threatened the guests that the wedding was disrupted.

That afternoon, at about 4 o'clock Tshekedi again summoned the Ratshosas to his kgotla to explain why they had disobeyed his earlier orders. When he was given assurance that the Magistrate would be present, Johnny advised his brothers that they should present themselves. When they arrived, the Chief instructed them to sit in the centre of the kgotla where a crowd of men had assembled. Simon whispered to his elder brother that the people were going to do the same to them as the Zulus did to Piet Retief. `We are dead, brother'. Then, without even the semblance of a trial, Tshekedi told them: `I will punish you with lashes'. When they protested that as royal princes they could not be flogged, the people in the kgotla set about them with any weapon they could lay hands on. At last their time for revenge on the once powerful, still arrogant and wealthy Ratshosas had come. One man shouted at Johnnie `You will never see the sun rise again. We are going to kill you'. Johnnie later said that he even heard Tshekedi cry out to Headman Baipedi `Kill them'. Johnnie himself was struck on the head with a chair and on the back with a stick, and fell half conscious to the ground. It was Tshekedi who ordered his assailants to let him go. Meanwhile Simon and Obeditse had managed to escape from the crowd which had rained blows on them too.

The two brothers raced back home where Simon took his revolver and Obeditse his Mauser rifle. They returned to the kgotla to see what had happened to Johnny, even though some neighbours tried to stop them telling them they would surely be killed. But they pressed forward with Obeditse calling out `Let us shoot the buggers' Nearing the kgotla, which was in uproar, Simon and Obeditse took cover behind some poles about a hundred yards from where Tshekedi was sitting and fired at him. They missed with both their first and second shots. Attendants tried to hustle Tshekedi out of danger, but at first he refused to budge, declaring : `I will die in my Father's kgotla.' But just before the Ratshosas fired their third volley from he was rushed towards the safety of a fence. Before he could reach it a bullet found its target. He was hit in the side. The Ratshosas then ran back home.

The kgotla now filled with excited men who had heard the rifle shots. Tshekedi silenced them and called on two of his headmen: `I want the men who shot at me - dead or alive'.

An eager party set off to the Ratshosas' kraal some bearing firearms. When they got there, Headman Oitsile fired at Simon and Obeditse but missed. So too did Moanaphuti, who was later to become as bitter an enemy of Tshekedi as the Ratshosas he now sought to kill. Before anybody was hurt, Mr Cuzen arrived in his car and stopped the shooting. He took Johnny, who had made his way back home, and Obeditse, who had waved a Union Jack from his window to show Cuzen he was not firing, to the Residency for their own safety. In the meantime Simon had escaped and taken refuge in the house of Cuzen's European clerk. McIntosh insisted that Simon hand over his pistol.

That night a fire broke out in the Ratshosas' compound. Tshekedi knew nothing about this but learnt the next day that Simon's house had been set alight. Then, as Tshekedi was to put it a few days later, he collected all his men in the kgotla and sent some of them `to burn the houses belonging to the three sons of Ratshosa'. The incendiarists were led by Phethu Mphoeng and they performed their task with a vengeance. Verandah posts and doors were hacked down, windows smashed, paraffin was poured on the contents and straw added to ensure a good fire. Cuzen could do little to stop these acts of vengeance having no police force of consequence at his disposal. He went to the kgotla to try and quieten things down, for the Bangwato were still very excited and many of them were armed with rifles. It was Tshekedi who eventually managed to get them to disperse peacefully to their homes. When Ellenberger heard what had happened, he straightway ordered that an enquiry in to what were called `the disturbances at Serowe' be held under the chairmanship of his Assistant Resident Commissioner, Lt-Col. R.M. Daniel. It began on the Wednesday and finished on the Friday and took place in the kgotla at Serowe with some two thousand Bangwato present. Since it was not a judicial enquiry, there were no lawyers present. Neither of the Ratshosa brothers denied that they had gone armed to the kgotla. But they argued that they had carried weapons to protect themselves. In their evidence both Simon and Johnny described at length the wrongs they had suffered at the hands of Tshekedi and what they considered his ventriloquist, Phethu Mphoeng. Johnny accused Phethu of actually telling the Resident Magistrate in a meeting : `What will please me most is if I can make Johnny poor. I have come to avenge myself'. This effectively he had done for as Johnny told Colonel Daniel : `My nice house has been destroyed, furnished like a European's. I have done nothing wrong to the Chief'.

The loquacious Simon spoke for three times as long as either of his brothers. Much of his evidence was concerned with damning Phethu, whom he accused of being the source of all their trouble. `What have we done wrong to you?', he asked Tshekedi. `Have we done wrong by protecting your Mother when she was being killed by all the Mangwato the day the Chief Sekgoma died? Do you reward a kind action with a bad one?' Then he lamented his present plight: `Buildings which had been put up by my father are gone. I have no blankets. I am destitute, we sleep like cattle. None of our papers are saved, all our belongings are gone, by the traitors Phethu and others on Easter Monday and Tuesday. Phethu led the Regiment, he said he was pleased that he had come here so that Ratshosa's sons might become poor...'.

Phethu followed Simon and declared that he would not go into any matter which had touched his name. Instead he outlined the events that had brought the Ratshosas into conflict with Tshekedi, carefully laying the blame for the rift at their door. He concluded his evidence with an impassioned appeal: 'We are kneeling down before His Honour and his assistants to beg of them to sympathise with us as our Chief has been wounded. We are kneeling down praying that these men should be killed lest they should teach the other Bamangwato to kill their Chief. A Chief must sometimes punish a man severely but the Chief is not to be killed for that. Our prayer is only one prayer, they must be killed, they have killed our Chief.'

In the days before British rule that might well have been the fate of Simon and Obeditse. But in matters of treason and attempted murder the law of the British `protectors' prevailed over that of the Bangwato. On Saturday morning, therefore, the Resident Commissioner who had just come up from Mafeking, informed the assembled Tribe that as Simon and Obeditse had not acted in self defence they would be indicted for attempted murder. He informed them that the two had already been arrested and sent under armed escort by motor to Francistown where they would await trial.

No criminal charge was laid against Johnny, who formally requested the Tribe to forgive him. They agreed to do so but only on condition that he was removed from Serowe the same day. Tshekedi undertook to look after his cattle until he was settled in a new home. He also agreed to look after the wives and families of Obeditse and Simon. Colonel Ellenberger pronounced these terms acceptable with the one stipulation that the place of banishment for Johnny should have a good supply of water.

Tshekedi was not physically rid of the Ratshosa brothers; but he had not reckoned with the resourcefulness of Simon and his female relatives to bring a plague upon his house from afar - from prison and from exile.

One of Tshekedi's first concerns when he became Regent was to locate the will his father had drawn up in 1907. He discovered that the Resident Commissioner possessed a copy. When he sent it to him, he found that his father had named him as his principal heir. There was no mention of Sekgoma. But in the letter enclosing the will, Ellenberger advised Tshekedi that Sekgoma had claimed that as a result of their reconciliation, Khama had altered his will verbally and allotted the bulk of his property to his elder son in conformace with Tswana custom. Indeed Sekgoma said that Khama had ordered the will to be burnt. But here was a signed copy, and it was unclear whether verbal declarations made in kgotla overrode an English-style will drawn up by a lawyer. In tradition, such a will had no place. But then Khama in his fifty year reign had overridden many other customary laws and introduced the concept of the King's own personal property. If the will of 1907 was held valid, then Tshekedi was a very rich man, while the young Chief Seretse would be heir only to his late father Sekgoma's not insubstantial herd. For the time being this did not become an issue, since by Tswana law Tshekedi as Regent was responsible for administering the property of his ward. But it was to be the subject of great bitterness between uncle and nephew twenty-five years later. For Tshekedi the immediate problem arose not from Khama's estate but that of his half-brother, Sekgoma. Sekgoma's daughter, Oratile, and his half-sisters, Mmakhama and Baboni, resented the fact that Tshekedi was managing it without consulting them.

`We cry to you Chief, Bamangwato are spoild, they lit Tshekedi in the wrong waye. Help, Sir, there is danger. Khama and Sekgoma daughters are living in the veld like animals. Phethu came, he spoil our tribe, see to it Sir.

We are sorry for our Chief's daughters. God will kill us. Help, the town is spild. Sons of Rachosa have no falt.

Tshekedi immediately suspected the Ratshosas of being behind the letter. As he wrote to the Resident Commissioner `the writer who ever he was took great care that he misspelled many of the words in the letter... I do not know', he complained, `what wrong I have done to my sisters. Ever since I came to Serowe after Chief Sekgoma's death not one of them cared to come and see me : as for me, while in their sickbeds I have visited them even supporting them with food, killing oxen for them and sending bags of flour and sugar to them'. The letter goes on, he continued, `to say the Ratshosas have no fault. I would have been surprised if no word of support to the Ratshosas did not appear in a letter of such nature. From what I have heard and seen there is hardly an incident in the near history of the tribe when there was trouble and the Ratshosas, or my sisters or sometimes both, were the sources of the disturbance.' Concluding, Tshekedi the Resident Commissioner, `whatever the result of the Ratshosas' trial may be, never allow them to return to the Bamanwato Reserve any along. As long as they are here there will never be any peace in the nation'. As for his half-sisters, `had they not been women and some of them widows ... I only ask that they should be transferred to some other reserve until such times as they will be able to think and realise that they have been totally misled by the Ratshosas in stirring up strife for reasons which they will find hard to explain.'

This was not an expression of paranoid fears on the part of a young and insecure ruler. As daughters of Khama's first wife, Mma Bessie, and sisters of Sekgoma, MmaKhama and Baboni were contemptuous of their younger half-brother from a junior house who now, simply because he was a male, had ascendancy over them. They quickly convinced the Resident Magistrate that they presented a real threat to Tshekedi. On one of Ellenberger's visits to Serowe, they had created a scene in the Resident Magistrate's office in front of Tshekedi saying that he was their servant and they would never recognise him as Regent. On a second occasion they had even insulted Ellenberger himself. Far from living in the veld, they were wandering about districts in which there was dissatisfaction stirring up further strife. They had even brought in a `Witch Doctor' from Southern Rhodesia. Tshekedi was so frightened of being poisoned by them that he would only eat food prepared by his special cook. His house was guarded day and night as were his drinking-water and his grain bins. Despite these troubles Tshekedi was getting on well with his headmen who were out with regiments making up the roads. `Great credit is due to the Acting Chief for his progressive movements. .... I am of the opinion that Phethu is not so bad as he is painted',the Resident Magistrate wrote to Ellenberger, `and he naturally has a feeling of revenge against the Ratshosas. The Tribe will never settle down until these women are removed...'

The depth of the bitterness of Oratile and Tshekedi's half-sisters was fully revealed at the trial of Simon and Obeditse Ratshosa for `wrongfully, unlawfully and maliciously' assaulting Tshekedi, Kgosidintsi and Gopelan,`by discharging firearms loaded with gunpowder or other explosive substance and bullets at and against' them `with the intent to kill or murder the said Chief Tshekedi, Kgosidintsi and Gopelan or one or more of them'.

The trial was held at Palapye Road and was presided over by a specially appointed Additional Resident Magistrate, Captain Robert O'Malley Reilly, since Mr Cuzen, the Resident Magistrate in charge of Serowe, was to be called as a witness. It began on 22 June and did not finish until 30 June, with judgement being delivered the following day. The transcript of evidence covered 339 pages of typed foolscap paper, and yet it reveals little that was new about the attempted assassination. It did however provide both opponents and supporters of the Ratshosas with a fine opportunity once more to air their grievances.

In the trial the Administration, in the person of Cuzen, was made to seem particularly inept by Dr Lang, the defence counsel from Johannesburg. Cuzen's declared policy of non-interference in Bangwato affairs was held up to ridicule, and yet he was merely espousing the doctrine of parallel rule practised in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. He told Dr. Lang that he did not consider it appropriate to interfere in the Chief's domestic affairs. When asked whether he had tried to stop the burning of the Ratshosas' houses, he replied:

Pressed further, Cuzen assured Dr Lang : `The Chief has the right to destroy houses'.

Black Prince: A Biography of Tshekedi Khama 1905-1959

Black Prince:
A Biography of Tshekedi Khama
1905-1959