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Local Adaptation and the Transformation of an Imperial Concession in North-Eastern Botswana1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Extract

The main subject of this paper is the way in which patterns of settlement and modes of working and holding land are transformed and adapted to diverse political and economic relations. The changes discussed occurred in adjustment, under British Imperial rule, between a large-scale, commercial landlord—initially a mining and trading company—and local rulers and residents in the area of the landlord's monopoly in north-eastern Botswana. Ecological conditions in the middle and high veld of Botswana are of crucial importance for the discussion, since these posed various risks and costs for the landlord, the local rulers, and the residents. I examine primarily a sequence of decisions and the locally crucial constraints that prevailed and set a course for further choices. ‘Tribal ruler’ is the generic term which I use for such political offices as ‘paramount chief’, ‘chieftain’, and also the Protectorate Administration's grade of Sub-Chief. A paramount chief or, simply, chief, is a ruler of the highest rank, having a major territory, whose authority extends over a series of subordinates, including some chieftains. Chieftains, in turn, are petty rulers over lesser territories, and in the grades of the Administration, never higher than Sub-Chief, though they may be independent and not under a chief as an administrative superior.

Résumé

ADAPTATION LOCALE ET TRANSFORMATION D'UNE CONCESSION IMPÉRIALE AU NORD-EST DU BOTSWANA

Cet article traite des changements politiques et économiques survenus dans les rapports entre une large classe de propriétaires et hommes d'affaires, issus de compagnies minières et commerciales, et les dirigeants locaux de la zone ou chaque propriétaire exerce son monopole. L'auteur étudie cet ajustement en relation avec les contraintes écologiques dans le moyen et le haut veldt du Botswana. Il montre comment la transformation des rapports d'interdépendance entre propriétaires et dirigeants locaux a affecté le développement ultérieur des modes de travail et de tenure foncière et a permis la constitution de modèles de référence dans le nord-est du Botswana sous la domination britannique impériale.

Dans une zone du Botswana, connue sous le nom de concession Tati, une Cie a acquis un titre de propriété discutable. La concession s'étendait sur deux régions différentes, comprenant les villageois du sud avec leurs grands troupeaux et des champs éloignés de leur résidence centrale, et les villageois du nord vivant dans des hameaux avec leurs pâturages et des jardins bien délimités dans des vallées étroites. Ces ethnies voisines bien différentes — Kalanga et Khurutse — en venaient à unifier leur mode de production et d'implantation au fur et à mesure que la Cie développait son exploitation.

L'auteur étudie les risques, les coûts d'une telle adaptation, et analyse les négociations diplomatiques qui l'ont rendue nécessaire.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1971

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References

page 33 note 1 J. B. Pole-Evans, ‘A Reconnaissance Trip through the Eastern Portion of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, April 1931 ’, South African Botanical Survey Memoir, 21.

page 35 note 1 19.2.1895 in H.C. 155, Archives of Botswana at Gaborone.

page 35 note 2 The contradiction between the initial policy of the Protectorate Government and the later policy — that imposed by the British Government—is recorded in a dispatch from the Resident Commissioner to the High Commissioner (no. 118 H.C. 13) October 1905. This Resident Commissioner wrote: ‘Dr. Ward, the legal adviser of the Protectorate Government, is of the opinion that by these concessions the Tati Concessions Company did not acquire surface rights to the land, but that point need not now be considered as Your Excellency has been informed by the Secretary of State that it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to give the Company surface rights, and to treat the matter as if such surface rights had been actually the property of the Tati Concession.

‘So that it would seem that Rawe is correct in stating that “the Tati Concessions are not the owners of the land ”, but his lack of information on this point ought not to be blamed him inasmuch as the Protectorate Government was for the first time informed of the intention of His Majesty's Government in this respect by Lord Milner's despatch no. 51 on the 18th May, 1903. ’ (Text cited in I. Schapera, The Native Land Problem in the Tati District, Mafeking, (unpublished report), 1943, p. 37.)

page 35 note 3 Text cited in Schapera, 1943, p. 4.

page 35 note 4 For an account by a former Resident Commissioner, see Sillery, A., The Bechuanaland Protectorate, London, 1952, p. 88.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 White Book African (South), 763, no. 59, cited in Schapera, 1943, p. 40.

page 36 note 2 Reed, G. C. H., Letter from Dom Dema 2.7.1896, Archives of the London Missionary Society, London.Google Scholar

page 37 note 1 Gould, A. J. H., Litter from Selepeng, 28.1.1903, Archives of the London Missionary Society, London.Google Scholar

page 37 note 2 Chief Rauwe as quoted in A. J. H. Gould, Letter of 21.12.1900, Archives of the London Missionary Society, London.

page 38 note 1 Gould, A. J. H., Letter from Selepeng, 28.1.1903, Archives of the London Missionary Society, London.Google Scholar

page 38 note 2 Resident Commissioner 13.10.1903, cited in I. Schapera, 1943, p. 38.

page 39 note 1 I. Schapera, 1943, p. 12.

page 39 note 2 Assistant Commissioner, Francistown, Letter to Resident Commissioner, 24.3.1908, R.C.11/5 (64) Archives of Botswana at Gaborone.

page 40 note 1 I. Schapera, 1943, p. 4.