To Die For: Inherited Leadership (Bogosi) Among the Tswana Before 1885

Standard interpretations of inherited leadership (bogosi) among the varied Tswana-speaking peoples, undertaken in the mid colonial era by Isaac Schapera, and followed by more recent scholars, have been preoccupied with the constitutional restrictions and obligations of this office and its rules of succession. This framework has served also as a generic characterisation of pre-colonial bogosi, suggesting continuity over time. An examination of the pre-colonial period, which this article has undertaken with a purview commencing with the mid 18th century, suggests otherwise. Rather than an institution that esteemed sharing, accountability, service, and even-handedness, bogosi in earlier times was heavily tilted towards fighting, raiding, and authoritarian acts. The levels of violence and heavy-handedness is reflected by high mortality rates among inherited leaders (dikgosi), mostly in battles and at the hand of assassins. Such was the case among the many Tswana-speaking entities or clusters in the eastern, southern and western regions of Tswana territory, until the Pedi, Kololo, Ndebele, and Trekkers arrived in train. After 1840, a period of uneven recovery commenced, and surviving dikgosi turned to alliances of varying sorts to revive their authority. The nature of bogosi as understood by Schapera, and others who have followed his assessment, took shape much later, after the 1880s: that is, at the point when colonial structures legitimised individual dikgosi and accorded them a governing role in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Most probably, notions of the dikgosi’s powers and obligations that cast bogosi as a repository of civic virtues are colonial phenomena, and certainly of little help in explaining the realities faced by Tswana leaders at previous times and in varying circumstances.