The Kalanga's history of dispossession

| Wednesday May 1, 2013 00:00

 

Before the Ndebele, European explorers, hunters and concessionaires arrived, between 1837 and 1840, the Kalanga had already populated the North East, relates Manatsha. He says history has it that his people had been trading with the Portuguese at Delagoa Bay in Mozambique 1,500 years before any other settlers came.

The Kalanga were settled in Mapoka, Mosojane, Masukwane and surrounding areas. Manatsha says the southern parts were occupied by the BaKhurutshe who arrived a century later from modern day South Africa.

Manatsha's dissertation titled 'The Land Question and Colonial Legacy in North-Eastern Botswana' states that the geo-politics of the region changed completely with the arrival of the Ndebele in modern day Zimbabwe from South Africa. Their arrival had a direct impact on the current land question in the North East, he says.

In connivance with European concessionaires, the Ndebele kings awarded concessions using military force. In the first years of their arrival, the Ndebele extended their political authority towards the BaKalanga-BaKhurutshe territory and eventually led them to seek refuge from King Khama III of Bangwato, who lived in Shoshong. Manatsha says that some Bakalanga groups did not flee but hid, such as those under She-Habangana, which gave the colonialists the pretext that their concessions signed on September 2nd, 1880 and February 2nd, 1887, were valid because when they arrived the area was not inhabited. Manatsha explained that only five chiefs were recognised by the colonialists namely Kgosi Mosojane, Kgosi Masunga, Kgosi Ramokate, Kgosi Moroka and Kgosi Habangana of the BaKhurutshe. 

The Bakalanga of Nswazwi often referred to as 'Baperi' came in the late 1890s from South Africa and settled in Nshakashogwe. 'When the Ndebele came and chased BaKalanga-BaKhurutshe off their land, Lobengula then started doing deals with the Europeans,' he narrates.

Manatsha dissertation states that concession documents were written in English, and explained to Lobengula by a white man. He could neither read nor write. His signature is identified in all the concession agreement documents by a cross (x). The dissertation further reveals that in granting the concession, Lobengula did not intend to give away the land for good, or sell it. He, himself, was not the 'rightful owner' of the land and the Europeans knew it, writes Manatsha.

He narrates that after Lobengula was defeated by 'armies' of the British South Africa Company (BSAC) in a bloody conflict, he lost his power and the BSAC won a larger territory of the land. Afterwards the North East remained in the control of the Tati Company.The firm claimed to be the 'rightful' and 'legal' heir to Lobengula's territory of North East.However, the most important aspect of this is that Lobengula never gave the Tati Company any surface rights to the land, Manatsha reveals.

 'The concession only gave Tati Company underground rights to the land, for them to mine the gold,' he says.After concocting stories to support their mendacious claims over the land, in 1894 the British Secretary of State had no option but to award them the land because there was no response from the Africans (Bakalanga-BaKhurutshe) as they had fled from Lobengula to the Central District, in the 1840s. That's how the land was stolen, says Manatsha.In 1895 when the Bakalanga inevitably returned from exile after Lobengula's death, they found that Tati Company was busy mining their ancestral land. Reoccupying the land came with conditional permission from Tati Company. The same year, the BaKhurutshe dragged the company to court in Mafikeng (the Ndebele were still silent) with a land restitution claim. The Tati Company convinced the colonial office in London that the land belonged to it, writes Manatsha. The BaKhurutshe lost the court battle, however, the legal advisor to the colonial administration, Dr Ward differed. He argued that the concessions were signed under 'dubious' circumstances, Manatsha reveals. He adds that the British administration later granted Tati Company full rights as the owners of the North East, (Tati Concessions Land Act, 21 January 1911).

'Even the Botswana Peoples Party tried to incite people to fight for their land then but the BDP believed in the respect of property rights and adequate compensation of any dispossessed land. The BDP chose to purchase the land from the Tati Company. Since then, the government has been buying and redistributing land from Tati Company. Now Tati owns an insignificant chunk of land, estimated to be around 50,000 hectares, which is no longer worth revoking,' Manatsha says.Manatsha explains that the Amandebele of Botswana arrived during the Zimbabwean liberation war in the 1980s. 'When Trans-National boundaries were drawn in 1885 in England, North East fell within the Bechuanaland Protectorate so whosoever claims that the land does not belong to Bakalanga is wrong,' Manatsha says.