Batswana are not Basotho

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Batswana are not Basotho corrects the miseducation that Batswana come from Basotho.With roots dating to CE 600, Batswana predate the Basotho, whose history starts in the 17th century.

10/01/2026

Kgosikgolo Kgafela Kgafela II is the Paramount Chief of the Bakgatla ba Kgafela, a royal house whose people reside across Botswana 🇧🇼 and South Africa 🇿🇦.

Trained as a lawyer, Kgafela II has played a prominent role in the preservation of Bakgatla culture, traditional governance, and ancestral land rights. His leadership has consistently emphasized the protection of indigenous institutions in the face of modern political pressure.

In 2011, he was derecognized by the then Botswana Democratic Party government following disputes over land claims, traditional authority, and cultural autonomy. As a result of this fallout, Kgafela II has lived in exile in South Africa since 2012.

Notably, the South African High Court formally recognised Kgafela II as the rightful Kgosikgolo of the Bakgatla, affirming the legitimacy of his traditional leadership despite his derecognition in Botswana.

Today, Kgosikgolo Kgafela Kgafela II continues to express his intention to return to Botswana with a clear developmental vision for Kgatleng, aimed at improving the socio-economic conditions of the Bakgatla and advancing the broader interests of Batswana as a whole.

Re kopanela le Moreetsi wa Motsweding FM ka kutlobotlhoko e e boteng mo losong lwa Bishop Daniel Matebesi.Re latolelana ...
10/01/2026

Re kopanela le Moreetsi wa Motsweding FM ka kutlobotlhoko e e boteng mo losong lwa Bishop Daniel Matebesi.

Re latolelana le ba lapa la gagwe, kereke, badiredimmogo le setšhaba sotlhe se a se diretse ka botshelo jwa gagwe. Bishop Matebesi e ne e se moruti fela, e ne e le motlhokomedi wa mowa wa batho, motsherelela kagiso, le moagi wa setšhaba.

A mowa wa gagwe o robale ka kagiso.
Matshidiso a rona a a boammaaruri go ba lapa le morafe otlhe. 🕊️🕯️

NTWA YA BANA BA MOKGOTHU — THE LANGEbERG REBELLION, 1896–1897Between December 1896 and August 1897 the western plateau o...
10/01/2026

NTWA YA BANA BA MOKGOTHU — THE LANGEbERG REBELLION, 1896–1897

Between December 1896 and August 1897 the western plateau of the old Griqualand West was set alight by a war that the colonial record would later name the Langeberg Rebellion, but which the people themselves have always remembered as Ntwa ya Bana ba Mokgothu — the War of the Children of Mokgothu. This was not a riot, not an outburst, and not a misunderstanding. It was a carefully waged war of resistance by the Batlhaping and Batlharo nations against the expanding machinery of British colonial rule, whose object was the dispossession of land, the erosion of chiefly authority, and the reduction of Batswana communities into labour reservoirs for settler farms and mining capital.

By the mid-1890s the pressure upon the Batlhaping and Batlharo territories in the Northern Cape had reached a point of crisis. Colonial administrators, backed by mounted police units, settler commandos, and newly imposed magistracies, were redefining ancestral land into crown property. Taxes were enforced without consent, fi****ms were confiscated, and African courts were replaced with colonial tribunals. The final provocation was the extension of compulsory colonial control over areas that had, for generations, been governed through dikgosi, kgotla, and ancestral law.

It was under these conditions that three leaders rose to command the defence of their people: Kgosi Luka Jantjie of the Batlhaping, a man of both political vision and spiritual authority; Kgosi Galeshewe, whose regiments carried the memory of earlier frontier wars; and Kgosi Toto Makgolokwe of the Batlharo, whose mountain strongholds in the Langeberg range became bastions of armed resistance.

The war unfolded across the rugged ridges, valleys, and caves of the Langeberg mountains. Batlhaping and Batlharo regiments fought not in open-field formations favoured by colonial armies, but through ambush, concealment, and intimate knowledge of terrain. Dingaka were consulted before engagements, rituals were performed for protection and clarity of purpose, and the war was framed not merely as a defence of territory but as a spiritual struggle for the survival of the people’s moral order. Fighters carried shields, fi****ms obtained through earlier trade networks, and ancestral medicines believed to harden the body and steady the heart.

The British response was swift and ruthless. Mounted columns advanced from Kimberley and surrounding districts, equipped with modern rifles, artillery, and logistical support far exceeding that of the defenders. Settler militias were mobilised, farms were fortified, and entire Batlhaping and Batlharo settlements were declared hostile territory. Villages were burned, cattle seized, crops destroyed, and families scattered into the bush or forced into surrender.

By August 1897 the rebellion had been crushed by overwhelming force. Kgosi Luka Jantjie was captured and later executed, a calculated act intended to extinguish not only resistance but memory itself. Kgosi Toto Makgolokwe and Kgosi Galeshewe saw their military structures dismantled, their people disarmed, and their lands brought fully under colonial administration. The aftermath was devastating: political autonomy was dismantled, traditional courts subordinated, and Batswana sovereignty in the Northern Cape irreversibly broken.

Yet Ntwa ya Bana ba Mokgothu was not a defeat of spirit. It stands today as one of the last great organised wars of Batswana resistance against colonial domination. It demonstrated that Batlhaping and Batlharo were not passive subjects of history but conscious political actors who chose to defend land, law, and lineage when all peaceful avenues had been exhausted.

To remember this war is not to glorify bloodshed. It is to restore dignity to a people whose struggle has too long been buried beneath colonial terminology and administrative footnotes. Ntwa ya Bana ba Mokgothu was a declaration — that the Batswana of the Northern Cape would not surrender their sovereignty quietly, and that even in the face of empire, a people may still rise in defence of who they are.

03/01/2026

The Batswana and Ndebele people are the originals. Their DNA carries the original code of humanity. And they will be the first to receive.

02/01/2026

Happy New Year Batswana,Basotho le Bapedi 🎉 2026 ya Matlhogonolo ✨️

28/12/2025

Dumelang Batswana mo Botswana 🇧🇼

ATZARÓ OKAVANGO — A PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLAR’S FIELD REPORT FROM THE INNER SANCTUM OF BOTSWANA’S LIVING DELTAThere are momen...
27/12/2025

ATZARÓ OKAVANGO — A PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLAR’S FIELD REPORT FROM THE INNER SANCTUM OF BOTSWANA’S LIVING DELTA

There are moments in the intellectual and cultural life of a nation when a place transcends the limitations of hospitality and becomes a statement of civilisation itself. The recent unveiling of Atzaró Okavango, in the sacred floodplains of Botswana’s Okavango Delta, is such a moment.

This camp does not announce itself with vulgar excess. It reveals itself slowly — as all institutions of lasting authority do — through symmetry, restraint, memory, and purpose. Conceived as a partnership between African Bush Camps, founded by Zimbabwe-born conservationist and former elite safari guide Beks Ndlovu, and the Ibiza-based design house Atzaró, the project represents a rare alignment of ecological conscience, African leadership, and global architectural imagination.

The lodge rests within a private concession of approximately 425 square miles, ensuring not merely privacy, but intellectual solitude — the kind required for reflection on Africa’s inheritance. The property is approached either by a discreet hour-long drive from Maun or, for those whose passage must mirror the majesty of the landscape, a twenty-minute helicopter descent across the braided waterways of the Delta.

The central lodge unfolds as a procession of generous rooms, furnished with solid wood tables, woven textiles, curated African art objects, and a spatial calm that feels less like a hotel and more like an embassy of culture. Masks from Benin, carved figures from Congo, and Ethiopian textiles do not decorate the space; they converse across centuries.

At the eastern edge of the camp stands the Boma lounge and dining complex, designed in the architectural idiom of a weaver bird’s nest — its thatched façade rising as a cathedral of indigenous engineering. Here, guests gather beneath a vast lattice of thatch, shielded from the world but fully open to Africa.

Each morning commences at sunbreak beside a sculpted firepit overlooking a lagoon, where a continental breakfast is served in deliberate simplicity — fresh fruits, yoghurt, cereals, pastries — before scholars of the wild depart on guided expeditions. African Bush Camps’ philosophy of training and recruiting elite regional guides is not marketing rhetoric; it is a pedagogy of excellence. One such guide, Gosegonna Gontshamang, known as Luckym, es**rted guests into the intimate geography of the Delta: five cheetahs reclining beneath a leadwood tree, a warthog calf narrowly escaping predation through the ferocity of parental defense — scenes that collapse the false distance between humanity and creation.

Midday returns are greeted with family-style lunches: salads, local fish, thoughtful dishes that nourish without ceremony. Afternoons are devoted to the disciplines of rest — swimming in the lap pool that mirrors the lagoon, therapeutic rituals in the spa cabins, contemplation from shaded decks.

As the sun lowers, the camp transforms. Sundowners are arranged in wilderness theatres curated by in-house mixologist Percy Boitsile, while executive chef Olorato Gobagoba presides over three-course dinners of meat, fish, or vegetarian design — including grill evenings in the Boma, where local meats are prepared over fire, recalling pre-colonial culinary sovereignties.

The camp’s eight tented suites, each approaching 1,800 square feet, are sanctuaries of stillness: parquet floors, four-poster beds, copper bathtubs, outdoor bathrooms, private terraces, and cold-plunge pools overlooking the lagoon. Two larger villas offer indoor and outdoor bathing, thirteen-foot private pools, sunken fire pits — not as indulgence, but as architectural conversation with the land.

Families are not accommodated; they are initiated. Teenagers receive junior safari packs — binoculars and notebooks — while private vehicles and guides ensure lineage-specific learning.

Beyond safari drives, guests are invited into the ancient grammar of the Delta via mokoro excursions — canoe-like vessels propelled by the ngashi pole, steered by local masters through reed-lined canals, echoing a technology older than empire.

Sustainability is not a footnote here. A fully operational solar farm with lithium-ion battery storage powers the lodge. Plastic is reduced, organic waste composted, Africology products are used in the spa — a South African natural skincare line whose economics are inseparable from women’s empowerment and environmental repair.

AtzarĂł Okavango is not merely a camp. It is a living thesis on what African luxury must become: not spectacle, but stewardship; not escape, but engagement; not consumption, but communion.

In this sanctuary of eight suites, a nation quietly reminds the world that Botswana does not compete in the global narrative — it authors it.

27/12/2025

Dumelang Batswana...

22 DECEMBER 1895 — A PAN-BATSWANA RETURN, A SOVEREIGN STATEMENTOn this day, 130 years ago, a moment of profound politica...
23/12/2025

22 DECEMBER 1895 — A PAN-BATSWANA RETURN, A SOVEREIGN STATEMENT

On this day, 130 years ago, a moment of profound political consciousness and collective resolve unfolded at Kgorwe (Kgoro). Mounted es**rts drawn from across south-eastern Botswana converged to receive Dikgosi Bathoen I, Khama III, and Sebele I upon their return from Britain, following a four-month diplomatic mission undertaken to resist the encroachment of Cecil John Rhodes’ British South Africa Company.

This was not a symbolic procession. It was a deliberate and public assertion of Batswana unity, authority, and strategic clarity in the face of imperial expansion.

The event was contemporaneously recorded by Ratshosa a Motswetla in Makoko a Becwana (February 1896). In his Setswana account of the arrival, he notes that the Dikgosi were met at Kgorwe by large numbers of mounted men representing multiple Batswana polities—Bakwena, Batlokwa, Balete, Bakgatla (Bahurutshe ba Mmanyana), and Bangwaketse—all riding as one es**rt. The imagery is unmistakable: political plurality, yet collective purpose.

From Kgorwe, the Dikgosi and their es**rt proceeded to Kanye, where the reception assumed the character of a national rite. Women, men, and children adorned themselves in celebration; women ululated and kissed the Dikgosi’s hands; men rendered praises; and the Maramakwe regiment leapt forward bearing cowhide shields. The following day, a large public gathering was held, marked by prayer, scripture, and hymns of thanksgiving—signifying both spiritual reflection and political relief.

This episode, often diluted by later historical simplifications, stands as clear evidence of pre-colonial and early-colonial pan-Batswana coordination, diplomatic sophistication, and collective resistance to corporate colonial domination. Long before the formalities of modern statehood, Batswana leadership demonstrated unity without erasure, and cooperation without subjugation.

As we move through this season, we remember that history is not inherited through slogans, but through documented action.

Re Batswana. Nalane ya rona e a itsiwe, e a kwalwa, e bile e eme ka bopaki.

Wishing all a reflective and peaceful Christmas holiday week.

19/12/2025

LEBURU LAKO MOKGOLENG🤣🤣

Xhosa•KhoiTswana•SanThe amaXhosa, a proud Nguni-speaking people, carry deep ancestral roots among the Nguni nations of s...
19/12/2025

Xhosa•KhoiTswana•San

The amaXhosa, a proud Nguni-speaking people, carry deep ancestral roots among the Nguni nations of southeastern Africa. Their journey into the southern regions brought them into close proximity with the Khoi, the pastoralists who had long inhabited those lands. Over time, the Xhosa and Khoi communities intermarried, exchanged language, and influenced one another’s customs. This cultural blending enriched both nations — but it did not transform the Xhosa into Khoi. Their identity, rooted in Nguni origins, remained intact and sovereign.

In a similar rhythm of history, the Batswana — one of the oldest structured nations of central-southern Africa — coexisted for centuries with the San. The Batswana did not conquer the San, nor did they erase them. Instead, they engaged in mutual exchange, learning from San knowledge systems in areas such as healing, survival, and spirituality. And while intermarriage and coexistence occurred, this did not redefine the Batswana as descendants of the San. The Batswana maintained their ancient clan systems, totemic codes, dynastic leadership, and sacred rituals — some dating back over a thousand years.

It is important to affirm:

-The amaXhosa are not Khoi, though they lived among them.

-The Batswana are not San, though they shared knowledge and space with them.

These distinctions do not exist to divide, but to preserve truth. Understanding that a people may influence each other without losing themselves is critical in any genuine retelling of African history.

Far from undermining one another, this acknowledgment uplifts each group in its own light. The Khoi and San stand as foundational custodians of Southern Africa’s earliest traditions. The amaXhosa and Batswana, with their respective dynasties and oral histories, built powerful societies that honored those who came before them without losing themselves in the process.

This is not a denial of kinship. It is an affirmation of lineage.

The story of Southern Africa is not one of erasure — it is one of layered beauty. Each nation has contributed uniquely to the heritage of this land. To honor that legacy, we must be precise in how we speak of it.

Let this be a tribute to all four peoples — to the depth of their knowledge, the strength of their survival, and the integrity of their identities.

History does not confuse roots. And neither should we.

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