BATHOEN I

Bathoen I (1845-1910), also called Batweng, was chief of the Ngwaketse, one of the Tswana branch of the Sotho people of Botswana (formerly Bechuanaland).

He was the son of Chief Gaseitsiwe and a descendant of Chief Makaba II, one of the great nation builders in Ngwaketse history. Bathoen was taught by the missionaries of the London Missionary Society (L.M.S.), and strongly supported their evangelical endeavours.

By the 1880s he had already attained a good deal of power. In 1884 he launched a retaliatory cattle raid against Afrikaner farmers. This action resulted in the arrival of a British expeditionary force, led by Sir Charles Warren, which was followed by the establishment of the Bechuanaland Protectorate in 1885. The protectorate included the territory of the Ngwaketse.

Bathoen formally succeeded to the chieftainship of the Ngwaketse in 1889. He favoured the enterprise of European concessionaries, but in cooperation with other Tswana chiefs resisted contemporary proposals to hand over the Bechuanaland Protectorate to the administration of Cecil John Rhodes British South Africa Company. To block this latter proposal, he and other African leaders, including Khama III, visited London
in 1895.

Bathoen died in 1910, leaving his people subject to lengthy succession disputes that were finally settled through the accession of Bathoen II in 1928.

L.H. GANN