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Botswana
Peaceful, negotiated transition of a British High Commission territory to an independent republic.
- Independence
- September 30, 1966
- Before
- Bechuanaland Protectorate
- Metropole
- United Kingdom
- Transition
- Negotiated
- Movement
- Botswana Democratic Party (BDP)
- Head of government at independence
- Seretse Khama
“We appear to have rounded the last bend in the track of our journey and would seem to be out in the straight toward the end.”
— Seretse Khama, Prime Minister of Bechuanaland, February 1966
Protectorate and the Chiefs' Mission
Britain proclaimed the Bechuanaland Protectorate in 1885, partly to stop German South West Africa and the Boer Transvaal joining across the Kalahari. In 1895 three Tswana kings — Khama III, Sebele I and Bathoen I — travelled to London to resist the transfer of their lands to Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company, and largely succeeded, though they conceded a railway route. Regarding the territory as a temporary charge, Britain administered it cheaply from Mafeking, outside its borders in South Africa, from 1895 until a new capital was built at Gaborone in 1964–65.
The Seretse Khama Affair
Seretse Khama, heir to the Ngwato chieftaincy, married Ruth Williams, a white Englishwoman, in 1948. To satisfy South Africa, where the new apartheid government objected to the marriage, Britain barred him from the chieftaincy and exiled him from the protectorate in 1950, making his exclusion permanent in 1952. He was allowed home in 1956 as a private citizen after formally renouncing the chieftaincy for himself and his children.
Negotiated Independence
Seretse Khama founded the Bechuanaland Democratic Party in 1962. It won 28 of 31 seats in the March 1965 elections, the first held on a one-person-one-vote franchise, and he became Prime Minister. A London conference in February 1966 confirmed the independence date, and Botswana became a republic on 30 September 1966 with Seretse Khama as President. It was then one of the poorest countries in the world.
Chronology
- 1885 — Bechuanaland Protectorate proclaimed
- 1895 — Three Tswana kings travel to London
- 1948 — Seretse Khama marries Ruth Williams
- 1950–1956 — Seretse Khama exiled by Britain
- 1962 — Bechuanaland Democratic Party founded
- March 1965 — BDP wins first universal-suffrage elections
- 30 September 1966 — Independence as a republic
- 1967 — Diamonds discovered at Orapa
Documents
- Report Report of the Bechuanaland Independence Conference, London, February 1966 (Cmnd. 2929)
- Act Botswana Independence Act 1966 (UK, c. 23)
Aftermath
Diamond revenues and cautious economic management made Botswana one of the fastest-growing economies in the world for three decades, with real income per head growing by more than seven per cent a year. It has held regular multiparty elections since independence; the BDP governed until it lost the 2024 election and handed over power peacefully. Seretse Khama remained president until his death in 1980.
Legacy
Botswana moved from severe poverty to become one of Africa's most stable democracies and economic success stories. Careful management of diamond revenues is often credited with helping it avoid the 'resource curse'.