page_title: Tswana people
section_title: Batswana–Boer Wars
hierarchical_section_title: Tswana people / History / Batswana–Boer Wars
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Sechèli, Häuptling der Ba-kuéna Ntsweng, Botswana (Bechuanaland). English: Sechele, chief of the Kwena tribe of Botswana and early Christian missionary. According to Keith Dietrich and Andrew Bank in An eloquent picture gallery&#160;: the South African portrait photographs of Gustav Theodor Fritsch, 1863 - 1865 (2008): "Sechele was happy to be photographed and dressed himself for the occasion in a black ‘dress’ with a colourful silk cravat, ‘fez’, ‘mackintosh’ and riding boots, which, Fritsch noted, he wore on Sundays when he preached. Fritsch gave Sechele an albumen print of his portrait that included the fez, though the photograph used for his book excluded this. Fritsch also recalled that Sechele was very disappointed that the photograph did not include his boots". Español: Sechele, jefe de la tribu Kwena de Botsuana y uno de los primeros misioneros protestantes en África.
context_page_description: The Tswana are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group who are native to Southern Africa. The Tswana language is a member of Sotho-Tswana language group which belongs to the Bantu language family group. Both Northern Sotho and Sesotho derive from the Setswana language and the people speaking these languages are an offshoot of the tswana people. Ethnic Tswana made up approximately 85% of the population of Botswana in 2011.
  The Tswana are the native people of south-western Botswana, Gauteng, North West and some parts of Northern Cape provinces of South Africa where the majority of the Tswana live.
context_section_description: During the 1840s and 1850s trade with Cape Colony-based merchants opened up and enabled the Batswana chiefdoms to rebuild. The Bakwena, Bangwaketse, Bangwato and Batawana cooperated to control the lucrative ivory trade, and then used the proceeds to import horses and guns, which in turn enabled them to establish control over what is now Botswana. This process was largely complete by 1880, and thus the Bushmen, the Bakalanga, the Bakgalagadi, the Batswapong and other current minorities were subjugated by the Batswana. Following the Great Trek, Afrikaners from the Cape Colony established themselves on the borders of Botswana in the Transvaal. In 1852 a coalition of Tswana chiefdoms led by Sechele I resisted Afrikaner incursions which culminated with the pivotal showdown of the Battle of Dimawe fought with artillery and long range rifles as well as musket fire. Although it was the Boer Commando led by the Boer Commandant-General Pieter Scholtz and Paul Kruger, as an officer leading the Boer advance who started the offensive, it was they who ended up on the retreat followed by Batswana's retaliatory attacks into the then Transvaal's Marique district in which Boer settlements, villages and farms were scotched. After about eight years of intermittent tensions and hostilities, eventually came to a peace agreement in Potchefstroom in 1860. From that point on, the modern-day border between South Africa and Botswana was agreed on, and the Afrikaners and Batswana traded and worked together peacefully.
caption: An 1865 Portrait of Kgosi Sechele I in Ntsweng Bechuanaland
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