page_title: History of Gaborone
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Gaborone / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: An 1887 map of southern Africa showing Matabeleland (part of present-day Zimbabwe). This is a retouched picture, which means that it has been digitally altered from its original version. Modifications: Extraneous German-language labels removed, converted to PNG format. The original can be viewed here: Matabeleland.gif. Modifications made by Fvasconcellos. Azərbaycanca&#160;| Беларуская (тарашкевіца)‎&#160;| বাংলা&#160;| Català&#160;| Česky&#160;| Dansk&#160;| Deutsch&#160;| Zazaki&#160;| English&#160;| Esperanto&#160;| Español&#160;| Eesti&#160;| فارسی&#160;| Suomi&#160;| Français&#160;| Galego&#160;| Hrvatski&#160;| Magyar&#160;| Հայերեն&#160;| Italiano&#160;| Bahasa Indonesia&#160;| 日本語&#160;| ქართული&#160;| ភាសាខ្មែរ&#160;| 한국어&#160;| Kurdî&#160;| Македонски&#160;| മലയാളം&#160;| Bahasa Melayu&#160;| Plattdüütsch&#160;| Nederlands&#160;| Polski&#160;| Português&#160;| Română&#160;| Русский&#160;| Slovenščina&#160;| Српски / srpski&#160;| Svenska&#160;| Türkçe&#160;| Українська&#160;| Vèneto&#160;| 中文&#160;| 中文（简体）‎&#160;| 中文（繁體）‎&#160;| 中文（台灣）‎&#160;| +/−
context_page_description: The history of Gaborone began with archaeological evidence in the area around Gaborone dating back to 400 BCE, and the first written accounts of Gaborone are from the earliest European settlers in the 19th century. Since the 1960s, when Botswana gained its independence from Britain and Gaborone became the capital, the city has grown from a small village in the Botswana scrubland to a major center in southern Africa.
context_section_description: The Mfecane (the crushing or scattering in Zulu) is a period in the early 19th century marked by major upheavals and migrations of the tribes in southern Africa. Before the arrival of Europeans to the area, the Batswana were the dominant ethnic group in the southern half of Botswana, subjugating the Bakgalagadi people and the Khoikhoi to become malata or servants. In the 1830s, the Boers embarked on the Great Trek from the Cape Colony towards the northeast. This movement caused the Amandebele people, led by Mzilikazi, to attack the Batswana as they moved northwards to present-day Zimbabwe in the 1830s, forcing them to pay tribute. The Bakololo people also fought with the Batswana during this time when they migrated to Barotseland in modern-day western Zambia. Along with the Bakololo and the Amandebele, the Boers also created skirmishes with the Batswana. Kgosi Setshele I (kgosi means chief in Tswana) of the Bakwena led the Batswana side during the Battle of Dimawe from 1852–1853. An agreement was signed between the Boers and the Batswana in January 1853.
  During this time, European missionaries from the London Missionary Society, such as David Livingstone and Robert Moffat, spread Christianity throughout the region. David Livingstone started the first church and school in 1845 at the Kolobeng Mission, near Gaborone.
  In the 1880s, Kgosi Gaborone of the Batlokoa clan left the Magaliesberg area in the South African province of North West to settle in the southeastern part of Botswana and called the settlement Moshaweng. There is an unrelated Moshaweng in the Kweneng District northwest of Gaborone. The city that Kgosi Gaborone founded was called first called  Gaborone's Village by the first European settlers. It was later shortened to Gaberones. Cecil Rhodes, a mining magnate and founder of the De Beers mining company, built a fort for colonial administration across the river from Gaberones. The fort was where Rhodes planned the Jameson Raid during the Second Boer War. The site of the fort became Gaborone and the city of Gaberones became Tlokweng.
  After gold was discovered in South Africa in 1871, Khama III of the Bamangwato tribe made an alliance with the United Kingdom against advancing Boer gold miners. On 31 March 1885, United Kingdom created the Bechuanaland Protectorate from the land north of the Molopo River to the Caprivi Strip of German South-West Africa. The area south of the Molopo River became part of South Africa.
  Until the 1890s, Britain ruled Bechuanaland indirectly, letting the dikgosi (plural of kgosi) rule themselves. Things changed when Cecil Rhodes established the British South Africa Company with a government charter. Rhodes wanted to have control over the entire southern African region. Three dikgosi, Khama III, Sebele I, and Bathoen I, traveled to Great Britain in 1895 to ask Queen Victoria not to incorporate Botswana into Rhodes's company or other British colonies like Southern Rhodesia or the Cape Colony, and they proved successful. Today, in Gaborone, there is a memorial called the Three Dikgosi Monument in honor of the three chiefs who helped the founding of Bechuanaland and later Botswana.
caption: German map of Matabeleland with the city of Gaborone (referred to as Moschaweng) in the lower left-hand corner on the border between the Bechuanaland Protectorate (pink) and the South African Republic (bright yellow)
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