The Three Dikgosi: Botswana's 1895 Journey to Britain

In 1895 three dikgosi (chiefs) from what is now Botswana, Khama III of the Bangwato, Sebele I of the Bakwena and Bathoen I of the Bangwaketse, travelled to Britain to stop their lands being handed over to Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company. They spent weeks touring the country, addressing public meetings and lobbying the government, and they largely succeeded: their territories stayed under the British Crown as the Bechuanaland Protectorate rather than being absorbed into Rhodes's company empire, though they had to give up a strip of land for a railway.

The journey of the three dikgosi is one of the founding stories of modern Botswana. Their statues stand together in the centre of Gaborone, and the episode is often told as the moment that kept Botswana from becoming another Rhodesia. That national version is broadly right, but the full story is more interesting, and more complicated.

Why the three dikgosi went to Britain

Britain declared a protectorate over Bechuanaland in 1885, mainly to secure the road north from the Cape and to stop the Boer republics and Germany from closing it. It was a light-touch arrangement: the dikgosi continued to govern their own people, and Britain spent as little as possible.

Then, in 1889, the British South Africa Company received a royal charter to occupy and govern territory to the north. Rhodes wanted Bechuanaland too, as a corridor for his railway and as part of a British-ruled belt running up the continent. By 1895 the British government was inclined to let the company take over. For the dikgosi, the warning signs were clear. Company rule in Matabeleland and Mashonaland, in present-day Zimbabwe, had brought land seizures and war. Rule by a profit-seeking company answerable to its shareholders looked far more dangerous than distant protection by the Crown.

The journey and the campaign

The three dikgosi sailed for Britain in the second half of 1895, accompanied by the missionary W. C. Willoughby of the London Missionary Society, who acted as interpreter and organiser. What followed was a remarkable piece of public diplomacy. They spoke at meetings across England and Scotland, in churches and town halls, and attracted large and sympathetic audiences.

They chose their allies well. Missionary societies and nonconformist churches backed them, and Khama's ban on the sale of alcohol in his territory made him a hero to the powerful temperance movement. Newspapers took up the cause. Rather than appearing as petitioners at the mercy of officials, the dikgosi built a body of British public opinion that the government could not easily ignore.

In November 1895 they reached an agreement with the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain. Their territories would remain under the Crown, with defined reserves for each community, while the dikgosi ceded a strip of land along the east of the Protectorate for the company's railway. That same month they were received by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle, a detail that gives the story a particular resonance for a walk that is planned to end at Windsor.

What the national story leaves out

Historians generally agree that the dikgosi's campaign mattered, but they also point to other forces. Only weeks after the agreement, the Jameson Raid, an armed incursion into the Transvaal organised by Rhodes's associates and launched from Bechuanaland territory, collapsed in failure and scandal. Rhodes was forced to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, and the political appetite in London for handing more territory to his company drained away. The dikgosi's diplomacy and the raid's disgrace together secured the outcome.

It is also worth remembering whose voices are missing. The three dikgosi spoke for their own polities, not for every community in the territory, including San people and others who lived under Tswana authority. And the Protectorate that survived was not a golden age: Britain invested very little in it for decades, and many men left to work in South African mines. Telling the story honestly does not diminish the dikgosi; it shows how skilled they were in a world stacked against them.

The Three Dikgosi Monument in Gaborone

The Three Dikgosi Monument, unveiled in Gaborone's central business district in 2005, shows Khama III, Sebele I and Bathoen I as large bronze figures, with panels illustrating moments in Botswana's history. It has become one of the capital's best-known landmarks and a place where visitors and school groups come to hear the national story. It also attracted some debate, partly over the choice of a North Korean state studio to make it, and partly over whether a monument to three Tswana chiefs fully represents a multilingual, multi-community nation.

From Khama III to Seretse Khama and independence

The 1895 story runs straight into the twentieth century. Khama III ruled the Bangwato until his death in 1923, from a capital that moved from Shoshong to Palapye and then to Serowe. In Serowe, the Khama III Memorial Museum tells the story of the family and the town.

His grandson, Seretse Khama, was heir to the Bangwato chieftaincy when, as a student in London, he married Ruth Williams, an Englishwoman, in 1948. South Africa, which was building apartheid and outlawing mixed marriages, and white-ruled Southern Rhodesia were outraged. Britain, anxious about its relations with Pretoria, barred Seretse from his own country and sent him into exile. He was allowed to return in 1956 only after renouncing his claim to the chieftaincy. He then turned to politics, founded the Bechuanaland Democratic Party, and in 1966 became the first President of independent Botswana, with Ruth Khama beside him. Some seventy years after the three dikgosi went to London to keep their lands out of Rhodes's hands, their country stepped into independence.

Why this matters on foot

The planned route crosses Botswana from the South African border through Gaborone and north along the eastern corridor, through country shaped by the Bangwato, Bakwena and Bangwaketse histories this story touches. Leon hopes to visit the Three Dikgosi Monument and to hear the history from Botswana historians, including the parts the simple version leaves out. Walking from the southern tip of Africa to Windsor Castle, he will be following, slowly and on foot, the same line from southern Africa to the Crown that the three dikgosi travelled by sea in 1895.

To understand the public institution the dikgosi led, read what is a kgotla. You can read about Leon, follow his updates in the journal once he is walking, and support the walk before he sets off from Cape Agulhas in December 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Who were the three dikgosi?

Khama III of the Bangwato, Sebele I of the Bakwena and Bathoen I of the Bangwaketse, three Tswana rulers who travelled to Britain together in 1895.

Did the three dikgosi meet Queen Victoria?

Yes. After reaching agreement with the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, they were received by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in November 1895.

What did the 1895 agreement achieve?

It kept their territories under the British Crown rather than the British South Africa Company, in exchange for land ceded for a railway. The failure of the Jameson Raid soon afterwards helped make the outcome stick.

Where is the Three Dikgosi Monument?

In the central business district of Gaborone, Botswana's capital. It was unveiled in 2005.