Enkavato Kingdom

The Ngwato Kingdom was one of the eight Tswana states that made up Bechuanaland, the territory that became Botswana after independence in 1966. Its significance in the book’s account lies in the connection between Ngwato land, Seretse Khama’s leadership, and Botswana’s decision to treat mineral wealth as a national resource rather than a source of tribal or private advantage.

Place Among the Tswana States

In 1895, Ngwato was among the three Tswana states represented in Britain by their chiefs. Khama of the Ngwato travelled with Bathoen of the Ngwaketse and Sebele of the Kwena to oppose Cecil Rhodes’s designs on their states and seek protection for the Tswana polities. The three states were part of a wider group of eight in Bechuanaland, whose later independence as Botswana gave their political history a national setting.

The Ngwato remained a significant political community into the independence era. Seretse Khama, its hereditary chief and grandson of Khama III, led the Botswana Democratic Party alongside Quett Masire, and many Tswana chiefs and elites joined the party. Thus, the Ngwato’s traditional authority was not merely a remnant outside the new political order: its hereditary leadership was connected to the party that led the country toward independence.

Land, Diamonds, and National Rights

The book describes Tswana chiefs as having tried during the colonial period to prevent mineral prospecting in Bechuanaland. They understood that discovery of precious metals or stones could threaten their autonomy. That concern acquired particular importance when the first major diamond discovery was made beneath Ngwato land, Seretse Khama’s traditional homeland.

Before the discovery was announced, Khama changed the law so that rights to minerals beneath the soil belonged to the nation, not to the tribe. The decision shifted the potential beneficiaries of the discovery beyond the Ngwato community and prevented mineral wealth from automatically accruing to a single tribal group. It also strengthened political centralization: revenues could be used to build a state bureaucracy and infrastructure and to invest in education.

From Traditional Authority to State-Building

The national approach to mineral rights formed part of a broader effort to build and consolidate the postcolonial state. The Chieftaincy Act of 1965 and its 1970 amendment removed chiefs’ authority to allocate land and allowed the president to remove a chief when necessary. These measures strengthened the state and elected presidency at the expense of chiefly powers, making the transition from traditional political authority to centralized national institutions concrete.

The book contrasts Botswana’s management of diamond revenues with cases in which diamonds helped fuel conflict and sustain civil wars. In Botswana, the revenue was managed for the good of the nation; in the Ngwato case, the key institutional choice was to vest mineral rights nationally before the discovery became public. The kingdom’s historical importance therefore rests not simply on possessing diamond-bearing land, but on the political decision that determined how its underground wealth would be governed and shared.