XIX0045 – Bechuanaland Border Police

The Bechuanaland Border Police

Raised in 1885 to police the newly declared protectorate that would become Botswana, the Bechuanaland Border Police were a mounted paramilitary force of a few hundred men responsible for an area the size of France. Their task was less warfare than presence: patrolling trade routes, enforcing the frontier against Boer freebooters, and representing an administration that had almost no other physical existence on the ground.

A Protectorate Created by Request

Bechuanaland is an unusual case in the history of the Scramble for Africa. The Tswana chiefs — Khama III of the Bangwato foremost among them — actively sought British protection as the lesser threat, faced with encroachment by Boer settlers from the Transvaal and by Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company, which wanted the territory absorbed into its charter. In 1895 three chiefs travelled to London to petition against that absorption, and they succeeded. Bechuanaland remained a protectorate rather than company territory, and became independent Botswana in 1966 without a war of liberation.

The Jameson Raid

The force’s most consequential moment was inglorious. In December 1895 a body of police under Leander Starr Jameson rode from Bechuanaland into the Transvaal in an attempt to trigger an uprising against the Boer republic. The raid failed within days, Jameson was captured, and the affair discredited Rhodes, poisoned Anglo-Boer relations and led directly toward the South African War of 1899.

Giuseppe Rava’s Original Work

Giuseppe Rava reconstructs the troopers from period photographs and surviving dress regulations: the khaki field uniform adopted early for African service, the slouch hat, the bandolier, the carbine and the hardy local horses on which the force depended.

This is a limited edition fine art print, hand-signed by the artist, produced in SRA3 format on fine art paper. Ships worldwide.