I had never been to the African continent until my trip earlier this year to go on safari and visit Victoria Falls, spending most of the time at three different lodges in Botswana. Although I knew that the British had many links to Southern Africa, I did not realize how closely the history of the land of my birth and Botswana are entwined.

Of the four countries we visited – Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe - Botswana was definitely my favorite, perhaps because we spent the most time there, on the Chobe river in the north of the country and on the Okavango Delta in the north west. It could also have been because we saw the most wildlife there, especially the elephants which I loved.

The Okavango Delta is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the few interior delta systems that do not flow into a sea or ocean, with a wetland system that is largely intact.

It is breathtaking.

I did not realize how big Botswana is. It is about 2.4 times bigger than the United Kingdom but with less than 4% of its population. This landlocked territory is roughly triangular and covers 225 thousand square miles – just smaller than Texas but much bigger than California. Before nationhood in 1966, I learned that Botswana was a British protectorate known as Bechuanaland. It was also one of the poorest and least-developed states in the world. The national language, Tswana, was and still is widely spoken but the official language today is English.

The history of Botswana is interesting. In prehistoric times, there were hunter gatherers and around 20BC there is evidence of Iron Age farming communities. During the 13th and 14th centuries a number of powerful dynasties began to emerge. The archaeology of the area known as the Transvaal region shows that, after about 1700, stone-walled villages and some large towns developed on hills, ruled by large regional dynasties.

These dynasty-states were in competition, fighting for cattle and population, for control of hunting and mineral tribute, and for control of trade with the east coast. From about 1750, trading and raiding for ivory, cattle, and people to enslave spread into the region which is now Botswana. Things calmed down during the 1840s when the area enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous time. The states competed with one another economically to benefit from the increasing trade in ivory and ostrich feathers being carried by wagons down new roads to the Cape Colony in the south. Those roads also brought Christian missionaries to Botswana and Boer trekkers, who settled in the Transvaal to the east.

In the 1880s European colonists were scrambling to control African territories and benefit from the diamond mines and other natural resources found on the continent.

The British in the Cape Colony of South Africa used their missionary and trade connections with the area to keep the roads through Botswana open for British expansion to Zimbabwe and the Zambezi River. In 1885 the British proclaimed a protectorate over much of the Kalahari desert that covers a lot of today’s Botswana, and extended it to the Chobe River in 1890.

British colonial expansion was privatized in the form of the British South Africa Company, which in 1890 used the road through the Bechuanaland Protectorate to colonize the area soon to be called Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

But the protectorate itself remained under the British crown, and settlement remained restricted to a few border areas, after an attempt to hand it over to the company was foiled by a delegation of three Tswana Dynasty kings to London in 1895. The kings, however, had to concede to the company the right to build a railway to Rhodesia through their lands.

The British government continued to regard the protectorate as a temporary expedient, until it could be handed over to Rhodesia or, after 1910, to the new Union of South Africa. There was little investment or development in what is now Botswana until 1964, with it providing migrant labor and rail transit to Rhodesia.

From the late 1950s it became clear that Bechuanaland must be developed toward political and economic self-sufficiency.

For its first five years of political independence, Botswana remained financially dependent on Britain, but economic development took off in 1967–71 after the discovery of diamonds. Our guide on safari told me that Botswana remains positive about its history with Great Britain, and said “Botswana owes a great deal to the United Kingdom.”

Since its independence the Republic of Botswana has gained international stature as a peaceful and increasingly prosperous democratic state. The elections in 2024 was the first time since independence that there was a change in the governing party. The orderly manner in which the transition was conducted was widely praised and was lauded as a testament to Botswana’s democratic tradition.

I will leave you with a quote that really resonates with me now I have experienced Africa, from American 20th century novelist, Henry Miller “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

God Bless America!

Lesley grew up in London, England and made Georgia her home in 2009.

She can be contacted at lesley@ lesleyfrancispr.com or via her PR and marketing agency at www.lesleyfrancispr.com.