Constraints on a Precolonial Economy: The Bakwena State, c.1820-1885

For the greater part of the Nineteenth Century, before ‘protection’ (1885) the BaKwena experienced dramatic changes in their political and economic life. It was during this period when the Bakwena economy – geared to the immediate and urgent need to uphold political independence – was under strain that, the now ubiquitous, labour migration commenced its tradition. It was not fortuitous, but historically and sociologically explicable that labour migration among the Batswana may well have started with the BaKwena. This paper seeks to explore – and indeed one may arque – to locate the beginnings of labour migration in the context of political and economic dislocation of the period prior to 1885. Natural conditions (e.q. droughts) are not excluded, but these are seen as mediated by socio-politico-economic. Notes.