King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain through African Eyes

\ King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen\ \ \ \ Victorian Britain through African Eyes\ \ \ \ By Neil Parsons\ \ \ University of Chicago Press\ \ \ \ Copyright © 2003\ \ University of Chicago\ All right reserved.\ \ ISBN: 0-226-64744-7\ \ \ \ \ \ Introduction\ \ \ Epiphany on Clifton Bridge\ Clifton Suspension Bridge crosses a dizzying gorge near Bristol where the\ river Avon cuts through a hillside toward the Severn and the Bristol Channel.\ (jpeg image, 121 Kb) The bridge, completed in 1829, is a monument to the\ ingenuity of its architect, the twenty-three-year-old engineer Isambard\ Kingdom Brunel (1806-59). With iron frame, wooden planking, brick and masonry\ towers-and suspension chains taken from London's Hungerford footbridge,\ demolished to make way for Charing Cross railway bridge over the Thames in\ 1864-the narrow span stretches for 630 feet (190 meters).\ It was across this bridge that four gentlemen could be seen cautiously making\ their way one morning in September 1895. Three Africans of obvious seniority\ and respectability, in sober gray woolen suits, were being cajoled to walk\ onward by a short, bespectacled white man with a pointed beard.\ The pathfinder was William Charles Willoughby, an ordained minister of the\ London Missionary Society (LMS). He had been serving in the southernAfrican\ mission field of Bechuanaland for four years. His reluctant followers-Khama,\ Sebele, and Bathoen-were all chiefs or kings of the "Bechuana" (Batswana)\ people of Britain's Bechuanaland Protectorate.\ Reverend Willoughby had sprung the novel experience of the Clifton Bridge on\ the three dignitaries as a prank to catch them unawares "before they knew\ where they were." He had taken them for a ride in a horse carriage over the\ hills on the edge of the city of Bristol, along a road that suddenly jutted\ out into space across Clifton gorge.\ They alighted next to the bridge and looked down into the ravine to see\ "people and carriages like little spots below them." They were "astonished ...\ beyond measure," but "it was a matter of dignity with them to manifest\ surprise at nothing."\ Willoughby took them to the beginning of the bridge, but the three chiefs\ refused to walk any further: "We are afraid. We'll go back."\ Willoughby chided them, "I'll go on then."\ "It's dangerous," they said.\ "I've a wife at home," said Willoughby, "and am not a likely man to go into\ danger. I'm going across anyhow."\ He strode out along the footpath on one side of the bridge. The chiefs\ hesitantly followed him: "At first they went holding fast by the uprights" on\ the footpath. They then found that it felt much safer to walk down the center\ of the carriageway. According to the Bristol Mercury, "They were much struck\ with the view from the middle of the gorge, and then they carefully retracted\ their steps."\ As they regained their balance and good sense, no doubt the three men saw the\ humor of the situation, joshing at each other's "cowardice." Willoughby was\ certainly pleased by the experiment in breaking down the reserved manners of\ his three royal proteges. He later told a journalist from the Westminster\ Gazette: "There is nothing, in fact, more infra dig. for a South African chief\ than to show he is astonished."\ Nonconformist missionaries like Willoughby saw it as their duty to wear down\ the stoicism of their converts and to encourage them to express their emotions\ of pain and joy-to cry out and confess the Lord. Willoughby was the inheritor\ of a Puritan tradition that, as James Boswell's father had reminded Dr.\ Johnson, had taught kings they had a joint in their necks. It was a tradition\ that was antagonistic toward aristocrats and traditional rulers, and that had\ found a new form in the "moral purity" movement of late Victorian Britain. The\ movement was characterized by the "Nonconformist conscience" checking\ corruption in public life, by the temperance movement against drunkenness, and\ in more radical forms by "Little Englandism" opposed to imperial expansion and\ by the peace movement against wars in general.\ Yet the success of Christian mission work in Bechuanaland was very dependent\ on the patronage of local royals and aristocrats, and upon the ultimate\ backing of British imperial control. Missionary societies in Bechuanaland\ operated through "tribal" state churches, based on royal prerogative and\ aristocratic privilege. Hence Willoughby and other LMS missionaries were more\ than a little ambiguous toward African royalty and toward European imperialism\ in general. Willoughby had a reputation in colonial circles of being an\ "enrage missionary," because of his exposure in the magazine Truth of the\ brutalities of the colonial conquest of Rhodesia.\ Willoughby had an immediate purpose in wanting to puncture the dignity and\ reserve of Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen in September 1895. It was now ten days\ since their arrival in Britain, and they were still proving to be rather too\ hesitant in front of the congregations that they were facing almost daily.\ After their arrival, Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen had been mobbed by\ journalists, pampered by ministers of religion, and presented to hundreds of\ people in London. They had also achieved their first interview with the most\ powerful and glamorous politician of the age, Joseph Chamberlain, the\ secretary of state for the colonies (colonial minister) in the new\ Conservative and Unionist government, who held their fate in his hands.\ Chamberlain had slipped away on a Mediterranean vacation, promising to attend\ to their matter on his return. It was decided that Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen\ would use the interim period to good effect by whipping up support in chapel\ and town meetings across the country. So that when Chamberlain returned he\ would find such a groundswell of support in "the provinces," that it would\ counteract the metropolitan and colonial interests that otherwise held\ colonial ministers in the palms of their hands. The provincial city of Bristol\ was chosen as the first stop on this most demanding phase of the Bechuana\ chiefs' mission to Britain. As their tour manager, Willoughby was determined\ that the three chiefs' tour of the provinces should be a barnstorming success\ from the start. (Map of Great Britain in 1895 showing where the Bechuana\ chiefs went, including railway lines-gif image, 44 Kb)\ * * *\ Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen were suitably impressed with the Clifton Bridge's\ hanging seemingly unsupported over the abyss. Recalling the seasick\ sixteen-day voyage from Africa, they humorously suggested: "Well, if you can\ support a bridge in the air like this, why not build one from London to Cape\ Town?"\ A similar suggestion had been made ninety years before in an English version\ of the magical fake-memoirs of Baron Munchausen. The baron had found more gold\ dust and pearls in the Kalahari than he could carry, as well as a civilized\ empire in this part of the interior of southern Africa with "so polished and\ refined a people." He therefore proceeded to build a bridge-the eighth wonder\ of the world-between the Kalahari and Europe.\ The Travels of Baron Munchausen was a work of many hands, a satire on\ contemporary mores, originally published in German in 1796. The civilization\ in the Kalahari first appeared in an English-language edition published in, or\ soon after, 1806. The book was a satire on accounts of current exploration by\ Europeans in Africa. It portrayed the Africans discovered in the Kalahari as\ more levelheaded and civilized than contemporary Europeans. The notion of a\ Kalahari bridge mocked the British in particular, who had been crazed by\ contemplating the possibilities of mechanical and engineering progress during\ the Industrial Revolution.\ Baron Munchausen's civilization in the Kalahari was not a complete figment of\ anyone's imagination. It was based on an account of "Booshuana," that is,\ Botswana, which was published in a book of 1806 eccentrically titled A Voyage\ to Cochin China, in the years 1792 and 1793 ... To which is appended an\ account of a journey to the residence of the chief of the Booshuana Nation.\ Nor was the idea of a mechanical bridge through the air, from the Kalahari to\ Europe, to remain for ever fantasy. As the African Critic responded to the\ suggestion of the three Bechuana chiefs in 1895: "Well, even that may come to\ pass. The age of flying-machines will, however, surely precede it."\ A mere quarter of a century later, in 1919-20, three years before Khama died,\ landing fields for the Cape-to-Cairo air route were laid out in his country at\ Palapye and Serowe. Six or seven decades later there was to be an "air bridge"\ of jet airliners flying in little more than half a day between Europe and the\ capital city of the Republic of Botswana.\ * * *\ By an act of singular foresight, the Bechuana chiefs in 1895 commissioned\ Durrant's Press Cuttings agency in London to clip the newspapers for\ references to themselves.\ More than one copy of such press clippings survives. One copy covering the\ period up to October 15, originally belonging to Bathoen, is now held in the\ library of the National Museum of Botswana in Gaborone. Another copy, compiled\ for Sebele for a period two weeks longer, and by no means identical to\ Bathoen's for previous weeks, survives in microform in the library of Rhodes\ House at Oxford University-made on behalf of Dr. Anthony Sillery in the 1950s\ by the University of Witwatersrand, from an original that has since\ disappeared at Molepolole. A third copy of the press clippings, made for Khama\ and likely to be the most complete record, may or may not survive: it appears\ to have been taken on to Hartford, Connecticut, and then to Birmingham,\ England, by W. C. Willoughby-and has possibly been left to a descendant.\ This collection of press clippings is an extraordinary resource for the study\ of British public opinion in the autumn of 1895. The clippings are taken from\ 135 different newspapers and periodicals-including thirteen London daily\ newspapers, thirty-one London weeklies or monthlies, seven London\ international periodicals, and twelve London or national Christian\ publications. The English provinces are represented by fifteen newspapers from\ the South, sixteen from the Midlands, and twenty-four from the North of\ England. There are also clippings from twelve Welsh, Scots, or Irish\ newspapers, and two from New York dailies.\ The British press was fascinated by the "Three Kings" from the outer reaches\ of the ever expanding empire. Newspapers commented on the amount of news\ coming out of Africa, and on the increasing number of visits to Britain by\ "dusky potentates" from all over the world-be they Afghan, Swazi, or Ashanti.\ Press men and press women clamored to get interviews with Khama, Sebele, and\ Bathoen. The Westminster Gazette remarked on how much one would like to "read\ a Roman interview with some contemporary of Armenius who had come to Rome to\ get his wrongs righted."\ Bathoen's and Sebele's press clippings form the basis for this book. They also\ set the pattern on which the book is written-keeping the story as authentic\ as possible by using the original words of primary sources, and thus heeding\ the advice given to a journalist by Khama in 1895: "Be sure now, and only\ write as I have spoken to you, nothing more than my words."\ The chiefs had dubbed journalists the "hunters of words." At an important\ meeting in Birmingham's Council House, Khama remarked:\ I know that you live a long way off, and it is difficult for those who live\ a long way off to distinguish between words. Words are words, and it is hard\ to tell which are the right words and which are the wrong when they are\ spoken.\ City dignitaries responded with cries of "Hear, hear."\ Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen appreciated the political value not only of spoken\ words but also of written words carried in official correspondence and\ newspaper reports. They were literate in their own language, Setswana\ ("Sechuana") and could read letters and newspapers as well as Scriptures in\ it. Sebele and Bathoen also spoke, and possibly read, Dutch in its Afrikaans\ variant. But they and Khama had a mere smattering of English and could only\ communicate effectively in English through interpreters.\ As otherwise proficient linguists and litigious politicians, the three chiefs\ were acutely conscious of the importance of words and meanings. On landing in\ Britain, they told of the difficulty of relating the Setswana language to the\ new technology of steamships, steam trains, electric lighting, telegraphs, and\ telephones.\ It will be very difficult to make our people understand how iron and wood\ can move without being pulled by someone. Formerly we blamed the\ missionaries for not making these things plain, and we thought it was their\ imperfect knowledge of our language.\ "Yes," Bathoen continued in philological vein, "we shall now have to tell our\ people that although we are masters of their language, we cannot explain these\ new ideas, because we have no words to correspond."\ The illustrious Rev. Dr. Parker of the City Temple, London's Congregationalist\ "cathedral," saw other virtues in the Setswana language in one of his sermons.\ Commenting on Khama's talk from his pulpit a week earlier, when the\ interpreter had had to use three or four sentences in English to expound on\ three or four syllables from Khama in Setswana, Parker remarked of the English\ language:\ We are foot-caught in our own dictionaries. Our words and modes of speech\ belong to the decaying aristocracies and fallen princedoms in language.\ \ Chapter One\ \ \ A Trinity of Dusky Kings\ The "trinity of dusky kings" who arrived at Paddington railway station on the\ afternoon of September 6, 1895, were the first Bechuana rulers to come to\ London. But news about Bechuanaland and the Bechuana had featured in British\ newspaper reports for more than a decade, and British knowledge about land and\ people dated from the beginning of the century. The chiefs themselves also had\ their own preconceptions of Britain and about British people, drawn partly\ from common historical experiences and partly from their biographies as\ individuals from childhood upward.\ \ * * *\ \ British knowledge of the Bechuana can be dated, as we have seen in the\ introduction to this book, from the appendix on the "Booshuana Nation" in the\ 1806 publication of A Voyage to Cochin China, satirized by the authors of\ Munchausen's Travels. Early-nineteenth-century European travelers lighted upon\ the Bechuana after a thousand-mile wagon trek northward into the interior\ across scrub and semidesert. They found a "nation" of town dwellers, with\ cultivated fields as well as flocks and herds, practicing metallurgy and\ dressed in "decent" leather clothing-anxious to trade with southerners\ bringing manufactured goods like firearms.\ \ Continues...\ \ \ \ \ \ \ Excerpted from King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen\ by Neil Parsons\ Copyright © 2003 by University of Chicago.\ Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.\ \

List of IllustrationsPreface and AcknowledgmentsA Note on TerminologyIntroduction: Epiphany on Clifton Bridge1. Then Let Us All be Philistines2. A Trinity of Dusky Kings3. Another Sphere of Existence4. We See You with Our Eyes5. Besieged by a Curious Crowd6. A Kind of Middle-Class Royalty7. The Day a King Came to Enderby8. They are Strong and We are Weak9. The Fountain Whence Came the Missionaires10. A Thing to Look at with the Teeth11. In Every Town we have Found Friends12. Khama Will Play the Old Gooseberry13. Chamberlain's Settlement14. Rhodes Beaten by Three Canting Natives15. I Had No Idea She Was So Small16. Dr. Jameson, You Have Got a Smooth TongueConclusion: Half a Loaf?Appendix: Ballads of the 1895 TourNotesBibliographyIndex

\ Library JournalIn 1895, three African chiefs, dressed in the finest British clothing available, began a tour of the British Isles. That tour foiled empire-builder Cecil Rhodes's grand plan for Africa and culminated in the Chamberlain Settlementthe document that indirectly led to the independence of the present-day state of Botswana. Parsons history, Univ. of Botswana; A New History of Southern Africa, Africana, 1993 writes this complicated and oblique story of Victorian England's relations with three of southern Africa's tribal rulers of the late 19th century. The author uses clippings from British newspapers, saved by each of the three African kings, and African archival material to reconstruct this account. Purportedly told through "African eyes," the story never clearly detaches from the London Missionary Society. Appropriate for academic libraries.Harry Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. System, Iola\ \