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'Khama III' (1837?-1923), also known as 'Khama the Good', was the ''kgosi'' (meaning chief or king) of the Bamangwato people of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), who made his country a protectorate of the United Kingdom to ensure its survival against Boer and Ndebele encroachments.
Khama became king in 1875, after overthrowing his father Sekgoma and elbowing away his brother Kgamane. His ascension came at a time of great dangers and opportunities. Ndebele incursions from the north (from what is now Zimbabwe), Boer and "mixed" trekkers from the south, and German colonialists from the West, all hoping to the seize his territory and its hinterlands. He answered these challenges by aligning his state with the administrative aims of the British, which provided him with cover and support, and, relatedly, by energetically expanding his own control over a much wider area than any "kgosi" before him. Not only did Khama convert to Christianity, but he ruled through many of the terms and concepts that Christianity claimed as its own, which moved him to criminalize sectarianism and to deprecate the institutions favored by traditionalists. At Khama's request stringent laws were passed against the importation of alcohol.[1]
The British government itself was of two minds as to what to do with the territory. One faction, supported by a local missionary named John Mackenzie, advocated the establishment of a protectorate, while another faction, headed by Cecil Rhodes, adopted an imperialist stance and demanded that the country be opened up to white settlement and economic exploitation. The resolution came in 1885, when the territory south of the Molopo River became the colony of British Bechuanaland, while the territory north of the river became the Bechuanaland Protectorate. The colony was eventually incorporated into Britain's Cape Colony and is now part of South Africa.
Rhodes continued his campaign to pressure the British government to annex what remained of Khama's territory (the Protectorate) until 1895, when Khama and three other "Bechuanaland Protectorate" rulers traveled to London to argue otherwise. The colonial administration conceded after the ill-fated "Jameson raid" of 1896. The Bechuanaland Protectorate maintained its semi-independent status until 1966, when it gained full independence as the Republic of Botswana. The first president, Sir Seretse Khama, was the grandson and heir of Khama III, and the head of Botswana's armed forces is Seretse's son, Ian Khama.

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★ Mrs. Wyndham Knight-Bruce, ''The Story of an African Chief'' (London, 1894)