Qualla: Battle of Dimawe

Battle of Dimawe: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CNJerem, CC BY 4.0. "Who wants Mosielele can come and fetch him out of my stomach." With those words, Kgosi Sechele I refused to surrender a fellow chief who had sought his protection, telling the Boers that the man was now as much a part of him as food he had eaten. It was a refusal that brought war to a quiet hill in what is now southeastern Botswana. In August 1852, around Dimawe Hill, a coalition of Batswana met a Transvaal commando in battle - and held their ground. The fight is little known outside the region, but in Botswana it is remembered as a turning point.

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Image: CNJerem | CC BY 4.0

Battle of Dimawe: A Chief Who Would Not Hand Over a Friend

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CNJerem, CC BY 4.0. The quarrel that led to Dimawe was, at heart, about sovereignty and human freedom. Bahurutshe people who had escaped enslavement by Boer settlers had fled to the Bakwena for protection, and Sechele, leader of the Bakwena, would not give them up. Nor would he surrender Mosielele, ...

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Image: CNJerem | CC BY 4.0

Battle of Dimawe: The Commando at Dimawe

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CNJerem, CC BY 4.0. Late in August 1852 a Transvaal commando under Acting Commandant-General Piet Scholtz reached the outskirts of Sechele's town near Dimawe Hill. There the Boers found not one tribe but several standing together: the Bakwena joined by Bahurutshe, Balete, and Batlokwa fighters. The ...

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Image: CNJerem | CC BY 4.0

Battle of Dimawe: The Cost and the Counterstroke

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CNJerem, CC BY 4.0. War's cruelty fell hardest, as it so often does, on those who could not fight back. The raiders carried off roughly 400 captives, mainly women and children, to be put to forced labor on distant farms, and they burned Livingstone's mission, seizing the workshop and supplies they f...

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Image: CNJerem | CC BY 4.0

Battle of Dimawe: The Road to a Nation

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CNJerem, CC BY 4.0. Sechele understood that muskets alone would not secure his people's future, so he set out for Britain to seek protection, only to be turned back at Cape Town; the British, unwilling to anger the Boers, would not deal with him. The journey failed, but the idea did not. Four decade...

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Image: CNJerem | CC BY 4.0