History of Botswana

The history of Botswana encompasses the region's ancient and tribal history, its colonisation as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and the present-day Republic of Botswana. The first modern humans to inhabit Botswana were the San people, and agriculture first developed approximately 2,300 years ago. The first Bantu peoples arrived c. 200 AD, and the first Tswana people arrived about 200 years later. The Tswana people split into various tribes over the following thousand years as migrations within the region continued, culminating in the Difaqane in the late 18th century. European contact first occurred in 1816, which led to the Christianization of the region.

Facing threats from German South West Africa and the Afrikaners, the most influential Tswana chiefs negotiated the creation of a protectorate under the United Kingdom in 1885. The British divided the territory into tribal reserves for each of the major chiefs to rule, giving the chiefs more power than they had previously, but it otherwise exercised only limited direct control over the protectorate. The British government took a more active role beginning in the 1930s. Botswana supported British involvement in World War II and many fought as part of the African Auxiliary Pioneer Corps.

A power struggle took place in the 1950s between the Ngwato chief Seretse Khama and his regent Tshekedi Khama. Seretse's marriage to a white woman, Ruth Williams Khama, led the British to ban him from the protectorate. He returned in 1956 with popular support, and tribes moved toward elected government as an independence movement formed. A national legislature was created in 1961, and political parties were formed. Seretse became the leader of the Bechuanaland Democratic Party, which was endorsed by the British government to lead post-independence, and it saw overwhelming support in the first election in 1965. The Republic of Botswana was granted full independence in 1966.

With a strong mandate, Seretse and his party implemented liberal democracy and began developing infrastructure in what was one of the world's poorest nations. Extensive diamond deposits were discovered in 1969, causing a massive reorganisation of Botswana's economy. The Debswana mining company was created in 1978, and Botswana became the world's fastest growing economy. The HIV/AIDS pandemic became a crisis in Botswana in the 1980s, and the 1990s came with the introduction of political factionalism after the political scandal of the Kgabo Commission. The Botswana Democratic Party remained the dominant party from independence until the Umbrella for Democratic Change won the 2024 general election.

Present-day Botswana was primarily forest ten million years ago, and the rivers were much larger than they are in the present, flowing into a massive paleolake, Lake Makgadikgadi. Homo erectus lived in the region during the Early Stone Age. Stone tools in present-day Botswana, such as Acheulean axes, date back to two million years ago. Hominin migration to the Kalahari Desert is estimated to have happened prior to Marine Isotope Stage 6, 186,000 years ago. Lake Makgadikgadi began to shrink approximately 50,000 years ago.

The ancestors of the Khoe and San peoples—unrelated peoples who are referred to collectively as the Khoisan or Sarwa peoples—lived in present-day Botswana by approximately 40,000 to 30,000 years ago. They may have been the first humans to enter the Late Stone Age. They established themselves around rivers during drier periods of history but spread throughout the region during wetter periods. They are known to have inhabited the areas around Lake Makgadikgadi, as well as Tsodilo and ≠Gi. Other peoples such as the Nata, Shua, and Xani are believed to have arrived after the Khoe and San. Rock art dates back to approximately 30,000 years ago, Mining of specularite and hematite began around this time to create paints. Virtually all permanent bodies of water were associated with early human populations by 20,000 years ago. More detailed study of southern Africa in the Stone Age has been limited.

The various peoples of the region were hunter-gatherers who remained in small groups and engaged in trade with one another. It is believed that each group was a collection of related families holding a specific territory, led by the eldest man of the group's head family. Men hunted large animals, while women gathered plants and caught small animals. The groups intermarried and practiced a dowry system, xaro.

Approximately 2,000 years ago, the peoples of the region brought cattle and sheep to present-day Botswana and began making pottery. Agriculture developed during this time and the peoples began settling in villages, which rose and fell as the climate and cattle raids caused livestock access to fluctuate. Among the earliest crops were pearl millet, finger millet, sorghum, Bambara groundnuts, cowpeas, and cucurbits.