The Bakhurutshe Anglicans of Tonota Religious Persecutin in the Bechuanaland Protectorate

The case of the BaKhurutshe of Tonota is a curious episode in the interwar history of the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana), in which it was alleged that Tshekedi Khama, regent of the BaNgwato from 1925 to 1949, persecuted a small group of people for practising Anglicanism, thus violating the official monopoly of the London Missionary Society (LMS). Although the colonial administration's response ostensibly started strongly with support for religious freedom, it did not maintain this stance. This paper presents an analysis of the trajectory of British policy, and sets it in the context of the subtle relationship between religion and power in the Protectorate. It demonstrates the administration's slide from initial insistence on religious freedom to a determination in somewhat bad faith that the issue was not 'really' religious, but rather a case of 'disobedience'. Tshekedi could not be forced to give the BaKhurutshe religious freedom without compromising his authority, on which the government depended for the running of his reserve.