THE BAKGATLA BAGA-MMANAANA IN KWENENG (original) (raw)

While a small village today, between 1853 and 1863 Gakgatla served as the centre of the Bakgatla bagaManaana morafe. This residence came about in the aftermath of the 1852-53 Batswana-Boer War, which had begun with August 17, 1852, Transvaal Boer attack on the previous BagaManaana centre at Maanwane in the Madikwe region. The attack caused the BagaManaana under Kgosi Mosielele to flee from Maanwane to the protection of the Bakwena Kgosi Sechele I at Dimawe. It was thereafter from Gakgatla that they morafe first settled at Moshupa in 1863. While the motives for this move are disputed, BagaMmanaana, as well as Bakwena traditions, suggest that it came about after the Gakgatla River dried up. Sechele then advised the Bakgatla Kgosi Mosielele to take up residence on his southern border where one of his servants, Mosope, lived. Subsequently, in 1870-71 the BagaMmanaana were divided by a bogosi dispute when Pilane claimed the throne from his ailing biological, but not customary, father Mosielele. Moshupa was then temporarily abandoned when the larger faction accompanied Pilane resettling at Kgabodukwe, while the loyal followers of Mosielele took refuge with the Bangwaketse Kgosi Gaseitsiwe at Gamafikana. Mosielele died in 1873 at Gamafikana, where a branch of the BagaMmanaana has since remained. In 1880 Kgosi Pilane led his people to resettle at Moshupa. In 1935-36 about half of Moshupa’s population resettled at Thamaga under the rule of Pilane’s brother Gobuamang.