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Updated: May 25, 2025
"I explained carefully in the language of the people, the nature and object of the Protectorate, and the manner in which it was to be supported. "Montsioa then demanded in loud tones: "Barolong! what is your response to the words that you have heard?" "With one voice there came a great shout from one end of the courtyard to the other, "We all want it."
"Montsioa, in the first instance, did not like the appearance of Moshette's people in his town. I told him I was glad they had come, and he must reserve his own feelings, and await the results of what was taking place.
The satisfaction of the great event was further marked by the discharge of a volley from the rifles of a company of young men told off for the purpose; and the old cannon of Montsioa, mounted between the wheels of an ox-waggon, was also brought into requisition to proclaim the general joy and satisfaction. "But alas! such feelings were destined to be of short duration.
"Using the formula for many years customary in proclamations of marriages in churches in Bechuanaland, Montsioa, amid the smiles of all present, announced an approaching political union, and exclaimed with energy, "Let objectors now speak out or henceforth for ever be silent." There was no objector.
One of these was Montsioa, a Christian chief of the Barolong tribe. He and other chiefs took charge of Government property and cattle during the disturbances, and one had four or five thousand pounds in gold, the product of a recently collected tax, given him to take care of by the Commissioner of his district, who was afraid that the money would be seized by the Boers.
There was a hum of approval, with a sharp enquiry from Montsioa, did he really mean to go himself? "Having no one to send, I must go myself," Mackenzie replied. The old Chief, in a generous way, half dissuaded him from the attempt. "The Boers cannot be trusted. What shall I say if you do not return?" "All right, Montsioa," replied Mackenzie, "say I went of my own accord.
I was pleased, therefore, when in the public meeting in the courtyard, just before the signing of the treaty, Montsioa turned to the messengers of Moshette and asked them if they saw and heard nicely what was being done with the Barolong country? They replied in the affirmative, and thus, from a native point of view, became assenting parties.
After the war of 1881, the Transvaalers supposed that the British Government would be unlikely to assert itself, and two little impudent republics of adventurers were set up in territory which the award had declared to be within the British sphere of influence. Montsioa fought for his rights, but the British Government lay torpid for some time.
A Baralong chief named Montsioa was dispossessed of Mafeking and could obtain no redress from the British Government, which at that time was in an intermediate frame of mind, and did not necessarily act on the assumption that in every dispute between white man and native the latter was in the right.
The High Commissioner wrote, "If Montsioa and Mankoroane were now absorbed, Banokwani, Makobi and Bareki would soon share the same fate. Haseitsiwe and Sechele would come next. So long as there were native cattle to be stolen and native lands to be taken possession of, the absorbing process would be repeated.
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