27/01/2020
We are glad
The Battle of Dimawe 1852-1853: Little Known African Victory
This year will celebrate the 167th anniversary of the Battle of when Batswana defeated the invading Boer republic's army and stopped forever their northward expansion.
The Battle of Dimawe was the pivotal showdown in the Batswana-Boer War of 1852-53. The Boer commando of just over 1,000 arrived at Dimawe on Saturday the 28th of August 1852 while Batswana mobilized cavalry regiments all together numbering 3000. The Boer Commandant-General, Pieter Scholtz demanded that Sechele (Tswana Commander) turnover the BagaMmanaana Kgosi and agree to submit to Transvaal authority. Face-to-face negotiations on Monday morning ended in deadlock. Under cover of their artillery the Boers then advanced on the Batswana entrenchments from behind impressed Bahurutshe auxiliaries, using them as human shields. Sechele instructed his men not to fire on their hapless brothers, thus gaining their subsequent allegiance. Sechele who owned a british made cannon retaliated & fired his cannon & a barrage of Batswana gun fire overpowered the Boers who fell back on the defensive & were driven back. On the 12th September 1852, nine days after he began his withdrawal from southren Botswana, General Scholtz reported back to Pretorius (Boer Leader) : "I must regretfully inform you that I have been obliged to disband the commando, owing partly to the weakness of horse and oxen and partly to opposition among the men...moreover I greatly fear, since I cannot keep the commando intact to accomplish anything, that the Marico district will be unsafe...things have not worked out to my liking." Scholtz's concern proved to be well founded for in the months following battle at Dimawe Batswana calary launched retaliatory raids into the Transvaal's Marico District. By November 1852 an English trader noted that:"All the Boers are still in laager, they have been in laager a long time. They dare not venture on their farms for fear of Sechilli. Their cattle are dying fast being too many together, and disease is amongst them." Thereafter, Sechele’s forces raided farms as far as Rustenburg, leading to their abandonment. As a South African newspaper then reported: “The natives have united in a strong body, followed up the retreating force of Boers, and fallen upon the farmers in the Mirique district, and every one of these has been obliged to fall back with the commando upon the Mooi River. Great destruction, of course marked the progress of the conquering natives. Every homestead has been burned, and standing corn ripe for sickle, together with vineyards and gardens, which were then in full bloom, have been entirely destroyed.” In February 1853 the Boers asked for peace, resulting in an armistice. The boundary that prevailed at the end of the conflict still forms Botswana’s eastern frontier with South Africa. Boers lost more than half of the men who went to the Battle
Sechele's cannon that was used on that battle, was later sent to Mahikeng during the Anglo-Boer war in South Africa to help his Tswana brothers during the Siege of Mahikeng by the Boers which culminated with the liberation of Mahikeng.
