About this episode
Moshoeshoe, the Basotho king who’d outwitted, outfought and outlived most of his enemies, was nearing his end. He had managed to ensure his chiefdom survived in signing the Treaty of Aliwal North with the British, who then annexed his territory. Or at least were about to but there were some loose ends to tie up before the Colonial Office signed off on the deal.
One of the loose ends was the opposition from some French missionaries who took exception to the Treaty believing it was a cosy deal agreed between the British and the Boers of the Orange Free State which left Moshoeshoe’s people with far less territory than they had originally claimed. The most pressing matter was food. Could the Basotho feed themselves with less arable land following the ceding of much of the Caledon valley to the Boers.
David Dale Buchanan was the editor of the Witness Newspaper based in Pietermaritzburg who championed Moshoeshoe's claim for expanded sovereignty during boundary talks. Paris Evangelical Missionary Society’s Francois Daumas joined Buchanana in actively lobbied the British government in London to reverse or soften the settlement terms that had been unfavorable to Moshoeshoe.
Buchanan used his platform in Natal’s colonial press to rally public and political support for Moshoeshoe, portraying the Basuto as deserving more just boundaries—and influenced the colonial secretary to consider Moshoeshoe's case more sympathetically.
Meanwhile, Daumas took the issue straight to the corridors of British power in London, sailing to Britain in 1869. He pressed the Foreign Office and Colonial Office to reconsider the treaty’s terms, hoping to secure territory that the Conventions had removed from Basotho ambit. Their joint efforts helped shape the High Commissioner's Notice of May 13, 1870, with an amendment in November 1871. This modification adjusted the Aliwal North boundary by Extending Basutoland eastward along the Caledon River to its true headwaters, and Restoring territory around Chief Molapo that the Orange Free State had claimed. These revisions returned critical grazing land and strategic highlands to Basutoland.
Unfortunately, as you’re going to hear, Moshoeshoe wasn’t around to experience the fruits of their diplomacy.
So it was on a January morning in 1870 that Moshoeshoe roused himself, like a candle flickering before it went out. He was about to perform a remarkable act, almost unheard of in southern Africa tradition. In his last official duty, Moshoeshoe convened a meeting of chiefs and headmen at Thaba Bosiu, and announced he was abdicating in favour of his eldest son, Letsie.
It was almost a hospital pass, because Letsie would now take over a land compressed on all sides by pressure groups, African and Colonial. It was still unclear if Basotholand would survive — having barely scraped through the previous few years, the Free State Basotho war of 1865 to 1868 had drained t
