matters. He found very little difficulty in negotiating with the various Bechuana chiefs, but with the Boers he was not so successful. In Goshen the Boers defied his authority, while in Stellaland only a half-hearted acceptance of it was given. At the instance of the new Cape government, formed in May and under control of the Afrikander Bond, Mackenzie, who was accused of being too “pro-Bechuana” and who had been refused the help of any armed force, was recalled on the 30th of July by the high commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson. In his place Cecil Rhodes, then leader of the Opposition in the Cape parliament, was sent to Bechuanaland.
Rhodes’s mission was attended with great difficulty. British prestige after the disastrous Boer War of 1881 was at a very low ebb, and he realized that he could not count on any active help from the imperial or colonial authorities. He adopted a tone of conciliation, and decided that Rhodes’s Mission.the Stellaland republic should remain under a sort of British suzerainty. But in Goshen the Boers would let him do nothing. Commandant P. J. Joubert, after meeting him at Rooi Grond, entered the country and attacked Montsioa. Rhodes then left under protest, declaring that the Boers were making war against Great Britain. The Boers now (10th of September) proclaimed the country under Transvaal protection. This was a breach of the London convention, and President Kruger explained that the steps had been taken in the “interests of humanity.” Indignant protest in Cape Town and throughout Warren expedition.South Africa, as well as England, led to the despatch in October 1884 of the Warren expedition, which was sent out by the British government to remove the filibusters, to bring about peace in the country, and to hold it until further measures were decided upon. Before Sir Charles Warren reached Africa, Sir Thomas Upington, the Cape premier, and Sir Gordon Sprigg, the treasurer-general, went to Bechuanaland and arranged a “settlement” which would have left the Boer filibusters in possession, but the imperial government refused to take notice of this “settlement.” Public opinion throughout Great Britain was too strong to be ignored. The limit of concessions to the Boers had been reached, and Sir Charles Warren’s force—4000 strong—had reached the Vaal river in January 1885. On the 22nd of January Kruger met Warren at the Modder river, and endeavoured to stop him from proceeding farther, saying that he would be responsible for keeping order in the country. Warren, however, continued his march, and without firing a shot broke up the republics of Stellaland and Goshen. Bechuanaland was formally taken under British protection (30th of September 1885), and the sphere of British influence was declared to extend N. to 22° S. and W. to 20° E. (which last-mentioned line marks the eastern limit of German South-West Africa).
The natives cheerfully accepted this new departure in British policy, and from this time forward Khama’s country was known as the British protectorate of Bechuanaland. That portion lying to the south of the Molopo river was described as British Bechuanaland, and was constituted a crown colony. In 1891 British protectorate.the northern frontier of the protectorate was extended to its present boundaries, and the whole of it placed under the administration of a resident commissioner, a protest being made at the time by the British South Africa Company on the ground that the protectorate was included in the sphere of their charter. Under the able administration (1885–1895) of Sir Sidney Shippard (q.v.) peace was maintained among the natives, who have shown great loyalty to British rule.
The history of the country shows how much has been due to the efforts of men like Livingstone, Mackenzie and Rhodes. It is quite clear that had they not represented the true state of affairs to the authorities the whole of this territory would have gradually been absorbed by the Boers, until they had effected a union with the Germans on the west. The great road to the north would thus have been effectually shut against trade and British colonization. With regard to the precise effect of missionary influence upon the natives, opinion will always remain divided. But Livingstone, who was not only a missionary but also an enlightened traveller, stated that a considerable amount of benefit had been conferred upon the native races by missionary teaching. Livingstone was a great advocate of the prohibition of alcohol among the natives, and that policy was always adhered to by Khama.
In 1891 the South African Customs Union was extended to British Bechuanaland, and in 1895 the country was annexed to Cape Colony. At the same time it was provisionally arranged that the Bechuanaland protectorate should pass under the administration of the British South Africa Company (see Rhodesia). Khama and two other Bechuana chiefs came to England and protested against this arrangement. The result was that their territories and those of other petty chiefs lying to the north of the Molopo were made native reserves, into which the importation of alcohol was forbidden. A British resident officer was to be appointed to each of the reserves. A stipulation, however, was made with these chiefs that a strip of country sufficient for the purposes of a railway to Matabeleland should be conceded to the Chartered Company. In December 1895 the occurrence of the Jameson Raid, which started from these territories, prevented the completion of negotiations, and the administration of the protectorate remained in the hands of the imperial government. The administration, besides fostering the scanty material resources of the country, aids the missionaries in their endeavours to raise the Bechuanas in the scale of civilization. The results are full of encouragement. The natives proved staunch to the British connexion during the war of 1899–1902, and Khama and other chiefs gave help by providing transport. Anxiety was caused on the western frontier during the German campaigns against the Hottentots and Herero (1903–1908), many natives seeking refuge in the protectorate. A dispute concerning the chieftainship of the Batawana in the Ngami district threatened trouble in 1906, but was brought to a peaceful issue. The Bechuana were entirely unaffected by the Kaffir rebellion in Natal.
Bibliography.—Of early works the most valuable are David Livingstone, Missionary Travels in South Africa (London, 1857); Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa (London, 1842); J. Campbell, Travels in South Africa (London, 1815), Travels . . . a Second Journey . . . (2 vols., London, 1822); and A. A. Anderson, Twenty-five Years in a Waggon in the Gold Regions of Africa, vol. i. (London, 1887). See also J. D. Hepburn, Twenty Years in Khama’s Country (London, 1895); S. Passarge’s Die Kalahari (Berlin, 1904) deals chiefly with geological and allied questions; John Mackenzie’s Austral Africa, Losing it or Ruling it (London, 1887); John Mackenzie, a biography by W. D. Mackenzie (London, 1902); and the article “Bechuanaland” by Sir S. Shippard in British Africa (London, 1899), give the story of the beginnings of British rule in the protectorate. Of larger works dealing incidentally with Bechuanaland consult G. M. Theal’s History of South Africa; E. A. Pratt’s Leading Points in South African History (London, 1900); and Cecil Rhodes, His Political Life and Speeches, by Vindex (London, 1900). See also the Statistical Register, Cape of Good Hope, issued yearly at Cape Town, and the Annual Report, Bechuanaland Protectorate, issued by the Colonial Office, London. (F. R. C.; A. P. H.)
BECK, CHRISTIAN DANIEL (1757–1832), German philologist, historian, theologian and antiquarian, one of the most learned men of his time, was born at Leipzig on the 22nd of January 1757. He studied at Leipzig University, where he was appointed (1785) professor of Greek and Latin literature. This post he resigned in 1819 in order to take up the professorship of history, but resumed it in 1825. He also had the management of the university library, was director of the institute for the deaf and dumb, and filled many educational and municipal offices. In 1784 he founded a philological society, which grew into a philological seminary, superintended by him until his death. In 1808 he was made a Hofrath by the king of Saxony, and in 1820 a knight of the civil order of merit. His philological lectures, in which grammar and criticism were subordinated to history, were largely attended by hearers from all parts of Germany. He died at Leipzig on the 13th of December 1832. He edited a number of classical authors: Pedo Albinovanus (1783), Pindar and the Scholia (1792–1795), Aristophanes (with others, 1794, &c.),
