Shoshong

Shoshong is a town in Botswana, formerly the chief settlement of the eastern Bamangwato.

Shoshong is located just north of the Tropic of Capricorn at latitude -22.95, longitude +26.48, in the Central District of Botswana, about 40 km west of Mahalapye. The town is situated 3,000 ft (910 m) above sea level in the valley of the Shoshong, an intermittent tributary of the Limpopo. Nearby villages are Tobela, Ikongwe, Kalamare, Mmutane, and Mosolotshane.

Shoshong is encircled by hills used for grazing cattle, and is a windy place. The central kgotla is located by the mouth of the steep valley (kloof) which used to be the source of water for the village.

Shoshong was initially inhabited by Baphaleng (Tlou and Campbell 1997; A.M. Chebanne and K.C. Monaka 2008), who were later joined by Bakaa, and later BaNgwato under King Sekgoma I. Oral traditions from the village points that Baphaleng chief invited Bangwato from Mosu where they were continuously harassed and vulnerable to Matebele attacks. The site of Shoshong was chosen as being easily defensible against the Matabele.

Being the meeting place of trade routes from south and north it was of considerable importance to early explorers (including David Livingstone) and traders in South-Central Africa.

A mission station of the London Missionary Society (preceded for many years by a station of the Hermannsburg Lutheran Missionary Society) was founded here in 1862. Scottish missionary John Mackenzie (1835–99), who lived at Shoshong from 1862–76, "believed that the Ngwato and other African peoples with whom he worked were threatened by Boer freebooters encroaching on their territory from the south", and campaigned "for the establishment of what became the Bechuanaland Protectorate, to be ruled directly from Britain."

In 1875, King Sekgoma was overthrown here by his Christian son Khama (later Khama III/the Great). In 1885 (at the time of the declaration of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland) Shoshong had 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, including about twenty Europeans.

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