Lieutenant Colonel Sir Charles Warren (1840–1927) led a force of 4,000 Imperial troops north from Cape Town.

[4] In September that year the Tswana country south of the Molopo River was proclaimed the Crown colony of British Bechuanaland.

It comprised an area occupied by the three main Tswana peoples: the Bamangwato, the Bakwena and the Bangwaketse, together with a number of minor tribes like the Bamalete and the Bakhatla.

Also living in the Protectorate were the descendants of the original inhabitants of the area, such as Bushmen and Makalaka, who had been dispossessed by the Tswana peoples in the course of their migration south.

Originally the local Tswana rulers were left in power, and British administration was limited to the police force to protect Bechuanaland's borders against other European colonial ventures.

[9] The northern boundary of the protectorate was formally extended northward by the British to include Ngamiland, which was then dominated by the Tawana state, on 30 June 1890.

[10] This claim was formally recognised by Germany the following day by Article III of the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, which confirmed the western boundary of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland and the German protectorate of South-West Africa and also created the Caprivi strip inherited by modern Namibia:[11] In Southwest Africa, Germany's sphere of influence is demarcated thus: British officials did not arrive in the Ngamiland region until 1894.

In 1887 Samuel Edwards, working for Cecil Rhodes, obtained a mining concession, and in 1895 the British South Africa Company attempted to acquire the area, but the Tswana chiefs Bathoen I, Khama III and Sebele I visited London to protest and were successful in fending off the BSAC.

[13] The proclamation of a protectorate flanked by a new Crown colony to the south (British Bechuanaland) were primarily intended as safeguards against further expansion by Germany, Portugal, or Boers.

[15] The most powerful ruler was King Khama III, who had strong support from the British government, and was especially popular among evangelicals in Britain.

Tshekedi's regency as acting chief of the Bamangwato is best remembered for his expansion of the mephato (regiments) to build primary schools, grain silos, and water reticulation systems, for his frequent confrontations with the British colonial authorities over the administration of justice in Ngwato country, and for his efforts to deal with a major split in the tribe after Seretse married a white woman, Ruth Williams, while studying law in Britain.

Tribal opinion about the marriage basically split evenly along demographic lines – older people went with Tshekedi, the younger with Seretse.