In 1895, the three men traveled to Great Britain to ask Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and Queen Victoria to separate the Bechuanaland Protectorate from Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company and Southern Rhodesia.

A contract was given to North Korean company Mansudae Overseas Projects to build the monument, which resulted in disappointment from local sculptors.

[6] Batsani Ndaba, a Kalanga and chair of the Society for Promotion of Ikalanga Language, stated that the journey of the three digkosi was only of significance to their own tribes and there was "nothing for minorities to celebrate about the three chiefs going to England".

[2] The monument features 5.4-meter (18 ft) tall bronze statues of three dikgosi, or chiefs, who played important roles in Botswana's independence: Khama III, Sebele I, and Bathoen I.

[5] The three chiefs traveled to Great Britain in 1895 to ask Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and Queen Victoria to separate the Bechuanaland Protectorate from Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company and Southern Rhodesia.

The plinths describe a history starting in the Mfecane period, with Batswana kingdoms expanding from an influx of refugees from wars in southern Africa.

The subsequent plinths go on to describe a period from the 1830s to 1880s in which the dikgosi resisted invasion from the Ndebele and Boer people, the dikgosi's request to Queen Victoria for protection of the Bechuanaland Protectorate from the British South Africa Company in 1895, the period of extreme poverty suffered by the Protectorate in the first three decades of the 20th century, Botswana's participation in World War II fighting alongside the Allied Powers, and finally Botswana's independence from Britain, declared in 1966.