Along with his family, Plaatje left Mafikeng for Kimberly, where the Seleka Barolong of the Tswana Nation funded the establishment of Tsala ea Batho.

[1] The Seleka Barolong were wealthy business people who lived in the Wesleyan Methodist mission community of Thaba Nchu in the Orange Free State.

Tsala ea Becauna advocated for the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now the Republic of Botswana), Swaziland (now Eswatini), and Basutoland (now the Kingdom of Lesotho) to join South Africa.

Tsala ea Becauna often published news on strikes and letters from miners among reports of African welfare, industrial colour bars, poor wage earnings and low pensions.

Another contributing factor was that Plaatje left for Britain in May 1914, on the brink of World War I, as a member of the SANNC deputation protesting the Natives’ Land Act, and Tsala ea Batho came to an end during the prolonged time he was forced to spend overseas.

The English-Setswana weekly, Tsala ea Becauna, was one of the organs of black political news and opinion for the turbulent period of its existence.