DIAMONDS.GOLD.AND BRITISHIMPERIALISM
scripts. Eventually, the colonial government suspended the disarmament
legislation and implored Britain to reassume responsibility for Basutoland,
which Britain did in 1884.
British administrators then worked closely with the royal family, nota-
bly Letsie and Lerotholi, Moshoeshoe's senior son and grandson. That
policy restored domestic peace, but at the cost of reducing the customary
checks on abuse of power by the chiefs. Moreover, by the end ofthe century,
the Sotho population had increased to a level where it was eroding the
narrow belt of arable land between the Caledon River and the mountains,
and it could no longer produce a surplus. The Sotho had their homes in a
rural society devoid of white settlers, but their major source of wealth was
in the form of wagesthey earned by working for white people elsewhere.P
In the eastern highveld, two African communities stood in the way of
white ambitions: the Pedi and the Swazi, who occupied fertile but rugged
country along the mountain escarpment north of the Zulu. In the 1850S, an
able leader named Sekwati brought the Pedi together after they had been
shattered during the Mfecane. His hold over the subordinate chiefs was