Commoners’ Political Agitation and the Dilemma of the Chieftaincy

Abstract

By the end of the nineteenth century the structure of the indigenous government had loosened and virtually broken down. Thus, with the collapse, in the main, of the pitso and the decline of its traditions, commoners’ general criticism of chiefs no longer produced the same salutary effects as they had in Moshoeshoe’s times. Commoners’ political role in the management of their own affairs diminished. Yet, at the same time, their grievances mounted. They had at the end to find new avenues to redress those grievances.