The Bechuanaland Protectorate is technically a protectorate…

The Bechuanaland Protectorate is technically a protectorate rather than a colony.

Originally the local Tswana rulers have been left in power, and British administration is limited to a police force to protect Bechuanaland's borders against other European colonial ventures, but on May 9, 1891 the British Government gives the administration of the protectorate to the High Commissioner for South Africa, who starts to appoint officials in Bechuanaland, and the de facto independence of Bechuanaland ends.

The protectorate is administered from Mafeking, creating an unusual situation, the capital of the territory being located outside of the territory.

The area of Mafeking (from 1980 with the incorporation into Bophuthatswana Mafikeng, since 2010 Mahikeng), is called 'The Imperial Reserve'.

In 1885, when the protectorate was declared, Bechuanaland had been bounded to the north by the latitude of 22° south.

The northern boundary of the protectorate had been formally extended northward by the British to include Ngamiland, which is at this time dominated by the Tawana state, on June 30, 1890.

This claim is formally recognized by Germany the following day by Article III of the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, which confirms the western boundary of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland and the German protectorate of South-West Africa and creates the Caprivi strip inherited by modern Namibia.

During the 1890s the new territory is divided into eight different reserves, with fairly small amounts of land being left as freehold for white settlers.

This territory had originally been claimed by Matabeleland.

In 1887 Samuel Edwards, working for Cecil Rhodes, had obtained a mining concession, and in 1895 the British South Africa Company attempts to acquire the area, but three Tswana chiefs visit London to protest and are successful in fending off the BSAC: the plan is eventually foiled by the failure of the Jameson Raid in January 1896.

This territory forms the modern North-East District of Botswana.