A group of Indian children pose for the camera at camp Batawana. In the vicinity of Camp Eagle Island Camp by Orient Express, outside the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana there is a camp where they live a hundred Batawana Indian tribe. You can canoe trips to visit their village. The first inhabitants of present Botswana were probably ancestors of the San (also known as Bushmen) hunters and gatherers, who now inhabit the arid steppes of south-western Botswana, and the Khoikhoi, from the north. Bantu-speaking tribes arrived in the region in the first century BC The ancestors of the Tswana, (now majority nation), were installed between the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the plains of the Vaal River (now the South African province of Transvaal). The Tswana were merged into eight powerful clans. The clan rivalries did not allow the Tswana create a kingdom like other nations in southern Africa. Botswana's history - "the fatal crossroads", located in the heart of southern Africa, it is the story of the Kalahari Desert, midway between Savannah populated northeastern and southwestern steppes stripped. Transit precolonial settlements allowed the British, Dutch and Portuguese since the eighteenth century. The British attempted to unite the continent from north to south (from South Africa to Egypt), taking the 'path of the missionaries. " The Portuguese wanted to link the colonies of Angola and Mozambique. The region was a true crossroads between colonial strategic interests, and between them and the Tswana tribes who inhabited these areas since the seventeenth century. In 1840, settled in eastern Botswana (Transvaal region) Dutch Boer settlers (also known as Afrikaaners), fleeing the British established in Cape Town (Cape Town). The Boers (farmers) fought over scarce fertile land with Tswana, also causing conflict between them and the Zulus to the settlers expelled from South Africa. In 1895 three Tswana tribal kings went to London to seek support against the Boers and against German expansion from South West Africa. Thence Botswana became a British protectorate known as Bechuanaland. The kings had to give, in exchange for protection, the British South Africa Company (privatization and expansion as English), to build a railway between their lands and Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). The absorption prevented British tutelage policy by South Africa, but facilitated the economic domination of the Boers. Despite its vast semi-desert region, Botswana became one of the leading exporters of beef cattle and Southern Africa. In the early twentieth century, 97% of the population lived in the countryside and each family had at least a couple of cows, the richest had oxen for plowing. In 1966, when Botswana gained independence, the urban population reached 15% and almost 40% of rural dwellers had not won. Due to the economic concentration Afrikaaners agriculture dominated and controlled 60% of meat exports. The struggle for independence was confused, at various times, with matrimonial cases. Seretse Khama, one of the most influential heirs Bamangwato ethnicity, studied law in England and married Ruth Williams, an office in Europe. The wedding shocked the British and Afrikaaners, which prevented Seretse return to their homeland. Seretse resisted pressure even offers of money from the British and the massive support of his people, maintained the leadership of the country's largest tribe. He did not return until 1956. Nine years later, in general elections, his party, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) won 80% of the vote. With independence, Seretse was elected the first president. In 1967 he was appointed Knight of the British Empire. The BDP, held a conciliatory policy in relation to the inhabitants of European origin, who managed 80% of the economy. Botswana was part of the countries of Front Line who fought against apartheid (see South Africa) and integrated the SADCC (see International Organizations) which sought to break the economic dependence of the nine countries in southern Africa blacks on South Africa. In 1980 Seretse died of cancer and was succeeded by Vice President Masire Quett (doctorate in economics at Oxford), who suffered heavy pressure from socialist-oriented revolutionary groups, in terms of limiting the concentration of fertile land in the hands of Europeans and increase area for cooperatives. The farmers accused the big landowners to raise livestock on land too poor, which would be useless in the short term. Arose also a movement to nationalize the diamond fields, copper and nickel, operated by South African companies.