The first known inhabitants of present day Botswana were nomadic foragers, Khoe & San speakers, who lived, passed through and hunted here in small, egalitarian families for millennia prior to the arrival of the Tswana and Bantu people.
Prior to being organized as a British protectorate in 1885, Botswana (though not yet a nation) operated in a multicultural coexistence in which small scale trade between tribes flourished.