In Lesotho, Momentum Is Building to Reclaim King Moshoeshoe I’s Heritage

In 1862, King Moshoeshoe I of Basotho is said to have donated 80 of his personal belongings to mark the tenth anniversary of the Great London Exposition. The exhibition, which showcased industrial technology, craftsmanship, art, and design from 36 countries, was presented to the king as a platform for economic development and cultural exchange. Moshoeshoe, however, saw it as an opportunity to strengthen diplomatic ties with Britain.

The exchange was facilitated by John Howell, then magistrate of Winburg in the Orange Free State. The exhibition ran from May to November that year, after which Moshoeshoe’s objects were sold to a collector who later gifted them to the British Museum, where they have remained since 1865.

When artistic research practitioner and cultural worker Lineo Segoete stumbled upon this lesser-known history, she felt compelled to intervene. She responded to a call from Open Restitution Africa, a Pan-African, women-led organization supporting large-scale projects to map past and present restitution efforts concerning African heritage and human remains held in Western institutions.

“I have been interested in restitution since around 2016/17, when European museums made a very bold stance that under no terms would they engage in that conversation before we had our infrastructure in place. Then came the excuses: ‘We take better care of these things than you guys do,’” she tells OkayAfrica. Her curiosity pushed her to attend stakeholder meetings in order to better grasp the complexities of restitution debates rather than simply lament the status quo.

What she discovered was disheartening: little urgency from Lesotho’s government. “I was really frustrated by that, like, was this another thing that Lesotho was going to ignore?” she recalls. “There are already issues around making a case for decolonization, what more for restitution?”

Segoete believes that while Lesotho proudly markets its cultural identity to attract tourism, it rarely interrogates the narratives underpinning that identity. “A lot of the time this is veiled under ‘King Moshoeshoe was a peaceful man, he was a diplomat, he was a friend of the British.’ We’re not able to join global conversations. I don’t know whether it’s because we’re too inward-facing or it’s because — and this is what I’m leaning more towards — we’re not digging deep enough into our story and into questioning our society. We’re more preoccupied with political instability, so there isn’t even room for conversations like that to occur, unless that conversation is in the context of how we monetize it,” she says.

Part of Segoete’s research plan was to convene town halls — public platforms where people could respond to her findings, share their views, and propose ways forward, mindful of the fact that the Lesotho National Museum, a potential home for the restituted objects, is not yet operational. The first was held in May, followed by another in August. Panelists included accomplished thinkers who grappled daily with the questions of archives, museums, and restitution: among them, Morija Museum and Archives curator Mamokuena Makhema and National University of Lesotho librarian Dr. Buhle Mbambo-Thata.

“This was an experiment to evoke an indigenous knowledge system and practice — the pitso — and use it to start the conversation: see what people know, see how they feel, and also share what you can, so that at least you’re seeding an idea. Then they can continue with looking into restitution in general, or specifically, Lesotho’s lost heritage,” she explains.

Segoete began with interviews in her home village of Morija, which helped her develop a language to communicate these issues. “These were average folk who don’t read about this stuff, but they could connect it to current events. At the time, what was hot was the conversation about reclaiming land from South Africa, as controversial as it is. So they made the connection — like, yeah, the same thing with our land: give us all our heritage back,” she says.

Her research re-energizes efforts from 2018 and 2019 to repatriate Moshoeshoe’s objects. She deliberately anchored her project in the story of the king. “It was also a way to spark public interest,” she notes. “It’s surprising, but also not surprising, that so many people were shocked to even know that.”

The town halls revealed a range of responses. “The educated and upwardly mobile are often the ones who show up, people interested in art and culture. The second town hall was a lot more emotionally charged and expressive,” she recalls. That gathering included a screening of a performance film by Soke Gallery Studio and feedback forms that allowed participants to lay out their feelings in detail. “What that said to us was, ‘Okay, great, if the people in urban areas are fired up like that, we’re ready to approach the higher levels, and then take it out to what we call the 80 percent: the students, the young ones, the middle-aged.’ Even if they don’t know what restitution or the British Museum are, they know from social memory, and probably from their own family memory, that there have been colonial injustices.”

For Segoete, restitution is inseparable from questions of history and power. “We’ve lost so much in the name of friendship and protection, and it has subdued us. It’s kept us docile in terms of reacting in sharp ways. Reparations are a way of saying: Britain, would you have a British Museum to visit if you didn’t have our material culture? You claimed to have been our friends, you claimed to have been protecting us — and yet this friendship seems skewed. Part of decolonizing is problematizing this narrative of friendship with our colonizers, where we’re still too docile in addressing power, policy, and our international relations.”

“When we started this year, it was just to make noise around it,” she continues. “The people who have the power to do anything about these returns are our governments. As academics and artists, we can only add pressure. The third town hall will be modeled around inviting the decision makers and stakeholders who can act. Recently, it was even brought up in parliament, with the emphasis on how late Lesotho is to the conversation. What we can do is keep creating programming and works that stress the importance of bringing back that heritage.”