European influence in Southern Africa came later than in most parts of the world. The initial European "discovery" of South Africa was by the Portuguese, who were already imposing imperialist control on other parts of the world, but as a nation, the Portuguese were small in number and could not afford to colonize, preferring to wrest control of existing economic structures. Since the Khoisan were nomadic and not governed by a central political authority, it was difficult for the Portuguese to establish the type of "top down" political control that was possible in more formally structured societies. When a bartering dispute between the Khoisan and visiting Portuguese sailors in 1520 resulted in the death of Portuguese soldiers including a Viceroy, the Portuguese briefly retaliated, but could not afford to mount an extended military campaign against the highly skilled Khoikhoi and San fighters.1
By 1590, European ships — mainly English and Dutch — were putting in regularly at Table Bay en route from Europe to the West Indies. As Richard Elphick and V.C. Malherbe explain:
The land near Table Bay was an ideal stop-over for the tired and sick crews of these ships, for it offered a benign climate and a regular supply of fresh water. Moreover, local Khoikhoi were willing to supply large quantities of beef and mutton, a boon to sailors who had been eating salty or rancid pork for months. 2Why were the Khoikhoi willing to trade their most valued possessions? The Europeans offered three products — tobacco, copper, and iron — which were previously either unobtainable (tobacco) or available only in small quantities from the interior (copper and iron). The Khoikhoi had previously smoked a mild variety of dagga (marijuana) and started smoking tobacco as a substitute.* A trade network in copper emerged among the Khoikhoi and continued for many years even after colonization began.
It took the Netherlands East India Company (VOC) to figure out that if a refreshment station were to be established at the Cape to provide for passing ships, the initial expense in establishing such a facility would be offset by long-term gains in their productivity (and therefore in profits). So, in 1652 the company founded such a post at Table Bay. The immediate priority of this refreshment facilty was to regularise the trade with the Khoikhoi which provided the supplies essential to passing ships. Since the VOC could not afford a war with the Khoikhoi, the first commander of the refreshment station, Jan van Riebeeck, was under strict orders to treat the Khoikhoi as free people with respect and consideration; they were not to be conquered or enslaved. Initially, the arrangement seemed to work, with Van Riebeeck entertaining Khoikhoi delegates at the company fort.3
The Khoikhoi were unwilling to provide enough meat to cater to the ever-increasing demand of the Company in exchange for items that were relatively less valuable to Khoikhoi society. Nor were they willing to forgo the open pastures to provide a labour supply to the Company. Five years after Van Riebeeck's landing, Dutch ships deposited the first slaves on South African shores -- Malay people from the colony of Java --to provide labour. Slaves from Madagascar, Mozambique, and the East Indies soon followed. Van Riebeeck concluded that company employees could be given tracts of land to farm and thereby offset the dependence on Khoikhoi goodwill and East Indian imports. As soon as the first freeburghers (independent farmers) began to farm the land east of Table Mountain, the Khoikhoi realized that their territory was being usurped. The most prominent of the Khoikhoi leaders, Gogosoa, was unable to mobilize his people to act against the incursion. It took Doman -- a man who had worked as an interpreter for the Company -- to organise the resistance. In May 1659, Doman led an attack by the Khoikhoi, destroying most of the freeburgher farms and confiscating the bulk of the latter's sheep and cattle. The freeburgers took refuge in a well armed stockade with their remaining livestock. Doman was seriously injured in a minor clash on 19 July, 1959, and shortly after, the Khoikhoi resistance began to drift apart through inaction. A year after the war began, the Khoikhoi signed a treaty with the company ending the confrontation. Under the terms of the treaty, the Khoikhoi kept the cattle and sheep they had confiscated, and paid no reparations to the company, but at the same time, agreed to recognize the company's sovereignity over the land settled by the freeburgers.4 The agreement would later prove to be the beginning of the end for the Khoikhoi.
The Company's initially conciliatory approach to dealing with the Khoikhoi became increasingly arrogant. From 1673 through 1676, the Company launched four punitive expeditions against the most influential of the Khoi leaders, Gonnema, humiliating him and finally forcing him into a treaty in 1677. The Company set itself up as adjudicator in supposed disputes among the Khoikhoi. All pretence that the Khoikhoi were respected were dropped, and with the installation of Simon van der Stel as governor, a practice of company approval of installation of new Khoikhoi chiefs was started.
By the 1700s, many of the Khoikhoi in the Western Cape had become dependent on the Company for their livelihood and security. As the Khoikhoi were crushed politically, freeburghers began to move outward. As land away from the immediate vicinity became increasing infertile, the farms of the trekboers were huge -- averaging 6000 acres -- further depriving the Khoikhoi of access to the land. Finally, in 1713, a visiting fleet sent ashore dirty laundry contaminated with the smallpox virus. Hundreds of colonizers and slaves died, but the Khoikhoi seemed especially susceptible to smallpox, having had no contact with the virus previously. Less than 1 in ten people among the Khoikhoi survived the epidemic.
Meanwhile, the fortunes of the VOC were running low. French revolutionary forces under Napoleon threatened Holland in 1793, and the British took occupation of the Cape in 1795 when the VOC collapsed. In 1803, the Cape was handed back to the Dutch after the signing of the treaty of Amiens in 1802. In 1806, the British reneged on the treaty and reoccupied the Cape.
The new English government brought with it one progressive aspect -- a belief that slavery should be abolished. This attitude did not go down well with the residents of the Cape colony (as it now was called) as they had invested heavily in slaves. When slavery was abolished in all British colonies in 1808, the Boers (farmers) were rebellious. As slaves were set free throughout the British Empire in 1834, feelings among the Boers peaked. In 1835, they gathered together their possessions and set off for the interior where they hoped to be able to continue an independent existence and keep as many slaves as they wished. What they found is the subject of our next section.
- 1. The "brass cannon incident" is described by Peter Kolbe in Cape of Good Hope (Johnson Reprint, 1968).
- 2. Elphick, Shaping, p.8.
- *. In 1989, the United States Surgeon General released a report showing tobacco to be far more addictive than marijuana, placing tobacco at the same level of addictiveness as heroin and cocaine. See The Second Annual Drug Test for Members of Congress by Pete Stark, (U.S. House of Representatives, 1989).
- 3. Elphick, Shaping, p.11.
- 4. Elphick, Shaping, p.12.