South Africa: Colonialism and African-European Relations

Although European vessels frequently passed by South Africa on their way to E Africa and India, and sometimes stopped for provisions or rest, no permanent European settlement was made until 1652, when Jan van Riebeeck and about 90 other persons set up a provisioning station for the Dutch East India Company at Table Bay on the Cape of Good Hope. Soon van Riebeeck began to trade with nearby Khoikhoi, gave Europeans land for farms, and brought in Africans (from W and E Africa) and Malays as slaves. By 1662, about 250 Europeans were living near the Cape and gradually they moved inland, founding Stellenbosch in 1679. In 1689 about 200 Huguenot refugees from Europe arrived; they established a wine industry and intermarried with the earlier Dutch settlers. By 1707 there were about 1,780 freeholders of European descent in South Africa, and they owned about 1,100 slaves.

By the early 18th cent., most San had migrated into inaccessible parts of the country to avoid European domination; the more numerous Khoikhoi either remained near the Cape, where they became virtual slaves of the Europeans, or dispersed into the interior. A great smallpox outbreak in 1713 killed many Europeans and most of the Khoikhoi living near the Cape. During the 18th cent. intermarriage between Khoikhoi slaves and Europeans began to create what became later known as the Coloured population. At the same time white farmers (known as Boers or Afrikaners) began to trek (journey) increasingly farther from the Cape in search of pasture and cropland.

By 1750 some farmers had migrated to the region between the Gamtoos and Great Fish rivers, where they encountered the Xhosa. At first the whites and blacks engaged in friendly trade, but in 1779 the first of a long series of Xhosa Wars (1789, 1799, 1812, 1819, 1834, 1846, 1850, 1877) broke out between them, primarily over land and cattle ownership. The whites sought to establish the Great Fish as the southern frontier of the Xhosa.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• The New South Africa
• A Regime Unravels
• The Republic of South Africa and Racial Strife
• National Party Ascendancy and Apartheid
• The Union of South Africa
• Natural Riches and British Victory
• The British and the Boers
• Colonialism and African-European Relations
• Early History
• Government
• Economy
• People
• Political Geography
• Physical Geography
• Bibliography

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