Effects Of Dutch Imperialism On San People

Dutch colonization resulted in a destructive genocidal impact on the San people. Thousands of San died in the hands of Dutch settlers, one of the main groups of settlers being the Trek Boers. During the immense agricultural growth in the Dutch Cape Colony in the late 1700s, a surplus in crops caused many settlers to turn to stock farming. These farmers searched for broad grazing grounds for their livestock and ventured further into San territory. The San people were not content. They viewed the Trek Boers as intruders and began to attack, occasionally killing their livestock. Contraily, the Trek Boers viewed the San as hostile and attacked them back. However, the Trek Boers did much more than merely get revenge; they formed hunting groups specifically dedicated to
Another cause for the genocide was the Dutch’s inherent greediness and desire to accumulate wealth: as the book, “The Anatomy of a South African Genocide: The Extermination of the Cape San Peoples,” by Mohamed Adhikari, a South African professor, shows. He mentions that the Dutch had a “concomitant desire to accumulate wealth” which “encouraged both intensive exploitation of natural resources for short-term gain as well as a resort to annihilatory violence to eliminate indigenes regarded as obstacles or threats to the colonial project.” Mr. Adhikari describes how the Dutch disregarded and killed many San people, directly and indirectly. As the San people often hindered the settlers’ extraction of natural resources and land, the Dutch resorted to killing them in order to gain efficiency and wealth. Additionally, as the settlers ruthlessly exploited resources and land, the San began to lack the vital resources that had been available to them for thousands of years, indirectly changing their lifestyle and oftentimes resulting in