European Imperialism In South Africa

Before South Africa was colonized by the Dutch and British, the African societies were farming-based communities. But when Jan Van Riebeeck, an official of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), came to South Africa in 1652, African Societies where changed under European Colonial rule (“History”). When the Dutch came over, the African rulers began to trade with the new settlers. What the rulers traded the most were firearms because the more guns, knives, etc. the rulers had in their possession, the higher the status symbol they had and the more political power they gained (“History”). Because these rulers were power-hungry, they were willing to trade anything that will result in the possession of firearms. “Sadly, the article of trade in which Europeans showed the greatest interest, and which Africans were prepared
The Boers, Dutch-speaking farmers, and the Xhosa, people of the local African tribe, did not agree with these orders, and some were either hanged or shot when they practiced cruel labor and resisted arrest. The Xhosa stopped practicing cruel labor after they were defeated by the British when they closed the frontier (“British”). “British settlers found that they could not make a living from small farms, and they competed with the Dutch pastoralists for the limited fertile land available, thereby intensifying the Boer-British tensions” (“British”). In the 1820’s, the Hottentot Code was abolished and the slaves became free people and the slave owners received less than one-third of the value of slaves for compensation of their lost property (“British”). Since the arrival of the Dutch, the people of South Africa struggled against the Europeans. After the introduction and abolition of slavery, the culture and people have never been the