Relations between The Native Khoisan People and the Dutch/Boer Settlers

The Khoisan are the native people of southwestern Africa. They had been around since about 5th century A.D., and were occupying southern Africa along with other Later Iron Age societies such as the Ovambo, Herero, Sotho-Tswana and Xhosa (Wikipedia, 2014; Shillington, 2012). Before the mid-1600s, the pastoralist Khoisan people, just like the other southern states and chiefdoms, had been sustaining themselves through the rearing, use, and exchange of Nguni sheep and cattle as well as the inter-regional trade of other goods like copper, iron, dagga, and tobacco (Shillington, 2012). In the 16th century, European sailing ships – specifically the Dutch and English – began traveling around the southern tip of Africa in order to get to India, south-east Asia, and Indonesia to trade. They saw this area as a “useful half-way house” (Marks, 1972) and by the 17th century, began porting at the Table Bay along the Cape to replenish supplies from the local Khoisan herdsmen en route to their destination. Initially, the people living around the Bay welcomed the travelers and saw the situation as an opportunity to trade some of their excess cattle for iron, and later the copper, tobacco, brandy and beads from the Europeans (Marks, 1972). Eventually, both the Khoisan and the Europeans were in disagreement about the trading system. On one hand, the Europeans sailors began demanding more cattle than the natural surplus which the Khoisan were more than ready to sell. In addition to that, they complained that the Khoisan people were selling them only their old, lame and lean beasts (Marks, 1972). On the other hand, the Khoisan, whose economy and social cohesion depended very largely on their livestock, were not used to trading such large numbers of cattle, and they preferred to get rid of the stock they considered surplus. As a result, things turned to conflict as the Khoisan asked for higher prices and the Europeans began raiding. Because of all this, the Dutch decided to establish

References: Shillington, K. (2012). Southern Africa to The Eighteen Century. History of Africa (Third ed., ). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Dr. Mohamed Ali Wednesday, June 11, 2014