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History History History History South Africa Yearbook 2015/16 History South Africa Yearbook 2015/16 13 South Africa Yearbook 2015/16 14 History History The early inhabitants African Renaissance, South Africa is gaining a The discovery of the skull of a Taung child greater understanding of its rich precolonial past. in 1924; discoveries of hominid fossils at Sterkfontein caves, a world heritage site; and the The early colonial period ground-breaking work done at Blombos Cave in Portuguese seafarers, who pioneered the sea the southern Cape, have all put South Africa at route to India in the late 15th century, were the forefront of palaeontological research into regular visitors to the South African coast during the origins of humanity. Modern humans have the early 1500s. Other Europeans followed from lived in the region for over 100 000 years. the late 16th century onwards. The small, mobile bands of Stone Age hunter- In 1652, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) gatherers, who created a wealth of rock art, set up a station in Table Bay (Cape Town) to were the ancestors of the Khoikhoi and San of provision passing ships. Trade with the Khoikhoi historical times. The Khoikhoi and San, although for slaughter stock soon degenerated into raiding collectively known as the Khoisan, are often and warfare. Beginning in 1657, European thought of as distinct peoples. The former were settlers were allotted farms by the colonial those who, some 2 000 years ago, adopted a authorities in the arable regions around Cape pastoralist lifestyle herding sheep and later, Town, where wine and wheat became the major cattle. Whereas the hunter-gatherers adapted to products. In response to the colonists’ demand local environments and were scattered across for labour, the VOC imported slaves from East the subcontinent, the herders sought out the Africa, Madagascar, and its possessions in the pasturelands between modern-day Namibia and East Indies. the Eastern Cape, which generally are near the By the early 1700s, the colonists had begun coast. At around the same time, Bantu-speaking to spread into the hinterland beyond the nearest agropastoralists began arriving in southern mountain ranges. These relatively independent Africa, bringing with them an Iron Age culture and mobile farmers (trekboers), who lived as and domesticated crops. After establishing pastoralists and hunters, were largely free from themselves in the well-watered eastern coastal supervision by the Dutch authorities. As they region of southern Africa, these farmers spread intruded further upon the land and water sources, out across the interior plateau, or “Highveld,” and stepped up their demands for livestock where they adopted a more extensive cattle- and labour, more and more of the indigenous farming culture. inhabitants were dispossessed and incorporated Chiefdoms arose, based on control over into the colonial economy as servants. cattle, which gave rise to systems of patronage Diseases such as smallpox, which was and hence hierarchies of authority within introduced by the Europeans in 1713, decimated communities. Metallurgical skills, developed the Khoisan, contributing to the decline of their in the mining and processing of iron, copper, cultures. Unions across the colour line took tin and gold, promoted regional trade and craft place and a new multiracial social order evolved, specialisation. based on the supremacy of European colonists. At several archaeological sites, such as The slave population steadily increased since Mapungubwe and Thulamela in the Limpopo more labour was needed. By the mid-1700s, Valley, there is evidence of sophisticated political there were more slaves in the Cape than there and material cultures, based in part on contact were “free burghers” (European colonists). The with the East African trading economy. These Asian slaves were concentrated in the towns, cultures, which were part of a broader African where they formed an artisan class. They civilisation, predate European encroachment brought with them the Islamic religion, which by several centuries. Settlement patterns varied gained adherents and significantly shaped the from the dispersed homesteads of the fertile working-class culture of the Western Cape. coastal regions in the east, to the concentrated Slaves of African descent were found more often towns of the desert fringes in the west. on the farms of outlying districts. The farmers did not, however, extend their In the late 1700s, the Khoisan offered far more settlement into the western desert or the winter- determined resistance to colonial encroachment rainfall region in the south-west. These regions across the length of the colonial frontier. From remained the preserve of the Khoisan until the 1770s, colonists also came into contact Europeans put down roots at the Cape of Good and conflict with Bantu-speaking chiefdoms. A Hope. Aided by modern science in uncovering century of intermittent warfare ensued during the continent’s history, which forms part of the which the colonists gained ascendancy, first South Africa Yearbook 2015/16 13 South Africa Yearbook 2015/16 14 History History over the Khoisan and then over the isiXhosa- the mission movement in South Africa was speaking chiefdoms to the east. It was only in Dr John Philip, who arrived as superintendent the late 1800s that the subjugation of these of the London Missionary Society in 1819. His settled African societies became feasible. For campaign on behalf of the oppressed Khoisan some time, their relatively sophisticated social coincided with a high point in official sympathy structure and economic systems fended off for philanthropic concerns. One result was decisive disruption by incoming colonists, who Ordinance 50 of 1828, which guaranteed lacked the necessary military superiority. equal civil rights for “people of colour” within At the same time, a process of cultural change the colony and freed them from legal discrimi- was set in motion, not least by commercial and nation. At the same time, a powerful anti-slavery missionary activity. In contrast to the Khoisan, movement in Britain promoted a series of the black farmers were, by and large, immune to ameliorative measures imposed on the colonies European diseases. For this and other reasons, in the 1820s, and the proclamation of emanci- they were to greatly outnumber the white people pation, which came into force in 1834. The in the population of white-ruled South Africa, and slaves were subject to a four-year period of were able to preserve important features of their “apprenticeship” with their former owners, on the culture. grounds that they must be prepared for freedom, Perhaps because of population pressures, which came on 1 December 1838. combined with the actions of slave traders in Although slavery had become less profitable Portuguese territory on the east coast, the because of a depression in the wine industry, Zulu kingdom emerged as a highly centralised Cape slave-owners rallied to oppose emanci- state. In the 1820s, the innovative leader pation. The compensation money, which the Shaka established sway over a considerable British treasury paid out to sweeten the pill, area of south-east Africa and brought many injected unprecedented liquidity into the stagnant chiefdoms under his dominion. As splinter local economy. This brought a spurt of company groups conquered and absorbed communities formation, such as banks and insurance in their path, the disruption was felt as far north companies, as well as a surge of investment in as central Africa. Substantial states, such as land and wool sheep in the drier regions of the Moshoeshoe’s Lesotho and other Sotho-Tswana colony in the late 1830s. chiefdoms, were established, partly for reasons Wool became a staple export on which of defence. The Mfecane or Difaqane, as this the Cape economy depended for its further period of disruption and state formation became development in the middle decades of the known, remains the subject of much speculative century. debate. For the ex-slaves, as for the Khoisan servants, the reality of freedom was very different from the The British colonial era promise. As a wage-based economy developed, In 1795, the British occupied the Cape as they remained dispossessed and exploited, a strategic base against the French, thus with little opportunity to escape their servile lot. controlling the sea route to the East. Increasingly, they were lumped together as the After a brief reversion to the Dutch in the “coloured” people, a group which included the course of the Napoleonic wars, it was retaken descendants of unions between indigenous in 1806 and kept by Britain in the post-war and European peoples, and a substantial settlement of territorial claims. Muslim minority who became known as the The closed and regulated economic system of “Cape Malays” (misleadingly, as they mostly the Dutch period was swept away as the Cape came from the Indonesian archipelago). Colony was integrated into the dynamic interna- The coloured people were discriminated tional trading empire of industrialising Britain. against on account of their working-class status A crucial new element was evangelicalism, as well as their racial identity. Among the poor, brought to the Cape by Protestant missionaries. especially in and around Cape Town, there The evangelicals believed in the liberating effect continued to be a great deal of racial mixing and of “free” labour and in the “civilising mission” of intermarriage throughout the 1800s. British imperialism. They were convinced that In 1820, several thousand British settlers, indigenous peoples could be fully assimilated who were swept up by a scheme to relieve into European Christian culture once the Britain of its unemployed, were placed in the shackles of oppression had been removed. eastern Cape frontier zone as a buffer against The most important representative of the Xhosa chiefdoms. The vision of a dense South Africa Yearbook 2015/16 15 South Africa Yearbook 2015/16 16 History History settlement of small farmers was, however, The Colony of Natal, situated to the south ill-conceived and many of the settlers became of the mighty Zulu State, developed along artisans and traders.
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