View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by South East Academic Libraries System (SEALS) RE-CREATING HOME BRITISH COLONIALISM, CULTURE AND THE ZUURVELD ENVIRONMENT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Jill Payne Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts Supervisor: Professor Paul Maylam Rhodes University Grahamstown May 1998 ############################################## CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ..................................... p. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................... p.iii PREFACE ................................................... p.iv ABSTRACT .................................................. p.v I: INTRODUCTION ........................................ p.1 II: ROMANCE, REALITY AND THE COLONIAL LANDSCAPE ...... p.15 III: LAND USE AND LANDSCAPE CHANGE .................... p.47 IV: ADVANCING SETTLEMENT, RETREATING WILDLIFE ........ p.95 V: CONSERVATION AND CONTROL ........................ p.129 VI: CONCLUSION ........................................ p.160 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................ p.165 i ############################################## LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure i. Map of the Zuurveld ............................... p.10 Figure ii. Representation of a Bushman elephant hunt ........... p.99 Figure iii: Representation of a colonial elephant hunt ........... p.100 ii ############################################## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My grateful thanks must go firstly to Professor Paul Maylam. In overseeing the progress of this study, he displayed a patience that went well beyond his duty as my supervisor. He ensured I had access to sufficient funding and, in spite of his own busy schedule, was always on hand to guide me. He and the staff of the Rhodes University Department of History have created an atmosphere most conducive to post-graduate study. Dr Tony Palmer, Dr Julia Wells, Dr Dan Wylie, Dr Gary Baines and Helen Dampier were free with information and advice and I am greatly indebted to them. I am most grateful to Cherry Charteris, who kindly came to my rescue in the final week, making corrections and printing the final copy. She put up with my constant presence in and around her office and was always willing to answer questions and make suggestions. The staff of the Cory Library and the Inter-Library Loan section of the Rhodes University Library went out of their way to field my enquiries and requests with efficiency and tolerance. Without the financial assistance of the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Fund Scholarship for 1820 Settler and Eastern Cape History and the Rhodes University Graduate Assistant Programme, I would have been unable to undertake this study. Samantha Naidu, a true friend in need, generously lent me her computer during my final months of writing up. My wonderful family and family-in-law have shown their love and support in many ways - I thank you all. To my partner, Adrian Flint, thank you for everything. iii ############################################## PREFACE It is difficult to refer to different racial groups in a historical context without causing offence. When using quotes, it becomes necessary to use terminology that reflects the attitudes of a different age. It must be said that names referring to Africans which are considered highly derogatory today did not always have the same pejorative associations in the nineteenth century. While it would have been preferable to have avoided racial labels altogether, the nature of the study made this impossible. The previously approved terms "San" and "Khoisan" have recently been found to have negative associations. Consequently, the early South African hunting society has been referred to as the "Bushman" society - a term now back in favour. Early herding societies have been referred to as "Khoena," a term Julia Wells finds preferable to "Khoikhoi" due to its non-gender specificity.1 1. J Wells, "The Story of Eva and Pieter: Transcultural Marriage on the Road to Success in Van Riebeck's Colonial Outpost," paper presented at the Conference on Gender and Colonialism, University of the Western Cape, January 1997, p.1 n. 2. To be published as "Eva's Men: Gender and Power in the Establishment of the Cape of Good Hope," Journal of African History, 39, 3, December 1998. iv ############################################## ABSTRACT This thesis centres on the environmental impact of British colonialism in the Zuurveld during the nineteenth century. Within this context, it addresses the extent to which human-engineered environmental change is dictated by cultural mindset. Consideration of the links between culture and landscape transformation illuminates a little-considered aspect of the colonial experience in the Zuurveld. The British worldview at the turn of the eighteenth century is examined, with special reference to attitudes towards the environment. The changes which occurred in this attitude while the colonists adjusted to a foreign environment are traced. Precolonial societies manipulated the environment to a certain extent, but it was the British colonists who were to have the most profound effect on the ecosystem. The colonists impacted on the Zuurveld in a variety of ways. Much of the environmental change they induced resulted from their attempts to construct a familiar world from the alien landscape surrounding them. Attempts to "re-create home" in the Zuurveld were closely linked to the desire to exert control over what was to the colonists an "untamed wilderness." To this end land was cleared and new land use methods put into practice. Wildlife species threatening productivity were eliminated or forced through loss of habitat to retreat to the peripheries of the settlement. Exotic flora and fauna took the place of indigenes. The introduction of a capitalist economy meant that greater demands were made on the carrying capacity of the land. Conservation legislation introduced to limit increasing environmental v degradation and protect commercial productivity simultaneously limited African access to the environment. Control of the land was closely linked to control of Africans: their labour was needed to facilitate the subjugation of the environment. Only through an appreciation of the British colonial mentality can changes to the Zuurveld environment during the nineteenth century be fully understood. Consequently, this study indicates that cultural mindset can play a pivotal role in shaping the environment. vi ############################################## CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The opening passages of Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country paint a picture of land degeneration in the valleys of the Umzimkulu River. Paton portrays a diseased South African society in terms of land that is sick and dying: The great red hills stand desolate, and the earth has torn away like flesh. The lightning flashes over them, the clouds pour down upon them, the dead streams come to life, full of the red blood of the earth. Down in the valleys women scratch the soil that is left, and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man. They are valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and children. The men are away, the young men and the girls are away. The soil cannot keep them any more.1 Real landscapes are often as symbolic as the literary. The ecological state of the land vividly reflects the demands of its occupants. Environmental history assesses past human interaction with nature2 and relates the impact of activities that transform the environment. As it does so, it adds a further dimension to the human story.3 When human-generated changes to the environment are traced, pictures of the environment at different stages of human intervention emerge. Once factors influencing environmental change are isolated, it is possible to use this historical knowledge to illuminate current 1. A Paton, Cry, The Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation, (London, 1948), pp. 1-2. Paton makes further references to the state of the land reflecting the state of society. Ibid., pp. 29, 70. 2. DR Edgecombe, "Environmental History at UNP: An Answer to Relevant Curriculum Development," paper presented at the Fifteenth Biennial Conference of the South African Historical Society, Rhodes University, July 1995, p. 3. 3. W Cronon, Changes in the Land, (Toronto, 1984), pp. vii-ix; S Schama, Landscape and Memory, (Bath, 1995), p. 18. 2 environmental issues.4 The environment, like the human societies which form part of it, is in a constant state of flux. The human relationship with the environment is constantly changing.5 Hoskins' seminal work, The Making of the English Landscape, demonstrates how each period in British history has left its mark on the country's landscape.6 In the same way, the British colonial era was a period that had a unique impact, but not the ultimate impact, on the Zuurveld and other environments.7 The Zuurveld was home to hunters, herders and Xhosa for many centuries.8 By the nineteenth century these societies had evolved various ways of adapting their needs to the environment and adapting the environment to their needs. The British settlement of the Zuurveld, however, is a good example of how environmental impact can be linked to cultural perspectives: sharp contrasts existed between the British mindset and African landscape. These contrasts are not as visible in a society long-established within the confines of its environment. Significant changes occurred when the colonists attempted to re-create Britain 4. S Dovers, "Australian