South Africa: Africans, Boers and Brits (1795-1880)

Updated April 2009

The British occupied the Cape from 1795-1803 during the Napoleonic wars and, after returning it to the Dutch for a brief period, took permanent occupation of it in 1806. An alliance between Khoekhoe rebels in the colony and the Xhosa chiefs between 1799-1802 saw the displacement of colonials from the frontier farms, which neither the British not the Dutch were able to reverse (Freund 1972, 631, 635, 637; Lester 1997, 640). From about 1800 to 1830 a fall in precipitation across the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape as well as KwaZulu-Natal led to a period of intense recurring droughts that was to have far reaching consequences (Ballard 1986, 361, 363). The drought brought distress to the Cape Colony (food had to be imported) and exacerbated conflict between the colonials and the Xhosa over cattle and grazing land (Ballard 1986, 364, 365). Initially British policy was to maintain a strict policy of segregation with the Xhosas excluded from the territory of the Colony and in 1811-1812 Governor Cradock was successful in savagely ejecting the Ndlambe and other Xhosa beyond the Fish River into the territory of the Ngqika chiefdom (Lester 1997, 636, 641).

Far from resolving the problem, this threw the frontier into turmoil, since the Ndlambe had settled on the Cisfish precisely to escape from the Ngqika, and retaliatory raids on colonial cattle by those expelled increased, exacerbating the situation (Lester 1997, 641). Governor Somerset attempted to hold the Ngqika accountable for the conduct of all the Xhosa chiefdoms, over whom they exerted only nominal suzerainty, but the Ndlambe routed the Ngqika, forcing the British to intervene to rescue their client in 1819 (Lester 1997, 642). Somerset annexed the area between the Fish and Keiskamma rivers to create a no man's land, buffer zone, deporting Ngqika ally and Ndlambe foe alike, throwing both into further economic distress and sowing the seeds for future conflict (Lester 1997, 642).

Under Somerset colonial policy shifted from containment of the Xhosa towards their neutralization through their "civilization", through commerce, Christianity and tutelage, and the main agents for this was to be Christian missionaries (Lester 1997, 636, 644). Earlier missions amongst the Khoekhoe by the Moravians and the London Mission Society were supplemented with ones directed at the Xhosa (South African History Online 2006a; Lester 1997, 642). The sharp critique frequently directed by the missionaries at colonial policy, and at the treatment by settlers of people of colour, and their access to a powerful missionary lobby in Britain made them vexatious to both (Mills 1997, 338, 339). Over a period of time mission outposts were established in the interior amongst a wide range of polities. The message of the missionaries was received with indifference and expectations of mass conversions did not materialize, but the missionaries were increasingly valued for the access to goods they brought with them, especially guns, technology and assistance in war and diplomacy (Mills 1997, 341; Comaroff & Comaroff 1986, 3). To bolster the frontier of the colony settlers were enticed from Britain and settled on its most vulnerable points from1820 onwards, but many were not able to make a success as farmers and resorted to commerce or returned to their trades in the newly founded settlement of Port Elisabeth (Lester 1997, 643).

The eastern starboard of South Africa was thrown into turmoil at the beginning of the 19th century. The Portuguese in Delgoa Bay, from 1815 onwards, began exporting large numbers of slaves obtained in the interior, leading to massive population displacements as people fled the slave raiders (Cobbing 1988, 504, 506; see Mozambique: The slave trade and early colonialism (1700 - 1926)). The droughts further destabilized the society of the already densely populated Nguni of KwaZulu-Natal as migration and marauding stimulated the emergence and decline of successive powerful chiefdoms, the Mthetwa, Ndwandwe and the Zulu (Ballard 1986, 369, 371). With the military innovations of Shaka, the Zulu were able to consolidate themselves into a powerful highly centralized kingdom between 1816 and 1824 (Ballard 1986, 372-373). The brutal rise of the Zulu kingdom unleashed great suffering; Shaka used a scorched earth policy resulting in massive population movements of starving fugitives and an estimated half to one million people perished in the process (Ballard 1986, 373-375).

The expansion of the Colony in the west had a similar knock on effect in throwing the interior into turmoil, through the emergence of the Griqua. The Griqua originated in the mid 18th century through the coalescence of Khoekhoe, slaves and people of mixed race who left the Colony and by the beginning of the 19th century had established themselves on the Orange River (Ross 1976, 12, 13; Keegan 1996, 170). Under the influence of the missionaries their loose clan structure developed into a Christianised and increasingly literate polity engaged in cattle ranching, hunting, trade and raiding of their neighbours and obtaining guns, wagons, agricultural equipment, clothing and consumption commodities from the Colony (Ross 1976, 15-18; Keegan 1996, 171). The rapid growth of the Griqua in the early 19th century, their proclivity for raiding for cattle and people (to sell to the labour starved Colony) was in itself disruptive, but the breakaway of renegade Griqua bands, such as the Bergenaars and the Kora, who penetrated deeper into the interior from the west was catastrophic for the adjacent Tsana and Sotho groups (Ross 1976, 20; Cobbing 1988, 496-499; Keegan 1996, 175-177). In 1825 the Orange River was proclaimed the northern boundary of the Colony, so that it adjoined Griequaland (South African History Online 2006b). The pressures of raiding by Portuguese clients and Griqua from east and west, and the expansion of the Zulu Kingdom, led to the development and consolidation of defence centralized polities around natural strongholds that were able to provide refuge and protection to shattered and starving refugees; these heterogeneous entities included the Ndebele, the Swazi, the Pedi and the Basotho (see Origin and rise of the Swazi Kingdom (c1750 - 1868 CE) and Lesotho: Rise and consolidation of the Kingdom (1820-1868)).

In 1807 the British halted the importation of slaves into the Cape Colony, but the population of slaves continued to rise as a result of natural increase (Ross 1993, 133). In addition to slaves, the Khoekhoe, who had been reduced to serf-like servitude, formed a significant proportion of unfree labour, whose condition was worse than that of slaves, since they could not be sold and were thus not valued as capital (Ross 1993, 132, 133). British colonial legislation attempted to protect Khoekhoe from the savage treatment that was routinely meted to them by white farmers, while also attempting to secure the control of masters over their servants; this culminated in Ordinance 50 of 1828, which established formal equality before the law between all free residents of the Colony, thus formally emancipating the Khoekhoe from serfdom (Ross 1993, 132). This was followed in 1834 with the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, but the farmers were for the most part able to devise informal coercive measures to tie the emancipated servants and slaves alike to their farms and only some were able to escape to the urban settlements or mission stations from where they could improve their condition through taking seasonal free wage labour contracts and through opportunities for education (Ross 1993, 141, 143-145).

The compensation paid to the farmers for their slaves formed an injection of over £1 million, which capital stimulated the development of a private banking system and of wool production (Ross 1993, 137, 139; Keegan 1996,164-165). Between 1834 and 1851 the production of wool in the east of the Colony expanded dramatically and the economy boomed, leading to an increased demand for labour and land by settlers, resulting in pressure on the colonial government to subjugate the Xhosas and force them into wage labour through land alienation and taxation, even as revenues from wool exports provided the government with the means to do so (Lester 1997, 649). The white population had grown dramatically from about 22 000 people at the turn of the century to 150 000 in the 1830s and the settlers began to demand a say in the government of the colony through an elected legislature (Feinstein 2005, 24; Ross 1989, 244, 245) In 1834 a Legislative Council nominated by the Governor was established that included wealthy settler representatives, from 1853 the Council members were elected on the basis of a franchise qualified by income and property ownership and in 1872 the Colony was given responsible self-government (Keegan 1996,165; South African History Online 2006b).

In the 1830s conflict between the Xhosa and the colonials intensified, culminating in the outbreak of war in 1835; attempts were made to expel the Xhosa from the area between the Fish and the Kei Rivers, and Xhosa territory up to the Keiskamma River was militarily occupied, but eventually the British withdrew in 1836 (Lester 1997, 644-645). From the 1840s onwards the resources became available to make the subjugation of the Xhosas a feasible prospect and in 1846, as drought intensified competition for grazing land, warfare between the Xhosa and the colony broke out once more and the British were able to annex the territory up to the Kei River; in 1850 and 1857 renewed hostilities resulted in further dispossession and finally, in 1878 the last of the Xhosa chiefdoms, the Gcaleka, were conquered and incorporated into the Colony (Lester 1997, 639, 647, 648). In the 1860s, in the wake of defeat and dispossession, mass conversion of Xhosas to Christianity began, leading to the emergence of an educated, relatively westernised elite that was to pioneer African nationalism in South Africa (Mills 1997, 343).

In 1834 a mass exodus of 12 000-15 000 Boers and their servants, disaffected with British rule, began from the eastern border of the Colony, with the bulk of the migrants leaving after the 1835 war (Keegan 1996,159). The vanguard of the Trekker movement was attacked by the forces of the Ndebele under Mzilikazi after they moved into Ndebele territory; they defeated the Ndebele in 1836 and the following year, with the assistance of indigenous allies, were able to force the bulk of them across the Limpopo River into Zimbabwe (Lye, WF 1969, 94, 95; see Zimbabwe: Matabele Kingdom (1838-1890)). The defeat of Mzilikazi encouraged others to join them, but the Boers quarreled and one group split off to cross the Drakensberg into KwaZulu-Natal, where they came into conflict with the Zulu whom they decisively defeated in December 1838 (South African History Online Undated). The Boer Republic of Natalia was short lived, for the British occupied the territory in 1842 and the bulk of the Boers trekked back over the Drakensberg to join their compatriots in the interior in 1847/8 (South African History Online Undated). In the interior, in the meanwhile, the Boers spread northwards over the Vaal River, while those in the Caledon Valley came into conflict with the Basotho kingdom under Moshoeshoe and, strengthened with new arrivals from the Cape, they were able to force him to sign a treaty acknowledging their right of permanent settlement on what had been his territory in 1845 (Lyle & Murray 1980, 62-64). Similar treaties, alienating land, were wrung from the Taung, the Pedi and the Swazi north of the Vaal (South African History Online Undated).

Between the Orange and the Limpopo Rivers the Boers established republics that crystallised into the Orange Free State and the South African republic (ZAR) between the Vaal and the Limpopo which received recognition from the British through treaties in 1854 and 1852 (South African History Online Undated). In 1856 Natal was detached from the Cape and given representative government as a separate colony (Lambert 1995, 270). Boer land encroachment, labour and tribute extractment and slave raids led to conflicts with their neighbours, most immediately with the Kekana chiefdom of the south Ndebele; this led to war in 1854 and the Kekana were defeated (Esterhuysen 2006, 4, 12; Morton 1992, 102-103). War over land in the Free State in 1858, however, ended in victory for Moshoeshoe and he was able to recover land lost to the Boers in 1845, but in 1865 war erupted once more, in which the Basotho fared the worst they were forced to seceded the Caledon Valley to the Boers (Lyle & Murray 1980, 71; Eldredge 1993, 53, 79). Armed with guns and horses, the Kekana were able to repel a Boer attack in 1968 and by 1877 had expelled the Boers from their territory (Esterhuysen 2006, 14-16). Similarly, the Pedi chiefdom, under Sekhukhune, defeated the Boers in 1876 and expelled them from the northern areas claimed by the ZAR, leading to the British annexation of the ZAR in 1877 and the subjugation of the Pedi by British forces in 1879. The British then provoked a war with the Zulu Kingdom in 1879, defeated them, and annexed Zululand to the Natal Colony (Gump 1988, 31, 34, 35).

Once the British had established white domination in the Transvaal, the Boers rose up against the British in 1880 and by 1881 has forced the British to recognize the existence of the ZAR once more (Du Toit 1985, 219-220). The British policy of Anglicization in education and state in the Cape, followed between 1823 and 1869, and British agression against the ZAR stimulated the emergence of Afrikaaner linguistic awareness, giving rise to incipient Afrikaaner nationalism in the Cape that spread north to the Boer republics (Du Toit 1970, 534). The outcome of almost a century of conflict between and amongst white settlers and Africans was the division of South Africa into two British colonies and two Boer republics and the subjugation of the African chiefdoms to one or another of these white dominated territories. The discovery of diamonds in the northern Cape in 1867 and the opening up of Natal resulted in the influx of European settlers to the subcontinent and stimulated the growth of capitalist farming in the interior, which was further consolidated by road and railway building in the 1870s and 1880s (Morton 1992, 104; Du Toit 1985, 217).

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