THE OTHER NELSON MANDELA OF 200 YEARS AGO – MAKANA

THE STORY OF THE OTHER NELSON MANDELA OF THE 19TH CENTURY – MAKANA (1780 – 1820).
Almost 200 years ago a figure very much similar to Nelson Mandela died in an escape bid of prisoners from Robben Island when he perished in the sea just off Blobergstrand not far from where I live.

Descriptions of Makana (also sometimes spelt Makhanda) and stories of him, even those written by his enemies describe him in the same glowing and respectful accolades that today are presented about Nelson Mandela. His life followed a very similar trajectory too. Makana’s War was the 5th of nine amaXhosa Resistance Wars in the Eastern Cape and was the last of the 15 Khoena and San Wars of Resistance of the then defined Cape Colony.

Makana the great resistance warrior and prophet was brought to Camissa (Cape Town) as a prisoner of war and incarcerated on Robben Island. The warrior-prophet Makhana carried both the heritage and tradition of his Khoena mother and his amaXhosa father. He was born of a Khoena woman and died amongst his Khoena kin when Chief David Stuurman’s escape boat capsized in the waves. As much as Makana is a hero of the Eastern Cape amaXhosa he is a hero of the Khoena of Camissa (Cape Town). His lifetime friend and fellow resister made it to shore but was later captured and exiled to Australia. It was David’s second successful escape from Robben Island – the only man to have done so successfully.

In 1980 in an ANC guerrilla camp of Umkhonto we Sizwe at Quibaxe in war-torn Angola an MK guerrilla soldier Barry Gilder alias Jimmy Wilson, guitar in hand, belted out a popular song and the other combatants sang along with the chorus…..

“Two centuries before this one; In Africa’s southern lands
A war was just beginning, that would put blood on many hands….
Every struggle has its heroes – this song is about just one
Makana of the Xhosa, who drowned off Bloubergstrand

Swim Makana, swim Makana, swim Makana, swim
On the shore where we wait, our children go thin
Come Makana, come Makana, come Makana, come

I hear you, said Makana, to the voices in his head
But the water’s growing higher now, I am as good as dead
New people will come to lead you, and many will die
Before the spirit of Makana will at last be home and dry….

Makana, the powerful spiritual leader, an ‘Itola’ who arose from humble roots to lead his soldiers 200 years ago in the attack on Grahamstown, and who drowned in an amazing mass escape from Robben Island imprisonment, still commanded the hearts of his soldiering people in the same drawn out anti-colonial resistance struggle of the latter 20th century.

James Read the missionary described him as: “a stout and handsome man, who commands respect.”

British soldiers said of him, “we were surprised at his lofty demeanour and appearance.”

John Campbell the missionary described him as “a fine figure of a man, measuring six feet and two inches in height and had many marks of old cuts, or wounds, on different parts of his body, especially behind his shoulders. He had a kind of tattooing in the form of a cross, under his breast.”

The writer Charles Lennox Stretch described him as “adorned with “bracelets made of coarse hair which hung from his arms, but he especially valued his ivory arm-band, the insignia of a very great man amongst the amaXhosa.” Stretch also estimated Makana’s height to be six foot and four inches.

In his work ‘Frontiers – The epic of South Africa’s creation and the tragedy of the Xhosa people’ Noel Mostert draws on all of these descriptions of Makana when he said, “he had … forceful presence and physical impact. He stood six foot six, and was stout and handsome. His demeanour was reserved, solemn and abstracted. He impressed all who came in contact with him by his dignity …”

These are all very familiar descriptions of Nelson Mandela, the leader and national hero of our times.

The man thus described also had a number of names and much mystique surrounded him. Two centuries later his name still commands awe and respect. Makana, (also written and pronounced as Makhanda), was also known as Lynx, and Nxele (the ‘left-handed one’). Perhaps the name Lynx was derived from an Anglicisation of the Dutch word ‘links’ meaning ‘left’ referring to Makana’s left-handed disposition or perhaps it was from the stealthy Cape Caracal wildcat with its lynx-like looks and sometimes apparition-like sudden appearances as if from nowhere. Like the Caracal, Makana was also given to wandering around in the wilds, often deep in contemplation.

BIRTH AND UPBRINGING

Makana is said to have been born somewhere along the Qhagqiwa river (Swartkops river) near to Uitenhage. His father was an amaXhosa man by the name of Gwala from the amaCwerha clan and his mother was a Khoena (Khoi) woman of the Gonaqua clan. The people of this area of the Eastern Cape were strongly rooted in a mix of amaXhosa and a number of Khoena clans with longstanding roots in the district – the Gonaqua, Hoengeiqua, Inqua and others, and one cannot always easily separate out the two cultural streams that merged in the south eastern Cape. Today the amaXhosa have as much claim to Khoena and San roots as do people labelled “Cloured” yet the latter reject any association with their amaXhosa cousins.

The date of birth of Makana cannot be pin-pointed with accuracy, but if one works from the time that Makana said he held discussions with Dr Johnnes van der Kemp, an equally fascinating rebel missionary from the Netherlands, and was in a position to present him with a cow around 1800 as a young man then his birth would date circa 1780. Long before Dr van der Kemp launched his missionary work amongst the Khoena and later established the mission at Bethelsdorp, he first spent a year amongst the amaXhosa, being the first missionary to do so. Unlike other missionaries van der Kemp discarded his European dress and wore similar garments to his African brothers and his theology to was highly influenced by indigene perspectives. This resulted in rejection and ridicule by the colonists who were also enraged at his defence of indigenes and his rejection of slavery. It is during this period when van der Kemp first was in contact with the southernmost amaXhosa that Makana says he met him.

Makana’s father Gwala died when he was a young boy and thus he was brought up by his mother and came under a strong Gonaqua traditional influence. She had a reputation as a spiritual diviner and medicine woman. Makana’s persona as one later to be recognised as an ‘inyanga’ was rooted in the early guidance of his mother and in his Gonaqua roots. The amaXhosa also particularly held the Khoena and San spiritual guides in high esteem. This traces far back to the old Mapangube Kingdom going back to the tenth century where the mixed Khoena-San-Bantu community were governed by the only verifiable Khoena and San Royalty (as per dna testing of two royals buried per Bantu custom but having dna matching Khoena and San. No other evidence exists that Khoena and San south of Mapagubwe ever had royals, other than colonials temporarily labelling some as such for mischievous ends.

Makana’s mother’s influence held sway largely in his formative years and early teens. Thereafter the broader mixed amaXhosa-Khoena society of the Gqunukwebe (Gonaqakhwebe) community, and then the Rharhabe Xhosa and other influences around him would dominate his life. Makana grew up in a period where there was much fluidity within the Zuurveld and the FishRiver areas with constant mobility over fairly wide distances. Another display of his Khoena roots was Makana’s tendency to wander around and to spend much time in the bush away from human settlements.

Life was punctuated by one dramatic event after the other in the region and traditions were assaulted and open to remoulding. There also was a great mixing amongst amaXhosa, Khoena, missionaries, runaway slaves known as Drosters, Boers and later the British in South Eastern Cape. This turbulent period would have a tremendous influence on the young man. When his father died, Makana’s mother took him and his siblings to the FishRiverValley where they lived with his foster father Balala in the vicinity of what was to become Glenmore.

Here Makana was schooled in the traditions of the amaXhosa and their traditional leaders. As a commoner he found his way into the presence of the royal leaders and their advisers, rapidly rising to becoming an advisor, an appointed chief and military commander. During his days as a wandering preacher an incident had occurred where he came under assault from a gang of detractors and was rescued by one of Chief Ndlambe’s councillors Qalanga. It was this patron who introduced Makana to the great royal chief and one time regent of the Rharhabe, Ndlambe who first conferred upon Makana the special status that launched his resistance career.

Makana’s spiritual calling and reputation was the key to providing the means for this social mobility. The captivating message of the missionaries and the advantages that they offered also meant that any inter-locater between the missionaries or their message and the chiefs, would also build a degree of power and influence.

A number of such inter-locators emerged over the years, the most important of these being Ntsikana and Makana who soon became rivals. Ntsikana, represented a strong bias towards the missionaries and the purity of their message which effectively was useful to colonial interests. Makana on the other hand crafted his Christian message to synchronise with the interests of his traditional society in a form of Liberation Theology. In taking the latter role Makana was to become demonised by the mainstream missionaries, their inter-locaters and converts and, much of what he stood for was distorted over time. Ntsikana became strongly associated with Chief Ngqika who would play a collaborator role and Makana with Chief Ndlambe and the amaXhosa resistance.

RECORDS REFLECTING PERSPECTIVES OF MAKANA

Much of the writing to which any researcher will turn, involves a litany of statements, maligning Makana and painting him as a lunatic and trickster. Modern writing often simply reflects this image, not stopping to question that much of mainstream writing reflects the views of his opponents and their opposition to African traditional belief systems and a culture that they believed to be uncivilised and evil.

There are however a number of other researchers and evaluators of Makana who present a different picture. In most recent literature Max du Preez presents Makana as one of the ‘tricksters’ and curiosities of history based largely on the first school of writers who range from the biased missionary and colonial commentators to those who first begin to break with this tradition. Even although he frames his story based on these writings, du Preez however still pauses momentarily to cast some questioning of the claims that Makana was a madman.

In contrast, Julia Wells in her work which more thoroughly explores Makana, the legend and the man, she opens her readers up to those particularly amongst black researchers and commentators who view Makana differently and also offers her own unique and refreshing perspectives.

Particularly in times of conflict, even a cursory glance at world history will reflect a degree of the “barmy” in any of the most prominent leaders on the global stage. In South Africa in the conflicts of the 1800s Sir Harry Smith may well be described as being “as mad as a March hare”, but history does not project this as his defining characteristic in the same manner as it does when it comes to portraying Makana as having a touch of lunacy and being a trickster. Colonial history in South Africa often maligns opponents of colonial expansion.

KINDRED SPIRITS

Makana, well known for his enquiring mind and for matters spiritual, was influenced to a degree by his contact with particular missionaries such as the Dr van der Kemp of the London Missionary Society. Dr van der Kemp was also considered eccentric and had a reputation amongst his European detractors for his respect for African traditions and in his having strong non-conformist millennial theological leanings.

Dr Johannes Theodorus Van Der Kemp established himself in the region in 1799 when he first went to live amongst the amaXhosa. He later built up a missionary settlement on the little Swartkops River which became known as Bethelsdorp. It is likely that he first met Makana at the time when he inter-acted with Ngqika and Ndlambe. It is interesting to note that Dr van der Kemp was a latter day convert to the missionary calling and had formerly also been a soldier. This soldier-prophet concept would not have been lost on Makana. Dr van der Kemp was an abolitionist and a harsh critic of the colonial authorities and the cruelty of the Boer frontiersmen. All of these things would have fascinated the mind of Makana who always spoke highly of van der Kemp.

But Makana has over the years often been overly associated with the missionary millenarian tradition to such a degree that it clouded evaluation of his role in the resistance to colonial expansionism. Julia Wells in her work on Makana sounds a caution that we should not look at Makana as simply being a half-finished product of the missionaries but be bold enough to look at him as a self-made man.

THE PROPHET – Inyanga and Itola – MAKANA’S SYNCRETIC CHRISTIAN AND TRADITIONALIST BELIEF SYSTEM

Evaluation of Makana’s role in history was largely cultivated by his Christian detractors and by propagandists justifying the British conquest of the peoples of the Eastern Cape and their genocidal and scorched earth practices while twisting the causes for the wars that raged through the region for over 100 years.
Makana’s beliefs are misrepresented as a mix of witchcraft, exploitation, abuse of religion, manipulation and the irresponsible duping of his people. Many myths, untruths and distortion overlay the evaluation of his life, which later researchers have challenged. Much of the derogatory assessment arises from contestation by Christian contemporaries where a debate, which still rages two centuries later, took the form of so-called civilisation versus backward heathenism, or European notions of culture versus perceived African backwardness. A range of respected researchers effectively counter the colonial smearing of Makana.

This defamation streak unfortunately smothered and covered up a campaign of conquest accompanied by violence against Africans which adopted genocide proportions, including naked land grabbing and the subjugation of the amaXhosa by a powerful British imperial force. By painting Makana as a false-Christian and a barbaric threat to the civilising mission, his role as freedom fighter and champion of justice, was effectively covered up. It has much parallel with the white South African smearing of Mandela and their opponents as being terrorists – something that even those among the white ‘opposition’ parties in the Apartheid era also expressed even while contradictorily championing Mandela and other political prisoners human rights. Opposition party leaders branded Mandela a terrorist but differed only from the National Party Regime when they said that nonetheless his human rights must be respected as a prisoner while at the same time saying that he held the key to his own freedom if he would only renounce “Armed Struggle”. Makana faced these same contradiction from the colonial authorities in his day.

In the first two decades of the 19th century during this intense period of the British assault on the amaXhosa, which was rooted in the earlier Boer vs amaXhosa and the long history of wars against the San and Khoen that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of the Western Cape of all Khoena and San tribes. The conflicts in the Zuurveld arena of war first began in the decade before his birth and it is from this arena that Makana made an indelible mark on resistance history. He stood out as occupying the position of ‘Itola’ where he was recognised as being both a spiritual and military leader in service of Ndlambe, the one time regent of the Rharhabe, one of the highest of the traditional leaders in the region.

This was remarkable because the fact was that Makana was a mere commoner who rose to this role from amongst the lower echelons of society. He was not born a Chief nor a Royal. Julia Wells points out that the traditional role of ‘Itola’ amongst ‘Inyangas’ was never really understood by historians evaluating the life of Makana. At best it was seen as a ‘war-doctor’ or ‘warrior-priest’. But by the time of his death, Makana was held in similar esteem as any of the royals of his time, though not a royal nor heredity chief.

History shows him to have been both a pioneer of the independent African Christian tradition and a traditionalist. The huge following of African Independent Churches such as the ZCC and others today are accepted as a normal part of modern South Africa, but in Makana’s time he was portrayed as demented and as a blasphemer because of his early Africanist challenge to mainstream European missionary defined Christianity.

Makana was highly attuned to the inter-connectivity of everything in life, animate and inanimate, the elements, fortunes and afflictions, to the human spirit. The human spirit too was inter-connected to the ancestral spirits, and the ancestral spirits provide access to Qamata or Thixo, in which all things seen and unseen found union. Makana challenged both the European Christian message and the amaXhosa traditional belief system by referring differently to the almighty, as Mdalidipho and used the name Taay for Jesus. He spoke of having a special personal relationship with Taay whom he referred to as his brother.

Makana’s spiritual awareness struck everyone who met him and was commented upon by the missionaries as being striking, but his special gift was the manner in which he could inspire others to follow a spiritual path which was not simply ‘other-worldly’ but which could be applied to the struggles of their lives in the here and now.

In the face of the colonial onslaught Makana provided hope and a sense that the power of the nation could be mustered to counter attack an evil that had befallen his people. Everything that we know about Makana suggests that he held awareness that the Khoena and amaXhosa faced a major crossroads in time and that the new challenge of British colonialism was the greatest challenge ever faced by his people. It is recorded that many attested to Makana having the prophetic gift of being able to see future events and the gift of healing.

CONTRADICTION LED TO THE CHAMPIONING OF JUSTICE AND LIBERATION THEOLOGY

At some stage in his early youth Makana had also regularly come into contact with Boers on their farms and perhaps had even briefly worked on a Boer farm. He was known to have had a strong understanding of Christianity and white culture even before his later contact with missionaries not so much as a result of having been taught but rather gained through interaction and experience. The term Christian and Boer, were at this time both used as an almost ethnic group term, for Europeans, by them and by the Africans. In itself this was problematic for those at the receiving end of proselytization because where did this leave the black convert?

Makana furthermore had first-hand knowledge of the mistreatment of black people by the Boer farmers, the Christians, who wanted black people to accept their Christian message but not to have equality with the white man. Makana had a deep sense of justice and injustice which he recognised in Christian teaching but at the same time could see great contradictions between these teachings and the Boers who had adopted the term Christian as a kind of ethnic identity. In the British he saw another face of Christianity where this powerful military force saw their imperial majesty almost as the representative of Christ on earth. Makana could see that politics, military action and religion had a special and powerful relationship. He sought to apply this same formula of a relationship between the political, military and spiritual, to amaXhosa resistance and advancement.

Makana and all of the amaXhosa had a clear understanding that the British and the Dutch before them were seeking to take their land from them. From the late 1760s when the Boer trek farmers started moving into their lands until the brutal expulsion of the Gqnukwebe and other amaXhosa from the Zuurveld in 1812, the Europeans had made it clear that they coveted the amaXhosa territory.

Makana was known to wrestle with these issues and had begun to weave a syncretised union of some elements of the Christian faith with traditional African belief systems. This may have indeed been the best way that he could see of immunising his people to what he recognised as the beguiling and disarming message of the missionary advance guard of British imperialism, while at the same time taking advantage of some of the very real benefits to be had by engaging with the missionaries and at least part of their message.

Makana was astute in being able to distinguish that there were very different schools of thought between different missionaries, showing respect for the teachings of Dr van der Kemp in particular. He further went out of his way to engage with a wide range of others, particularly the Military Chaplain van der Lingen, in Grahamstown. The latter interactions are particularly interesting in that some may well characterise Makana as the Military Chaplain of the amaXhosa.

Makana may have been one of the first indigene proponents of African liberation theology and black consciousness. At one stage in his life he practiced a quasi-indigenous form of evangelism which had the missionary James Read impressed, bemused and befuddled all at the same time.

As such he was the one to take the gospel (albeit according to Makana) to Chief Ndlambe and his people. He did this in a manner which literally assumed the roles of John the Baptist, Jesus the preacher and Saint Paul where he acted out the message and did not simply convey it as a detached messenger. Makana’s African style of bringing across the message of Christianity incensed the European church who saw it at best as a false Messianic enactment and at worst as blasphemous. This is a very similar reaction to the spread of Voudoun, Santeria and Dukun through the colonial world of the Americas and Caribbean where Christianity and other Abrahamic faiths such as Islam were over-laid with elements of African and Eastern animist belief systems as a result of the African and Asian diaspora brought about by the slave trade.

EMERGENCE OF THE ADVISOR AND WARRIOR

Makanda was not the only unusual commoner of his time to engage as an advisor to the chiefs. Hermanus Ngxukumeshe Matroos the son of a slave who had sought refuge amongst the amaXhosa and free-Khoena later also rose to the rank of adviser and military leader. Likewise, the rebel Boer non-conformist Coenraad de Buys who had as one of his many wives, the mother of Chief Ngqika, had also risen to the role of adviser. There was further, a number of Khoena leaders who would interact with and ultimately share a fate with Makana in being imprisoned together on Robben Island – amongst these namely, Khoena Chief David Stuurman and fellow combatant in the Khoena Confederacy, Hans Trompetter. Makana had one of Trompetter’s sisters as a wife. These relationships between Makana and resistance contemporaries were complex. There was none of this modern day antagonism between Khoena (Khoi) and San which is a perversion of history.

There were also a number of white rebels who made common cause with the amaXhosa and rebel Khoena in the region too. Besides the already mentioned de Buys, there were men such as the German, Klaas Liebenberg, Irishman MacDaniel, and Boers – Bezuidenhout and Faber. Makana was held in high esteem by all of these.

The unfolding drama of the Zuurveld conflict and the successor frontier wars threw Makana into the role of warrior leader amongst other notable warrior leaders. They all graduated from lower level resistance conflict with the Boers to having to stand up against the full might of the British Empire as the invaders implemented a scorched earth approach to establishing control over the whole of South and Southern Africa.

Makana however stood shoulders above all in that he led a full frontal attack by 10 000 warriors on the British garrison town of Grahamstown. It had all of the hallmarks of a major military battle from its early espionage and intelligence gathering to its planning and implementation. It was also both a symbolic target and a military target. If Grahamstown had been successfully seized by the amaXhosa the course of history may have been very different.

Grahamstown was named after the man considered by the amaXhosa to be the butcher of the Zuurveld, Colonel John Graham. He had arrived in the Zuurveld in 1809 and launched the scorched earth campaign of genocide proportions in the region with gusto and great brutality. Under orders of Lord Caledon, with massacre and destruction, he blazed a path through the Zuurveld wiping out and pushing back all amaXhosa in his path, even those working on white farms. Orders were given to shoot any Xhosa person on sight and by 1812 he had succeeded, where each of the previous three frontier conflicts with the Dutch had led to failure by the authorities to halt the expulsions of Boers from the area by the amaXhosa.

The battle of Grahamstown was thus highly symbolic and offered an opportunity to literally ‘do a Colonel Graham’ on the British.

The South Eastern Cape Zuurveld had been argued by the Europeans to have been an ‘empty land’ – an argument which in modern times evaluation of the facts is easily proven to have been a popular historical untruth. Stellenbosch based commandos had done sorties as early as 1702 into the South Eastern Cape region and come across amaXhosa long before the trek Boers. AmaXhosa oral history tells us that the Imidangwe clan lived around Graaf-Reinette before 1700. In the 18th century long before the trek Boers arrived the Kucha and Ntinde clans entered into an agreement with Chief Gola of the Gonaqua Khoena where they purchased the area between the Fish and the Sundays rivers for 800 head of cattle which the Gonaqua then took to Bruintjies Hoogte. It was these Gonaqua here at Bruintjies Hoogte that were the first to receive the onslaught of trek Boer incursions. When the first Boers started arriving in the Zuurveld around 1770 its mixed Khoena-amaXhosa inhabitants lived with them in peaceful coexistence. But then more and more arrived and they started to want to lay down their rules. The Indigene inhabitants also disapprovingly witnessed how they treated their slaves and pacified Khoena labourers on their farms. Furthermore they were using Indigene labourers who were not properly rewarded and they did not respect indigene grazing rights for cattle and indeed coveted their cattle.

The first approach of the amaXhosa was to use their traditional method of cattle reeving to caution and punish the Boer farmers for their transgressions. This entailed stealing cattle through raids and then returning it in a show of strength as to establish who was in charge. When this failed the amaXhosa took to expelling the Boers from the area at different periods and going to war, where after negotiated treaties established frameworks of rules. These became known as the first three frontier wars of resistance. In all the Khoena and amaXhosa de facto won the day. The colonist farmers did not have the mass professional soldier and cavalry advantage that would come later with the British. It was those advantage that would be the game-changer.

In 1799 Chief Nlambe led a mass movement into the Zuurveld to join his resident brother Mnyaluza to strengthen his hand. In coming together to make a stand they also joined up with a revolt by the southern Gqunukwebe (the mixed amaXhosa –Khoena) and the Khoena Confederacy under Klaas Stuurman of the Gonaqua Khoena of the Gamtoos who had been forced into slave labour conditions and brutalised by the Boer farmers. The amaXhosa clans and Khoena joined forces to expel the Boers from the Zuurveld in the third Frontier war of Resistance and were largely successful in this endeavour against the weakened Dutch and the temporary occupying British government troops. Many runaway slaves given sanctuary by the amaXhosa also participated in this resistance.

The period 1800 to 1809 was a time when Makana prospered and earned respect as a leading figure amongst the amaXhosa. Allied to Chief Ndlambe, this was the learning ground for the young prophet Makana who was emerging as an important advisor to the Chief and one who was in turn influenced by other warrior contemporaries in times of war. From 1807 to 1810 Ndlambe had a relatively free reign in the Zuurveld after Ngqika had been defeated in the Thuthula civil war. Makana made his full transition to prophet-warrior during the period from 1811 to 1812 when he bore witness to the brutal wresting of the lands of the amaXhosa from them by Colonel Graham’s troops.

Ndlambe and his people were impoverished by the scorched earth campaign by Colonel Graham and driven out of the Zuurveld to east of the Fish River to become completely reliant on King Ngqika.

At this time after the war, Makana held a mass ceremonial cleansing service and traditional slaughter of cattle on the beach at Gompo Rock near today’s East London, where he called on the people to reconnect with their ancestors so that the dead may arise to infuse their spirit of resistance with new life at this most terrible moment in the history of the amaXhosa. The nature of this traditional ceremony was greatly distorted by missionaries and colonial commentators.

COUNSELLOR IN A TIME OF CIVIL CONFLICT WITHIN THE RHARHABE

The character of Makana was also moulded by his experiences in being caught up in the civil conflict within the Rharhabe amaXhosa. Like any large family the Rharhabe had its own inner family disputes. In a complex extended family such as the royal family with its many structures and subjects scattered over a wide area, family disputes were easily able to descend into broader civil conflicts. The complexity of the regional environment and new social forces in the midst of the Rharhabe contributed to escalating disputes and conflicts which well may have otherwise died down quickly. Social change within the Rharhabe and broader amaXhosa society was a further contributor to civil conflicts becoming drawn out. The principal characters in the conflict were Chief Ndlambe and King Ngqika.

Like most family disputes there were ebbs and flows in the Rharhabe disputes with relatives and counsellors coming in from the wings to put out the fires. At times Ngqika was in ascendency and at other times Ndlambe was on top, with each having very low points at different stages. Over time ‘blood is thicker than water’ and what at one time may seem insurmountable, at another, a resolution was able to be found. Even at the height of their conflict, stepfather and uncle Ndlambe, and stepson and nephew Ngqika, there was always an awareness of being part of the same royal family and communications remained open. Ndlambe was not just Ngqika’s father’s brother, he was also stepfather to Ngqika because Ndlambe had taken his brother’s wife a his own. Perhaps these dynamics also played itself out with Ngqika being 4 years old when his uncle and stepfather became regent. The regency rule continued until 1796 some 13 years later.

The roots of the conflict go back to the social change within the amaXhosa after King Phalo had passed away. and the single royal lineage gave way to two branches of the amaXhosa in the form of the great house of the Gcaleka’s and the right hand house of the Rharhabe. This also had a territorial dimension and a period of adjustment played itself out over a few generations. Hardly had this began to settle, when King Rharhabe died and his heir Ngqika was too young to rule. Rule was thus exercised by his uncle Ndlambe.as regent. Together with his councillors the regent ruled for 13 years until Ngqika came of age when he completed his initiation into manhood. This scenario was unsettling given the new regional dynamics with the white settlers.

As with many impetuous youth, there was still a way to go in terms of maturing and the polishing of character but the 17 year old Ngqika was eager to demonstrate his mettle to his fellow graduating initiates. He wanted people to know immediately that he was the new authority and he also wanted the colonial authorities to recognise the same.

While it was vital to the Rharhabe that some form of continued sharing of authority and good counsel between Ndlambe and Ngqika had to hold at this time of intrusion by the colonial forces, the concept of sharing his stage with stepfather Ndlambe could not be seen as an option by Ngqika. He overstepped the mark in terms of due respect and protocol by humiliating his stepfather after Ndlambe had very amicably handed over to the young King shortly after he had been inaugurated. It was this initial act of a brash and inexperienced youth that soured relations between the Ngqika and Nlambe and led to a lifetime of a peculiar conflict between the two.

The problem could have been easily mended by councillors on both sides but the young King was peeved that many of his subjects had decided to move off with the former regent when he left the Great Place.

When Ndlambe protested at his humiliation, Ngqika retaliated to teach his uncle a lesson to ‘know his place’. At a later stage when conflict had receded, Julia Wells in her comprehensive research, quotes a story where Ngqika is purported to have told his uncle, “When you were my tutor, you taught me to be a generous king, and since I became King I hope I have taught you to be a faithful subject.” Julia wells also makes the observation that regardless of their conflicts, Ndlambe still showed due respect to Ngqika as King and that Ngqika still turned to Ndlambe for advice.

The youthful Ngqika was also the first of the amaXhosa leaders to have to deal with the Europeans – the Boers, the missionaries, the Governors from the Cape and the British soldiers. It was a huge responsibility and nothing could have prepared him for this task which called for great wisdom. The civil conflict which went on for 24 years, played into the hands of the British forces with their ‘divide and rule’ tactics and posed one of the greatest threats to amaXhosa social cohesion in times of war.

The differences between the two royals were differences around respect for protocols, and difference of young and old, stepfather and son and of divergent styles. It also became differences of tactics on how to deal with their common enemy. These differences at times crossed the threshold of the acceptable in broader amaXhosa society at crucial points in time with devastating consequences for both leaders.

Makana entered this mix as spiritual adviser to Ndlambe while Ngqika took on another dynamic young preacher as his spiritual advisor, namely the evangelist Ntsikana. And thus emerged yet another dimension, of different approaches to the Christian faith that had been introduced. Ngqika and Ndlambe’s conflicts slowly began to include a playing out of a spiritual war between their two proxies Ntsikana and Makana. Each was proponent of diametrically opposed interpretations of the Christian faith. They also differed in their approaches to the colonialists. Makana’s war started as a war of words, ideas and spiritual expressions.

As councillor to Ndlambe, Makana inevitably became a warrior in this civil conflict and it in turn dovetailed with his anti-colonial resistance.

MAKANA’S WAR

In January 1818 Major Fraser set out across the FishRiver to attack Ndlambe but had a rude awakening when his small commando found themselves almost surrounded by 2000 warriors and had to beat a hasty retreat. To impress his superiors Major Fraser set upon his own British allies – Ngqika’s Rharhabe and, robbed them of a couple of thousand head of cattle. This outrageous act of blunder ended up temporarily uniting the followers of Ngqika and Ndlambe against the British, as anger spread through the territory. King Hintsa and the Gcaleka and, their neighbours the Tembus, were also drawn into what began to emerge as an anti-British amaXhosa and free-Khoena confederacy of the aggrieved. The ferment included a number of Khoena groups as well as fugitive slaves who had fled their masters in the Colony.

One of the latter groups allied with amaXhosa Chief Kratu. They made common cause under the direction of Khoena leader Klaas Geswind in a plot to attack Uitenhage and kill the hated Landdrost Cuyler. The plot was uncovered and Klaas was tried and hanged while the other co-conspirators were sentenced to imprisonment on Robben Island.

The confederacy of the aggrieved did not hold together and instead of a focus on their British enemies, a civil conflict panned out between King Ngqika who had become distrusted and isolated and the rest of the allies led by Ndlambe. The culmination of this civil conflict was that King Ngqika, the collaborator,was defeated at Amalinde in November 1818.

Faced with this situation King Ngqika appealed for British support against Ndlambe and in December 1818 Ndlambe was attacked in a devastating raid by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Brerton. The British knew that the weak underbelly of Ndlambe and his people were the cattle herds on which they relied for sustenance. The aim was to starve Ndlambe and his people into submission. The British attacked the cattle herds of 25 000 head of cattle, destroying some and capturing the rest which they handed over to King Ngqika. The amaXhosa were united in their outrage about this raid which caused great suffering amongst many people as it impacted negatively on the livelihoods and sustenance of Ndlambe’s people.

Julia Wells in her excellent appraisal on the lead up to the attack on Grahamstown, elaborates in fine detail on these events and argues that the Fraser and Brerton incidents became the rallying point for the ensuing war of Makana and the attack on Grahamstown. She shows how neither Makana nor the amaXhosa started the fifth frontier war but it was rather these two significant attacks by the British that unleashed a state of war in which the battle of Grahamstown became the most significant of battles. The Fraser and Brerton events provided an anchor for the orations of Makana which had people near and far spellbound and fired up.

This climate produced the perfect storm where Makana’s spiritual, oratory and military skills came together at the right time and place as he became respected in the role of Itola. His became the rallying call for all freedom loving amaXhosa to join in the war. The amaXhosa had gone through 40 years of land grabs and suffered aberration upon aberration at the hands of the Boers and the British. Makana made a rousing call for united action by all of the aggrieved and promised to raise a force like no other to ensure a British defeat such as they never experienced before in Africa. His objective was to halt the British advance and to drive them out of the land.

But Makana was not just talk. He was a planner and intelligence chief too. He was also a strategist. He was not interested in carrying out a simple raid. It was his belief that a major demonstration of conviction and strength was needed to teach the British a lesson in war.

In the first four months of 1819 Makana launched a preliminary offensive of some note in the Zuurveld, expelling settler farmers in his path. He conducted over 21 raids and battles. This was both the curtain-raiser to the Grahamstown attack and also the decoy. Furthermore it was a means to collect the material resources to produce and build up the weaponry for the attack on Grahamstown. The logistics of the Grahamstown battle was a huge challenge against which Makana’s abilities must also be evaluated. Julia Wells in her comprehensive research on this period calls this the ‘guerrilla warfare’ stage of Makana’s war. This ‘war of the flea’ wore down the British quite considerably. Makana’s raids and battles in the Zuurveld over these four months forced the British to change their military leadership and to adopt new tactics. This was how Lord Charles Somerset ended up appointing Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Willshire as British military commander on the frontier.

Julia Wells in her research points out those traditional accounts of these times that focus only on the Grahamstown defeat of Makana which attempt to paint a distorted picture of a ‘foolhardy’ attack without any context. She demonstrates the need to separate out colonial traditionalist, missionary influenced African traditionalist, revisionist, African liberationist, and post-revisionist research traditions in arguments to analyse the life, times and war drama of Makana. A detailed rebuff of many disparaging arguments on Makana and his role using a narrative of the events, which cross-references a wealth of previous research and commentary, results in the interestingly new and refreshing conclusions by Ms Wells.

Ultimately it is proven that the lens through which one examines the available resources is what determines the outcomes of all research and commentary on Makana. It is from such an approach that Makana emerges as a truly remarkable and most understated man.

On the amaXhosa side of the war, Makana held the position of ‘Itola’ and shared the command of the Grahamstown battle with Chief Ndlambe’s son Mdushane. Chief Phato the son of Chief Chungwa of the Gqunukwebe and King Hintsa of the Gcaleka also played leading roles in mobilising for the attack. Up to 10 000 warriors were amassed and thousands of spears and other war-gear had to be produced for the battle. This mammoth event was organised secretly whereby the amaXhosa maintained the element of surprise. Makana also commanded spies amongst the British in Grahamstown to provide intelligence.

Makana through one of his agents in Grahamstown, Hendrik Ngcuka, provided false intelligence to the British on amaXhosa intentions. As a result of the false information the British forces were depleted of a quarter of its garrisoned fighters as these rode off to investigate Ngcuka’s story.

The rallying point for the battle was the secluded Icibilentonga pond some way from the FishRiver en route to Grakamstown. From the rallying point the amaXhosa had to march over 20 kilometres to the outskirts of Grahamstown largely by cover of night. By dawn troops of warriors were within five to ten kilometres of Grahamstown. Makana moved around to motivate and address the troops of warriors throughout the night and at dawn met with the other chiefs to give final command and direction to detachments and squads. He was to take the lead on horseback with a small, and the only, cavalry detachment.

When the amaXhosa appeared at Grahamstown on 22 April 1819, the town’s inhabitants and the British commanding officers were completely surprised and taken aback. This was even although British frontier commander Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Willshire had received a cryptic war-protocol message from Makana on the previous day as a warning on the pending attack. His message to Willshire was that he would be joining him for breakfast. Willshire had shrugged it off with an ‘oh yeah’ response, saying that Makana ‘would find him in all readiness’. Effectively he arrogantly did not believe Makana.

The element of surprise was not absolute in that Makana did not carry out a night time attack as he easily could have done. The attack on Grahamstown carried a deliberate message of a nation aggrieved at being invaded and it was clear that in terms of the protocols of war Makana was wanting to make a statement in this regard.

It was pure arrogance on the part of the British that they were unprepared for the battle for Grahamstown. The garrison was spread out all over the Grahamstown surrounds. Willshire himself was some five kilometres out of town and literally had to race back to town with only ten minutes to spare before the first attacks were launched.

By all accounts the amaXhosa attack was not a wild move on the town. It carried all the hallmarks of good planning, supported by intelligence and an analysis of enemy tactics. The amaXhosa used conventional battle tactics, encircling Grahamstown and attacking on its weakest side where the British had not expected them to have attacked. The amaXhosa attacked in formations and pinpointed their targets.

The weakness of the amaXhosa is that they did not have modern weaponry in the form of guns and artillery, nor did they have sufficient cavalry to breach the enemy’s defences. They had also not chosen to use the surest tactic which would have resulted in the sure defeat of their enemy – namely a night time assault. The only weaponry that they had was their spears and cowhide shields. British cannon loaded with shot and shrapnel wiped out wave upon wave of warriors as they attacked. Cannons on high ground and at the defence lines took out numerous warriors with each blast while marksmen picked off others. Only the small squad of cavalry led by Makana came anywhere near to hand to hand combat but also had to retreat in the face of cannon fire.

The pressure that the British faced was that some of their defence lines were cut off from supplies of powder and munitions. The warriors just had to keep up the pressure for long enough and keep drawing British fire until their foes munitions were spent. At the same time the amaXhosa had to keep their casualties low. This tactic would have worked had it not been for the sudden and opportune involvement of a factor that no intelligence would have foreseen.

A Khoena trader and collaborator with the British garrison who had been some distance away was drawn to Grahamstown by the noise of the cannon fire. Jan Boesak was a man who was highly experienced in warfare and also knew the amaXhosa leaders by sight. The British garrison was also Jan Boesak’s bread and butter as he supplied them with buffalo meat. He and his men broke through the amaXhosa lines and connected with the mounted Cape Corps to whom he provided leadership. They now constituted a formidable force of mounted marksmen. Boesak’s men started picking off the known amaXhosa leaders and through their high speed mobile troops brought in a support dynamic to the artillery. At the same time the supply lines between the munitions and the artillery cannons was opened by one of the civilian women in Grahamstown. These two actions closed the only tactic for success still open to the amaXhosa who were then forced to retreat.

Illustrating the success of the divide and rule tactic, the British were successful largely due to the intervention of the collaborator Khoena free-trader Jan Boesak and the conscripted Khoena of the CapeCorps. The Battle of Grahamstown had Khoena on both sides and Makana as already emphasised himself was part Khoena through his mother’s heritage. The Khoena amongst the amaXhosa were amongst the bravest and most effective warriors.

The victory of the British at Grahamstown was decisive in the 40 year struggle of the amaXhosa to hold on to the Zuurveld. The frontier would be pushed back effectively to the Keiskamma River, with the territory between the Fish River and Keiskamma River becoming a ‘neutral’ British regulated territory. Four more major frontier wars would ensue over another 60 years. Makana lost no esteem in the great battle of Grahamstown. Indeed, instead his name became legendary and inspirational to liberation fighters over the next two centuries.

AFTER EGAZINI – SURRENDER AND PRISONER OF WAR

Makana’s War carried on for five months after the battle for Grahamstown and was fought bitterly with much losses on both sides. In August 1719, a couple of days after the decisive defeat of Ndlambe in a major battle in the Fish River Valley, Makana shocked Andries Stockenström by walking into his camp at Trompettersdrift in an act of surrender.

Makana was said by Stockenström to have ‘displayed an air of pride and self-possession.’ He was prepared to sacrifice his own liberty and possibly his life to take the heat off his people. Makana had clearly thought out the surrender which also seemed to take the focus off British attempts to hunt down Chief Ndlambe. It was further also Makana’s attempt to invoke the protocols of war through a negotiated end to the war by the vanquished. It was perceived that a better deal could be negotiated with the respected Stockenström rather than with Willshire with whom there was no trust. His councillors soon emerged to conduct negotiations. But Stockenström advised that only Willshire could preside over a formal surrender and any negotiations.

The British had no respect for this scenario and immediately incarcerated Makana in preparation to have him removed from the region. There was no way that the honourable public enemy number one, the Kaffir Chief Lynx, as they called him, was going to be allowed to walk away. They also declared that all the leading amaXhosa and Khoena chiefs were wanted persons and issued an order to the population to deliver them up dead or alive.

It was a dramatic moment with Makana making it quite clear that he was not captured but that he was volunteering to lay down his arms. He boldly stated “People say that I occasioned this war. Let me see if by giving myself up it will restore the peace.”

Stockenström declared Makana to be a prisoner (of war) and handed him over to Makana’s arch enemy, Lieutenant Colonel Willshire who took Makana to Grahamstown before moving him to Uitenhage, whereafter he was held on the ship HMS Nautilus. He was then transferred to the ship HMS Redwing and shipped off to Cape Town by sea. In Cape Town without any trial or sentence Makana was removed to Robben Island and isolated some distance away from the other prisoners.

Makana’s enemies even feared him when he was their prisoner. Makana was kept prisoner in a small house near the harbour at the bottom of the garden of the whaler John Murray’s house. Makana’s quarters was around a kilometre and a half from the male prisoners quarters.

The underlying truth of Makana’s comment indicating that he rejected that he was ‘the cause of war’ and by the sarcasm of saying ‘let us see whether giving myself up will restore the peace’ was demonstrated by the fact that war was to break out four more times over the next 60 years, long after his death. Makana’s War was however a defining moment in the conquest of the amaXhosa. In a smaller but equally bold re-enactment, an attack was made on Fort Beaufort 30 years later led by Hermanus Ngxukumeshe Matroos who lost his life in that attack.

After his surrender and the colonial declaration that he was a prisoner, Makana made two escape bids and was captured each time. His fighting spirit continued.

As a result of Makana’s war the British found that the only way that they would be able to hold onto the Zuurveld and effectively take over all of what they called Xhosaland, would be to flood the area with thousands of British settlers who needed to lay down permanent roots. Thus in 1820 shortly after the end of Makana’s war over 5000 British settlers poured into the extended Cape Colony and took over the traditional lands of the amaXhosa.
Under the British, black South Africa experienced a much worse and more intense colonial onslaught carried out by ruthless and well organised military invaders, such as never been seen during the Dutch colonial period.

ESCAPE FROM ROBBEN ISLAND – THE DEATH OF THE LEGEND

With the cream of the crop of resistance leaders incarcerated on Robben Island, an escape plot was initiated by Khoena leader Hans Trompetter, the brother-in-law of Makana, and a break-out organising group was formed which was made up of Hans Trompetter, Johan Smidt, William Holmes and Abraham Leendert.

Makana was not part of the organisers because he had been isolated from all of the other prisoners and was held in a small building more than a kilometre and a half from the others. It is a sign of Makana’s esteem that one of the first actions taken by the rebels was to go and find him and to release him. It is speculated that the organisation of the breakout took quite a few months.

In the dark hours of the morning of 9 August 1820 Smidt attacked and seized the weapon of a sentry on duty. In carrying out this action Smidt then freed the other prisoners and they took over the armoury where they distributed arms and ammunition to the rebels.

Now armed, the group released more prisoners amongst whom was Makana and Khoena Chief David Stuurman who was ill at the time. Hans Trompetter and a group of eight amaXhosa prisoners of war had formed a squad to rescue Makana from his place of internment in the garden enclosure at Murrays House.

By this time the garrison was awakened by the commotion and a short but intense fire-fight ensued with injuries on both sides in this battle. One soldier was to die of his wounds in that fight. After the skirmish with the garrison, there was a group of 26 amaXhosa and Khoena rebels, plus two European convicts and 2 slaves, who then seized 3 whaler boats after they took over John Murray’s whale house for the escape across the sea..

Johan Smidt took charge of one boat of ten persons; the second boat of ten was under the control of William Holmes and the third boat of ten was under Hans Trompetter. Also on this third boat was Makana and David Stuurman. Only Smidt’s boat made it safely to shore with all ten landed.

In the case of Holmes boat, all but three of the ten perished in the sea. Trompetter’s boat capsized in the rough surf off Bloubergstrand and this is how Makana met his end along with five others on board. Only four, including Trompetter and Stuurman survived. Makana it was reported by the survivours, brave to the end, clung to a rock, shouting encouragement to his comrades, before he was consumed by the sea and drowned.

Fourteen of the 30 escapees drowned in the escape bid. Two more were killed by those who tracked them down. Only two persons evaded capture. Twelve escapees were finally put on trial. All were given heavy sentences; even some of the dead. Khoena Chief David Stuurman had twice escaped Robben Island, so he was thus sentenced to deportation to Australia where he died in 1830.

After this event, because of his larger than life reputation amongst the people including his own family, Makana was believed to be alive and at large, even for many decades after.In death he became more of a legend. His long lifetime walk to freedom had come to an end, but his spirit kept marching on in new generations. “Come Makana, Come Makana Come Makana Come!” Comrade Jimmy, an MK liberation bard in the 1980s, reflected that the spirit of Makana was alive as ever. In many ways Makana reincarnated as Nelson Mandela and finally Freedom did come.

REFERENCES

Barry Gilder; Songs and Secrets – South Africa from Liberation to Governance; Jacana; johannesburg; (2012) – Andries Stockenström; Autobiography of Sir Andries Stockenström – Sometime Lt-Governor of the Easter Province of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope Volume 1; 1887 Edited CW Hutton; Juta; Cape Town (1964) – B Le Cordeur (edt); The Journal of Charles Lennox Stretch; Maskew Miller; Cape Town; (1988) – Ben Maclennan; A proper degree of terror – John Graham and the Cape’s Eastern frontier; Ravan Press; Johannesburg; (1986) – Charles Lennox Stretch; Makana and the attack on Grahamstown in 1819; Cape Monthly Magazine Volume 12; (1876) – Ezra Tisani; Nxele and Ntsikana – a critical study of the religious outlooks of two nineteenth century Xhosa prophets and their consequences for Xhosa Christian practice in the Eastern Cape; MA Thesis; UCT (1987) – G Tylden; Major-General Sir Thomas Willshire GCB and the attack on Grahamstown on 22 April 1819; Africana Notes and News Volume 9; (1953) – George McCall Theal; History of South Africa from 1795 to 1872 – Volume 1; Allen & Unwin; London; (1897) – J B Pieres; The house of Phalo – A history of the Xhosa people in the days of their independence; Raven Press; (1981) – J B Pieres; Nxele, Ntsikana and the origins of Xhosa religious reaction; Journal of African history Volume 20 No 1; (1979) – Julia C Wells; The return of Makhanda – Exploring the legend; UKZN Press; Scottsville; (2012) – Max de Preez; Of tricksters, tyrants and turncoats: More unusual stories from South Africa’s past; Zebra Pres; Cape Town (2008) – Martin Legassick; The struggle for the Eastern Cape 1800 – 1854 : Subjugation and the roots of South African Democracy; KMM; Johannesburg; (2010) – Noel Mostert; Frontiers – The epic of South Africa’s creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa people; Alfred A Knopf; New York; (1992) – Richard Elphick & Hermann Giliomee; The shaping of South African society 1652 – 1820; Maskew Miller Longman; Cape Town; (1979) – Thomas Willshire; Attack on Grahamstown in 1819; Grahamstown Journal; (26 Sept 1846) – VC Malherbe; David Stuurman – “Last Chief of the Hottentots”; African Studies Volume 39 No 1;(1980)

THE WINDS BLOW FROM AFAR – How Social formations of the San, the Khoena, and the Southern Xhosa peopled the Eastern, Western & Southern Cape

For us to be able to evaluate and understand the past 500 years of history and heritage and to navigate issues such as heritage and identity we need to also look back at the distant past and separate what knowledge that we do have now, from propaganda and colonial overlays over the years. To borrow a phrase from an interviewed San survivor in the 19th century – the winds of this understanding, blows from far back in time.

This paper is the first of four papers that assist us to understand our history and heritage which in turn informs our identity. It breaks with the colonial narrative that dominated in our school history books and draws on excellent historical research that is not readily available to most. These are the four papers written over the past few years:

1) THE WINDS BLOW FROM AFAR: How Social formations of San, Khoena and Southern Xhosa came to People the Eastern, Central and Western cape
2) THE STORY OF A PORT: The Camissa foundation of the Port City of Cape Town
3) THEY CAME FROM ACROSS THE SEAS: Migrants of colour who crossed the Cape shoreline frontier voluntarily or as captives
4) ETHNIC CLEANSING -THE TIME OF THE FIFTEEN WARS: The 170 years of Indigene Resistance – 1658 – 1828

If we are led in the present by blatant falsehoods about the past we will cripple ourselves. When it comes to the distant past we certainly don’t know all of the answers and probably never will. It’s a journey of exploration that changes as more and more information comes to light. The distant past cannot simply be explored by one academic discipline either; it is a multi-disciplinary approach that is required – with archaeologists, geneticists, anthropologists, social historians, geologists, oral historians, spiritual practitioners and all that have something to bring to the table of exploration.

When it comes to looking at the Cape San or /Xam and the various Khoena tribes of the Eastern and Western Cape in pre-colonial and ancient times there is much muddying of the waters when trendy language, opportunistic political causes and simplistic and sometimes blatantly false or pseudo history paints over important discoveries.

Very often it is shortsighted opportunistic political ideologies that obscure or blur our view of the distant past and this robs us and future generations of really important building-blocks in getting to understand and know our society today. Notions of ‘first nationhood’ and mythical San and Khoi ‘kingdoms’ abound and it can be opinioned that these are a distraction and potentially falsify the past and rob us of its real value. Tailoring history, heritage and culture to become a lever in leveraging short term gains is another factor to be aware of and to ensure that we don’t get taken off on opportunistic tangents. With the increasing popularity of dna testing, we should also be cautious about conflating dna (genetics) findings with identity. While it can certainly bring perspective to identity and assist in that manner, the complexity of identity and social history should never be confused with dna results on its own. In genetics they talk of Southern African dna and do not generally specifically reference this as San or Khoisan dna, though some scientists sometimes abbreviate and reference San and Khoisan. The latter are terms that have gained currency in anthropology and archaeology and from there have jumped the tracks into genetics. Of late as there has been reference to dna findings when looking at social history, and also with its fashionable use with genealogy, some are jumping to fundamentalist-style interpreted conclusions. We should be aware of this and cautious of these approaches as we go forward with our explorations. But nonetheless the interdisciplinary observations are important in assisting perspective.

This short overview attempts to simplify a trajectory of human and societal development in the territory south of the Gariep before colonial times and before the first encounters between Indigenes and the Europeans. Here we explore how human beings populated Southern Africa and then organized themselves. We need to look at what were points of conflict and where there was peaceful coexistence flourishing.

Humans and apes are said to have common ancestry back in the Miocene period around 8-million years ago. Early ancestors of archaic humans can be traced back in various parts of the world from before 2,5 million years ago through markers that they left behind. When we refer to such common ancestry and talk of archaic humans, it must be noted that we are not referring to Homo Sapiens – modern Humanity.

We often hear people make sweeping claims that their ancestors occupied the land for millions of years or hundreds of thousands of years, but such statements are not rooted in fact and we must distinguish between early or ancient evolutionary ancestral roots in human evolution and Homo Sapiens (humans).

Anatomically modern humans evolved from archaic humans in the middle Paleolithic period about 200 000 years ago in Africa, marking the dawn of the subspecies who are the ancestors of all people in the world. The signs show that this important event took place in East Africa.

About 90 000 years ago modern humans started dispersing across Africa in journeys which saw them dispersing across the world. In the context of the territory of South Africa when we talk about “First People” we can only mean habitat by those first Homo Sapiens (modern humans) who moved into the entire Southern African region around 70 000 years ago. Most of these peoples and groupings died out in time.

There are signs and remains of the existence in the Southern African region of Archaic Humans or pre Homo Sapiens before this period but this must not be confused with “First People”. It is from the “First People” or oldest modern human inhabitants of Southern Africa that the forebears of those we now call the San of this region evolved through early and later stone age processes into early and later iron age peoples and into social formations. The first social organization of people to emerge from the “First People” are those archaeologists and anthropologists came to label as the San or Bushmen.

Both archaeology and genetic science indicate that advanced social formations who have been given the broad collective name of San or Bushmen and Sadawe and Hadza, emerged from the “First People” around 25 000 to 40 000 years ago in different places across Southern Africa from Angola in the west down to the Southern tip of Africa and from southern Kenya in the east down to the southern tip of Africa, and in much many more formations than those surviving 500 years ago.

One of the many different San groups emerged in this period in the southern, eastern and central Cape whom we refer to as the Cape San or /Xam. It is they who are the only people who had “First Habitat” in the region by 2000 years ago.

We need to be very careful of using the term ‘Khoena San’ or ‘KhoiSan’ as this anthropological and archaeological term does not do justice to the San in general and to the Cape San or /Xam in particular. The Khoena emerged much later as a social formation through the coming together of migrating pastoralists from East Africa and one San grouping, the Kalahari San.

Behar, Soodyall and the Genographic Consortium tell us that in dna terms the forebears of those we refer to as the Cape San (and in part of those who we refer to as the Khoena who emerge as a later social formation) had matrilineal ancestry which diverged from the rest of the human mtDNA pool sometime around 90,000 years ago and that parallel to this there were also at least five other matrilineal lineages arising out of the early Homo Sapiens. Through the same lineage the Khoena social formation are partly from this early lineage but also have other admixture in their dna.

The Genographic Consortium also establish that an estimated minimum of 40 other evolutionarily successful lineages flourished in sub-Saharan Africa as well during the period of modern human dispersal 60,000 –70,000 years ago.

By 2500 years ago San as social groups of people were but the remnants of those diverse “First People”. Traces of San lineages were also shared in admixtures of other sub-Saharan African peoples. The scientists also further say that only much later, at the beginning of the Late Stone Age, about 40,000 years ago did introgression of additional lineages occur into the mtDNA pool of San forebears and that these processes were further accelerated when other East African, (with some Nilotic roots) and Sub-Saharan African (Bantu also with some Niolitic roots) dna entered the mix during the periods of different East African and siNtu speaker (Bantu)migratory engagements on the periphery of the Kalahari from around 2,500 years ago.

It is thus only 2 500 years ago when the Khoena as a social formation first emerged with strong dna shared with the same forebears of the Kalahari San (rather than the Cape San or /Xam, but also with other dna markers. This period marks the period of contact between the Kalahari San hunter-gatherers and external migrants who kept sheep and cattle and drank milk. These external elements had dna markers passed on to Kalahari San which point to Sandawe and Hadza from East African descendants of “First People”. But they also show dna from “Nilotic People” from the Nile region of North Africa. And sub-Saharan Africans (Bantu). It is from this engagement of North, East and South that sheep farming pastoralism and the Khoena or Khoi people emerged in the Kalahari and migrated to various parts of South Africa.

The Khoena would also take on further dna markers as they later came into further contact with siNtu speaking Sub-Saharan Africans probably from 200AD in the Northwestern arena and most certainly around 600 AD in the Eastern Cape. There are upwards of 500 stone city and town sites such as Great Zimbabwe, Mapangubwe and Thulamela from the periphery of the Kalahari along the Limpopo and stretching through Zimbabwe to Mozambique. Studies show that earliest peopling of Mpangubwe was by the Khoena who migrated from the Kalahari to the Shashi-Limpopo area and onto Mapangubwe about 1040 years ago because of its agricultural offerings. Mapangubwe became the centre of a huge African civilisation of Southern Africa between 1070 and 1220. Genetic studies on the skeletal remains of two royals of Mapangubwe, male and female show these to have Southern African dna; ie Khoena and San but their burial positions were that associated with Sub-Saharan Africans (Bantu). All of the evidence of the earliest peopling of Mapangubwe shows a society not of subjugation of Khoena and San by Bantu but rather the reverence of the former by the latter and indeed a mixed society and this fits with the oral traditions of the people of Mapangubwe today. This Southern African civilization which had links to the East African coastal trade and trade with the Chinese and Arabs as evidenced by artefacts found at the sites, totally demolishes the Apartheid and colonial era nonsense that the first contact between San and Khoena was with invading “Blacks from the North”. It also demolishes the notion that all San were wandering “hunter-gatherers” and all Khoena were wandering “pastoral herders”. The royals of this civilsation which is the first in Southern Africa to show class distinction of royal and commoner, not evident with Southern San or Khoena, were also buried with intricate crafted golden jewellery and symbols of power and wealth. This again
demonstrates advanced mining and beneficiation crafting skills.

The Mapangubwe, Great Zimbabwe, Thulamela and hundreds of other sites point to a large African civilization in the region where its peopling is a complex make-up of San, Khoena, and peoples with dna roots in North, West and East Africa…. And perhaps elsewhere too as some of these sites in all likelihood had direct contact with Arab and Chinese traders. From dna testing there is also ample evidence that the Lembe in this region have origins with people of the middle east, namely the Jews.

As much as the early Khoena moved out of the Kalahari to engage with other peoples and as founders in this Southern African Kingdom, they also trekked from this region via the Gariep into the Eastern and Southern territories occupied exclusively by the Cape San or /Xam and were the first external pastoral-herder people that interacted with the southern /Xam hunter-gathers.

The Khoena live side by side with the San in the Kalahari and gradually moved down from the Kalahari to the Gariep River and to southern Namibia where other unrelated San groups also had habitat. Here in this new region social identities (clans and tribes) began to form within the San and within the Khoena. It is from here too that the Khoena would gradually migrate to the Eastern Cape and then on to the Western Cape. In this migratory process new Khoena social formations or tribes would occur. In time and for various reasons some of these formations would also disappear. The Khoena would also meet the Cape San or /Xam to whom they were not initially related, but with whom some limited relations would have later developed. As pastoralists and herders and to some degree agriculturalists they would also develop antagonisms with the San too and over time displaced the San from the coastal territories to the mountainous territories.

It is likely too that others from this expansive African civilization with its mixed inhabitants must have done some travelling Southwards and that there are likely to have been trading links with the Khoena from this time already. It is clear that early siNtu speaking Sub-Saharan African migrants going eastwards would have initially been fairly weak and in small formations in the beginning, also took on the mtdna markers of the San people and Khoena. This occurred long before later Nguni arrived across the Kei and Keiskamma by the 15th century.

It is most possible that this is the roots of the early Xhosa rather than their earliest beginning being with the later Nguni migratory drift. The impact of the Khoena and San on the language and culture of the early Xhosa, and indeed on their very name, is too profound to have happened at the time of the arrivals of the Mpondo, abeThembu and Mpondomise.

In recent times social scientists and dna scientists have worked more closely together than before and particularly with the advances in genetics, more and more evidence is emerging that clearly shows that the San were not as isolated from other influences than previously thought. As already mentioned sheep which were not indigenous to Southern Africa seem to have been introduced from North Africa and the Middle East via East Africa.

We are challenged to look past the paradigm of thinking that through the dominant colonial lens locks San and Khoena people into primitivism for all time. European denialism of the great African civilization across Southern Africa a long time before their arrival should cease to be the guiding star that many have allowed it to be on their thinking.

Lots of new indicators are constantly emerging. For instance in 2014, Dr Carina Schlebusch, a foremost geneticist, found in her studies a hard Khoena link to East Africa that points to a journey from East Africa over 2000 years ago by following milk markers in the Khoena dna – Allele LP-SNP 14010G. This in turn shows a link to Niolitic North Africa and the Middle East.

The presence too of the Lembe, with their strong Jewish culture and dna markers, in Limpopo also points to a middle East connection. More and more evidence also emerges of old trading networks between the Khoena up through to far off lands to the North and East.Social historians have also been more rigorously engaging with archaeologists, anthropologists and geneticists in recent times.

Melanie Yap and Dianne Leong Man, in their book Colour, Confusion and Concessions – the history of the Chinese in South Africa give us an insight into China’s early engagement with Africa from the Han dynasty to the T’ang dynasty (208AD to 907AD) and from the Sung dynasty (960 – 1279) to the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644). This involves both direct Chinese engagement and trade engagement via the Arab traders. Indeed even prior to the Ming dynasty in 1320 the Chinese had already mapped South Africa recognizably at a time when in Europe their maps of Africa stopped in the middle of the continent without any knowledge of its southern shape. By 1402 Ch’uan Chin’s Chinese map showed the Gariep River (Orange River). Admiral Zheng He between 1405 and 1433 carried out seven expeditions to Africa in the Indian Ocean in much larger ships equipped for scientific study than the Europeans had at the time and brought back a Giraffe to China. At both Great Zimbabwe and at Mapangubwe porcelain from the Sung dynasty has been found and this predates any European linkages by 600 to 700 years. Yap and Leong Man point out too that anthropologists point out old San paintings in the Eastern Cape show that there was interaction between Chinese and San people. This fits in with Chinese tales that prior to 1300 the Mazi from China were frequent visitors to the East Coast and that it is likely that there were shipwrecks and survivors of those wrecks who may have integrated with the San. These survivors were called Awatwa and there are stories that the Basotho hats have their origin with the Chinese hats of the same design. Tyap and Leong Man mention that the so-named “Snese Hottentots” as well as the Bahurutsi tribe in Botswana are two groups who may have had engagement with Chinese whether overland travelers or maroons from shipwrecks.

Exploration of social history that connects the South of Africa to the peoples of the world has not kept up with the hard sciences but is now playing catch up.. One thing is clear is that we have to keep open minds and need to move out of existing dominant paradigms of thinking when exploring the social history of the Khoena and San of South Africa. Those who today have charicatures of Khoena and San as handed down to them by colonists are not doing the true history of these people any favour by mimicking colonists views of the Khoena and San who have been stereotyoed in a primitivist mould. Archaeological and DNA studies are constantly providing new evidence, and as a result, new perspectives and schools of thought often arise concerning the origins of the Khoena people of South Africa in particularly and their various modes of living and social and economic activity.

It is thus important that we note that the Khoena or Khoi people do not originate in the Western Cape, but migrated to the Western Cape over a probable 600 – 1000 year period in a slow migratory drift from the Gariep.

Prior to their presence at the Gariep they migrated from the vicinity of the Kalahari perimeter. The larger part of the migration was through the Eastern Cape and another slower migration down the West Coast. Along these journeys through a process of multiplication of tribes by division of tribes, a footprint was left throughout the route in the form of inter-related tribes most of whom existed by the time of the European arrivals. The earliest Xhosa probably were fellow travelers of the Khoena to the Eastern Cape and were highly influenced by Khoena and San and shared some dna markers. These early Xhosa were more highly impacted upon by the later movement into the Eastern Cape by the Nguni groups that shaped the modern Xhosa.

The Nguni themselves were a South African people who emerged from the coming together in Natal of Bakoni moving out from the Mapangubwe Kingdom and the Tsonga from Mozambique and the San who lived in KZN. The Nguni who gradually drifted southwards and met up with the early Xhosa and the Cobhuqua Khoena were the abeThembu, Mpondo and Mpondomise. But it is also said that people such as the AmaNgqosini from the Lesotho region and further from the Gariep Korana also later engaged the Xhosa and AbeThembu too.

In the migratory journey the Khoena, Xhosa and the Cape San interacted with each other and each left a mark on the other. So in the migratory period the Khoena had relations of various sorts with the original Cape San inhabitants of the Eastern, Central and Western Cape including conflictual relations. While some close relationships occurred this was not the norm and it undermines the history and heritage of the social formations of the Southermost San, the /Xam when people use the anthropological and archaeological term Khoisan as though it refers to social formations of people. There is a difference between social history and scientific observations of ancient origins – a difference between social heritage or identity and dna readings or archaeological findings. When one looks at the history genocidal attacks of Khoena (Khoi) on the San then it is insult upon injury to refer to Khoisan as a social formation in history.

Relations in the Eastern Cape were marked by pastoral encroachment and friction on the one hand first by Khoena pastoralists, followed by early Xhosa pastoralists, and then by later Nguni pastoralists. But it must also be recognized that degrees of inter-marriage, social engagement or sexual relations also impacted each on the other. Degrees of assimilation took place. Between all four groups and assimilation was not always characterized by force or conquest. Thus we must also be very careful not to think in a rigid purist ethnic silo manner.

The Cape San or /Xam had already been living across the Eastern, Western and Central Cape areas for centuries before the Khoena (Khoi) migrants, the early Xhosa migrants or later Nguni migrants arrived with their pastoral culture. The Cape San or /Xam were the only social group who had first habitat before all of these groups throughout the entire Cape. The Cape San or /Xam precede the arrival of Khoena pastoralists by a few thousand years. The fact that the Khoena pastoralists had dna marker roots that in large part joined up with the Kalahari San long before, does not mean that they were the same social group as the Cape San hunter-gathers of the new regions that they entered. It was Khoena pastoralism before any other that resulted in displacement of Cape san or /Xam away from the coastal areas and into the mountains and drier regions. But all of this was absolutely insignificant in its effects on large populations of all groups in the territory to the impact of the Europeans which later brought genocide, war and destruction to all.

The hegemony of pastoralism brought into the Southern Cape arena first by the Khoena and then by the Xhosa displaced the hunter-gatherer culture, but in some areas pastoralist and hunter-gatherers co-existed side by side. The later Nguni pastoralist migrations of abeThembu, Mpondo, Mpondomise and others had further influence on social formations and on habitat of the Cape San. To a much lesser degree it also had some influence also on the Khoena.

It is over 600 – 1000 years that the Southern Khoena developed sustainable and cohesive communities which were resilient and strong enough to continue in existence throughout the migration processes of the Nguni. When Khoena pastoral communities grew too large and livestock plentiful, communities split off and moved ever further south. There are no overt signs that the development of these community formations was as a result of any huge antagonistic and violent clashes. There certainly would have been a degree of friction and probable skirmishes that would be natural in such breakaways. But nothing as large, absolute, deliberately planned and devastating as that of the European invasion, ethnic cleansing, and genocide carried out over two centuries first on the Khoena, then on the San and then on the Xhosa-Khoena, Xhosa and other eastern Cape peoples.

Each pastoral community were relatively well settled and had systems of livestock grazing that was rotational and weather-observant. Elphick tells us that signs are there that suggest there was a communication chain and trading chain that could be tracked from the southernmost communities right through to the Gariep, to the Mapangubwe and Great Zimbabwe regions and beyond to the far off north. This migration drift of the Khoena ending in the Southwestern Cape would have been complete long before the end of the 14th century. The Eastern migration drift and the Western migration drift from the Namaqua and resulting in Guriqua were also completed long before the first European arrivals.

There are anecdotal accounts were that once there had been a mixed Khoena-Xhosa people called the Cobuqua people who by the time of the arrival of the Europeans existed no more than only in oral history accounts. Some of these mixed Khoena-Xhosa were likely to have been pushed southwards by the arrivals of Nguni. The abeThembu,, the Mpondo, the Mpondomise and others impacted on the descendants of the original Xhosa and Khoena. The mix of Cobuquq and original Xhosa- Khoena moved southwards to the Zuurveld where they joined up with Inqua refugees and the Gonaqua. Here they formed the Gqnukwebe. (Gonaqua-Kwebe became Gqnukwebe) At the time of the arrival these Gonaqua Xhosa and the Gonaqua themselves fought in resistance together against the Europeans. One thinks here of the alliance between Chiefs Chungwa and Klaas and David Stuurman.

The highly Nguni influenced remnant Xhosa that remained alongside the abeThembu saw a Kingdom, the house of Phalo emerge. It would later split into new Xhosa polity’s – the Rharabe and Gqaika. It was in the context of a clash between two contenders for the Xhosa leadership that the Inqua Khoena tribe made a huge miscalculation resulting in their demise. They took a decision to back the losing contender and as a result were consumed by the House of Phalo. Some became refugees and were incorporated into the older Xhosa-Khoena Gqnukwebe which were eventually incorporated into the Rharabe..

It is unfortunate and a corruption of the facts and complexities of interactions between Nguni and original Xhosa, and Khoena, San and mixed Khoena-Xhosa in the Eastern Cape that these events long before the arrival of the Europeans, are presented crudely in the European narrative as a violent ‘black’ invasion that destroyed the Khoena and San in the territory of the South Eastern Cape. The Europeans have always argued that they did not force out the Khoena or wipe out the Cape San and have presented ahistorical accounts of a relatively people-free land in which previous inhabitants were wiped out by black invaders from the north. This is blatantly untrue. As has also been shown, the Khoena and San had already been involved in relations with Sub-Saharan Africans at Mapangubwe and indeed held exalted status within the Mapangubwe Kingdom.

By the time that the Europeans arrived at the Cape the scenario in the Zuurveld of the Eastern Cape was fairly settled. Khoena and Xhosa-Khoena formations were living side by side in prosperity. From Table Bay to the Zuurveld and to the Gariep was home to an estimated 200 000 Khoena. The Khoena alone had hundreds of thousand sheep and cattle and were successful farmers.

The Cape San or /Xam lived beyond the seaboard territories in the mountainous areas and numbered in the region of 30 000. To the South beyond the Gonaqua there were many Khoena tribal formation right down into the Cape Peninsula that were prosperous sheep and cattle farmers – Hoengeyqua, Gamtoos, Hessequa, Outaniqua, Attaqua, Chainouqua, Cochouqua, Goringhaiqua, Gorachouqua, Goringhaicona, Guriqua and other smaller offshoots of these. On the western seaboard and inland were the Guriqua or Grigriqua also known as the Chariguriqua, and then the Namaqua. The ethnocide visited on these peoples by the Europeans is well recorded. The genocide against the Cape San or /Xam is also well recorded. The violent expulsion of Indigenes and the destruction of their social infrastructure and their economy was a crime against humanity. Once conquering Indigenes those who were not killed or escaped northwards as refugees were turned into farm labourers little different to slavery while others were conscripted into militia called Commandos. The pacified Khoena were turned into efficient killing machines in these Commandos and were effectively used in the genocide campaigns against the free resisting Indigenes.

IN BRIEF SUMMARY: One thing that is agreed among inter-disciplinary scholars who have studied the Khoena is that events of catalytic importance happened around 2,200 – 2,500 years ago in the region of the Kalahari and it’s perimeter (also called the Northwest Circle) in Southern Africa whereby one branch of the San were engaged by external forces from East Africa with older links to North Africa and beyond which gave birth to the Khoena of the Kalahari and perimeter. There is also now agreement that the hidden history of the Mapangubwe civilization involved the Khoena and San and Sub-Saharan Africans from various origins in union with each other and that further study and the listening to oral history throws a whole new perspective on everything in terms of appreciating the Social-History of the peopling of South Africa before colonial times.

The Khoena as a social formation first emerged in the Northwest circle of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Limpopo with the Kalahari as epicenter. They then migrated southwards in three stages – first to the Gariep and Southern Namibia and then to the Eastern Cape and then to the Western Cape. Along this route the Khoena also mixed with other groups – among these both the early siNtu speaking Sub-Saharan African migrants who they called the Xhosa and the Cape San or /Xam. This migration trajectory is how the Cape Khoena tribes were born over a 600 – 1000 year period and how they settled in the Western Cape

By the time of the European first exploratory arrivals the Khoena had firm habitat in the Eastern and Western Cape..

Note on the terms Bantu, Khoena (or Khoi) and /Xam or San: All of these terms have the same meaning and literally mean “PEOPLE” each used in a different culture. Scholars have given the terms added meaning to differentiate families of different peoples by linking these to linguistics and to different African lineages linked to dna.

Thus the linguistic term for people – “Bantu” was linked to those who have Sub-Saharan African dna who migrated into and out of the Great Lakes region. The Linguistic term for people, “/Xam” or “San” (the latter having the additional meaning denoting ‘forager’), was applied to those who have Southern African dna; and the linguistic term for people – “Khoena” or “Khoi” was applied to a new more modern people who had a mix of Southern African and East African/Niolitic dna and had adopted pastoralism.

We should not get hung-up on terms because as we dig deeper they have less of the socio-political meaning that they have come to acquire over time. All of these peoples are African and indigenous to Africa.

The complexities and the depth of highly developed African societies with social histories that interface with South Africa are now also coming to light after a long period of suppression by Christo-European intellectual hegemony, responsible for the destruction of African civilisations and, for papering over huge elements of a challenging African past. The evolution of Khoena social history over this migration requires much more collection of evidence and research.

For instance the interaction between the Khoena and the old African centres of trade and development at Great Zimbabwe and Mapangubwe, or with the fascinating Lembe would be interesting to explore. The gaps in social history must be explored and a challenge exists around notions of ‘primitivism’ and the European concept of ‘the noble savage’ which has strongly been overlaid on Khoena society and unfortunately has been adopted by some elements who then lock Khoena culture in a time capsule. This when linked to skewed histories based in what I call the ‘Great Lie’ (the story of a major ‘black’ invasion that destroyed indigene Khoena and San) distort the entire San and Khoena story.

Elphick gives us just a small glimpse of Khoena trading links in pre-colonial times with trade routes stretching up to East and Northern Africa and indeed were not an isolated ‘primitive’ group in South Africa, without linkages to an ‘outside’

REFERENCES:
Going full circle on KhoeKhoe origins by Alan G Morris in ‘The Digging Stick’ Vol 31; No 1; April 2014 (Archaeological journal)
Insights from DNA studies of Khoe-San; Journal of Archaeological Studies (2012)
Lactase persistence alleles reveal ancestry of southern African Khoe pastoralists; Uppsala Bio Life Science Pathfinder on work of Dr Carina Schlebusch [journal/ April] (2014).
The Chronological Evidence for the Introduction of Domestic Stock into Southern Africa; Bousman, C. Britt; The African Archaeological Review; (1998). Colour, Confusion and Concessions – The history of the Chinese in South Africa by Melanie Yap and Dianne Leong Man; Hong Kong Universit Press; 1996.
MtDNA control region variation affirms diversity and deep sub-structure in populations from Southern Africa, by Karina M. Schlabusch et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology (2013).
The Archaeology of Southern Africa; P Mitchell; Cambridge University Press (2002)
On becoming herders: Khoikhoi and San ethnicity in Southern Africa; A Smith; African Studies 50 No 1; (1991)
The Native Races of South Africa: A history of the intrusion of the Hottentots and Bantu into the hunting grounds of the Bushmen – the aborigines of the Country. G Stow; Struik; Cape Town (1964)
KhoiKhoi and the Founding of White South Africa; Early History of the KhoiKhoi (3-22); Narcotics, Metal and Long Distance Trade (62-68); Richard Elphick (1985)
The Struggle for the Eastern Cape 1800 – 1854; Martin Legassick; (UWC) KMM Johannesburg (2010)
The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity by Behar, Soodyal et al; The American Journal of Human Genetics (2008), doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002
Human Beginnings in South Africa; HJ Deacon and Janette Deacon; David Philip; Cape Town (1999)
First People of the Cape; Alan Mountain; David Philip; Cape Town (2003)
Was there an interchange between Cushitic pastoralists and Khoisan speakers in the prehistory of Southern Africa and how can this be detected?; Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika edited by Wilhelm Möhlig & Axel Fleisch; Special Research Centre ACACIA project ‘Migration, Settlement and Cultural History on the Basis of Linguistic Sources’, University of Cologne Presented at Königswinter, March 28-30, 2007
The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity by Behar, Soodyal et al; The American Journal of Human Genetics (2008), doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002
Going full circle on KhoeKhoe origins by Alan G Morris in ‘The Digging Stick’ Vol 31; No 1; April 2014 (Archaeological journal)
Insights from DNA studies of Khoe-San; Journal of Archaeological Studies (2012)
The Chronological Evidence for the Introduction of Domestic Stock into Southern Africa; Bousman, C. Britt; The African Archaeological Review; (1998)
Lactase persistence alleles reveal ancestry of southern African Khoe pastoralists; Uppsala Bio Life Science Pathfinder on work of Dr Carina Schlebusch [journal/ April] (2014).
MtDNA control region variation affirms diversity and deep sub-structure in populations from Southern Africa, by Karina M. Schlabusch et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology (2013).
Human Beginnings in South Africa; HJ Deacon and Janette Deacon; David Philip; Cape Town (1999)
So where do we come from?; Carte Blanche; Mnet Tv (2004)
Discoveries in South Africa for the Genographic Project; National Genographic Genographics (2008)
First People of the Cape; Alan Mountain; David Philip; Cape Town (2003)
Final Report: Living History Project June 2008; Prof Himla Soodyall Phd; National Health Laboratories Service & School of Pathology; Johannesburg (2008)
Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A comparative ethnography of the Khoisan peoples; Alan Bernard; Cambridge University Press (1992)
Bone artefacts from the middle stone age at Blombos Cave, Southern Cape, South Africa; C Henshilwood & J Sealy; Current Anthropology 38, NO 5. (1997)
The Archaeology of Southern Africa; P Mitchell; Cambridge University Press (2002)
On becoming herders: Khoikhoi and San ethnicity in Southern Africa; A Smith; African Studies 50 No 1; (1991)
The Native Races of South Africa: A history of the intrusion of the Hottentots and Bantu into the hunting grounds of the Bushmen – the aborigines of the Country. G Stow; Struik; Cape Town (1964)
The National Question: Decolonising the Theory of Nationalism; James M Blaut; Zed Press; London (1987)
Nationalist thought and the Colonial World: A derivative discourse; Partha Chattergee; Zed Press; London (1988)
The National Question in South Africa; Edt Maria van Diepen; Zed Press; London (1988)
On Identity; Amin Malouf; Harvill Press; London (2000)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we are led in the present by blatant falsehoods about the past we will cripple ourselves. When it comes to the distant past we certainly don’t know all of the answers and probably never will. It’s a journey of exploration that changes as more and more information comes to light. The distant past cannot simply be explored by one academic discipline either; it is a multi-disciplinary approach that is required – with archaeologists, geneticists, anthropologists, social historians, geologists and all that have something to bring to the table of exploration.

When it comes to looking at the Cape San or /Xam and the various Khoena tribes of the Eastern and Western Cape in pre-colonial and ancient times there is much muddying of the waters when trendy language and simplistic and sometimes blatantly false or pseudo history paints over important discoveries.

Very often it is political ideologies that obscure or blur our view of the distant past and this robs us and future generations of really important building-blocks in getting to understand and know our society today. Notions of ‘first nationhood’ and mythical ‘kingdoms’ abound as they always have and it can be opinioned that these are a distraction and potentially falsify the past and rob us of its real value.. Tailoring history, heritage and culture to become a lever in leveraging short term gains is another factor to be aware of and to ensure that we don’t get taken off on opportunistic tangents.

This short overview attempts to simplify a trajectory of human and societal development in the territory south of the Gariep before colonial times and before the first encounters between Indigenes and the Europeans. Here we explore how human beings populated Southern Africa and then organized themselves. We need to look at what were points of conflict and where there was peaceful coexistence flourishing.

Humans and apes are said to have common ancestry back in the Miocene period around 8-million years ago. Early ancestors of archaic humans can be traced back in various parts of the world from before 2,5 million years ago through markers that they left behind. When we refer to such common ancestry and talk of archaic humans, it must be noted that we are not referring to Homo Sapiens – modern Humanity.

We often hear people make sweeping claims that their ancestors occupied the land for millions of years or hundreds of thousands of years, but such statements are not rooted in fact and we must distinguish between early or ancient ancestoral roots in human evolution and Homo Sapiens (humans).

Anatomically modern humans evolved from archaic humans in the middle palaeolithic period about 200 000 years ago in Africa, marking the dawn of the subspecies who are the ancestors of all people in the world. The signs show that this important event took place in East Africa.

About 90 000 years ago modern humans started dispersing across Africa in journeys which saw them dispersing across the world. In the context of the territory of South Africa when we talk about “First People” we can only mean habitat by those first Homo Sapiens (modern humans) who moved into the entire Southern African region around 70 000 years ago.

There are signs and remains of the existence in the Southern African region of Archaic Humans or pre Homo Sapiens before this period but this must not be confused with “First People”. It is from the “First People” or oldest modern human inhabitants of Southern Africa that humans of this region evolved through early and later stone age processes into early and later iron age peoples and into social formations. The first social organization of people to emerge from the first people are those we call the San.

Both archaeology and genetic science indicate that advanced social formations who have been given the broad collective name of San or Bushmen and Sadawe and Hadza, emerged from the “First People” around 25 000 to 40 000 years ago in different places across Southern Africa from Angola in the west down to the Southern tip of Africa and from southern Kenya in the east down to the southern tip of Africa..

One of the many different San groups emerged in this period in the southern, eastern and central Cape whom we refer to as the Cape San or /Xam. It is they who are the only people who had first habitat in the region.

We need to be very careful of using the term ‘Khoena San’ or ‘KhoiSan’ as this does not do justice to the San in general and to the Cape San or /Xam in particular. The Khoena emerged much later through the coming together of migrating pastoralists and one San grouping, the Kalahari San.

Behar, Soodyall and the Genographic Consortium tell us that in dna terms the forebears of those we refer to as the Cape San (and in part of those who we refer to as the Khoena who emerge as a later social formation) had matrilineal ancestry which diverged from the rest of the human mtDNA pool sometime around 90,000 years ago and that parallel to this there were also at least five other matrilineal lineages arising out of the “First People”.

The Genographic Consortium also establish that an estimated minimum of 40 other evolutionarily successful lineages flourished in sub-Saharan Africa as well during the period of modern human dispersal 60,000 –70,000 years ago.

By 2500 years ago San as social groups of people were but the remnants of those diverse “First People”. Traces of San lineages were also shared in admixtures of other sub-Saharan peoples. The scientists also further say that only much later, at the beginning of the Late Stone Age, about 40,000 years ago did introgression of additional lineages occur into the mtDNA pool of San forebears and that these processes were further accelerated when other East African, (& Nilotic) and Sub-Saharan (Bantu) dna entered the mix during the periods of different East African and siNtu speaker (Bantu) engagements on the periphery of the Kalahari from around 2,500 years ago.

It is thus only 2 500 years ago when the Khoena first emerged with strong dna shared with the same forebears of the Kalahari San but also with other dna markers. This period marks the period of contact between the Kalahari San hunter-gatherers and external migrants who kept sheep and cattle and drank milk. These external elements had dna markers passed on to Kalahari San which point to Sandawe and Hadza from East African descendants of “First People”. But they also show dna from “Nilotic People” from the Nile region of North Africa. It is from this engagement of North, East and South that sheep farming pastoralism and the Khoena or Khoi people emerged in the Kalahari and migrated to various parts of South Africa.

The Khoena would also take on further dna markers as they later came into further contact with siNtu speaking Sub-Saharans probably from 200AD in the Northwestern arena and most certainly around 600 AD in the Eastern Cape.

It is clear that early siNtu speaking Sub-Saharan migrants who would have been fairly weak and small formations in the beginning, also took on the mtdna markers of the San people and Khoena. This occurred long before later Nguni arrived across the Kei and Keiskamma by the 15th century.

These Khoena would live side by side with the San and gradually moved down from the Kalahari to the Gariep River and to southern Namibia where other San groups had habitat.. Here in this new region social identities began to form within the San and within the Khoena. It is from here too that the Khoena would gradually migrate to the Eastern Cape and then on to the Western Cape. In this migratory process new social formations or tribes would occur. In time and for various reasons some of these formations would also disappear.

In recent times social scientists and dna scientists have worked more closely together than before and particularly with the advances in genetics, more and more evidence is emerging that clearly shows that the San may have not been as isolated from other influences than previously thought. As already mentioned sheep which were not indigenous to Southern Africa seem to have been introduced from North Africa and the Middle East via East Africa. We are challenged to look past the paradigm of thinking that locks San and Khoena people into primitivism for all time.

Lots of new indicators are constantly emerging. For instance in 2014, Dr Carina Schlebusch, a foremost geneticist, found in her studies a hard Khoena link to East Africa that points to a journey from East Africa over 2000 years ago by following milk markers in the Khoena dna – Allele LP-SNP 14010G. This in turn shows a link to Niolitic North Africa and the Middle East.

The presence too of the Lembe, with their strong Jewish culture and dna markers, in Limpopo also points to a middle East connection. More and more evidence also emerges of old trading networks between the Khoena up through to far off lands to the North and East.

Exploration of social history that connects the South of Africa to the peoples of the world has not kept up with the hard sciences. One thing is clear is that we have to keep open minds and need to move out of existing dominant paradigms of thinking when exploring the social history of the Khoena and San of South Africa. Archaeological and DNA studies are constantly providing new evidence, and as a result, new perspectives and schools of thought often arise concerning the origins of the Khoena people of South Africa.

It is thus important that we note that the Khoena or Khoi people do not originate in the Western Cape, but migrated to the Western Cape over a probable 600 year period in a slow migratory drift from the Gariep.

Prior to their presence at the Gariep they migrated from the vicinity of the Kalahari perimeter. The larger part of the migration was through the Eastern Cape and another slower migration down the West Coast. Along these journeys through a process of multiplication of tribes by division of tribes, a footprint was left throughout the route in the form of inter-related tribes most of whom existed by the time of the European arrivals..

In the same journey the Khoena, Xhosa and the Cape San interacted with each other and each left a mark on the other. So in the migratory period the Khoena had relations of various sorts with the original Cape San inhabitants of the Eastern, Central and Western Cape.

These relations were marked by pastoral encroachment and friction on the one hand first by Khoena pastoralists, followed by early Xhosa pastoralists, and then by later Nguni pastoralists. But it must also be recognized that degrees of inter-marriage, social engagement or sexual relations also impacted each on the other. Degrees of assimilation took place. Between all four groups. Thus we must also be very careful not to think in a rigid purist ethnic silo manner.

The Cape San or /Xam had already been living across the Eastern, Western and Central Cape areas for centuries before the Khoena, Xhosa or later Nguni arrived with their pastoral culture. They had first habitat before all of these groups throughout the entire Cape. The Cape San or /Xam precede the arrival of Khoena pastoralists by a few thousand years. The fact that the Khoena pastoralists had dna marker roots that in part joined up with the Kalahari San long before, does not mean that they were the same social group as the Cape San hunter-gathers of the new regions that they entered. It was Khoena pastoralism before any other that resulted in displacement of Cape san or /Xam away from the coastal areas and into the mountains and drier regions.

The hegemony of pastoralism brought into the Southern Cape arena first by the Khoena and then by the Xhosa displaced the hunter-gatherer culture, but in some areas pastoralist and hunter-gatherers co-existed side by side. The later Nguni pastoralist migrations of abeThembu, Mpondo, Mpondomise and others had further influence on social formations and on habitat of the Cape San. To a much lesser degree it had some influence also on the Khoena.

It is over 600 years that the Khoena developed sustainable and cohesive communities which were resilient and strong enough to continue in existence throughout the migration processes of the Nguni. When Khoena pastoral communities grew too large and livestock plentiful, communities split off and moved ever further south. There are no overt signs that the development of these community formations was as a result of any huge antagonistic and violent clashes. There certainly would have been a degree of friction and probable skirmishes that would be natural in such breakaways. But nothing as large, absolute, deliberately planned and devastating as that of the European invasion, ethnic cleansing, and genocide carried out over two centuries first on the Khoena, then on the San and then on the Xhosa-Khoena, Xhosa and other eastern Cape peoples.

Each pastoral community were relatively well settled and had systems of livestock grazing that was rotational and weather-observant. Elphick tells us that signs are there that suggest there was a communication chain and trading chain that could be tracked from the southernmost communities right through to the Gariep, and beyond to the far off north. This migration drift of the Khoena ending in the Southwestern Cape would have been complete by the end of the 14th century. The Eastern migration drift and the Western migration drift from the Namaqua and resulting in Guriqua were complete long before the first European arrivals.

The anecdotal accounts were that once there had been a mixed Khoena-Xhosa people called the Cobuqua people who by the time of the arrival of the Europeans existed no more than only in oral history accounts.. Some of these mixed Khoena-Xhosa were likely to have been pushed southwards by the arrivals of Nguni. The abeThembu,, the Mpondo, the Mpondomise and others impacted on the descendants of the original Xhosa and Khoena. The mix of Cobuquq original Xhosa- Khoena moved southwards to the Zuurveld where they joined up with Inqua refugees and the Gonaqua. Here they formed the Gqenukwebe. At the time of the arrival these Gonaqua Xhosa and the Gonaqua themselves fought in resistance together against the Europeans. One thinks here of the alliance between Chiefs Chungwa and Klaas and David Stuurman.

The highly Nguni influenced remnant Xhosa that remained alongside the abeThembu saw a Kingdom, the house of Phalo emerge. It would later split into new Xhosa polity’s – the Rharabe and Gqaika. It was in the context of a clash between two contenders for the Xhosa leadership that the Inqua Khoena tribe made a huge miscalculation resulting in their demise. They took a decision to back the losing contender and as a result were consumed by the House of Phalo. Some became refugees and were incorporated into the older Xhosa-Khoena Gqenukwebe The Gqenukwebe name itself is derived from Gonaqua.

It is unfortunate and a corruption of the facts and complexities of interactions between Nguni and original Xhosa, and Khoena, San and mixed Khoena-Xhosa in the Eastern Cape that these events long before the arrival of the Europeans, are presented crudely in the European narrative as a violent ‘black’ invasion that destroyed the Khoena and San in the territory of the South Eastern Cape. The Europeans have always argued that they did not force out the Khoena or wipe out the Cape San and have presented ahistorical accounts of a relatively people-free land in which previous inhabitants were wiped out by black invaders from the north. This is blatantly untrue.

By the time that the Europeans arrived at the Cape the scenario in the Zuurveld of the Eastern Cape was fairly settled. Khoena and Xhosa-Khoena formations were living side by side in prosperity. From Table Bay to the Zuurveld and to the Gariep was home to an estimated 200 000 Khoena. The Khoena alone had hundreds of thousand sheep and cattle and were successful farmers.

The Cape San lived beyond the seaboard territories in the mountainous areas and numbered in the region of 30 000. To the South beyond the Gonaqua there were many Khoena tribal formation right down into the Cape Peninsula that were prosperous sheep and cattle farmers – Hoengeyqua, Gamtoos, Hessequa, Outaniqua, Attaqua, Chainouqua, Cochouqua, Goringhaiqua, Gorachouqua, Goringhaicona, Guriqua and other smaller offshoots of these. On the western seaboard and inland were the Guriqua or Grigriqua also known as the Chariguriqua, and then the Namaqua. The ethnocide visited on these peoples by the Europeans is well recorded. The genocide against the Cape San or /Xam is also well recorded. The violent expulsion of Indigenes and the destruction of their social infrastructure and their economy was a crime against humanity. Once conquering Indigenes those who were not killed or escaped northwards as refugees were turned into farm labourers little different to slavery while others were conscripted into militia called Commandos. The pacified Khoena were turned into efficient killing machines in these Commandos and were effectively used in the genocide campaigns against the free resisting Indigenes.

IN BRIEF SUMMARY: One thing that is agreed among inter-disciplinary scholars who have studied the Khoena is that events of catalytic importance happened around 2,200 – 2,500 years ago in the region of the Kalahari and it’s perimeter (also called the Northwest Circle) in Southern Africa whereby one branch of the San were engaged by external forces from East Africa with older links to North Africa and beyond which gave birth to the Khoena of the Kalahari and perimeter.

The Khoena as a social formation first emerged in the Northwest circle of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Limpopo with the Kalahari as epicenter. They then migrated southwards in three stages – first to the Gariep and Southern Namibia and then to the Eastern Cape and then to the Western Cape. Along this route the Khoena also mixed with other groups – among these both the early siNtu speaking Sub-Saharan African migrants who they called the Xhosa and the Cape San or /Xam. This migration trajectory is how the Cape Khoena tribes were born over a 600 year period and how they settled in the Western Cape

By the time of the European first exploratory arrivals the Khoena had firm habitat in the Eastern and Western Cape..

Note on the terms Bantu, Khoena (or Khoi) and /Xam or San: All of these terms have the same meaning and literally mean “PEOPLE” each used in a different culture. Scholars have given the terms added meaning to differentiate families of different peoples by linking these to linguistics and to different African lineages linked to dna.

Thus the linguistic term for people – “Bantu” was linked to those who have Sub-Saharan African dna who migrated into and out of the Great Lakes region. The Linguistic term for people, “/Xam” or “San” (the latter having the additional meaning denoting ‘forager’), was applied to those who have Southern African dna; and the linguistic term for people – “Khoena” or “Khoi” was applied to a new more modern people who had a mix of Southern African and East African/Niolitic dna and had adopted pastoralism.

We should not get hung-up on terms because as we dig deeper they have less of the socio-political meaning that they have come to acquire over time. All of these peoples are African and indigenous to Africa.

The complexities and the depth of highly developed African societies with social histories that interface with South Africa are now also coming to light after a long period of suppression by Christo-European intellectual hegemony, responsible for the destruction of African civilisations and, for papering over huge elements of a challenging African past. The evolution of Khoena social history over this migration requires much more collection of evidence and research.

For instance the interaction between the Khoena and the old African centres of trade and development at Great Zimbabwe and Mapangubwe, or with the fascinating Lembe would be interesting to explore. The gaps in social history must be explored and a challenge exists around notions of ‘primitivism’ and the European concept of ‘the noble savage’ which has strongly been overlaid on Khoena society and unfortunately has been adopted by some elements who then lock Khoena culture in a time capsule. This when linked to skewed histories based in what I call the ‘Great Lie’ (the story of a major ‘black’ invasion that destroyed indigene Khoena and San) distort the entire San and Khoena story.

Elphick gives us just a small glimpse of Khoena trading links in pre-colonial times with trade routes stretching up to East and Northern Africa and indeed were not an isolated ‘primitive’ group in South Africa, without linkages to an ‘outside’

REFERENCES:
Going full circle on KhoeKhoe origins by Alan G Morris in ‘The Digging Stick’ Vol 31; No 1; April 2014 (Archaeological journal)
Insights from DNA studies of Khoe-San; Journal of Archaeological Studies (2012)
Lactase persistence alleles reveal ancestry of southern African Khoe pastoralists; Uppsala Bio Life Science Pathfinder on work of Dr Carina Schlebusch [journal/ April] (2014).
The Chronological Evidence for the Introduction of Domestic Stock into Southern Africa; Bousman, C. Britt; The African Archaeological Review; (1998)
MtDNA control region variation affirms diversity and deep sub-structure in populations from Southern Africa, by Karina M. Schlabusch et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology (2013).
The Archaeology of Southern Africa; P Mitchell; Cambridge University Press (2002)
On becoming herders: Khoikhoi and San ethnicity in Southern Africa; A Smith; African Studies 50 No 1; (1991)
The Native Races of South Africa: A history of the intrusion of the Hottentots and Bantu into the hunting grounds of the Bushmen – the aborigines of the Country. G Stow; Struik; Cape Town (1964)
KhoiKhoi and the Founding of White South Africa; Early History of the KhoiKhoi (3-22); Narcotics, Metal and Long Distance Trade (62-68); Richard Elphick (1985)
The Struggle for the Eastern Cape 1800 – 1854; Martin Legassick; (UWC) KMM Johannesburg (2010)
The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity by Behar, Soodyal et al; The American Journal of Human Genetics (2008), doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002
Human Beginnings in South Africa; HJ Deacon and Janette Deacon; David Philip; Cape Town (1999)
First People of the Cape; Alan Mountain; David Philip; Cape Town (2003)
Was there an interchange between Cushitic pastoralists and Khoisan speakers in the prehistory of Southern Africa and how can this be detected?; Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika edited by Wilhelm Möhlig & Axel Fleisch; Special Research Centre ACACIA project ‘Migration, Settlement and Cultural History on the Basis of Linguistic Sources’, University of Cologne Presented at Königswinter, March 28-30, 2007
The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity by Behar, Soodyal et al; The American Journal of Human Genetics (2008), doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002
Going full circle on KhoeKhoe origins by Alan G Morris in ‘The Digging Stick’ Vol 31; No 1; April 2014 (Archaeological journal)
Insights from DNA studies of Khoe-San; Journal of Archaeological Studies (2012)
The Chronological Evidence for the Introduction of Domestic Stock into Southern Africa; Bousman, C. Britt; The African Archaeological Review; (1998)
Lactase persistence alleles reveal ancestry of southern African Khoe pastoralists; Uppsala Bio Life Science Pathfinder on work of Dr Carina Schlebusch [journal/ April] (2014).
MtDNA control region variation affirms diversity and deep sub-structure in populations from Southern Africa, by Karina M. Schlabusch et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology (2013).
Human Beginnings in South Africa; HJ Deacon and Janette Deacon; David Philip; Cape Town (1999)
So where do we come from?; Carte Blanche; Mnet Tv (2004)
Discoveries in South Africa for the Genographic Project; National Genographic Genographics (2008)
First People of the Cape; Alan Mountain; David Philip; Cape Town (2003)
Final Report: Living History Project June 2008; Prof Himla Soodyall Phd; National Health Laboratories Service & School of Pathology; Johannesburg (2008)
Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A comparative ethnography of the Khoisan peoples; Alan Bernard; Cambridge University Press (1992)
Bone artefacts from the middle stone age at Blombos Cave, Southern Cape, South Africa; C Henshilwood & J Sealy; Current Anthropology 38, NO 5. (1997)
The Archaeology of Southern Africa; P Mitchell; Cambridge University Press (2002)
On becoming herders: Khoikhoi and San ethnicity in Southern Africa; A Smith; African Studies 50 No 1; (1991)
The Native Races of South Africa: A history of the intrusion of the Hottentots and Bantu into the hunting grounds of the Bushmen – the aborigines of the Country. G Stow; Struik; Cape Town (1964)
The National Question: Decolonising the Theory of Nationalism; James M Blaut; Zed Press; London (1987)
Nationalist thought and the Colonial World: A derivative discourse; Partha Chattergee; Zed Press; London (1988)
The National Question in South Africa; Edt Maria van Diepen; Zed Press; London (1988)
On Identity; Amin Malouf; Harvill Press; London (2000)

RUSSIAN IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM IN SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY

I have heard some rather ignorant and puerile arguments made by Zuma’s Radical Economic Looter supporters about Russia never being involved in colonialism and never having been part of colonisation in South Africa. I suppose ignorance is bliss. Russians were among the largest single migrations of white settlers (25 000), fought on the Boer side in defense of independence and segregation, and were involved from the early days of the United Dutch East India Company at the Cape, and were involved in the Slave Trade.

   

There is also this weird notion that Russia is still the Soviet Union and thus our old and natural allies against imperialism and that Russian Oligarchy Capitalism is different and more ‘progressive’ than Global Capitalism – a natural ally of Black Tender- entrepreneur  Capital. But it is from a very murky criminal arena that Zuma’s Radical Economic Looters take their inspiration. And this is where the world of the Gupta’s exist.

There were once 11 criminal oligarchs who emerged from the old government forces of the Soviet Union, especially from the KGB and Soviet Military. They made their money initially through the global criminal shadow economy, particularly as Lords of War – the ILLICIT ARMS TRADE, but also through the other 4 of the five key pillars of the global criminal syndicate capitalist arena – namely HUMAN TRAFFICKING  & PEOPLE SMUGGLING, the ILLEGAL  DRUGS TRADE, the GREY GOODS & EXOTICS TRADE and MONEY LAUNDERING. A fight broke out between them and one of these oligarchs emerged not only as the richest man but also as the President – Putin. Putin has huge investments in Capitalism across the world , including the united states. It is this murky side of Russia which was alive and well even under the Soviet Union which through the global criminal shadow economy had close relations between South African Gold and Diamond Mining as the two countries richest in these mining products. There have always been Lords of War who facilitate. (Here I refer you to go and see a movie by that name, starring Nicolas Cage…and you will get an understanding of what I am talking about). There were always ways that powers who would be politically embarrassed if they did certain things openly, required front men to do the dirty deeds for them. Apartheid South Africa facing global isolation tapped into this world just like the super powers did. It is in this context that the Gupta phenomenon arose.

Because of just over 70 years of the Soviet Union, Russian Capitalism had huge hurdles to overcome – one of these being that Imperialism is the highest stage of Capitalism and imperialism required colonies and in the modern era neo-colonies or satellites across the globe. While Russia has these satellites around its own territory, and some client states it has no real global spread. South Africa is one place that offers Russia just such a neo-colonial opportunity. But to be able to assert pressure and manipulate South Africa Russia needs an economic stake and indebtedness. Here Putin – a willing and keen buyer found a willing seller and sellout in Zuma and his Radical Economic Looters.

But let’s just go back and dispel the myth that there was no Imperialist involvement and colonial involvement of Russia in the conquering and colonisation of South Africa.

The links between South Africa and Russia are very old. The first locally born Governor of the Cape, Hendrik Schwellengrebel’s father, Johannes, was born in Moscow in 1671 and died in Cape Town in 1744. His father was a longstanding early capitalist trader in Moscow and spent most of his life in Russia. Hendrik became the chief representative of the largest multi-national company, the Dutch VOC, which had colonised the Cape. Swellendam was named after him.

The Russian Tsar, Peter the Great enjoyed a very close relationship with the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch Royal family and had a particular interest in the affairs of the Cape Colony. The Tsar went out of his way to befriend one of the VOC’s best senior officials – the first VOC Governor Simon van der Stel who became his closest confidante. It was van der Stel who was responsible for the surge of development and efficiency at the Cape..

Russia had come into the maritime arena relatively late but the Dutch VOC played a big role in getting Russia off the starting blocks. Tsar Peter the Great, as a young man, assisted by one of the Directors of the VOC, Nicolaas Witsen, was accommodated in Amsterdam to learn everything about ships, shipping and maritime travel and trade and did so a one of the VOC shipping yards in 1697. It was here that his vision for a Russian Fleet was born and here that the foundations of the title “THE GREAT” was laid and it had everything to do with the VOC.. Indeed the relationship between Tsar Peter the Great and the Dutch colonial power at the Cape was so strong that Prince William of Orange and Witsen the Mayor of Amsterdam gifted Tsar Peter with his first ship built while Peter was in Holland. Once the fleet was up and running, the Cape of Good Hope was frequently visited by its ships.

Witsen was also one of Simon van der Stel’s best friends and he got the Russian Tsar interested in the Cape Colony. Under Peter the Great the first books were published in Russian about Africa assisted by Witsen and his friend van der Stel, and the first Russian maritime vessels were sent to round the Cape. It ended in disaster, but it is to be noted that so close was Imperial Russia and its Royal Family to the Dutch Royal family and the United Dutch East India Company that this Russian expedition included senior Dutch officers. Peter the great had huge dreams of maritime power and an equally huge interest in his friend’s economic vision for South Africa. These dreams were unfulfilled because of some basic blunders.

After Peter the Great, Tsarina Catherine the Great continued the maritime legacy of Peter this time with the temporary assistance of the British. It got Russia off the maritime starting blocks but she was to follow in Peter’s footsteps of unfulfilled dreams….but others did take the efforts forward in later leaps and bounds. This was just the beginning of a long relationship between Russians and South Africa that ultimately led to much Russian shipping rounding the Cape. Russian royalty and nobility made many an excursion to the Cape in the 19^th century and had close relationships with the ruling elite at the Cape who were infatuated with the Russians. Even the Tsar’s son Grand Duke Prince Alexi was a prominent visitor to the Cape and was received by the Colonial Parliament.

Folly however again struck a blow to Russian ambitions when Russia sought to teach the Japanese a lesson using the Cape as a massing point for its attack ‘armada’ against Japan in 1904. Russian Imperialism blatantly used Cape Town as an African staging post for war regardless of the then pro-Japanese British, causing near hostility at Simonstown. Imperial Russia was taught an almighty lesson by Imperial Japanese navy that cut them down to size. One of the ships that was involved was the battleship Aurora which took a lead in the Russian Revolution. So here we have in our history a conflict involving three imperialist powers right on our doorstep in Cape Town. Most of the ‘British’ sailors at Simonstown naval base were actually West and East African sailors who had to stare down the Russians. The role of black sailors in global conflicts has always been relegated to the shadows. The first Naval battle of World War 1 actually took place on Lake Tanganyika between German and British gunboats with African sailors.

By the beginning of the 20th Century around 25, 000 Russian settlers had established themselves in South Africa. YES SETTLERS WHO STOLE BLACK LAND AND DISPLACED BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS! The Russian were amongst the strongest supporters of the Boer Republics in the Boer War. The largest international solidarity groups raising money, material aid, medical support detachments and fighters for the Boer army were in Russia and Holland and these included the royal families. The Russians were totally infatuated with the Boers and admired their way of life. Russian immigrants joined special detachments of Russian fighters to aid the Boer War effort.

Russians as one of the largest settler groups of all the European settlers were thus part and parcel of the numerous European colonial settlers in South Africa. They joined the Boers in defence of the Boer Republics and all that it stood for (segregation of and suppression of black people).

Additionally there is only one other short-lived case of Russians attempting to establish a colonial state of their own in Africa – Madagascar to be precise. Despite the efforts of Tsar Peter and Tsarina Catharina they were not a significant maritime power and this curtailed their Imperialist orbit to their immediate Asian and European neighbours. This was a simple twist of fate.

The African adventure into establishing a colony in Mauritius was when a rebel group of Russians, led by Count Maurice Benyowski, a Hungarian,  using the Cape as a rear base and supply line attempted to set up and maintain a base at  Antongil Bay on the north eastern coast of Madagascar. There he built  a  village  and  a  fort  at  the  mouth  of  the  Antanambalana  River  near  the  present  city  of Louisburg and declared himself a king of the local tribes.

Notably Madagascar was an important source of slaves to the Cape at this time and the ships carrying supplies for the privateer Russian colonial experiment also carried slaves back to the Cape. The Russians too made frequent trips from Benyowski’s settlement to the Cape and back. Benyowski  then returned to Europe but  later again went back to Madagascar in 1785 and set about transforming his little colonial kingdom into a city state in the form of a fortified village  above  the  sea  near Angontsy  and  Antongil  Bay.  After notifying the French of his ‘independent state’, the French who were the colonising power in Madagascar, put a quick stop to this. The French sent a military force and defeated the short-lived Russian colony and Benyowski was killed. From that time the Russian royal family and Russian capitalists disowned these rebels and kept their imperial interests closer to home, other than giving their support to the Boer Republics in an act of opposition to British Imperial interests.

So what of the Russians and slavery?

Dr Robert Shell in his major work on Cape Slavery – “Children of Bondage” mentions that ships operating out of Russian Ports were involved in the slave trade around the Cape which suggests involvement in the Indian Ocean slave trade which is still subject of much research after a long period of neglect. The Atlantic slave trade dominates the research in the slavery arena.

One record of a Russian ship involved in the slave trade was the Goliubchick which took 306 slaves to Matanzas in Cuba in 1838.  There were around 34 slaves who had died on the journey. In 1839 she was caught by British anti-slaver patrols and her slave cargo liberated.

Thus clearly the Russians were involved in transoceanic slave trading, even though not a major player. Rather they make up that smaller but yet significant sector of slave traders that include the Scandinavian countries, the Baltic and Russia. This was a small block compared to Portuguese, Dutch, French, British, Spanish and American, but it did involve a significant part of the slave trade.

There has been a small African presence and black presence in general in the Russian Imperial orbit for at least 500 years and the finger points at least in part to slavery and servitude, even although the vast majority of slaves in the Russian empire were not people of colour. The African slave descendants go back to the period of Turkish occupation of part of Russia and when the Turks with their slaves retreated from this part of the Russian orbit they left some slave descendants behind. There are also older roots to this black presence in the region that are being explored. As major slave traders of the region – the Crimean Tartars, though focussed on European and Asian slaves, were also linked to the African slave trading centre of Basra in Persia which was probably the world’s biggest slave market from 800 AD to 1300 AD.

Here is a snippet from an interesting letter to the editor of a Russian newspaper indicating an old black presence in the Russian Imperial orbit.

“Passing for the first time through the Abkhazian community of Adzyubzha, I was struck by the purely tropical landscape around me: against the background of a bright green primeval jungle there stood huts and sheds built of wood and covered with reeds; curly-headed Negro children played on the ground and a Negro woman passed by carrying a load on her head. Black-skinned people wearing white clothes in the bright sun resembled a typical picture of some African village.” (Markov reprinted in Vradii 1914, pp. 16–17; quoted in Tynes 1973, p. 2 and Blakely 1986, p. 9; as per ‘African Presence in former Soviet Spaces’ – Kesha Fikes and Alaina Lemon (2002)

This was a letter in 1913 to the Editor of the Russian language newspaper KAVKAZ in Tblisi, Georgia by a certain E. Marko raising the curtain on a ‘phenomenon’ along the Black Sea at Abkhazia of a clearly African descendant community. It was not the first time this community had been ‘discovered’ and surprize was feigned. It had happened many times before and after that the Negroes of Batumi Province were brought to light. Indeed this story sheds just a chink of light on the history of the small black component of the slavery systems in the Russian orbit that go back in time to before the first millennium.  

Russians and various peoples all the way through to Poland and the borders of Germany were initially enslaved captives of the Crimean Tartars who ran the entire slave trade for centuries in the region. This was eventually reversed by the Russians in the 17^th century and they then became slavers and slave keepers.

However outside of the Caucasus the evidence of black slavery in Russia is sparse until the transformation from Slavery to Servitude under Peter the Great. At this stage of the advent of Imperial Russia black African servants began to appear in high society. This coincides with the Russian Royal family’s close relationship to the Dutch East India Company and Dutch Royal family and parallel interest shown by Peter the Great in maritime travel/trade and in Africa. The black population at the time of Peter the Great was largely servants, but originally most likely to have been purchased as slaves. The African slaves would have come from the slave markets across the Russian – Iranian border and also it was common practice for shipping in the region to use slaves as sailors too. This would have resulted in East Africans entering the Russian slave arena. The Russians called them Negry.

There has been much papering over Russian Imperial history, colonialism and slavery in that part of the world resulting in a lot of ignorance of this history in countries that fall under the western dominant sphere. The Imperial Russian royal family, nobility and capitalists were well connected to the most advanced early capitalist trans-global companies and the Royal family network that patronised the efforts of East India Companies. Thus it cannot be said that the Russians were never involved in what Walter Rodney called “Europe’s Underdevelopment of Africa” through the imperial and colonial footprint. Indeed today Russian capitalism and its imperialist intent is making up for lost time and Zuma and his neo-colonialist looters have been quite willing to play the same role that the African facilitators of slave trade did in the past.

There is an assumption that Russia was never an Empire, never colonialist, never embraced the slave trade and always had a positive attitude to Africans and other persons of colour who were never exploited in Russia. This erroneous belief is based either on false history or plain ignorance or mischief and has led to some suggesting that Russia has a clean record in its interaction with smaller countries in the world and Africa in particular, and cannot really be seen as ever being an imperialist and capitalist country. Zuma and his looter friends are white-washing the Russians (or should I say blackwashing them). The Russians were as “White” Capitalist as any other in global capitalism, but were temporarily halted by the Russian Revolution, two World Wars and the Cold war. But the capitalist boys are back in town and the old Russian infatuation with South Africa continues.

It is true that Russia cannot be said to have been a direct colonial power in Africa but through the relationships between Royal families across Europe, the Russian Tsars certainly interacted positively with colonialism and were beneficiaries of that colonialism as a feudal Imperial super-power allied to other powers directly involved in colonialism and exploitation in South Africa. In its own orbit the Russian Empire built its infrastructure on slave labour and the Corvee system using slaves from within those territories.

Russia too was certainly an imperial colonial power in its own orbit. Russia would never have been that great a power unless it had itself revolted against being enslaved by others in its early history and in turn enslaving the subjects of the powers that once enslaved them. Slavery in Russia was made up of war captives, survivors of disasters, persons sold into debt bondage and victims of kidnapping…. Just like the same scenarios in Southeast Asia, India and Southern China. A few African slaves were brought into Russia and largely became servants, little more than slaves, in the households of the nobility and royal family. The moneyed upper classes were frequent visitors to the colonial playgrounds and South Africa was one of these playgrounds. These Russian upper classes also were intimately tied into the Dutch East India Company and later also had a relationship with the British colonial administration of the Cape and a strongly supportive role of the Boer Republics. Russians also served in the French Foreign Legion Forces and a group of Russians attempted a foolhardy establishment of a private colony in Madagascar which was quashed by the French.

Putin and other Russian oligarchs amassed their fortunes on human trafficking, arms smuggling and drugs smuggling if one follows the reports over 30 years, and much of this arms fuelled African conflict and bloodshed just like happened with Western Powers in Africa.

Russian slavery and its trade in slaves (Polish, Lithuanian, Germans and Siberians) to the Tartars is documented and involved great cruelty. Slaves were castrated and had their ears and nostrils cut off, their cheeks and foreheads branded with the burning iron and they were forced to work with their chains and shackles during the day, and were locked up at night in holds. Young slave women were continuously raped. The Russians would have treated black slaves similarly and in this sense a slave was a slave regardless of colour. Slaves were originally referred to as kholopy and their owners had unlimited power over their slaves. Slaves could be killed lawfully by owners, and be bought and sold.

Slavery which was a major institution in Russia came to an end or rather was transformed into servitude and enserfment only in 1723 under Peter the Great. Like the end of slavery in South Africa in the Russian empire slavery only ended in name and the servitude and enserfment that followed was similar to the indentured labour system that replaced slavery in South Africa and elsewhere.

Slavery in Russia differed from the west only in that the vast majority of slaves came from Russia’s orbit of imperial dominance rather than from afar and thus in the main it was Europeans, Slavs, Turks and Asians that were predominantly enslaved and Africans were a really tiny proportion of the whole. This was largely because Russia was a poor maritime power and reach. The Africans brought to Russia increased slightly during the post 1723 era of paternal servitude among royal families who wanted to keep in vogue with other Royal households in Europe by having black servants. In the 1800s the Tsar alone had around 20 Africans in servitude in his household.

The Russian capitalist class, royalty and nobility have always had a strong interest in South Africa, in particular in mining and during the gold and diamond rush flocked to South Africa to make their fortunes and to support the Boers. The Russian Revolution put paid to this colonial capitalist class furthering their interests but as soon as the cold war was over and the defeat of the USSR communists, Russian Capitalist interest peaked again with de Beers opening up in Moscow and new linkages being made. During Apartheid the Russians always still had dealings with de Beers, but covertly.

Interests in South African mineral resources, markets and control of energy in Southern Africa’s economic engine has become a pre-occupation of Russian oligarchs and mafias. Russian organised crime quickly moved into South Africa and human trafficking of women into the night club and sex trade (slavery) quickly ensured that a strategic foothold was secured for the criminal vanguard of oligarch Russian Capitalism and its imperialist intent. In a world where capitalism and imperialism is realigning the ghost of pre-revolutionary Russian capitalist and colonial interest in Southern Africa is resurfacing. Global realignment between the most conservative popular authoritarian forces  of USA capitalist and Russian Capitalist forces, both with strong fascist overtones should make South Africa really cautious. Peter the Great’s unfulfilled dreams may yet come to fruition.

REFERENCES

• The Economics of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century – William Gervase Clarence-Smith
• Slave Trades, 1500–1800: Globalization of Forced Labour – edited Patrick Manning
• Russia and South Africa before the Soviet Era – Apollon Davidson
• African Presence in former Soviet Spaces – Kesha Fikes and Alaina Lemon
• Children of Bondage – Dr Robert C Shell
• Bondage: free/unfree labor in Russia, Europe and the Indian Ocean – Alessandro Stanzian
• Imperialism the highest stage of Capitalism – VI Lenin
• How Europe Underdeveloped Africa – Walter Rodney

THE WICKED MYTH OF A BLACK COLONIAL INVASION – DISTORTIONS KINDLED BY EUROPEAN COLONISERS

WHO ARE THE “FIRST PEOPLE” AND WHAT ARE THEIR ORIGINS

In today’s highly charged political arena erroneous claims are made, using terms like ‘First People’ and/or alternatively ‘First Nation’, that bear little credibility to the facts about who the ‘First People’ are in the South African context and more broadly indeed in Africa. When we talk about “First People” without any political baggage then we can only mean the emergence of Homo Sapiens (humans) on the continent.

Anatomically modern humans evolved from the archaic humans in the Middle Palaeolithic period about 200,000 years ago in Africa, marking the dawn of the subspecies Homo Sapiens, who are our ancestors. Archaeological discoveries of archaic humans should not be conflated with that of modern humans.

Behar, Soodyall and the Genographic Consortium tell us that in dna terms the forebears of those we refer to as the San have matrilineal ancestry which diverged from the rest of the human mtDNA pool sometime around 90,000 years ago in East Africa and that parallel to this there were also at least five other matrilineal lineages arising out of the “First People”.

The Genographic Consortium also establish that an estimated minimum of 40 other evolutionarily successful lineages flourished in sub-Saharan Africa as well during the period of modern human dispersal 60,000 –70,000 years ago. About 70,000 years ago the forebears of the San would have entered South Africa.

They further say that only much later, at the beginning of the Late Stone Age, about 40,000 years ago did introgression of additional lineages occur into the San mtDNA pool and that these processes were further accelerated when other East African, (& Nilotic) and Bantu dna entered the mix during the periods of different East African and siNtu (Bantu) engagements on the periphery of the Kalahari from around 2,500 years ago. This is when the Khoena (Khoi) first emerged with strong dna shared with the same forebears of the San but also with other dna markers. The Khoena would also take on further dna markers as they later came into further contact with siNtu speakers around 600AD in the Eastern Cape and siNtu speakers would take on dna markers of the Khoena and San too.

Humans and apes are said to have common ancestry relatively in the Miocene period around 8-million years ago. Early ancestors of archaic humans can be traced back in various parts of the world from before 2,5 million years ago through markers that they left behind. We often hear people make sweeping claims that their ancestors occupied the land for millions of years or hundreds of thousands of years, but such statements are not rooted in fact and we must distinguish between early ancestors in human evolution- archaic humans and Homo Sapiens (humans as we know ourselves to be).

The first Homo Sapien ancestors (Humans) began spreading from East Africa and were what can be called the ‘FIRST PEOPLE’, about 200,000 years ago and the ‘first division’ of ancestry, into which the San and others fall, emerge about 90,000 years ago.  Around 80,000 years ago a small group of Homo Sapiens also left East Africa and moved through the Horn of Africa to populate the rest of the world through a slow migratory drift. Some of these also returned back into Africa over different periods of time. Homo Sapiens of the ‘first division’ of ancestry, into which the San falls, can be shown through archaeological evidence to have moved into southern Africa around 70,000 years ago.

San populations from northern Namibia and Angola separated from the San populations in South Africa as early as 25,000 – 40,000 years ago and the Khoena pastoralists only emerged from the Southern Namibian and South African San 2,500 years ago showing small but distinct markers of East African and Nilotic dna markers going back first to East Africa and then to the Middle East and this was just a few hundred years prior to the first of the different waves of Bantu migration. The Bantu migrations were not “invasions” or “colonisation” as sometimes alleged, but rather a slow migratory drift over a very long period not too different from that of the Khoena across South Africa.

The South Africa San from around 12,000 years ago (and the later Khoena pastoralists about 500BC) had a great diversity of peoples that fell under these catchall terms. Studies of the movement of sheep from Southern Arabia and North Africa to end up being farmed by Khoena also attests to an East African, North African and even Middle Eastern connection to some San and to the Khoena in particular. There are also markers in both the San and Khoena of post Bantu migration dna which evidence genetic mixing with Bantu. All of this shows that the ancient background to the Khoena is a lot more complex than previously projected and popularly believed.

The entire humanity shares connections to the “FIRST PEOPLE” (the widespread Homo Sapiens that spread across Africa 70 000 years ago) and, this includes those who later emerged to become the San and the Khoena.

The puzzle that has consumed researchers concerns the WHEN and HOW and WHERE that the groups whom researchers collectively called Khoena (Khoi/Khoe) emerged. It is accepted that in great measure there is an ancient sharing of dna linkages to the San, but that in smaller measure there are also markers of other groups in Khoena dna prior to Bantu migration and prior to modern era mixing. Scholars who have applied their minds to this subject are archaeologists, linguists, ethnologists, geneticists, physical anthropologists and social historians, and have published a number of studies in this regard.

In recent times these social scientists and scientists have worked more closely together than before and particularly with the advances in genetics, more and more evidence is emerging that clearly shows that the San may have not been as isolated from other influences than previously thought. The Khoena particularly were certainly were exposed to other dna contributions. Lots of new indicators are constantly emerging. For instance in 2014 Dr Carina Schlebusch, a foremost geneticist, found in her studies a hard Khoena link to East Africa that points to a journey from East Africa over 2000 years ago by following milk markers in the Khoena dna – Allele LP-SNP 14010G. An open mind has to be maintained when exploring our past.

Political interests have also stood and hovered over these studies eager to latch onto anything that may give their political claims more credibility. One must be careful not to be led by political opportunism. It is important that one treats all claims with a degree of questioning and rather look at ALL information available without hastily jumping to conclusions.

It is not necessary to argue ‘race purity’, ‘first people’ nor ‘first nation’ to establish the important indisputable fact of ‘first habitat’ at the time of colonialism and the devastation that colonialism caused to indigene peoples. ‘First Habitat’ and being an ‘Indigenous People’ (Indigenes) is also not exclusivist and in different parts of South Africa it has different meaning. The sharing of indigenous roots for at least the last 1700 years between various peoples indigenous to the African continent is a social history and genetic reality too. Acknowledgement of these facts in no way weakens the argument of dispossession by the most marginalised and discriminated against indigenous peoples. In my opinion it actually strengthens the arguments for redress.

Political terminology does not assist when dealing sensitively with the complexity of human development in Africa (or anywhere for that matter). The political term ‘First Nation’ is a purely based on the modern European political term – NATION, relating to the emergence of post-feudal ‘Nation-States’ in Europe in modern history and bears no relationship whatsoever to indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. It actually is a colonial term.

THE KALAHARI FACTOR IN KHOENA SOCIAL HISTORY

Archaeological and DNA studies are constantly providing new evidence, and as a result, new perspectives and schools of thought often arise concerning the origins of the Khoena people of South Africa.

But the one thing that is agreed is that events of catalytic importance happened around 2,200 – 2,500 years ago in the region of the Kalahari and it’s perimeter (also called the Northwest Circle) in Southern Africa whereby one branch of the San were engaged by external forces from East Africa with older links to North Africa and beyond which gave birth to the Khoena of the Kalahari and perimeter.

The Khoena as a social formation first emerged in the Northwest circle of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Limpopo with the Kalahari as epicentre then migrated southwards in three stages – first to the Gariep and Southern Namibia and then to the Eastern Cape and then to the Western Cape. Along this route they also mixed with other groups – among these Bantu and Cape San. This migration trajectory is how the Cape Khoena as a people evolved over a thousand year period.

For over a century two schools of thought (with many variations within each) have dominated among those studying the Khoena. Then in recent times these came together in consensus and but then even more recently the consensus revisited with new facts leaned toward the one school of thought, particularly based on important new genetic information. Debates will continue but from the genetics arena fairly hard evidence has emerged to support the “out of East Africa, North Africa and beyond” school of evidence. This was addressed earlier in this story.

Essentially in a simplified form, the DNA evidence shows that the events that gave birth to the Khoena in the Kalahari and its perimeter was a coming together of San adopting pastoral influences around 2,200 – 2,500 years ago in that region with migrants from East Africa.

These migrants had migrated southwards sometime between 2,800 and 2,500 years ago and who in turn had roots further back in Ethiopia and Southern Arabia 3000 years before that time (6000 years ago).  Conclusive evidence has been provided to show that the Khoena in South Africa have West Eurasian dna along with Southern African (San) dna. The Khoena are shown that in addition to San dna to also have strong traces of Nilotic dna and Bantu dna and some Hadza/Sandawe dna all showing a mixture of roots along a migratory route. The notion of absolutely separated races or ethnicities (the notion of purity) is not borne out by dna scrutiny. So the Khoena are a relatively new development born among some of San who were genetically mixed with new migrants and who engaged in a new pastoral mode of living and economy.

Thus migrants along a trajectory from North Africa to East Africa to South Africa, mixing along the way over a long period and bringing sheep and cattle, at a particular point, engaged with the San and later in different epochs with Bantu on the edges of the Kalahari. From this mix a new pastoral community of Khoena came about in the Kalahari and over 200 more years began to drift further South to the Gariep. From the Gariep over another 600 years some of the Gariep Khoena drifted down to the Eastern Cape on a trajectory to the Western Cape, while others drifted down the West Coast similarly. In the Eastern Cape the Khoena for a second time engaged with Bantu and also again engaged with dispersed San.

The complexities and the depth of highly developed African societies with social histories that interface with South Africa are now also coming to light after a long period of suppression by Christo-European intellectual hegemony, responsible for the destruction of African civilisations and, for papering over huge elements of a challenging African past.

The evolution of Khoena social history over this migration requires much more collection of evidence and research. For instance the interaction between the Khoena and the old African centres of trade and development at Great Zimbabwe and Mapangubwe, or with the fascinating Lembe (South Africa’s black Jews) would be interesting to explore. The gaps in social history must be explored and a challenge exists around notions of ‘primitivism’ and the European concept of ‘the noble savage’ which has strongly been overlaid on Khoena society and unfortunately has been adopted by some elements who then lock Khoena culture in a time capsule.

This when linked to skewed histories based in what I call the ‘Great Lie’ distort the entire San and Khoena story. Richard Elphick gives us just a small glimpse of Khoena trading links in pre-colonial times with trade routes stretching up to East and Northern Africa and indeed they were not an isolated ‘primitive’ group in South Africa, without linkages to an ‘outside’ world.

By about 300 AD the Khoena through a process of multiplication by division spread through the Eastern Cape forming a number of tribes, one of the first of which was the Cobona or Chobuqua who were integrated with those whom the Khoena and San called the Xhosa, the earliest of siNtu speakers in the region. The language and customs of the Xhosa reflected the strong San and Khoena influences and integration. Senior Xhosa leaders preferred Khoena and San wives, a tradition that continued over the centuries. The great Makhanda’s mother for instance as late as in  the 18th century was a Khoena diviner and Makhanda himself (in the 19th century) was married to Khoena leader Hans Trompetter’s sister.

THE GREAT LIE

In the slow migratory drifts that brought Khoena, San and siNtu speakers together in the Eastern Cape there is no evidence at that time of any major threat by one on the other. The siNtu speakers were much smaller in numbers and not very powerful. Both the Khoena and San left a major mark on these people that they called Xhosas – ‘the angry ones’. Centuries later with later Nguni influences brought to bear by the Thembu, Mpondo and Mpondomise both the Cobuqua and the Xhosa came under Nguni influence.

Numerically the Khoena by far were more numerous than the Xhosa in the Southeastern Cape but they lived together largely in peace. The later Nguni trickle grew and grew and asserted hegemony particularly over the Xhosa. Both groups were pastoralist and over time the nature of pastoralism resulted in frictions with hunter gatherers, the San, who retreated into the mountainous regions of Bruintjies Hoogte, the Sneeuberg, Roggeveld and beyond. Here the San established a formidable presence some 30 000 strong and could well hold their own, as proven for a long time with the European onslaught. From the Zuurveld down to the Hottentots Holland Mountains the Khoena were well established numerically alongside Xhosa and fairly integrated with them, and had tens of thousands of head of cattle and sheep. At the time of the European invasions the Khoena numbers were fairly much on par with that of the Xhosa (if one looks at the comparisons in the first scientifically compile census of 1865 this is a strong indicator). There is no evidence of any sudden invasion by Nguni and no evidence of war and devastation among the Khoena at the hands of either the Nguni who were settled in the Eastern Cape long before van Riebeeck’s arrival , or by the older Xhosa of pre-Nguni times. There is however overwhelming evidence of sudden invasion, war, genocide and destruction by the Europeans and it is simply propaganda and wicked to suggest otherwise by equating a 1800 year slow migratory drift of people indigenous to the continent with an invading European colonial force.

South Africans were subjected to great distortions around our history in school curricula dictated by the neo-fascist Christian National Education. The ‘GREAT LIE’ that was fed to school children and reinforced at tertiary education institutions for a long time basically said that at the time of the Europeans arrival in South Africa, it was a largely uninhabited land, sparsely occupied here and there by very primitive people – ‘noble savages’ (not quite human and not animal) who had no notion of ownership or claim to the land in which they wandered about largely living by their wits.

This lie went on to say that foreign black hordes from the North arrived suddenly as colonisers more or less at the same time as the Europeans and ruthlessly started to take over the land of the wanderers and began to wipe them out. The few remnants of the wandering Khoena and the hunter-gatherer San, according to the ‘Great Lie’ succumbed to smallpox and then largely died out over time.

The Great Lie then says that the survivors were given every  assistance with the help of missionaries to embrace civilisation and lead wholesome lives. European civilisation in this dishonest story therefore saved the San and the Khoena from the destruction of the Blacks.

The ‘Great Lie’ had its own contradictions but everything was done to indoctrinate people of colour in the Cape that their real oppressors and their enemy was a foreign black invading force and that the Europeans saved the surviving Khoena and San and gave them the means to develop and take their place alongside the civilised world.

This process called ‘PACIFICATION’ of the Khoena was as bad, if not worse, than the brute force of the wars employed by the Europeans (15 wars of dispossession) to forcibly move the Khoena and take over their lands. ‘PACIFICATION’ also included destroying all forms of social organisation, institutions of leadership, alienation of San and Khoena from land, induction into servitude as servants and farm labourers, conscription into commando militias, engaging Khoena in crimes of genocide against the San, and indoctrination into Christianity.

It was the European that criminally assaulted the Cape San, Cape Khoena and Eastern Cape Xhosa and not invading colonising black hordes.

The impact of ‘ethnocide’ and ‘pacification’ was devastating and the Cape San and Cape Khoena too to some extent faced extinction had it not been for the assistance of others such as the Xhosa and Nama and northern San as well as for the phenomenon of slavery that allowed integration for survival. The Cape San who faced concerted genocide were driven to extinction. The few Cape San children who were not killed were taken as prisoners to become labourers on farms. They integrated with slaves and had offspring, which assisted a form of survival through natural assimilation.

The more numerous Khoena though stripped of their social formations, leadership institutions and land followed five avenues for survival – seeking refuge and reintegration among the Nama and Korana (and to some extent with Xhosa); integrating and assimilating with slaves and forming a new labour forces of Khoena-Basters; congregating at mission sites and utilising a theology of liberation to counter pacification; allying in armed resistance with the Xhosa against colonialism and pacification ; and forming Oorlam, Griqua and other revivalist formations and strategies.

The ‘GREAT LIE’ has been resilient and it still is quite dominant in all discourse regarding indigenous people. Key to understanding the experience and the grievances of surviving Indigenes lay in understanding what constitutes ‘colonialism’, ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnocide’ and not to go down the path of racist arguments about ‘Black Colonists’ that only serve to take the focus off the suppression and dispossession of Cape Indigene communities.

What is Genocide and what is Ethnocide?

Here academic researcher and writer Mohamed Adikari assists us. We must be cautious and focused when using terms lest we undermine our own arguments. When it is argued that both ‘black people’ and Europeans are responsible for colonising, dispossessing Khoena and San of their land and livelihoods and committing genocide a grave series of errors have occurred that only serve to let the European colonial perpetrators off the hook. We have already addressed the distortion on what is ‘colonialism’, here the issue of ‘Genocide’ and ‘Ethnocide’ is addressed with the assistance of Mohamed Adhikari’s work on this subject.

In the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) – Article II the following is made clear –

Genocide is a Crime against Humanity committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group through a) killing members of the group; b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

GENOCIDE: Adikhari outlines at least ten further definitions, but also provides a comprehensive understand of Genocide (and ethnocide) for the South African context in his work on the South African Genocide – The extermination of the Cape San Peoples, where ‘Genocide’ as ‘extermination’ is made clear. He defines ‘Genocide’ in the South African context “as the intentional physical destruction of a social group in its entirety, or the intentional annihilation of such a significant part of the group that it is no longer able to reproduce itself biologically or culturally, nor sustain an independent economic existence.” Adikhari goes on to say that “the ‘intent’ need not be explicitly declared (in our context there were times that it was explicitly declared and other times it was when Trekboer society and commandos just followed an exterminatory culture). He says “it is sufficient only that the perpetrators exhibit genocidal intent. Genocidal intent does not have to be present at the start of the violence as objectives can change during the course of an atrocity. Once the consequences of socially destructive actions – which can include conquest, land expropriation, massacre, forced labour, forced migration, the destruction of environmental resources, confiscation of food, the spread of disease and child removal – are recognised as possibly leading to extinction, to persist in these actions is to display genocidal intent” ….. and this Adikhari can lead to genocidal consequences. Now this can be argued as also being all experiences also shared by the Cape Khoena with some finer distinctions….. and most importantly it did not have the consequence of genocide with such intent. What the Cape Khoena experienced was forced removal, ethic clearing and the consequence of ethnocide.

ETHNOCIDE: Adikhari states that “coerced cultural assimilation without extensive bloodshed (death on a scale large enough to debilitate the social life of the group in question) does not constitute ‘Genocide’. Ethonocide, crime against humanity and cultural suppression are more appropriate terms for this abuse. Mass displacement or deportation on its own does not amount to genocide – nether do conquest or suppression of revolt without genocidal intent”. The Khoena were not wiped out or exterminated and still exist in various formations today. The Cape San don’t. It is thus a very important distinction to make because if one does not make this distinction it can undermine the claims of both surviving Khoena communities and revivalist communities.

Essentially from an original Cape San population of 30, 000 at the time of van Riebeeck, by the 1970s only 30 ‘unhybridised’ Cape San still survived according to Adikhari. He goes on to show that in South Africa today there are 7,500 people who identify as San. These are not the Cape San. About 1000 are Khomani and //Xegwi and, 6,000 are recent immigrants from Namibia and Southern Angola who were part of the SADF forces when it retreated from Angola and withdrew from Namibia in 1990. The Cape San were destroyed – eliminated or ‘exterminated’ and no other group including the Khoena suffered this atrocity. Very few people today can identify as Cape San. The survival of Cape San memory and genetic linkage largely only exists because of the assimilation of captive San children who had offspring with slaves and pacified Khoena on Cape farms. This heritage and memory survives within modern Khoena and those classified as ‘Coloured’. We should however be cautious of calling this Khoisan identity because that sanctions assimilation and to a degree violates the memory of a distinct Cape San people. It also papers over the violation and genocide of Cape San by pacified Cape Khoena commandos led by Europeans. The memory should always recognise Cape San and Cape Khoena as distinct groups with some common experiences and some common antiquity roots and dna.

WHO ARE THE CAPE KHOENA PEOPLES?

We have already looked at the Kalahari origins of the Khoena and the origins of the Cape Khoena flows from the understanding of those origins.

By 200 – 300 AD the Khoena of the Kalahari and its perimeter had migrated down to the Gariep River territory where they co-existed with the Southern San. The Khoena formations that developed there were the NAMA who would move very slowly down a part of the West Coast and who would give birth to the GURIQUA clanlets which could be found in the Southwestern Cape at the time of colonization. Then there was also the ENIQUA of the Gariep; and the GORA of the Gariep, also known as the KORANA who lived alongside the various groups of San and there was a degree of integration.

At the Gariep the KHOENA engaged with Tswana and Sotho, and also later at its lower reaches with amaXhosa and there too was a degree of integration and with mixed groups forming. Over the next 300 years through a process of ongoing social organisation through multiplication of tribes by division and ever moving southwards, the breakaways from the Gariep Khoena spread and new social formations were born – one giving birth to the other.

East of the Gariep in the Eastern Cape the Chobuqua (Cobona) emerged with habitat around the area between Port St Johns and the Kei River and from here a break-away group of KHOENA gradually moved ever Southwards in a slow migratory drift down to the southwestern and central Cape where they entered the southernmost lands of the Cape San (or /Xam) people. Along this migratory route between 600 – 1000 AD the Khoena and San were joined by some of the earliest siNtu speaking migrants who had been part of a gradual southwards migratory drift from the Great Lakes region.

This very small early Bantu migration along the eastern trajectory met the Khoena who had migrated from the Gariep. They also met the //Xegwi and !Kwi San who already had habitat before the Khoena arrival. This is how the original Xhosa formation came about – a coming together of San, Khoena and early Bantu (siNtu speakers). Those first Bantu could not have been a large invading group because the culture and language of these early Bantu was dramatically altered to reflect much of the Khoena and San culture and language which left its mark. Later Nguni arrivals would again stamp a stronger Nguni mark on the amaXhosa.

In comparison, not much of a mark was left on the Khoena and San by the siNtu speakers language and culture. This is not the usual hallmark of a conquering people and suggests that at this time the Xhosa were not a dominant group. Later Nguni speakers who moved down from the area of what we call KZN today around the 14th century into the Eastern Cape and were more organised social formations with military capacity and in their areas of settlement they became a dominant force. The Nguni first dominated in the areas north of the Kei River (Zwede, Xesibe, Hlubi (southern), Bomvana, Mpondo, Mpondomise, and Thembu) and then later as these new Nguni influenced the earlier siNtu/Khoena who were living around the Kei – namely the Xhosa and Cobuqua, the territory from the Kei River down to the Gamtoos saw its own social revolution.

THE SPREAD OF THE AMAXHOSA: In this social revolution with the influx of new siNtu Nguni groups, firstly the Xhosa and then Chobuqua it would seem, largely assimilated and over time became the Xhosa house of Phalo, which then split into the Gcaleka and Rharhabe houses (lineages and great chieftainships). Two dominant social formations in turn developed from the Rharhabe house – the Ngqika house born of Mlawu and, the Ndlambe regency (the regent for the young Ngqika who conflicted with him) and then there were also the Sigcawu formation.

But south of these social formations were the older southernmost Xhosa formations who shared close and integrated familial and ancestral relations with the Khoena and San – the GQUNUKHWEBE – who by the time of the colonial assault were led by Chief Chungwe who was closely allied to the Khoena of the region – Hoengeyqua, Gonaqua, Gamtoos, Inqua and even the Attaqua.

Peaceful coexistence was shattered for awhile as a result of the wrong alliances being made by particular Xhosa tribes and Khoena tribes against mutual enemies. This was highly influenced by the Nguni influence over the Xhosa, particularly the introduction of deference to royalty and the paying of tribute to kings. Pieres tells us that the Inqua chief Hinsati made the mistake of giving refuge to Xhosa royal Gwali, who was dethroned by his brother Mdange acting on behalf of Phalo. As a result of a war around this act the Inqua were defeated and were assimilated into the Sukwini, Gqwashu and Nkarwane clans. These three clans are part Xhosa and part Khoena. Similar stories relate to the Khoena incorporation or creation of the isiThathu, Ntinde, Giqua. The very name of the Gqunukhwebe for instance derives from the Khoena tribe known as the Gonaqua. Khoena, San and Xhosa internal conflicts spilled over into each other’s ever changing social formations. These inter-African tribal interactions and similar between the Xhosa and the San, which occur over a long period of time with different periods of intensity are a natural phenomenon in African social history that cannot be compared to the sudden colonial invasion with the intentional purpose of clearing areas for calculated deliberate European settlement. The Xhosa effectually when fully analaysed are a hybrid people of an early siNtu, Khoena, San and Nguni mix, with many having as much claim to Khoena and San ancestral heritage and culture as those trapped under the label ‘Coloured’.

The Gqunukhwebe, Khoena-Xhosa mix were to become strongly influenced by the Ndlambe and particularly after the British crushing and murder of Chungwa. The catalyst for radical change of identities and power relations was first the relatively weak but very destructive Boer incursions, but more damaging was the powerful British military and social engineering interventions.

The Khoena groups were one by one crushed and pacified by the European settlers but pockets of Rebels under the leadership of Chiefs Klaas and David Stuurman made an alliance with the Ndlambe Xhosa, in the form of a resistance confederacy and over more than three decades kept the combined struggle alive. Thus to this day there are Xhosa and Khoena Stuurmans. It is a complete fabrication that the Khoena and San were assaulted and crushed by a foreign invading hoard of blacks from the north. There is shred of evidence for this nonsense story.

It is of interest to note that the dna make-up of Xhosa people in at least one large sample tested has been shown to reflect about 17% of the same Southern African dna demarcating San and Khoena dna as those classified as ‘Coloured’ who in the same large sample testing showed 30% having the Khoena and San dna markers. Notably the same tests showed those self-identifying as ‘Coloured’ also having 31% sub-Sharan dna (bantu). Thus large numbers of both those today called ‘Coloured’ and ‘Xhosa’ show descendancy from San and Khoena.

NOTE 1: WHO ARE THE NGUNI?  Around 600 AD, as a result of a different gradual but more substantial Bantu migratory drift into the areas of KZN where Tsonga from Mozambique came together with Bakoni from the western regions of South Africa and with the San, a further new South African born formation developed, referred to as the Nguni language group. They would later in time join the earlier siNtu speakers in the Eastern Cape through a slow migratory drift. This downward knock-on formations of locally born social organisations made its way into the north of the Eastern Cape and have already been mentioned – Zwede, Xesibe, Hlubi (southern), Bomvana, Mpondo, Mpondomise, and Thembu. The Nguni, who evolved in South Africa, were not a sudden invasion of Black colonist aliens that arrived one day to rob and, kill and plunder as some propagandists have elaborated.

All of these groups mentioned evolved as a range of South African born formations. They were not a foreign invading force but an evolutionary trajectory born of the mixing of Bakoni (from Sotho/Tswana/Khoena from the West),  San (East Coast San) and the southernmost Tsonga – namely the Tembe. It is this local mix that gave birth to what we call Nguni. The largest initial group of Nguni in the East were the Ndwandwe, which in turn and in time saw the emergence of social formations such as the Ngwane and the Mthethwa. It is from the latter that the original small tribe of Zulu emerged alongside the Khumalos, Qwabe, Hlubi, Bhaca, Bhele and Zizi. The Nguni to the North in what later became Swaziland were the Mbo and the Langeni subdivision that birthed the Dlaminis. Between 600 AD and 1500 AD this represented the emergence of modern social organisation in the Eastern regions of South Africa. Trading links prior to European colonisation ran from Mozambique right down the East Cost to the Southern Cape from one social formation to the other.

NOTE 2: In the North Central and North Western parts of South Africa there are further complex histories of social formations which are also involving a mixing of peoples including Khoena and San starting from the periphery of the Kalahari.  Moving from East to West is the story of the Venda and Pedi formations including the Phalaborwa, Lobedu and Shona as well as the fascinating ancient Lembe traders with their Middle-Eastern linkages, the Singo and Rozvi with their stone-walled towns, and the Kgalagari, Kalanga, Tswapong. Then there is the uSotho story and the baTswana stories of the Morolong, Masilo and Mokgatla and, the sub-divisions forming the Hurutshe and Kwena story. The Nguni formations of the Eastern Regions also would migrate westwards over time with the emergence of the Fokeng and from these arose those later became known as Matebele. Then there are the Tlokwa, Kgatla and Tlhaping who also came into conflict with the Gora or Korana. The Rolong story and their conflict with Kora (Gora) for instanced reached the ear of van Riebeeck when Kora traders who had come down to Cape Town to trade with the Dutch, that they were attacked by the Briqua (the Rolong). The social formations in this part of South Africa had many complexities which would ultimately impact of the Gariep communities and more intensely so when the combination of the European colonists embarked on their Great Trek, the Mfecane/Difecane occurred and the British conflict with the Boers took place. What is simply important to note here is that the population and its many social formations in this part of South Africa are as old as the migratory shift of Khoena moving southwards from the Gariep. The territory north of the Gariep and from the Kalahari perimeter to the East Coast and up to the Limpopo is vast – and there was no European dictated border of South Africa in those times that demarcated a Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique or Lesotho. In these territories and to their immediate north there are signs of great civilisations which at least in their beginnings are as old as the emergence of the Khoena and are linked to migratory drifts from the Great Lakes regions. All of these peoples consider themselves as indigenes of their region and indigenous Africans.

The notions of ‘origins’, while of note, is actually not as clear and exclusive as some think nor is it the most important focus in the struggle for the rights of  those Indigenous people who are most marginalised and discriminated against. The most important issue is what happened to the Cape San and the Cape Khoena under colonialism in terms of people, social organisation, leadership structures, land and resources and how subsequent to this the dominant forces in South African society has continued to marginalise and discriminate and deny the social history, culture, existence and rights of indigenes. That is the ral struggle to overcome, not the notion that some persons of colour are aliens compared to others. Don’t buy into this ‘divide and conquer’ lie.

POSTCRIPT:

HOW MANY KHOENA EXISTED AT THE TIME THE TERM ‘COLOURED’ REPLACED OTHER TERMS?

It is very difficult if not impossible to say how many persons among those labelled ‘Coloured’ have the right to be recognised as Khoena (Khoi) today. However we do have a clue as to what those numerical parameters may have been at the time of the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1806 we find reference to around 18 000 Khoena/Baster Hottentots in the Cape Colony and their locations.

In 1806 the population of the Cape Colony was 25 000 whites, 29 000 slaves, 1 200 Free Blacks and 18 000 ‘Hottentot-Basters’ of whom 500 were in Swellendam, 5000 in Stellenbosch and 8 947 in the Gamtoos and Graaff Reinet district of the Eastern Cape and the others were scattered across the long western frontier. This however reflected the boundaries of the Cape Colony at that time and did not include 10 000 – 15 000 Khoena in the Gariep district.

Then in 1837 the Aborigine Protection Society references 33, 000 Khoena in a Report to the British Parliament. After this date, except for a very important document of 1865 the Khoena, Slaves, Prize Slaves and Free Blacks are recorded as ‘Coloureds’ – a catch-all term created by the British adminstration.

However when the British carried out the very first Census done in modern scientific format in 1865 and presented it to Parliament in 1866 the administration temporarily reverted to separating ‘Hottentots’ (‘Baster-Hottentot’) from ‘Other’ – denoting other persons of colour and, two separate figures are given. This does not happen in later years.

So in 1865 the population breaks down as:

WHITE - European & Locally born Euro-African		      181 592
OTHER - ex-Slaves/Prize Slaves/Indentures/migrants of colour  132 655
XHOSA - within the 1865 colonial boundary		      100 536
KHOENA - 'Hottentot' & 'Baster-Hottentot'		       81 598

TOTAL POPULATION IN THE CAPE COLONY			      255 760

Between 1865 and 1904 migration of persons of colour increased from St Helena, Philippines, China, India, West Africa, the Caribbean and North America, but particularly from  East Africa mostly as indentured labour to replace slavery. This substantially increased the ‘Other Coloured’ population by 1900. The African component, generally called Masbiekers were formally assimilated into the ‘Coloured’ population by the authorities in 1904 rather than ‘Native’ [Black] population).

It would thus be fair to say that the ratio of Khoena to ‘Other persons of Colour’ designated as ‘Coloured’ was less than 1:2 or one third of the total number classified by the authorities as ‘Coloured’. The Khoena as a result of the 169 years of war was the only population (other than the San) that reduced in numbers (by three fifths) from their original numbers at the time of van Riebeeck.

Europeans grew from 90 persons to 181 592 by 1865 and, Khoena from 200 000 persons reduced to 81 598 in 1865 of whom three quarters were likely to have mixed roots with slaves and others. Such was the effects of the crime of Ethnocide against the Khoena.

In the case of the Cape San the numbers reduced from 30 000 at the time of van Riebeeck to around 25 in the 1970s, to just one or two very old souls left in the 21st century who directly link to the Cape San as a result of Genocide.

WHO HAD HABITAT AND WHERE AT THE TIME OF COLONIAL INCURSION?

As previously established a preferable and more accurate anchor in discussing the ‘land issue’ as regarding Indigenes (or indigenous people) is to examine who had habitat and where at the time of colonial incursion – ie ‘FIRST HABITAT’.

Firstly in is important to dispel the falsehood that most of South Africa was uninhabited and that instead it had small groups of wandering people with no claim on land ownership. It is also important to distinguish between foreign visitation to the shores of South Africa via sea travel and the later colonisation (European settlement, dispossession of indigene land and resources, and subjugation) that took place.

Seaborne visitors to the shores of South Africa can be traced in history over a long time. In pre-modern history Knox-Johnston, a maritime historian, indicates that the story of the visitors and migrants of colour to the Cape can possibly be first traced back to the Phoenicians (people of Lebanon, Syria and northern Palestine) 2,500 years ago, followed by the Carthegians 140 years later. Beale further shows that the ancient Buddhist temple at Borobudur has a bass relief showing a sailing vessel indicating a trip down the east coast of Africa by Indonesians around AD 700 and in 2003 he built a replica that successfully proved the possibility of rounding the Cape at that time. Knox-Johnston further shows that the Chinese travelled down the African coast in AD 960 and the Arabs may have reached as far as the Cape in AD 1000 and that their cartography fairly accurately identifies South Africa in 1154. These Arab travellers referred to the South African indigenes as Wak Waks, differentiating these from East and North East Africans whom they referred to as the Zanjis.

Menzies, another maritime historian,  further makes a strong case for the Chinese having rounded the Cape at least by 1421 when China circumnavigated the world. The Chinese cartography of this time was much more advanced than that of the late-comer Europeans and notes detail like the Drakensberg mountains. While it is important to acknowledge these external contacts, we have no records of that early engagement with indigenes, nor reliable information on the impacts that may have been left. But there must have been engagement and impact.

In the modern period we know that according to maritime historians Gaastra and Bruijn,  a huge build-up of shipping which stopped at the Cape, took place between 1600 and 1652 numbering some 1071 ships and then post 1652 the entire shipping trade mushroomed decade after decade. During those first 52 years of visitations, one can calculate around 200,000 passengers passing the Cape on outward bound journeys and at least half that number on return voyages. For various reasons, among the crews and passengers were people of colour – most notably slaves from West Africa taken to Southeast Asia and from Southeast Asia and East Africa on westward bound journeys. During this time there is record that some indigenes that had travelled abroad to London, Java and Batavia as shown by Elphick and others. Social historians Crampton and Vernon show that evidence exists that people of colour as well as Europeans were shipwrecked, made it to shore, became accidental settlers and assimilated into indigene populations. Vernon chronicles many of these earliest shipwreck survivor stories from the 16th century in some detail too. According to SA Tourism, there were over 3000 ships of 37 nations that were wrecked off the South African coast since the 16th century. In the years before the European settlement of 1652 most of the survivors of those wrecks assimilated into local indigene African communities and these will have made impacts in pre-colonial settings.

As a result of records provided as a result of pre-colonial visitation to our shores from the early 15^th through to the 17^th century we are able to get a fair idea of the state of habitation in the two and a half centuries before colonisation. Archaeology also gives us an even older idea on spread of habitation, social organisation and mode of living. The information at hand more than dispels the myths perpetuated in the ‘GREAT LIE’.

The information available shows that the Cape Khoena and their Southeastern Cape siNtu cousins, the amaXhosa, and the earliest of inhabitants, the Cape San (/Xam and !Kwi) had first habitat of the Eastern Cape from as early as between 500 – 800 AD and were certainly well settled far down into the Western Cape and on the Cape Peninsula for over 800 years before European colonists established their first settlement at Table Bay.

By 1400 the Northern reaches of the Eastern Cape also had newer siNtu speaking migrants who had moved down in a gradual drift, in a social-organisation multiplication by division process over time from the area we today call KZN – namely the amaPondo, AbeThembu, and amaMpondomise who on arrival interact with the settled Khoena, San and amXhosa and the mixed community of Cobuqua.

At the time of European ‘first incursion’, the San and the Khoena (Khoi) shared first habitat in the Cape from the South-eastern Cape down to the Cape Peninsula and throughout the Western Cape up to the Gariep River. In the Southeastern Cape both groups also shared that habitat with the siNtu (amaXhosa) with whom they shared ancestral and familial relations for 800 years prior to the later Nguni migrations from the north, of amaPondo, AbeThembu, and amaMpondomise from around the 14^th century. Evidence is that these different peoples co-existed in the same habitat, with the Khoena being more numerous in the area from the Zuurveld right down into the Overberg, with smaller groups living right down into the Cape Peninsula.

Strictly speaking the San had “first habitat” in the Northern and South-Central Cape and were known as the /Xam and on the Eastern Coast they were known as the !Kwi. Both the Khoena and the siNtu migrated into the terrain of the Cape San but this cannot be equated with colonisation and acts of war and extermination, though a degree of natural low level friction arose from time to time between pastoralists and hunter-gathers. There are no markers evidencing large scale or mass aggression.

There is no doubt whatsoever that on the Cape Peninsula and environs the Khoena social formations who had ‘First Habitat’ at the time of colonisation were the Cochouqua, Gorachouqua, Goringhaiqua and Goringhaicona.

These social formations shared soft boundaries with the Chainouqua, Hessequa and Attaqua in what was to be later named the Graaff Reinet district bordering the Zuurveld and the Swellendam District below. It is this “First Habitation” at the time of colonialist occupation that is the basis of the assertion that in the different areas south of the Zuurveld and inland up to the Gariep as explained, the Cape San and the Cape Khoena were the ‘indigenous people’ or ‘indigenes’, and in other areas the the siNtu-Khoena, the amaXhosa, the AbeThembu, amaPondo and amaMpondomise were also indigenes. On the Western Coast and inland up to the Gariep were the Nama Khoena and their sub-clans the Guriqua. The largest numbers of Khoena were concentrate in the Swellendam, Graaff Reinet and Zuurveld districts in the East and also the Namaqua in the West.

Later we can be more specific about the demarcated habitat in the Cape Peninsula and environs. There is no doubt that at the time of Jan van Riebeeck’s settlement of United Dutch East India Company (VOC) officials there was a sound territorial claim by a network of indigene peoples starting with the Cape Khoena and Cape San from the Cape Peninsula to the Gariep River and stretching from the West Coast to the East Coast and way up the East Coast to the  territory of the lower eastern Gariep.

LAND OWNERSHIP AS A MATTER OF INTERNATIONAL LAW: Did the Khoena make it known that they lay claim to the land, as in the manner that Europeans thought of as ‘land ownership’? Contrary to those that propagate that the Khoena did not have a way of thinking regarding land ownership, or that this would be difficult to prove in law, the recorded facts say differently. This can be seen from the pen of Jan van Riebeeck himself.

One needs to look at just one excerpt from the diaries of Jan van Riebeeck which sums up the feelings of the Khoena at the time and set the edges of the relations for the next 160 years. This excerpt is just after the pressurised signing of the ‘peace treaty’ after the second of 15 Khoena-Dutch wars.

“They (the Khoena), strongly insisted that we had been appropriating more and more of their land, which had been theirs all these centuries, and on which they had been accustomed to let their cattle graze, etc. They asked if they would be allowed to do such a thing supposing they went to Holland, and they added (in their own words): ‘It would be of little consequence if you people stayed here at the fort, but you come right into the interior and select the best land for yourselves, without even asking whether we mind or whether it will cause us any inconvenience’.

They therefore strongly urged that they should again be given free access to this land for that purpose. At first we argued against this, saying that there was not enough grass for their cattle as well as ours, to which they replied (in their own words): ‘Have we then no reason to prevent you from getting cattle, since, if you have a large number, you will take up all our grazing grounds with them? As for your claim that the land is not big enough for us both, who should rather in justice, give way, the rightful owner or the foreign intruder?’

They thus remained adamant in their claim of old-established natural ownership. They said that they should at least be allowed to go and gather bitter almonds, which grow wild in abundance as winter food there, and to dig for roots. This likewise could not be granted them…. when they persisted in their request, eventually they had to be told that they now lost the land as a result of the war and had no alternative but to admit that it was no longer theirs…… Their land had thus justly fallen to us in a defensive war, won by the sword, as it were, and we intend to keep it.” (5 – 6 April 1660. Van Riebeeck Diaries volume 3: 195-196)

Were the Khoena entirely nomadic? No! This is another European myth based on their lack of understanding about sustainable African farming science. Evidence of villages exist in European texts since the conflictual engagement between Franscisco d’Almeida in 1510. The Camissa trading and maritime settlement co-established between indigenes and the English prior to the VOC settlement also clearly demonstrates settlement rather than ‘beach-combing’. The accounts of the strength of cattle and sheep farming and the grazing patterns linked to seasonal and weather conditions illustrate sustainable herding rather than lack of settlement. Jan van Riebeek’s own journal accounts underline a relatively settled system of social organisation and habitat existed over centuries. Size of livestock herds which number in tens of thousands over a widespread area totally undermine the notion of pastoralism being simply a nomadic scavenging way of life.

 

REFERENCES:

The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity by Behar, Soodyal et al;  The American Journal of Human Genetics (2008), doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002

Going full circle on KhoeKhoe origins by Alan G Morris in ‘The Digging Stick’ Vol 31; No 1; April 2014 (Archaeological journal)

Insights from DNA studies of Khoe-San; Journal of Archaeological Studies (2012)

Lactase persistence alleles reveal ancestry of southern African Khoe pastoralists; Uppsala Bio Life Science Pathfinder on work of Dr Carina Schlebusch [journal/ April] (2014).

MtDNA control region variation affirms diversity and deep sub-structure in populations from Southern  Africa, by Karina M. Schlabusch et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology (2013).

Going full circle on KhoeKhoe origins by Alan G Morris in ‘The Digging Stick’ Vol 31; No 1; April 2014 (Archaeological journal)

Insights from DNA studies of Khoe-San; Journal of Archaeological Studies (2012)

Lactase persistence alleles reveal ancestry of southern African Khoe pastoralists; Uppsala Bio Life Science Pathfinder on work of Dr Carina Schlebusch [journal/ April] (2014).

MtDNA control region variation affirms diversity and deep sub-structure in populations from Southern  Africa, by Karina M. Schlabusch et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology (2013).

KhoiKhoi and the Founding of White South Africa; Early History of the KhoiKhoi (3-22); Narcotics, Metal and Long Distance Trade (62-68); Richard Elphick (1985)

The struggle for the Eastern Cape 1800 – 1854; Martin Legassick; (UWC) KMM Johannesburg (2010)

The Anatomy of a South African Genocide – The extermination of the Cape San Peoples; Mohamed Adhikhari; UCT Press (2010)

Voices of the San; Edt Willemienle Roux & Alison White; Kwela Books; Cape Town(2004)

A New history of Southern Africa; Neil Parsons; Macmillan; (1980)

New History of South Africa; Hermannn Giliomee & Bernard Mbenga; Tafelberg; Cape Town (2007)

The Forgotten Frontier – Colonist & Khoisan on the Cape’s Northern Frontier in the 18th Century; Nigel Penn; Ohio Univ Press (2005)

The House of Phalo; A history of the Xhosa People in the days of their Independence; Jeff Peires;Johnathon Ball; Cape Town (1981)

Cape Town: The Making of a City; Nigel Worden, Elizabeth van Heyningen, Vivian Bickford-Smith; David Philip; Cape Town (1998)

Imagining the Cape Colony: History Literature and the South African nation; David Johnson; UCT; (2012)

The genetic prehistory of Southern Africa; Pickrell JK, Patterson N, Barbieri C, et al; Nature Communications; (2012)

A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545 to 1800. Walter Rodney; New York;  Monthly Review Press. (1970) Read with – The History of Trade.

Representing the Cape “Hottentots,” from the French Enlightenment to Post-Apartheid South Africa. Franklin Philip; In: Eighteenth-Century Studies 40 (4). John Hopkins University Press. (2007)

The Record; or, A Series of Official Papers Relative to the Condition and Treatment of the Native Tribes of South Africa; Moodie D; Cape Town: A.S. Robertson.  (1838)

Census of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope 1865 – Cape of Good Hope; Presented to Parliament 1865

Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aborigine Tribes; Aborigine Protection Society; William Ball, Aldine Chambers, London (1837)

The Making of the Cape Colony – 169 Years of Ethnic Cleansing Wars & Genocide

The first Dutch-Indigene war of 1659 -1660 and what happened to the Goringhaiqua and the Gorachouqua by 1679 as a result, was just the curtain-raiser to 169 years of warfare that wiped out the Cape San and severely damaged the Khoena and totally disrupted their social cohesion and societal organisation. It is this prolonged push against the Indigenes and, their resistance to this aggression, that is fundamental to understanding what became of the Khoena people, their social formations, leadership structures, language, culture, their land, rich livestock and all that made up their society.

 

 

Our history books are silent about how the original Cape Colony in the Cape Town City Bowl area after 170 years grew into a territory that stretched to the Gariep River in the West and to the Fish River in the East. It is generally not known that a series of ethnic cleansing wars got rid of the indigene population who valiantly resisted inch by inch the take-over of their land.

As much as the real story of a port at Camissa which was founded by Indigenes long before the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck is a vital piece of our missing history, and the story of the many and diverse ‘migrants of colour’ to the Cape which is another important piece of our missing history, so too is the story of over 169 years of warfare as a result of colonial incursion and the resistance to dispossession, a major missing piece of our history and heritage.

This brief but comprehensive chronology fills in the missing years and events.

It tells a very different story than that peddled by white supremacists and racists who would have us believe that colonialism was a most beneficial part of our development and that the benefits of innovation, creativity and scientific discovery would not have happened in South Africa had it not been for the superior Europeans. In the minds of supremacists and race bigots all human advancement in the world of science, invention and advancement is bound up with the dominant system of an epoch and the dominator. Our intellect tells us that this is nonsense. Was it the Groote Schuur Heart Transplant Team that did the first Heart Transplant or was this advance the work and benefit of the Apartheid system. Premier Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance would have us believe that it is the latter, when she argues that Colonial system was hugely responsible for all human advancements that took place within that epoch. Colonialism she argues was beneficial and that this is due to European civilization and European ideas, invention and work. Thus it was Europeans who built and developed and innovated everything.

Our history tells a very different story. Indigenes had a thriving agrarian economy which was well balanced and they were vastly rich in many tens of thousands of livestock – sheep and cattle. The Indigenes traded all the way up to East Africa for those things that they did not have, by means of developed African networks. Indigenes had travelled to London and to Java and had established a thriving facilitating and servicing port on a very busy sea route. Over 1071 ships called at Table Bay and were serviced for over 50 years before van Riebeeck colonized the Cape. More than 200 000 visitors had passed through the port, staying over for between 3 weeks and 9 months.

Our history tells us that over 170 years the colonists major preoccupation was destroying habitat, land-grabs and livestock grabs, employing forced removal, war, ethnocide and genocide to rid themselves of the self sufficient Indigenes or reduce them to paupers and aliens in their own land.

The writings of commanders and early governors of the VOC bemoaned the lack of skills and laziness of the European settlers and officials and our history shows us the huge dependency that the Europeans had on the skills and labour of slaves. Closer scrutiny of our history shows that without indigenous knowledge and the advanced skills of people of colour who had been cruelly wrenched from their societies in Asia and Africa, the European efforts would have come to naught. Agriculture, building, scientific endeavor, medicine, the early education system and all aspects of development can be traced back to the Slave Lodge. The Europeans were pretty useless when scrutinized and then when we look at their destructiveness against the indigenes nobody can view this all and talk about benefits and any persona with a semblance of humanity would have to say that the colonization at the Cape was a crime against humanity. A crime which has never been properly addressed to this day.

Nowhere else in South Africa is there a comparable act of such criminal depth. No other people in South Africa suffered such an assault and experienced wars for a solid 169 years, or experienced the kind of ethnocide or genocide experienced within the Cape Colony by the Cape Khoena and the Cape San. No other people resisted with such valiance and consistency over such a long period. And no other people bear the dispossession and deep emotional scars left to the extent that they cannot manifest their heritage and culture in the ways that others can who were left at least with some social cohesion, land, language and cultural form. The colonial destruction of the Cape and its peoples is comparable to the worst of atrocities and crimes against humanity recorded.

Helen Zille’s recent remarks and the disgusting drawn out manner in which her party – the DA, are dealing with such a serious problem; a Terror Lekota’s equally disgusting and appalling statements about land not being stolen and his apologist approach to colonialism; and the cretins of Zuma’s coterie like Jimmy Manyi who has often insulted the descendants of the Cape Khoena with his crass neo-colonial overlays of African struggles, all show a poor understanding of South Africa and African history.

Perhaps this chronological teaching tool that I have developed based on writings accredited at the end can help people to begin to fight the three perversions that I have mentioned that are alive and well and each posing as some weird notion of being progressive thinking.

1659-1660    (1)      FIRST DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR  OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST

Doman’s War for Camissa, whereby the Cape Peninsula was taken from the Peninsula Khoena (Goringhaicona, Gorachouqua and Goringhaicona) resisting the Dutch occupation and they were forced to relocate their habitat first to behind the Tygerberg and then to the foothills of the so-called Hottentots Holland Mountains. It ended with a coerced treaty establishing VOC appropriation of the Peninsula by Conquest.

1673-1677      (2)       SECOND DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST–

Oedesoa and Gonnema’s War to Counter Consolidation of the Cape District – whereby Oedesoa moved his numerically large forces and resources to blockade the Dutch settlement at the Peninsula, and where the Dutch through a combination of newly introduced cavalry, mobile firepower and ‘divide and conquer’ tactics forced the Khoena to retreat and opened up direct trade contact with other groups and access to their resources beyond the Peninsula. Ultimately by 1679 the Dutch controlled the area from the Cape Peninsula to the Hottentots Holland Mountains and rendered the Indigenes to a status without land, cattle and tribal infrastructure forcing them to either become refugees fleeing North-West or farm labourers. It ended with a coerced treaty where one of the signatories was still a child ceding all land up to the Hottentots Holland Mountains to the VOC. Gonnema died in 1685 and Oedesoa died in 1689. The Colony spread to Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, Paarl, Franschhoek, Tygerberg and Wagenmakersvallei (Wellington) with a straight line running across from the Hex River Mountains to the West Coast.

1701 – 1705        (3)    THIRD DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST

The Ubiqua/Sonqua War – which saw some refugee Gunjeman’s, Guriqua, and Namaqua but largely led by the nearby San (Ubiqua and Sonqua) engage in a war to counter consolidation of Dutch control in the Cape District and the new Stellenbosch District and expansion of its boundary to the ‘Land van Waveren, Pieketberg and through to the Berg River mouth on the West Coast and into the San territory of the Skurweberge and Kouebokkeveld Berge. The Ubiqua and the Sonqua were an interface people between Khoena pastoralists and San hunter-gathers but predominantly the latter. This was a war over habitat, land, livestock and water and battles saw loss of large herds of livestock as well as lives on both sides. In 1705 and 1708 peace was negotiated largely with the cattle keeping Khoena elements in the conflict rather than with the San and the Dutch established recognised ‘Captains’ and gave them “staffs of office”, gifts and stipends. Grazing permits and loan-farms were granted to Trekboers and further colonisation took place.

1713          THE GREAT SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC occurred in this year and its coming was devastating after the huge impact of, colonisation, three wars, much step by step conflict in the process of forced removals and the decimation of an agricultural livestock economy and break up of social organisation. Thousands died in the epidemic which would later reoccur on a few occasions in the 18th century.  In April 1713 after a Danish Ship which had a smallpox outbreak at sea entered Table Bay and gave contaminate clothes to slave women to wash at the washing place which was part of the Camissa water-system of the town. Smallpox first spread to the Slave Lodge and then to all in Table Bay and the Peninsula and then beyond into the greater Cape District and the Stellenbosch District. It reached beyond the Drakenstein and Waveren, and beyond the Berg River to even affect the Namaqua. The meshing of the epidemic with the ethnic cleansing of the Cape and Stellenbosch Districts and the pacification of the small numbers of remaining Khoena is noted here because its impact falls into the same levels of attrition of war.

1712 – 1716     (4)      FOURTH DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST

The Namaqua and Ubiqua War of Frontier Contestation –  to halt the expansion of the Frontier and to destabilise the frontier colonial community.  This war saw a qualitative change from warfare primarily previously being conducted by VOC forces sent from the Fort de Goede Hoop, to a situation now where it was primarily being conducted by bands of Trek-Boer farmers in the settled areas together with pacified Khoena against free Khoena and San. This period thus also saw the militarisation of the frontier with the establishing of a series of VOC military posts along the border. Distance from Table Bay became a prohibitive issue for warfare supply lines and support. The contestation of this war of the flea, largely and fairly successfully being waged by Khoena trek-herders and hunter-gatherer Cape San saw the centrality of the issues of the erosion of water access, land and livestock rights. After many raids and battles and counter raids and battles in March 1716 peace was agreed and again “staffs of office” were given to approved Captains by the VOC. Again, the Khoena element agreed to peace under coercion and, were drawn into pacification processes while the San avoided treaties.

1719 – 1726    (5)    THE FIFTH DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST 

The Namaqua and Gonaqua Resistance War for Livestock Defence – from 1716 – 1719 there was a combination of bad weather conditions and livestock sickness that resulted in both meat and grain shortages and settlers were under severe pressure. The result of this was for the Europeans to again covet the livestock of the Khoena beyond the Northwestern and the Eastern frontier. These wars resulted in large scale cattle raiding AGAINST THE Namaqua and the Gonaqua and then counter attacks of resistance. In the case of the Gonaqua it resulted in them suffering massacre and complete seizure of the tribe’a livestock herds at the hands of the Jacob van Heijden barterer gang who were nothing but thieves and murders contracted by the VOC. From 1702 already murderous gangs of self-styled settler militia run by cattle barons like Henning Huising backed by his friend Adam Tas and a small elite antagonistic to the van der Stels, rode out to strip the Chainouqua, Hessequa, Attaqua and Gonaqua of their cattle and leave death and carnage in their path. The Eastern push opened up two new Districts – that of Swellendam and of Graaff Reinet. It was here that the most numerous concentrations of Indigenes lived with very large herds of cattle an sheep. One step at a time under a thin guise of bartering and trading, largescale theft, plunder and murder took place on a scale that even embarrassed the Governor and VOC. On the Western Frontier the Guriqua and the little Namaqua and the now tiny remnants of surviving Cochoqua, Goringhaiqua and Gorachouqua refugees among them came under the same assault. Between East and West the Cape San were still a formidable fighting force that held their positions. By 1626 the pattern of conquest and pacification continued and the VOC Chamber of 17 were informed that for 250 kilometers in all directions of Table Bay there were no free Khoena or settlements except for a hut or two here and there. Expansion increased after the war to include the entire length of the Olifants River by the mid 1730s. Between 1716 and 1730 the Sanveld which had a history of at least 1000 years of habitat and co-operative relations between Cape Khoena pastoralists and Cape San hunter-gatherers experienced rapid incursion by European raiders and settlers and bitter fighting ensued in a scenario of severe drought and hardship. Both Cape San and Cape Khoena resisted European incursion inch by inch.

1738 – 1739      (6)    THE SIXTH DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST

War of Cleansing, Pacification and new Frontier Stabilisation -This was a paradigm shift war that changed the nature of future conflicts between colonists and indigenes and consolidated the family of colonial districts of the Cape Colony – Cape District, Stellenbosch District, Swellendam District, Graaff Reinet District of three District Frontiers –  and the western and Eastern and central frontiers as one frontier to be defended.  The huge distance gap weakened the power of the Dutch VOC and strengthened self-rule among colonists. Farmers were much more of a law unto themselves, leading to many atrocities. The Commandos partially became made up of pacified Khoena conscripts to complement settlers and had become prone to committing atrocities. This was the war whereby the Commando system was developed and where the power for advance and defence shifted away from control by the Table Bay based VOC, to local District government and commando leaders and indeed to groups of farmers. The role-players in conflict and war expanded to include new role-players too like the ‘Oorlams’ and ‘Bergenaar Baster’ groups as well as escaped slave formations. The war had reached the Great Namaqua and its impacts began to be felt as far away as the broader Gariep region. All along the border there were acts of resistance and unrest and destabilisation of settlements and farms. Resistance popped up everywhere by the Khoena and San, and in the midst of all of these class warfare broke out between big capitalist land and livestock barons and rebel setters led in rebellion by a man named Estienne Barbier, who was eventually captured and publically crucified in Cape Town. The results of the bitter fighting with the San not only cleared the border regions but it also extended the border.

The Bokkeveld, Pieketberg, Sandveld, Olifants River and de Doorns River territories were effectively conquered and stability maintained for settlers. The way also opened up for new settlement in the Bokkeveld, Hantam and Roggeveld. The Khoena in all of these areas were put to flight or forced to become labourers  on white owned loan farms under terrible conditions alongside slaves. Again after coerced peace treaties, leaders sanctioned by the Commandos, District government and rubber-stamped by the VOC  were issued with the title “Kaptein” and given a staff of office. The Commando system effectively became the new colonial authority.

1740 – 1770      A TIME OF TENSE PEACE & LOW LEVEL GUERILLA SCIRMISHES ENSUED – Many incidents continued to occur but by and large the period of open war and mass clearing of the border territories went quiet to a degree. But in fact during this period settlement and expansion actually increased dramatically.

The trajectory of colonisation for the rest of South Africa was set during this period. Pioneering excursion was followed by trek-farming, and this was followed by seizure of Indigenes livestock and this was followed by militarisation and war, followed by treaty and quickly followed by mass settlement of new  immigrants. On the Western frontier settlement of migrants was not successfully implemented but on the Eastern Frontier it became the mainstay of the conquest of that part of South Africa.

By 1770 expansion to the north via the West Coast or the Central Cape was a very unattractive option. The lack of water and the hostile environment and fiercely independent San put a block on European advancement. So the focus for expansion was the Cape San territories of Bushmanland and the Eastern Cape territories. The largest concentrations of free Khoena were to be found in the Graaff Reinet District and the Zuurveld. The central regions of the Western Cape through to the Gariep was thirstland territory where water was as precious as gold or diamonds.

1763  The Cape Colony population had reached 6,867 Europeans & locally 
      born Settlers and 7,215 slaves and around 500 Free Blacks.

1770 – 1772     (7)     SEVENTH DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST

The Rebellions of the Roggeveld and Hantam. This area had a significant Khoena population (Guriqua/Chrigriqua) that had maintain their freedom and they lived in relative peaceful co-existance with the Cape San or /Xam whose main numbers were across the Sak River. By the Seventh Dutch-Indigene War the fight increasing became one involving warfare between the Commandos and the Cape San. The Trekboer incursions into the environmentally difficult territory of the Guriqua pastoralists which could not sustain new people and the Cape San territory which had thus far resisted a Colonial presence for over a century since Dutch settlement at Table Bay, caused great upheaval and destruction. These rebellions were intense conflicts and up-scaled the nature of warfare even although this was pretty much focussed in the Roggeveld and Hantam. Retribution from settlers and their early laissez-faire commandos was swift and brutal with public crucifixions and displays of dismembered bodies left in the sun to rota as deterrents. Many were also sent as prisoners to Robben Island. The rebellions heralded a new period of military crisis for the Dutch

1774       (8)     EIGHTH DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST

The First Genocide Curtain-Raiser Offensive – Over the next 25 years the nature of warfare was different to that of the earlier years in that during the 15 year period 1774 – 1789 the focus of the conflict was the Dutch mission to destroy and cleanse Bushmanland and the Mountainous territory through to the Eastern Cape by labelling the Cape San as non-human vermin that had to be exterminated. This in part happened by direct interventions of government orders and also by a culture that sprang up under the new General Commando system and among the settlers. Culpability for the Genocide must however be squarely placed on the shoulders of the Dutch VOC government who directly benefitted from the rent-tax paid by every settler famer in the approved loan farm scheme. Hundreds of “loan-farms” were approved in territories before, during and after wars of conquest.

Faced with environmentally inhospitable land beyond the northern frontier of the Central Cape the Trekboers were enchanted by the lush grass of the Camdeboo district where it also seemed that there was no Khoena and Xhosa resisters to oppose their occupation. They got a rude awakening when they came up against the fiercest resistance that colonists had ever experienced in their over one century occupation at the Cape because this was the heartland of the Cape San. So opened the bloodiest war ever on South African territory. The Europeans, to counter the fierce resistance, turned to Genocide and scorched-earth policies and practices. The objective was to exterminate the Cape San people. Around 30 000 Cape San were reduced to a few hundred over a 25 year period.

The General Commando system under a military Supremo known as a Veld Kommandant, the first of whom was Rudolf Opperman, established a formal militia system and conscripted pacified Khoena en masse into the Commandos alongside white soldiers.

The Modus Operandi  for the genocide practiced had two legs:- (a) all adult San had to be killed, male and female, in combat or not; and (b) teenaged girls could be seized by Khoena commandos to be concubines or brides and children were to be captured to be made farm apprentices and integrated into the Slave and ‘Baster-Hottentot’ labour force. However to gain a better perspective which shows that part (a) was the dominant approach only 258 child captives were formally registered over the first seven years of the ensuing wars during the most intense massacres.

A typical raids during this ‘Curtain Raiser’ of the genocide campaigns resulted in reported figures of 122 killed, 61 killed, 111 killed, 265 killed and so on in systematic massacres. The wounded were routinely shot in coup de grace style – men, women and children. There are records of conversations where Europeans boasted of their kill rates – one noting that he had personally killed 300 Cape San.

The Curtain Raiser War was just the beginning, and quickly the Dutch realised that this conflict with the Cape San was not going to be a push-over. Settlers started becoming refugees and the Commandos were just not coping. The previous approach of forcing treaties on indigenes was a non-starter.

1775 – 1777    (9)   THE NINTH DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST

The Second Genocide Offensive (Seekoei Massacre and Koerikei’s Triumph). This was a continuation of Veld Kommandant Opperman’s Offensive but it was also one war where the Cape San were the victors and put the settlers and Commandos on the retreat. It started in August 1775 when Adriaan van Jaarsveld’s Commando set up a sting operation. They killed a Hippo and left it on the Seekoei River bank so that they would lure the Cape San to come and feast and then feigned a retreat. When over 150 Cape San gathered for a feast that night, the Commandos attacked and massacred them in what became known as the Seekoei Massacre. This outrage spurred on the Cape San to launch their own offensive moving in on farms raiding large numbers of livestock and killing anybody who got in their way. The nature of war changed dramatically and casualties mounted. Opperman was out-matched, short on munitions and short on manpower and the rear forces of the settlers and VOC were slow in response. By the time that there was a response Van Jaarsveld’s Commando had abandoned the fight and retreated. The Sneeuberg and Camdebo settler communities were left exposed but a new defence team was cobbled together using different tactics and the war lulled to a stalemate scenario by 1777. Effectively it was a victory for the Cape San.

1781      KHOENA CONSCRIPTION: The idea of a regiment of pacified Khoena first arose during the early days of the commandos but the first such regiment of 400 collaborator Khoena was formed in this year known as the Corps Bastaard Hottentoten and was based in Cape Town to be used at the behest of the VOC authorities.

Later after the 1790s missionary stations particularly that of the Moravians, played a major role in pacification of the so-called ‘Bastard-Hottentots’, such as that established at Genadendal who actively facilitated the recruitment of Khoena soldiers who were used to carry out genocide attacks on the San and later in the wars against the Xhosa. The roots of the collaborator tradition that divided opinion among those who would later be classified as ‘Coloured’ which carried on right through to Apartheid was firmly established at this time.

The Corps Bastaard Hottentoten was disbanded a year later. By 1793 it was again established, this time known as the Corps van Pandoeren with 200 men including freed slaves. Once again it was disbanded and then reformed in 1796 with 300 men. These were then incorporated in 1801 into the Cape Regiment formed by the British. When the Batavian government took over from the British for a brief few years the Khoena regiment again went through a change and was called the Corps Vrye Hottentoten in 1803. Later its name changed again to the Hottentot Light Infantry. Once the British returned to take over the Cape permanently they formed the Cape Regiment in 1806 which included a cavalry element.

By 1817 there were two Khoena units – the Cape Cavalry and the Cape Light Infantry. In 1820 these were named the Cape Corps battalion of mounted infantry. After rebel Khoena soldiers participated in the Kat Rebellion in the early 1850s the battalion became a mixed white and ‘Coloured’ Corps and by 1870 it was decided to exclude ‘Coloured’ people from military service.

In 1878 the all-white Cape Mounted Rifles was established. Only in 1915 during the First World War were ‘Coloured’ men once more recruited into a reconstituted Cape Corps and after disbanding it the Cape Corps was resuscitated again in 1940 and disbanded in 1945. The Coloured Service Corps started up in 1947 was closed down in 1950. In 1963 in an attempt to drive a wedge between those the National Party called Bantu and those now classified ‘Coloured’, the Cape Corps became a full part of the SADF. Ten years later it was renamed the South African Cape Corps Service Battalion, and then in again renamed the South African Cape Corps Battalion.

These developments over the years played a divisive political role in the community labelled ‘Coloured’ and became a vehicle for Apartheid anti-black propaganda which was spread within communities classified as ‘Coloured’ and to assert and deepen control these were used actively in the SADF wars and terror campaigns across Southern Africa. It is a shameful part of history that must be faced honestly.

In the early 1820s opposition to the conscription into these became a grievance among the rebel Khoena resistance on the eastern frontier. In this period too these military units were used with great devastation by the colonial authorities against the Khoena-San alliance and against the Khoena-Xhosa resistance Confederacy.

1778 – 1789   (10)   THE TENTH DUTCH-INDIGENE WAR OF RESISTANCE & CONQUEST

The Ten Year San Struggle for Survival – The year 1778 was the year that the VOC Governor at the Cape realised that two centres of power had resulted from these long drawn out frontier wars. The Table Bay based official government was the dog being wagged by the tail. The ‘tail’ being the frontiermen and Commandos which had developed their own way of doing things despite the VOC at Table Bay. So Van Plettenberg embarked on a personal tour of the frontier and for the first time the frontier was mapped, formalised in terms of its limits and this was committed to paper. A consolidated Cape Colony was established with four formal districts that was to be defended by a formal military system answerable to the Governor of the Cape – Van Plettenberg.

Van Plettenberg’s decreeing of frontiers meant nothing to each of the indigene formations where land violation was taking place – the Namaqua, the Cape San and the Xhosa. The troublesome and uncontrolled northern and Eastern frontiers remained in crisis after van Plettenberg’s visit and demarcation exercise confirm the conquest of the Indigene peoples. Over the next ten years, encouraged by Plettenberg and his promise to flood the frontier districts with new migrant settlers, land grabs, theft of livestock and plunder continued with a new vigour by the colonists. The Cape San met the onslaught with vigour and determination even although the official death count for 1778 of San was over 500. The Northeastern mountains would continue to be a bloodbath for ten years and experience genocidal attacks on a grand scale.

From 1785 and over the next decade Commandos again and again launched campaigns. Conservatively researcher Adrian Leftwich puts the San war dead at 2500 San killed and 669 (children/young women) taken prisoner to become farm labour during this decade. The figure may well have been more like 14 000 given the frequency and extent of killing sprees. The conflict playing out with the San was occurring at the same time that colonial forces were fighting the second war against Xhosa resistance in the Zuurveld.

At the time of van Riebeeck the suggested figure for the Cape San across all areas was 30 000. By a century and a half later, around 15 000 were located held up in the mountainous regions and in Bushmanland. Since the onset of the genocide practice in both war and peace times until the 1790s it is likely that this figure of San was reduced to 1000 and by the mid-19th century the literal meaning of genocide was sealed.

The Aborigine Protection Society report to the British Parliament records testimony such as this one:

“I have heard one man, who is represented as an estimable character in other respects, declare, that within a period of six years, parties under his orders had either killed or taken 3,200 of these unfortunate creatures ; another has stated to me, that the actions in which he had been engaged had caused the destruction of 2,700. They had acted thus in compliance with the instructions of a government which not only violated all the principles of Justice and humanity by this indiscriminate massacre, but even acted in direct opposition to the plainest rules of policy and of common sense, by depriving the colony of the benefit which might have been derived from so useful a people.”

Other records with specific figures and anecdotal accounts of 2500 here and 500 there and 3000 on another occasion all suggest very high figures for those killed and other large figures for child captives spirited away.

Then Mohamed Adikari notes in his book on the genocide against the Cape San that his estimate of those killed is probably  8 000 to 10 000. I is my belief that even such may be low given the kinds of utterances by individuals about their ‘kill prowess’ during the days of the Cape San bloodbath and taking into consideration that the settler farmers themselves had their ‘posse’ groups who went about murdering and stealing. The fact is that after the year 1800 there wasn’t 30 000 Cape San any more in the Colony and the approximately 15 000 thought to be in the Northeastern mountain strongholds and in Bushmanland were less than a thousand, and later by the end of the 1800s were just a few hundred and a century later, literally there was no Cape San left. That is what genocide is! It is the extermination of a people!

Pressure also mounted on this area as the large populations of Khoena from the Breede River right through to the Fish River started to flee inland northwards to find refuge after European Settlers ravished their livestock, appropriated their land, forced them into conscription and farm labour alongside slave and meted out greatly cruelty. The Chainouqua had been decimated in the same manner as the Khoena on the Peninsula as were the Hessequa. The Inqua, Attaqua, the Gamtoos, the Hoengeyqua and the Gonaqua also suffered massacre and were put to flight and large waves of European settlers moved into their habitat supported by militia. Those that remained behind became pacified and were integrated with slaves on farms. Others joined forces with the Xhosa and the Zuurveld became the new holding ground and battleground.

Those Khoena that passed through Cape San territory often antagonised and preyed upon and attacked the Cape San as much as the Europeans did. A few joined in common cause with the Cape San in their fight against the Colonists but most trekked on to regroup and integrate in the Gariep communities. By 1787 pass laws and controls were introduced to all Khoena still in the Cape Colony and taxation was applied to all categorised as ‘Bastard-Hottentots’ namely Khoena who were the offspring of Slaves, Free Blacks and Khoena. A system was established called the ‘ingeboekte stelsel’ which controlled the process of assimilation of Khoena and captured San into the pacified indigene population. ‘So-called ‘Baster-Hottentots’ were also compelled to do military service in the Commandos and they participated in some of the worst of the genocide crimes against the Cape San.

Those refusing to participate were placed under arrest. Soon the pacified Khoena developed the same racist attitudes and practices towards the Cape San and the Xhosa as was to be found in European society and thus two traditions began within society that later became labelled ‘Coloured’ – a racist antagonist tradition against people regarded as ‘Black’ and ‘Bushie’ and on the other side a ‘liberationist’ tradition which saw cooperation between Khoena, San and Xhosa who engaged together as a family of people of colour in a common anti-colonial cause bonded by blood ties and ancestral ties and the experience of common resistance. It was these ten years that would cast the dye for intergroup relations and politics for the next two centuries.

The tenth war saw the remnants of the Khoena in the Cape Colony and their social formations and tribes, totally dismantled thereby completing the ethnocide and ethnic clearing of the original Cape Khoena tribes. As a result of what happened starting in 1787, by the third decade of the 19th century no Khoena tribes existed as formations in the Cape Colony anymore. This was a crime against humanity. Culture, dress, language, habitat and independent economy were all decimated. Remnants of this was all that was left and it mixed with the cultures of slaves and other migrants of colour with an element of European overlay. In the 1790s when missionaries appeared on the scene to acculturate pacified Khoena and dominant new European Christian overlay hammered out the Indigene traditions and only a feint crudified element remained alive.

During this ten year period of war the bulk of the combat was between the San and the Europeans, with some sporadic resistance breaking out among the Khoena, such as the Riviersonderend millenarian movement of Jan Parel which inspired revolt over a very wide area and even spread as far as the Roggeveld. There were also mini revolts involving unity between slaves and Khoena. On the Western frontier and up to the Gariep the state of rebelliousness passed from the Khoena to the revivalist and droster groups – the various  Oorlam groups such as the Afrikaners, the Basters, the Springboks and the still emergent Griquas. Retreating Khoena and mixed Khoena groups were excellent horsemen and marksmen.

During this ten year period of war even the San had acquired guns and were often better at using guns than many of their opponents. But by 1790 the San resistance had been overcome and to a large extent the genocidal onslaught decimated the resistance. They were reduced in number to probably less than 1000 and pushed to the more arid regions of the area mapped as Bushmanland.

1779 – 1781   (11)    THE FIRST UNITED XHOSA AND KHOENA WAR OF RESISTANCE

The 1st Zuurveld Contest.  The series of wars that started in 1779 and lasted for 100 years until 1879 are known variously as the Xhosa Resistance Wars or the Eastern Cape Frontier Wars. This inaccurately describes at least the first five of these Wars which were as much part of the Khoena Resistance as part of the Xhosa Resistance. It is also important to note this because of the historical mischief of dividing the Xhosa from their place in Khoena and San history using a crude division into Bantu/Nguni vs Khoena and San. Historically the Xhosa are a mixed ancestry people who developed in the Eastern Cape prior to the late Bantu/Nguni drift to this region. The Xhosa are a mix of Chobuqua Khoena, Cape San and early siNtu migrants from around the year 500. They were later more heavily influenced by the Nguni migrational drift into the region in around 1300 – 1400 AD. The language and culture of the early siNtu migrants and, the name that they were given by the Khoena and San – XHOSA, is clearly a sign of their early dominance by the Khoena and San. The latter movement into their territory by the Mpondo, Mpondomise and the Thembu impacted on their earlier identity which then took on new Nguni dominant features.

At the time of the first attempts to colonise territory jointly occupied by Khoena and southern Xhosa groups who were the most familial integrated through intermarriage and clan ties among the Xhosa with Khoena and San, where the resistance was jointly handled by Khoena and Xhosa forces. In the first five wars of the Eastern Cape the Khoena played a valiant role alongside Xhosa warriors.

Moving on from their defeat by the San in the Sneeuberg, Swarteberg and Nieuweveld, the Dutch-Boer commando under van Jaarsveld moved into the territory occupied by very mixed Khoena and Xhosa communities in the Zuurveld district which was occupied by the Gonaqua, Gqunukhwebe, Ntinde, Gwali, Dinge and the Mbala, and by the Rharabe Xhosa which by this time were the dominant grouping. Later the son of Rharabe, Ndlambe would become regent to the young Ngqika who later rebelled against him and collaborated with the British Colonial authorities in return for bolstering his position.

Trek-boer farmers had moved into the area and van Jaarsveld’s commando attempted to assist them to establish hegemony in the area by expelling all traditional African communities from the area and appropriating their cattle. In 1779 the Trek-boers were fleeing the area along the Bushmen’s River as the Xhosa and Khoena took action to halt their forward movement, settlement and cattle theft. This resulted in the first armed clashes between Trek-boers and indigenes.

Adriaan van Jaarsveld and his commando arrived in October 1780 and from this point the low level war became intense. By July 1781 van Jaarsveld claimed to be victorious and said that all indigene African forces had been driven out of the Zuurveld territory. The war in reality ended with a stalemate situation As history has shown, the Zuurveld was only cleared by the British under Graham using scorched earth and genocide tactics in 1811. Effectively van Jaarsveld’s exaggerated claims were an attempt to save face after his earlier defeat by the San.

The proof of the pudding was in the eating in that it would take a few more wars over three decades before Van Jaarsveld’s fanciful claims could be realised.

1789 – 1793   (12)    THE SECOND UNITED XHOSA & KHOENA WAR OF RESISTANCE

The 2nd Zuurveld Contest. Continuous raids took place on the herds of Xhosa and Khoena by the Trek-boers and on the Trek-boers by the Xhosa and Khoena. The Zuurveld was contested terrain where those that had been temporarily expelled quickly returned to challenge the European farmers. What ensued was a scenario of some Trek-boers making alliances with the dominant group against other groups also making their way back home after the last war. Barend Lindeque a Trek-boer and rebel frontier settler Coenraad de Buys (who had a Khoena wife) joined Ndlambe, the regent of the dominant Rharabe Xhosa, established within the Zuurveld, who waged attacks against the Gunukwebe allied with Gonaqua Khoena who had relocated back into the Zuurveld after having been expelled by van Jaarsveld’s commandos.

The Trek-boer frontier farmers who had returned to the northern Zuurveld in the face of unrest around them once again fled. Thus once again two government commandos from Graaff Reinet and Swellendam again tried to clear the Zuurveld of Xhosa and Khoena African communities. The attacks of these Dutch forces penetrated as far as the Buffalo River causing havoc in Xhosa and Khoena communities and stealing their cattle.

This continued until 1793 when a peace treaty was signed with the Dutch forces ceding that the Xhosa could not be forced out of the Zuurveld. As a result, settlers began revolting against VOC officialdom in 1795. Parallel to these events a civil war broke out within the Xhosa between Ndlambe the regent and his nephew Ngqaika.

1795        POPULATION STATISTICS: By 1795 the total Khoena in the entire mapped and boundaried Cape Colony was around 15 000 and were now known as ‘Baster-Hottentots’ with the vast majority in the Swellendam / Graaff Reinet / Zuurveld arena.

But there were also a probable equal number of Khoena who were located outside of the Cape Colony in Namaqualand and the Gariep district and in the shared territory of Xhosa and Khoena just outside of the Zuurveld and beyond. A better idea of the numbers within the entire Cape Colony of surviving Khoena would only be recorded in the 1860s where a proper scientific census was done. Just before the term ‘Coloured’ was used in census figures and all other terms dropped after 1836, according to the Aborigine Protection Society in London, the figure for Cape Khoena at that time was 33 000 and included the Gariep River territories, but more than half of these were of mixed slave and Khoena ancestry.

At that time there was a recorded population was 12 742 Europeans and locally born settlers and 14 810 slaves with the majority being locally born slaves and around 900 Free Blacks…. (a further category of ‘Prize Slaves’ was added after 1808, a these increased numbers substantially).

From the 1770s the slaves being imported were less and less from India and Southeast Asia, and mostly from East Africa. Masbieker slaves coming from the slaver station in Mozambique came from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi Tanzania, Madagascar and as far as Congo. These slaves had assimilated with pacified Khoena over a wide area to such a degree that Khoena and apprenticed San could no longer be seen as being very different from slaves. The colonists called them ‘Baster-Hottentots’ or just ‘Basters’.

1798 – 1799     THE NAMAQUALAND REBELLIONS: This was more of an eruption of conflict involving at times fights between three or four adversary groups at a time and then a coalescing of Namaqua, Orlams and San against the Boers as the influences of the eastern frontier resulted Indigene refugees trickling into the western region. Tensions had been building up in Namaqualand as a result of the crossing of paths between various groups each with intentions to improve their fortunes one way or another and much of these intents at the expense of the Namaqua.

The Namaqua and Cape San frequently clashed and so did Boer adventurers and fortune hunters like Adrian van Zyl and his sons, Jan Wiese, Petrus Pienaar and others resulting in clashes and serious loss of life. New Boer farmers were taking control of water supplies and keeping Namaqua away from access. Oorlam groups like that of Jager Afrikaner, the Koks and the Barends also played a role. All of the tension arose from plundering livestock and assaulting communities in the process. This tension was stirred into eruption when commando leaders started making a record of Namaqua names in a register of the population and the Namaqua believed that this was the first step toward enslavement.

The word went up that “they would defend themselves to the last or take flight rather than become slaves.” While these rebellions seemed to be ebbs and flows of flare-ups between different groups encroaching on each other it was all driven by colonial expansion involving the pushing of various peoples toward the Gariep River. When the tensions dissipated the conflict visited itself as attacks and counter-attacks of different Oorlam and ‘Baster’ groups on each other. And when that dissipated the aggression turned on the various Khoena and San communities on either side of the Gariep and in turn onto the Tswana and Sotho speaking groups northwards. The Gariep had now emerged as the potential border of the Cape Colony.

1800         THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD OF UPHEAVAL: The first two decades of the 19th century at the Cape Colony was a revolutionary period among indigenes and slaves. It saw the emergence of great leaders, revolutionary movements and revolt of various types. Men like Klaas and David Stuurman, Louis van Mauritius, Makhanda Nxele, Jager Afrikaner, Cornelius Kok, Barend Barends and Andries Waterboer had changed the terrain of struggle in remarkable ways. They also left us a narrative or voice of their struggle as had not been as clear before this time. This voice showed a wrestling with ideas and an understanding of the world beyond the Cape Colony and the influences of struggles of oppressed peoples beyond our shores.

The period also showed that indigenous communities were not locked in time, to the van Riebeeck era, or times before that, or into antiquity times. (It is unfortunate that many revivalist groups in the 21st century stereotype Khoena history and culture in pre-colonial times or van Riebeeck’s time whereas like any other people in the world they too progressed and their cultures progressed in time) Like all communities globally the Khoena and San were subject to the winds of change and adapted as people and adapted their cultures also to modern times. Certainly they too engaged modern weapons and tools of struggle. In some respects if we look at the Griqua political model, it was at one stage the most modern of developments of both the white and black opponents of British colonial rule.

ADAM KOK AND THE GRIQUA: Adam Kok I, was a manumitted Slave who had a farm called Stinkfontein, north of Piketberg  from 1771, where he amassed a following of his wife’s people the Grigriqua and refugee so-called ‘Hottentot-Basters’. A decade later he and his community were pushed off their farm by Boers and they moved north to settle at Kamiesberg in Namaqualand. By this time Adam Kok was a substantial leader of a large community of followers who were known as Bergenaar Basters who had very strong feelings about their independence. As the community grew, its original base which was Cape Khoena, Free Black, deserter slaves and descendants of relationships between these, grew further to include San, Sotho, Nama, Tswana, Xhosa, Korana and non-conformist Europeans.

There are many myths which erroneously claim that missions provided sanctuary for the Khoena and played a progressive part in Khoena resistance. This is simply not true. Except for one early aborted missionary endeavour, the missionaries only arrived on the scene in the 1790s three decades before the end of the 169 years of warfare on the Khoena and San and their role was to mop up, pacify and assimilate the Khoena and surviving Cape San together with free slaves and other migrants of colour into colonial society as ‘coloureds’. They also specifically targeted the rebellious Oorlam and Bergenaar Baster groups of Khoena revivalist refugees from the Cape colonial wars.

In  1801  London  Missionary  Society  (LMS)  missionaries  William Anderson and Cornelius Kramer engaged the Bergenaar Basters of Cornelius Kok 1 who succeeded Adam Kok and his ally Barend  Barends who had married into the Kok family and by 1804 the combined followers of Kok and Barends moved  to  Klaarwater  where the LMS set up a mission. Klaarwater was later renamed Griquatown after the Bergenaar Basters took on a new name which revived that element of their roots that linked to the Indigene Khoena – GRIQUA. The independent minded Griqua and the missionaries continuously clashed because the missionaries were intent on entrenching their political cause of pacification on behalf of the colonial government. This ultimately led to a split between East and West Griqualanders with Andries Waterboer and his dynasty emerging as leaders of the West Griqualand people. Waterboer was of San lineage and was a teacher and mission agent.

Between 1801 – 1828 and beyond the story of the Griqua and the two Griqualands, their struggles, alignments and betrayals was a major part of the history of the Camissa Footprint and the resistance story of people of colour. Griqualand was the first manifestation of an independent modern proto-nation territory/state in Southern Africa of people of colour. Indeed of all people. The Boer Republics had not yet emerged at this time. It has been the most coherent and enduring manifestation too of Cape Khoena revivalism ever. Although having spawn two streams it also remains one of the most united of Khoena revivalist traditions.

1801        UNITED KHOENA AND SLAVE REVOLT: Increasingly from this point on slaves too began to revolt. In the Roggeveld in December 1801 a combined force of pacified Khoena and Slaves involving 70 resisters rose up against their oppressive farmer. In these revolts the majority of slaves were now Africans from other territories across the continent. The difference between slave and those known as ‘Hottentot-Basters’, and difference between their working and living conditions was now negligible.

The slavery and Khoena interface gradually merged over the next 50 years when after the proclamation of Ordinance 50 giving Khoena freedom of movement and land tenure and, emancipation of slaves from slavery, together the survivors formed new communities alongside every white town. Along the routes of war and flight from the Colony, those now of mixed Khoena-Slave heritage survived on farms and in small towns, while surviving resister communities regrouped ultimately far northwest and northeast in either older communities like the Namaqua and Korana from which all Cape Khoena originally stem, or they formed new revivalist communities.

1804        THE STUURMAN GONAQUA SETTLEMENT: Governor Francis Dundas of the Batavian Commonwealth granted land to Klaas Stuurman and his Gonaqua followers to establish a permanent settlement in an attempt to buy them off. He also offered the Khoena better protected conditions of service on farms.

Klaas however, died before taking occupancy, but David immediately took charge and was recognised by the authorities represented by Captain Alberti as having a right to the location granted to his brother Klaas. The death of Klaas occurred during a buffalo hunting expedition.

The land given to the Stuurmans was situated on the Klein River east of the Gamtoos into which it flows. David’s people moved to the land in 1804. They were a group consisting of ten men and 32 women and children, but were soon joined by many others – Khoena seeking refuge and slave deserters. The Stuurman community were settled and lawfully entitled to own their land for the first time in decades. There were six other Kapteins who were awaiting similar settlement. A brief truce thus followed during which the Khoena resisters even returned some of the cattle taken in war.

The period of truce did not hold for long. Only one other Kaptein received land.

The frontier Trek-boers began making allegations against the Stuurmans from 1805 and these continued over the next few years. The land was referred to as a Gona kraal or Chief David Stuurman’s kraal and became a refuge for runaway Khoena farmworkers, slaves and conscripts into the militia. David Stuurman became a magnate for attracting displaced Gonaqua and at the same time developed close relations with Chief Chungwa of the Gqunukwebe.

The increasing recruitment of young Khoi men into military service was having a negative impact on Khoena communities and was pitting the Khoena against their amaXhosa allies and other Khoena and the San. The conscription issue was highly emotive for mobilising youth into the rebel fold. Chief David Stuurman’s small kraal broke every rule in the book and was a stumbling block for both the narrow interests of the Boer Frontiersmen and for the new British authorities in the Cape. David Stuurman’s vigorous anti-conscription efforts amongst the Khoena attacked the heart of a key strategy of the British who hoped to use the Khoena as a buffer against the amaXhosa.

1806        BRITISH RULE: The Cape now had ceased to be a Dutch VOC territory as in this year it fell under the Batavian Commonwealth as had all areas making up the Dutch company’s footprint from South Africa through to South Asia and Southeast Asia. The Batavian Republic had been established as a result of its attachment to France in 1798.

The Batavian Commonwealth representative at the Cape was Lieutenant-General Jan Willem Janssens who had just over 2000 soldiers including French marines and German and other Europeans. A major part of their forces were also people of colour – 600 Khoena troops in the Corps Vrye Hottentoten, 54 Free Black Javanese Mardijkers as vital artillery men with 16 field cannon and 100 slave auxiliaries to move the cannon over rough terrain. This dependency on people of colour for military defence was regardless of the fact that the European population was 25 000 strong.

In January the British arrived in Table Bay and proceeded to take the French aligned Cape of Good Hope by force. The battle of Blauuwberg ensued and Lt General Jan Willem Janssens, commander-in-chief of the military forces of the defence was forced to concede defeat to Lt General Sir David Baird, who had landed at Melkbosstrand.

In 1806 the population of the Cape Colony was 25 000 whites, 29 000 slaves, 1 200 Free Blacks and 18 000 ‘Hottentot-Basters’ of whom 500 were in Swellendam, 5000 in Stellenbosch and 8 947 in the Gamtoos and Graaff Reinet district of the Eastern Cape and the others were scattered across the long western frontier. The Gariep Khoena were not counted. The British invasion force who remained temporarily were just over 5000 soldiers in addition to the resident white population.

By this time the Khoena culture and institutions of self-governance were destroyed in the Cape Colony and over time traces of these was panel-beaten out of existence, with Khoena, freed slaves and Free Blacks being merged by the colonial authorities into one entity labelled as ‘Coloured’ by the time slavery was abolished in 1834.

1807 – 1808         DAVID STUURMAN REJECTS THE ‘STAFF OF OFFICE’: The abolition of the transoceanic slave trade came into being when the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act on 25 March 1807. This news and the stories of the impact of the slave revolution in Haiti and elsewhere reached the shores of Cape Town and spread among slaves and Indigene resisters alike. It impact was to be felt in Cape Town within 18 months.

In 1808 at Captain David Stuurman’s village alongside Bethelsdorp near the Gamtoos River he made a stand in refusing to accept the ‘Staff of Office’ from the local landdrost and spoke out about the pressganging of Khoena youth into becoming military conscripts in the colonial forces and the continuing mistreatment of Khoena farm labourers. Stuurman’s village was being used as a centre where war refugees, militia deserters and conscription dodgers were gathering to the consternation of the landdrost. Stuurman engaged in a face to face quarrel with a recruitment officer which antagonised the landdrost.

Bethelsdorp mission started by Dr Johannes van der Kemp differed from many other mission stations in that it attempted to blend with indigene culture and resisted the pressure asserted on it to facilitate military conscription and pacification. It was a small mission at that time that was fairly unsuccessful at attracting either Khoena or Xhosa, except those seeking refuge, largely because of the resistance dynamics of the time. The refugees would then move on to David Stuurman’s protection. It is from this unusual mission that a mythology of missions being refuges for Khoena escaping colonial oppression arose.

While a few temporal elements of the Bethelsdorp phenomenon can be cited for a couple of other missions, the general trend was that mission stations purpose was not as a refuge. Missions were clearly part of a pacification and control drive involving collaboration between church and colonial authorities. Rebel priests such as van der Kemp were curtailed and harshly treated. Dr van der Kemp was also an abolitionist of note who was hated by slave-owners and the authorities.

1799-1803      (13)     THE THIRD UNITED XHOSA & KHOENA WAR OF RESISTANCE

The War of the Klaas Stuurman & Chungwa’s Confederacy: The new Government of the First British Occupation at the Cape sent a contingent of British soldiers under Gen T P Vandeleur to crush a revolt by Boers in Graaff-Reinet in 1799.

General Vandeleur had met the Khoena on the road near Algoa Bay. Barrow describes when the Khoena were making their case to the British about their ill-treatment by the Boer frontiersmen. He says of Klaas Stuurman:

“One of the Hottentots called Klaas Stuurman, whom they had selected for their Chief, stepped forward, and, after humbly entreating us to hear him out, without interruption, began a long oration, which contained a history of their calamities and suffering uder the yoke of the Boers; their injustice, in first depriving them of their country, and then forcing their offspring into a state of slavery, their cruel treatment on every slight occasion, which it became impossible for them to bear any longer, and the resolution they had therefore taken to apply for redress, before the English troops should leave the country (the district). That their employers suspecting their intention, had endeavoured to prevent such an application by confining some to the house, threatening to shoot others if they attempted to escape, or to punish their wives and children in their absence.” After showing the General a young Khoena boy who was wounded by the Boers, Klaas stated: “This act among many others equally cruel, resolved us at once to collect a sufficient force to deprive the Boers of their arms, in which we have succeeded at every house which had fallen in our way. We have taken their superfluous clothing in lieu of wages due for our services, but we have stripped none, nor injured the persons of any, though we have yet a great deal of our blood to avenge.”

In April 1799 a Khoena-Xhosa Confederacy had been established to resist the continued advance of Trek-boers into Khoena and Xhosa territory and the raiding of cattle by these invaders. The Khoena were also incensed about the brutal behaviour on farms bordering their communities where Khoena had been pressed into labour alongside slaves. The united Khoena and amaXhosa forces swooped on farms throughout the Zuurveld down to Swellendam and right through to Oudtshoorn.

Commandos from Graaff-Reinet and Swellendam were then quickly mobilised to counter the attacks and the British and Boers were forced into an alliance of expediency.

The Khoena-Xhosa Confederacy was a nightmare for the colonists because they had done their best to inculcate among the Khoena that the Xhosa were not their people but part of a foreign invading force who meant them ill. Most Khoena in the region did not buy this false story because they knew that they were integrated with Xhosa, had families with the Xhosa, had language ties to a degree and, had a common experience of loss of land and livestock. Their cultures, religion and folk-stories were the same in many respects too. (The false story is still spread by those who cling to the collaboration tradition today even although it’s now dressed in radical ethno-nationalist and anti-black racist rhetoric).

Many of pacified Khoena, Slaves and mixed Khoena-slave labourers and military conscripts were also deserting the whites and joining in the resistance, while whites were abandoning their farms in the face of widespread Khoena revolt.

In 1801 the rebel Khoena under Klaas Stuurman, Hans Trompetter and Boesak carried out widespread raids. In the face of these highly skilled Khoena rebel fighters the commandos made no headway, facing defeat wherever they tried to attack. Before the British government ceded the Cape Administration to the Batavian Republic in early 1803 a peace favourable to the Khoena was signed by Klaas Stuurman. Both the Khoena and the Xhosa could not be made to leave the Zuurveld and there was an agreement for all Khoena to have written contracts and better working conditions. Klaas Stuurman’s negotiation stance from a position of strength was:

“Restore the country of which our fathers were despoiled by the Dutch and we have nothing more to ask. We have lived very contentedly before these Dutch plunderers molested us, and why should we not do so again if left to ourselves? Has not the Groot Baas (God) given plenty of grass roots, and berries and grasshoppers for our use; and, till the Dutch destroyed them, an abundance of wild animals to hunt? And will they not return and multiply when these destroyers are gone?”

The issues of this war became socio-political and economic as Khoena were now not just fighting about land, livestock and resources. They also were making demands for an end to conscription of Khoena, for freedom of movement and for a halt to the violence and ill treatment of farmworker Khoena and slaves.

1808       THE GREAT SLAVE UPRISING – The ‘Jij’ Rebellion of 25 October 1808 led by Louis van Mauritius: This was the largest slave uprising ever at the Cape in which Khoena and slaves participated.

On 25 October 1808 a slave revolt took place at the Cape, remembered as the ‘Jij Rebellion’ led by the slaves Louis of Mauritius and Abraham van der Kaap and took on a military style campaign though short lived. The Haiti influence was clear to be seen. On two days, over 326 slaves, many Masbiekers, including a few indentured Khoena labourers and two Irish sailors participated in an organised rebellion plotted at a Camissa waterfront tavern and launched from the Swartland wheat-belt. The leader of this rebellion was a 30 year old slave by the name of Louis van Mauritius, who had first arrived at Camissa in 1881 as a 3 year old child.

In 1791 the slave rebellion that broke out in St Dominique in the Caribbean which by its successful conclusion in 1804 claimed over 300 000 lives on both sides. Led by Toussaint l`Overture against the French colonists the revolution established the first black republic of rebel slaves which they name the Republic of Haiti. In 1794 the abolition of slavery declared in France and the Maroon War in Jamaica in the same year by runaway slaves followed by the Feron Slave Revolt of 1796 in Grenada in the Caribbean against the British sent ripples throughout the slave-reliant colonial world including the Cape. Another conflict that had an impact on all British colonies was the United Irishmen`s Rebellion which erupted against British Rule in Ireland and the first British governor at the Cape in 1806 had been in Ireland during this rebellion in command of the Dragoons which later put down the revolt by Louis of Mauritius. These tales were related to Louis of Mauritius and Abraham van de Caab and set the scene for the Cape’s biggest slave revolt and subsequent largest ever ‘Treason Trial’ after it was crushed.

Those in revolt had in a short period and in a relatively well organised campaign, not without serious problems, taken over 40 farms and captured the farmers and their families, with little violence, covering Malmesbury and Swartland areas, Blouberg, and Tygervalley and managed to reach the outskirts of Cape The treason trial recorded the fine details and labelled the revolt a ‘rebellion and evil deed’. A statement by Abraham van der Caab was raised in court to defined the revolt –  “tomorrow when the bloody red flag of battle goes up and the fight for freedom is complete, you will be able to address your owners as Sij (she) or Jij (you).” Slave owners were entitled not to be addressed familiarly or equally as ‘you`. They were only to be addressed as ‘master` or ‘thou`. The central point in the trial illustrates clearly the motive for the rebellion – a fight for ‘equality` – symbolised by the expression of familiarity   ‘sij’ (she) ‘Jij`(You). It is the simple usage of the words ‘she’ and ‘you’ that became the baring of the standard in the fight for ‘equality and freedom`.

Sixteen of the rebels were condemned to death by the Court. The Governor, Lord Caledon intervened to commute 11 of the death sentences. Louis van Mauritius, Hooper – one of the Irishmen, Abraham van der Kaap and Jephta of Batavia were sentenced to hang for their leadership of the act of rebellion. Cupido of Java who had committed the purely criminal offence of rape was also sentenced to death. Louis boldly managed to escape from prison after he was condemned but he was apprehended and returned by a reward seeker. Louis’ wife Anna died during the trial after becoming ill with stress.

Another 46 slaves were given various heavy sentences including imprisonment on Robben Island. Many of these slaves were from Mozambique – the Masbiekers who were the most down-trodden of slaves at the time. The other slaves and Khoena who participated in the revolt were given over to their owners for “correction” by Governor Lord Caledon.

While the ‘Jij’ rebellion failed in its mission, it resulted in major changes in the Cape. Slaves began to stand up for themselves more and more. Slave owners were more aware that they could be challenged and that the slavery system had a limited shelf life. The authorities were forced to come up with systems to hear and deal with complaints of slaves. More and more smaller acts of challenge by slaves occurred and another revolt took place in 1825. An abolitionist movement even developed amongst the white settlers. History shows that Louis and the rebels made an indelible impact on slavery conditions and its eventual demise at the Cape.

(Those who try to separate Cape Slavery history and slave ancestors from Khoena and San heritage do a great injustice. Firstly had it not been for procreation with the numerically larger numbers of slaves (after the ethnic cleansing by colonists) many Khoena lineages and San lineages would have been lost. The so-called ‘Baster-Hottentot’ phenomenon was key to the survival of the Indigenes. Secondly there were many joint acts of resistance to colonialism where Khoena and slaves fought alongside each other).

1809     INTRODUCTION OF THE ‘Hottentot Proclamation’: The Caledon Codes – In this year the Caledon Code or more accurately the Hottentot Proclamation (sometimes called the Hottentot Code) was passed to control the free so-called ’Hottentot’ or  ‘Hottentot-Baster’ labour force on farms by taking away their freedom of movement. The code said that all ‘Hottentots’ now had to have a fixed abode and required a ‘pass’ from the farmer controlling the fixed-abode to move about freely. Effectively it formalised the earlier de facto extension of the pass regulations from slaves to Khoena. The code also made labour contracts compulsory and that these had to be registered by the farmers. It furthermore set conditions under which an employer could withhold wages for goods supplied by ‘Hottentot’ labour. The proclamation extended to all people regarded as ‘Coloured’ and further extended taxation to such. It was the first steps of the Cape Colony embracing Liberal Capitalism as its economic modus. It would only be repealed and replaced by a new Liberal Capitalist ordinance in 1828. But as with all British laws little proviso’s were later added to deal with child labour.

Just as Khoena society and its means of struggle and its cultures had now changed dramatically since 1652 and before, so too had the methods of control and oppression changed.

In 1811 in an attempt to appease the growing protest and revolt among the Khoena about the cruelty and violence of farmers towards Khoena labour, the British introduced a Proclamation instituting ‘Circuit Courts to investigate and prosecute farmers engaging in violence and cruelty against the Khoena labourers on their farms.

Then in 1812 the ‘Hottentot Proclamation’ was varied by the ‘Apprenticeship of Servants Act’ that allowed for the apprenticeship and employment without pay of free ‘Coloured’ children if the child was an orphan, or destitute, or had grown up on a farm. This covered all children born of slave and Khoena relationships on farms and it also covered kidnapped San children after their parents were killed in genocide raids, until the age of 25. This was a codification of earlier apprenticeship controls introduced by the Dutch going back to 1775. War was not the only means that was used to control Indigenes and often government moves and legislation was dressed up in a manner to project that it was in fact ‘PROTECTING’ Indigenes whereas it was the opposite. This practice has continued right up to the present day and there were always those among the Indigenes who naively supported such moves.

1811-1812       (14)   THE FORTH UNITED XHOSA AND KHOENA WAR OF RESISTANCE 

The British Scorched Earth Campaign in the Zuurveld: The British government at the Cape government sent Lt-Col Richard Collins in 1809 to tour the frontier areas and afterwards based on his recommendations a decision was taken to expel all Xhosa and Khoena from the Zuurveld and that this be densely settled by European settlers while the area between the Fish and the Keiskamma Rivers should become an unoccupied land with no occupants whether settler nor indigenes.

In 1811, Lt Colonel John Graham allied with Landrost Anders Stockenstroom of Graff Reinet swooped on the Zuurveld with an army made up of British, Boers and pacified Khoena and drove out every man, woman and child numbering over 20 000 Gqnukwebes, Ndlambe Xhosa and other Khoena across the Fish River. They were supported by the local commandos of Swellendam, George and Uitenhage. Colonel Graham was recognised by the colonial authorities by having a new frontier town named after him – Grahamstown. Also joining the 500 British troops were 700 pacified Khoena troops in the Cape Regiment also under Col Graham’s command.

Governor Cradock instructed Lt Colonel John Graham to efficiently carry out a scorched earth approach so as to ensure, “the expediency of destroying the Kaffir kraals, laying waste their gardens and fields and in fact totally removing any object that could hold out to their chiefs an inducement to revisit the regained territory.”

Lt Colonel John Graham in his own words written to his father said, “The only way of getting rid of them is by depriving them of the means of subsistence and continually harassing them, for which purpose the whole force is constantly employed in destroying the prodigious quantities of Indian corn and millet which they have planted…. Taking from them the few cattle which they conceal in the woods….and shooting every man who can be found… As to fighting, it is out of the question; we are forced to hunt them like wild beasts.” At another time he told Governor Cradock that “the most effectual measure….would be to pursue parties of plundering Kaffirs to the kraal they belong to, and if possible, burn their huts and destroy every man Kaffir it contains.” Record has it that the ageing Chief Chungwa was killed in his hut while asleep.

It is a shameful blot on Khoena history that the pacified Khoena forces were brutal participants in these massacres, just as they had been with the San. Much of the present hostility by some ‘Coloured’ people in modern times against black people is rooted in this collaboration of some Khoena at that time with colonialists against other Khoena, the San and the Xhosa allies.

The British, Boer and collaborator Khoena forces did not have it all their way. The Xhosa and rebel Khoena forces put up much resistance. In one of the battles Anders Stockenstrom was killed. Word went out that Chief David Stuurman was said to have been responsible for the Stockenstroom death and thus his profile as a formidable foe increased. In January 1812 Stuurman’s ally Chungwa was killed and Stuurman then allied with Ndlambe of the Rharabe amaXhosa retreated across the FishRiver.

John Campbell of the London Missionary Society who visited the Zuurveld in 1813 said, “Formerly it was strewn over with Kaffir villages, but now not a living soul is to be found. Universal stillness reigns.” The prosperous settled southern Xhosa and Khoena and Khoena advanced farming communities were brutally destroyed to facilitate white settlement and left a legacy of poverty in the Eastern Cape.

Again the colonialists were able to hold the ground gained in war through the collaboration of the Xhosa leader Ngqaika who signed a treaty with Lord Charles Somerset. This resulted in the antagonism of Ndlambe and further civil conflict between Ndlambe and Ngqaika supporters. Out of this cauldron arose a remarkable spiritual and military leader known as an Itola – Makhanda also called Nxele, the son of a Khoena mother – a diviner, and a Xhosa father.

The British expelled massacred and pushed out of the Zuurveld its former 22 000 combined free Khoena and amaXhosa inhabitants. Although the fourth frontier war had concluded, David Stuurman and his men continued a war of the flea and he remained amongst the amaXhosa. Over the years snippets of information, such as an account by the missionary Read in 1816 continued to reach the authorities in the Colony which simply showed that Stuurman was still around and a force to be reckoned with. He continued to receive escaped slaves and deserters from the pacified Khoena in the colony.

1818-1819       (15)     THE FIFTH UNITED XHOSA AND KHOENA WAR OF RESISTANCE

Makhanda and David Stuurman’s War: Following Ngqaika’s defeat by Ndlambe in 1818, Nqgaika asked the colonial authorities for assistance in his efforts to gain ascendency in the civil conflict among the Xhosa. As a result in December 1818 the British colonial forces invaded the Xhosa territory agreed upon by the last treaty. By December they had defeat Ndlambe. When the British departed, a united force of Xhosa dismayed at Ngqaika’s collaboration with colonists against his own people, supported Ndlambe in defeating Nqgaika.

In December 1818 Ngqaika and the British forces launched an attack on Ndlambe’s warriors to teach them a lesson. When they left, however, Ndlambe was again able to defeat Gaika, and then assembled a large army led by the his now powerful and popular military adviser, Makhanda, and took the war of resistance into the Colony and with up to 10 000 men attacked Grahamstown in April 1819. The attack was repulsed with the help of a pacified Khoena collaborator Jan Boezak and 180 of his men returning from a hunting expedition. At a low point for the British garrison, running out of ammunition, Boezak saved the day for the British at Grahamstown and allowed British reinforcements to defeat Ndlambe and push their control back as far as the Kei River.

Makhanda, concerned about the Xhosa losses, surrendered and was imprisoned on a British ship and taken to Robben Island. Makhanda is quoted as telling the British “People say that I occasioned this war. Let me see if by giving myself up it will restore the peace”.

This was also the last of the great resistance war efforts of the Khoena now reduced to guerrilla allies to the amaXhosa. David Stuurman had also made his last stand against the British during this 5th Xhosa War of Resistance in which the remnants of the old Klaas Stuurman Xhosa-Khoena Confederacy continued a Guerrilla War against the British. Indeed right through the Xhosa Wars of Resistance there would always still remain a Khoena resistance element. This came dramatically to the fore during the Kat River Rebellion in 1853. It also came to the fore during the time

The 5th Xhosa-Khoena Resistance War was really the beginning of a different kind of resistance of Khoena, with the exception of the Kat River Rebellion, and as with the guerrilla warfare of Khoena Bergenaar commanders such as Uithaalder and Hans Branders who kept large British forces pinned down for two years. The Khoena rebels, though certainly not with mass followings, would continue to play a heroic role in a different kind of resistance in the Eastern Cape. They would remain allied with the amaXhosa throughout, understanding the need for united African resistance and thus breaking ranks with those Khoena who succumbed to missionary indoctrination that they were superior to other Africans and were a brown race, set apart.

Chief David Stuurman pioneered guerrilla warfare in this 5th war by bringing together the mixed band of Khoena, so-called ‘Hottentot-Basters’ and escaped slaves. This would bring to the end an era of 164 years of wars of resistance and opened a new era – from 1659 until Stuurman was sent to banishment in Australia in 1823. Great acts of Khoena, Orlams, Namaqua and Griqua resistance joined with revolts in communities in some mission stations would carry the resistance traditions forward in the 19th century, but war as defined as soldiers going head to head had come to an end for the Khoena and the San defending their own territory. The guerrilla cations that followed were by a people that no longer had a secure place to call their own, nor very well defined support communities.

David was taken to Cape Town along with Makanda and other amaXhosa prisoners of war on 22 December 1819 on board the ship Queen and sent to Robben Island.

In October 1819 the Xhosa leaders were forced to recognise Ngqaika as primary leader of the amaXhosa. Ngqaika and Lord Somerset then made a gentlemen’s agreement whereby the area between the Fish and the Keiskamma Rivers, with the exception of the Tyume Valley held by the Xhosa, would be a neutral zone free of both Xhosa or European settlers. No free Khoena or San land or communities or structures existed in the Cape Colony any longer.

1820          MASS BRITISH SETTLEMENT AND COLONIAL SOCIAL ENGINEERING: In this watershed year the British landed 5000 British Settlers in the Eastern Cape to consolidate their hold over the resisting amaXhosa. In the same year all of the resistance leaders – Khoena and Xhosa were incarcerated on Robben Island.

1820          THE GREAT ESCAPE BY KHOENA AND XHOSA PRISONERS OF WAR: In August 1820 a convict at the Robben Island Prisoner of War compounds, Johan Smit, planned a dramatic escape with Khoena leader Hans Trompetter and others. They overpowered and disarmed a sentry and then freed a number of other prisoners who broke into the armoury and released and armed even more prisoners. Amongst these was Makhanda, the great warrior prophet who had been captured in the fifth frontier war of resistance and the Khoena leader, Chief David Stuurman.

After a gunfight with the prison guards in which one was killed and others wounded, some 30 prisoners made their way to the whaler’s boat station. Here they split into three groups each with an escape boat. The boat carrying Trompetter, Stuurman and Makhanda overturned in the heavy surf at Bloubergstrand. Only four escapees survived, amongst them Trompetter and Stuurman. The great resistance hero Makhanda, the prophet warrior of Gonaqua and amaXhosa heritage was drowned. He is reported to have clung to the capsized boat, shouting encouragement to the others before disappearing under water. The boat commanded by Johan Smit made it to shore with all its escapees, but the boat commanded by Holmes also overturned and only three survived.

The escapees were hunted down. Of the 30 that escaped, fourteen had drowned, twelve were recaptured, two were killed and only two evaded capture. The main conspirators who had organised the break out were hanged while others were flogged and branded and had their years of imprisonment extended. Chief David Stuurman was spared death because of an act of mercy shown toward a Mr Bryant during the escape in which Bryant’s life was spared. However he was sentenced to be transported for life to the penal settlement in New South Wales in Australia.

1823      BANISHMENT OF THE LAST GREAT KHOENA RESISTER:

Chief David Stuurman was banished to Sydney in Australia.

Until the ship Brampton departed for Australia on 25 February in 1823, Chief David Stuurman was sent back to Robben Island for the third time. Chief David Stuurman was the only person to have successfully escaped from Robben Island – and he did so on two occasions. David Stuurman and Jantjie Piet were the only two Khoena at that time to be sent to Sydney on 22 April 1823.

A number of people argued for Chief David Stuurman’s release and return to South Africa. Amongst them the philanthropist Saxe Bannister and another philanthropist and journalist Thomas Pringle who wrote an article for the New Monthly Magazine in 1828 wherein he recorded the long struggle of David Stuurman with the colonial authorities. In 1831 there was an order for the release of Chief David Stuurman but it was too late. In 1830 a year after the relaxation of his prisoner conditions, the last of the great Khoena resistance leaders in the Eastern Cape had died.

In this year Lord Governor Somerset issued a proclamation liberalising conditions of slavery so that slaves could have the right to marry and be baptized as Christians. Working hours were regulated and slave children under ten years old could not be sold. The testimony of Christian slaves also was now accepted in a court of law. The issue of slave children not being sold made a mockery of the fact that the British Parliament had already abolished trading in slaves altogether, some 18 years previously and illustrates that one has to not accept legislation or records to be an accurate reflection of reality when evaluating the past.

1825    GALANT’S SLAVE AND KHOENA REVOLT: In this year Galant, a young slave of 25, led a rebellion involving 12 slaves and ‘Khoena-Baster’ labourers, killing his master and two other Boers.

The Khoena in the Koue Bokkeveld had been defeated by the Trek-Boers and their commandos many decades earlier and much of the bitterness still remained as had the cruel behaviours of farmers first adopted on the massacre drives. Galant had regularly been beaten and locked up and had his property stolen by his master. Galant had reported this to the authorities repeatedly without redress. He could not take the abuse anymore and organised his fellow slaves and apprenticed Khoena labourers to revolt.

Galant and the others were captured after a fight in the mountains, put on trial, convicted and executed. The Galant uprising is simply an example of waves of such unrest that was occurring at this time.

1828     PROCLAMATION OF ORDINANCE 50: This was the final death knell of the distinct Cape Khoena Identity. It was the first step toward the declaration of Khoena, freed-Slaves and other non-Xhosa persons of colour in the Cape Colony to be ‘Coloured’. By 1836 only the term ‘Coloured’ appeared in the statistical records. (In the first formal Census of 1865 there is a once off reverting to separation of figures for ‘Hottentot’ and ‘coloured’)

Ordinance 50 repealed the Hottentot Proclamation of 1809, allowing ‘Hottentots’ and so-called ‘Hottentot-Basters’ and all free persons of colour, freedom from carrying passes or adherence to pass laws (still in practice for other Africans), granting the right to land ownership, freedom from compulsory conscription into military service, and freedom from being flogged for labour offences. It also stipulated limitations on labour contracts. It would remain in place until 1841 when it was superseded by the Masters and Servants Ordinance.

But the damage of 169 years of warfare and degradation had been done and a culture, language, land, livestock and resources had been lost forever. Nothing was returned.

Legislated controls over the lives of people of colour were now commonplace and this year marked an end of one era and beginning of another where political struggle would come into the ascendency. Politics was war or resistance by other means.

By 1836 the statistics no longer recognised Cape people of colour by separate categories of Hottentot-Baster, Slaves, Prize Slaves and Free Blacks. All are from this year called ‘Coloured’ . (until a once-off change in 1865)

CONCLUSION:    KHOENA & SAN RESISTANCE: From this point rebellions and challenges such as that of the Kat River Rebellion, the East Griqualand insurrection and many others, or further support by Khoena in the Xhosa frontier wars of resistance such as that of Hans Branders in Mqoma’s war would continue but the deportation of David Stuurman and the death of Makhanda brought to a close a long protracted era of Indigene Resistance Warfare.

The amaXhosa Wars (war 6 to 9), the Zulu Wars and other resistance efforts continued the resistance war tradition first started by the Cape Khoena and Cape San. Those first 169 years of resistance (1659 – 1828) was the longest, bloodiest and most resilient of all resistance to colonialism ever seen in Southern African history, indeed anywhere in Africa accompanied by Genocide at the hands of colonists never seen elsewhere in Africa to this degree except in German controlled West Africa – yet this story was largely omitted from history books and continues to be omitted.

FINAL NOTE ON POPULATION STATISTICS: In 1795 we find reference to around 18 000 Khoena/Baster Hottentots in the Cape Colony, then in 1837 the Aborigine Protection Society references 33, 000 in a Report to the British Parliament and thereafter Khoena, Slaves, Prize Slaves and Free Blacks are recorded as ‘Coloureds’ from 1838.

But then in the very first Census done in modern scientific format in 1865 and presented to Parliament in 1866 there is a reversion to separating ‘Hottentots’ (‘Baster-Hottentot’) from ‘Other’ – denoting other persons of colour and, two separate figures are given. This does not happen in later years. So in 1865 the population breaks down as:

WHITE     (Europeans, Locally Born & soldiers)               181 592
'OTHER' PERSONS OF COLOUR  
former slaves, Free Blacks & Migrants of colour              132 655
'KAFFERS’ (amaXhosa within the Colonial boundary)            100 536
'HOTTENTOTS’ (‘Hottentot Basters’)                            81 598

 TOTAL     POPULATION – CAPE COLONY                          255 760

Between 1865 and 1904 migration of Europeans and migration of persons of colour, particularly Africans from outside of South Africa who were assimilated into the ‘Coloured’ population by the authorities in 1904, kept apace and ever increased. (Colonial authorities took a decision to incorporate ‘Masbiekers’ into the ‘Coloured’ population rather than ‘Native’ [Black] population).

It would thus be fair to say that the ratio of Khoena to ‘other persons of colour’ designated as ‘Coloured’ was 1:2 or one third of the future totals. The Khoena as a result of the 169 years of war was the only population (other than the San) that reduced in numbers (by three fifths) from their original numbers at the time of van Riebeeck.

Europeans grew from 90 persons to 181 592 by 1865 and, Khoena from 200 000 persons reduced to 81 598 of whom three quarters were likely to have mixed roots with slaves and others. Such was the effects of the crime of Ethnocide against the Khoena.

In the case of the Cape San the numbers reduced from 30 000 at the time of van Riebeeck to around 25 in the 1970s, to just one or two very old souls left in the 21st century who directly link to the Cape San as a result of Genocide.

REFERENCE READING:

My notes are a teaching aid. I encourage all to read the full original research on which the teaching aid is based:

• The Forgotten Frontier by Nigel Penn; Ohio University Press; 2005

• The anatomy of a South African Genocide – the extermination of the Cape San Peoples; Mohamed Adikari; UCT Press 2010

• The Struggle for the Eastern Cape 1800 – 1854 by Martin Legassick; KMM, Johannesburg 2010

• KhoiKhoi and the Founding of White South Africa by Richard Elphick; Raven Press, Joburg 1985
• Seven Khoi Lives by Karel Schoeman; Protea, 2009
• Early Slavery at the Cape of Good Hope 1652 – 1717 by Karel Schoeman; Protea, 2007
• Breaking the Chains by Nigel Worden and Clifton Crais; Wits UP, 1994
• Slavery, Emancipation and Colonial Rule in South Africa by Wayne Dooling; UKZN, 200
• Children of Bondage by Dr Robert C-H Shell; Wits UP; Johannesburg 1994/199
• Slavery in South Africa – Captive Labour on the Dutch Frontier; Elizabeth A Eldredge & Fred Morton; UNP, 1994
• The House of Phalo by Jeff Peires; Johnathon Ball; Johannesburg & Cape Town, 2003
• The Khoekhoe soldier by VC Malherbe; Military History Journal – Vol 12 No 3; 2002
• David Stuurman: Last Chief of the Hottentots by Susan Newton-King & VC Malherbe; WUP; Johannesburg, 1980
• The day Cape Slaves made themselves masters – The 1808 Rebellion a dramatic shift in the nature of resistance by Nigel Worden; Cape Times; 2008
• Records of the Cape Colony by George McCall Theal (36 Vols); Slave Revolt and Trial-Volume 20; London; 1900

RESPONSE TO THE CULTURAL INSULT IN THE MARAIS BOOK – “O’s is!” / “We are!”

This is a piece which I wrote in response to a comment on Facebook by someone expressing irritation that we are, as he put it, “MOANING” about a book written by an unapologetic white South African woman – Rainbow Nation Navigation: A Practical Guide to South African Cultures in which she stereotypes and engages in insulting and hurtful remarks as to what constitutes ‘Coloured Culture’ in South Africa. The commenting individual, another white South African, critical of the protest voice, tells us that we should be countering by explaining what is the culture of people labelled ‘Coloured’ as if to say that it is our duty to educate the white South Africans who engage in such insult. We have no such duty….. we need to prove nothing to those who operate from a racist paradigm.

Here is simply, in the face of insult, how we can celebrate who we are as a people who are a vibrant part of South African life. Neither the stream of insults in this book nor our being labelled as ‘Coloured’ – a term that certainly does not say who we are, but rather emphasizes what we are not, will ever take away our part of the greater South African heritage and reduce it to the benal.

 

In Praise of Camissa Culture – “O’s is” / “We are!”

We are a people born in and of Africa, combining Indigene, Pan-African, South Asian and Southeast Asian coming together, with a touch of the qualities of those Europeans who accepted our embrace – our dna is the most diverse in the world.… “O’s is!”

We are a people inspired by the fortitude of our Indigene Khoena, San, amaXhosa and other African forebears and their ancient cultures and wisdom which beats in our hearts and soul and still stirs the passion in us which is infectious to all we encounter….”O’s is!”

We are a people of great endurance with an amazing ability to rise up above adversity having survived 14 Indigene wars of resistance over 164 years against an ethnocidal and genocidal colonial onslaught and, engaged in many acts of resistance and revolt against enslavement and the brutal existence as slaves…. “O’s is!”

We are the descendant people of the life sustaining Camissa River, with its many tributaries and springs, who, at the Shoreline Frontier, embraced and sustained all, but were brutally ravished by some…. “O’s is!”

We are proud that into the embrace of our stream came banished resisters from the territories with ancient cultures, stomped over by the Dutch VOC and, refugees and economic migrants of colour from afar –

• skilled Southeast Asian craftsmen,
• exiled scholars of faith from Indonesia,
• Chinese with ancient cultures and medicinal skills,
• Masbiekers with their way of the Ngoma and farming skills,
• refugee Manillas with their revolutionary Philippine resolve,
• the Kroomen, Lascar and Seedee Mariners who laid the foundations of our maritime industry,
• Indian and Bengali traders, craftsmen, technicians and teachers,
• The Saints from St Helena with their own tapestry of culture,
• The African-American and Caribbean Pan-Africanists with their journalism and liberating ideas
• Indentured labourers from across Africa and the British Empire who propped up a downward spiraling economy and turned it around

and so many more thousands of migrants of colour who built the foundations of South Africa’s economic success, but were treated with disdain and robbed of the fruit of our labours and our intellectual contribution denied….“O’s is!”

We are conscious that without the crucial input in terms of education, skill and back-breaking labour by our forebears and ourselves, there would be neither magnificent Cape Town, nor South Africa…. “O’s is!”

We are conscious that like the river and its tributaries we and our rich vibrant culture too were forced underground and layer upon layer of alienating superstructure hid ‘the real us’ from sight…. “O’s Is!”

We are conscious of the fact that like the underground river, we the people of the water (//amma) continued to have life and vibrantly flowed and gushed forth in springs across Cape Town, and our vibrancy could never be ignored… “O’s is!”

We are proud that in the Slave Lodge of old, our forebears came up with the first foundations of an education system for South Africa; its craftsmen left us with exquisite antique furnishings and finishes on buildings that leave beholders in awe;  the first local play was written here by a slave; and the oldest piece of local education literature was bequeathed us by a slave in his own handwriting…. “Os is!”

We are aware that we continued over the centuries in our creativity; we have a legacy of creating a language – Afrikaaps which others copied; we have produce literary giants; we have a cuisine legacy – unique in first putting fusion cooking on the map when we blended African, Malagasy, Indian and Southeast Asian cuisine; we have contributed a rich legacy in dance, ballet, opera, theatre, music composition and performance, creative writing and so much more – and others copied us.… “O’s is!”

We are conscious, whether in our homes, in educational institutions, in commerce and industry, on the stage, on the sports-fields or in the streets we notably stand out exactly because of the amazing and recognizably unique stamp of our Camissa Footprint in our land…. “O’s is!”

We are known as a spiritual people who pay great attention to our spirit through our diverse expressions of faith – Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Animist, Syncretic or Secular and the qualities in us, born of our faith interacting with our life experiences over time, often despite great pain and tears has given us strength, fortitude, joyousness and ability to laugh at and with ourselves in rising above adversity. “O’s is!”

And when we laugh and make others laugh with our ambidextrous take on life, we are not fools, we are celebrating amazing triumphs and deep wells of tears, and our survival from lives past and present that should have crushed us but didn’t. “O’s is!”

We are painfully aware that we have have struggled quietly with the pains of substance abuse, which has a long history rooted in a tot-en-tabac system first introduce by the Dutch VOC to the 402 child slaves landed in 1658 and copied to date by farmers intent on pacifying us; we have continuously wrestled with this artificially induced cancer and while it still wreaks havoc, most of us survived…. “O’s is!”

We are a people who are family orientated and love our get-togethers and celebrating our achievement and survival, even when dysfunctionality has often blighted us through the assault of slavery on family life, massacres of our indigene forbear families and enslavement of Khoena and San children, continuous forced removals over four centuries, substance abuse and other social ills that befell us as a result of ghettoization… “O’s is!”

We are always in hearty celebration of life. We laugh because there has been too much crying. We sing and rejoice and we love and we hope – and we are noticed for it – and if you ask us why, we will tell you…”O’s is!”

“O’s is!”    “We are!”

Wayde van Niekerk and Akani Simbine making up the winning 100m team during the 2016 CAA 20th African Senior Championships at the Kings Park Athletic stadium in Durban, South Africa on June 24, 2016

THE LONG MARCH TO FREEDOM – OUR STORY IS YOUR STORY – Sharing our proud heritage

DAVID STUURMAN sculptured by Keith Calder

LOUIS VAN MAURITIUS sculptured by Barry Jackson

KLAAS STUURMAN sculptured by Keith Calder

 

DR JOHANNES VAN DER KEMP sculptured by Barry Jackson.

MAKHANDA THE ITOLA sculptured by Johan Moolman;

 

 

A few years ago I was approached by the National Heritage Monument of South Africa to assisted with realizing a vision to give recognition to our ancestors over the last 400 years who were sidelined from official histories. I was asked to assist with two things – to provide advice to a range of sculptors on the appearance of these historical figures who in the majority of cases were not captured photographically or in sketches and paintings, I was also asked to research and write 20 of their biographies which could be used as a reference for various projects envisaged for the future. It was a wonderful privilege to be part of this amazing project which subsequently has evolved as a reality.

I engaged with the sculptors in various ways to ensure the best degree of authenticity for the final products and they produced the most magnificent bronze life size figures which broke with the traditional sculpting norms for such work. For each figure I produced a ten page well-researched biography, from which shorter biographical briefs could be produced.

NOMMOA (DOMAN) sculptured by Sarah Richards

There are five contemporaries who are my favorite historical character from the same revolutionary period in our history and one earlier Khoena leader who led the first war of resistance – Klaas and David Sturman of the Khoena Resistance; Louis of Mauritius the leader of the 1808 Slave Rebellion; Makhanda the Xhosa/Khoena Itola (Prophet and military general); Dr Johannes van der Kemp the revolutionary missionary, abolitionist a defender of the Khoena who dared to say that his Jesus did not have to be adopted with a European cultural package; and Nommoa (Doman) the Khoena leader of the first war of resistance against the Dutch. I worked on many of the other historical characters too – 20 in fact.

There are 40 professional sculptors and assistants who have been involved in this project and 8 South African foundries involved in the manufacture. There have also been 5 less experienced artists who have been trained and mentored in the course of the project to the extent that they are now independently working and selling their own bronze sculpture works. Besides carrying out this mammoth task of filling a gap in our history and heritage where previously history and memory had been blotted out, this has been the largest arts empowerment project in the field of sculpturing fine arts in South Africa by a public and private partnership in funding.

I have often promoted that our artists in South Africa engage in “IMAGINING” the past and creating historical and heritage images where there are glaring gaps in imagery so that our public have the opportunity to engage with the past in a more tangible and meaningful manner. To those who question this exhortation of mine, I remind them about the famous artist Charles Bell who 200 years after the event, painted van Riebeeck’s arrival at the Cape, with all its imperfections and lack of authenticity, but that the image has endured and been embraced for the last 170 years. The image of that painting projecting Autshumao (presented as Harry the beachbum strandlooper) as an awestruck man dress in skins who had never engaged with whites is as unauthentic as they come. Autshumao who was an established trader and linguist of some 30 years standing made a point of dressing in European clothes when engaging newly arrived Europeans, and had already trained in Jakarta with the English. I also remind them of two plagiarized images from a Dutch Museum which the Colonial and Apartheid era projected authentically as that of Jan van Riebeeck and his wife Maria de la Quellarie. For decades these images served as fakery to present van Riebeeck as a handsome well proportioned Dutch hero with long wavy hair who appeared to us on stamps, coins, banknotes, history books and statues (one of these fakery statues still stands proudly in Cape Town). The images are indeed of a Mr Vermuyden and his mistress Ms Kettering. So the example of these great scultors should be emulated by our budding young fine artists across the country. Paint, sculpt, sketch, carve and work on the hidden history and heritage of South Africa.

Please visit the National Heritage Monument website to learn more. It does not feature all of the images, nor the full depictions – just the portrait views.

www.nhmsa.co.za/sculptures.html