When was South Africa colonized by the British

Two hundred years ago 5,000 people from Britain were settled in the south eastern part of South Africa in an area around present-day Makhanda and Port Alfred, then called the ‘Zuurveld’, by the British colonial authorities. To some South Africans (and particularly to many of their descendants) they are heroised as having brought development and ‘civilization’ to the area.

But should South Africa celebrate or mourn their arrival and legacy?

The settlers were allotted land which African people had occupied for millenia. The western Cape of South Africa had long experienced the dispossession of indigenous land under the regime of merchant capitalism of the Dutch East India Company from the mid 1600s. But British colonialism ushered in powerful and devastating new dynamics.

From roughly the 1770s, wandering Dutch-speaking farmers tried to settle east of the Cape Colony. But for 40 years, their new and strong neighbours, the amaXhosa, resisted their efforts. They fought each other in 100 years of wars, which left the Xhosa weakened .

Once the British took over in 1806, via diplomatic agreements in Europe, everything changed. In the first great removal in South African history, the Xhosa were dispossessed. It began with the expulsion of 1811/1812. What followed was an additional 70 years of war.

The Zuurveld was the crucible of South African history in the sense of being the area where the country’s diverse peoples first encountered each other. It was also the crucible of settler capitalism.

So what should we do with this 200th anniversary? It offers an invitation to sober reflection on where South Africa has travelled as a nation over two centuries and how the savage inequalities established in the past, continue in its present.

Scorched earth policy

This first round of expulsion was particularly cruel. Crops were destroyed, cattle confiscated, homes burnt. This led to 20,000 people under Chief Ndlambe’s leadership being forced across the Fish River and later the Keiskamma and ultimately the Kei.

This ‘scorched earth policy’ has been described by the victors as ‘a superbly executed campaign’.

British colonialism drove this process of dispossession, employing unprecedented levels of force which soon led to yet another war. As tensions escalated, the British simply went over the borders and seized Xhosa cattle. At the beginning of 1818, the largest to date of such raids saw 2,000 head of cattle taken. By November that year, the number of cattle taken by force from the amaXhosa in yet another raid was 23,000.

The ensuing fifth ‘frontier war’ in 1819 left the British once again as military victors. The colonial forces nominally controlled the old Zuurveld, as well as new stretches of land beyond the Fish River boundary.

By then, experience had shown that the amaXhosa would not simply stay away from their former homes by diplomatic agreement. The conquered land could only be maintained in British hands by filling it up with its own people.

In other parts of the empire indirect rule, using indigenous leadership, often worked. But this had proven impossible in the borderline areas of the Eastern Cape. The settlement of the 5,000 British in 1820 was a direct outcome of the latest war. It was to be the largest settler scheme undertaken in the whole of the colonial era.

After 1820 a small elite group of British settlers built on this process to create a new and savage social order: settler capitalism.

Settler capitalism

Capitalism involves the process whereby both the means of production and labour become commodities. While in this case the initial dispossession was driven by colonialism, the process of commoditisation was driven by an elite that developed their own brand of settler capitalism.

Deeply embedded in British colonialism, these settler elites soon articulated and perpetuated a virulent racism. It followed hot on the tail of the most massive attack the amaXhosa had ever waged against the Colony. On Christmas Eve 1834, 12,000 to 15,000 armed invaders crossed the full length of the Fish River boundary in one huge wave. They burnt settler farmhouses, killed the occupants and confiscated livestock.

It was an all-out attempt to get rid of the unwelcome neighbours. Most of the direct engagements in the Zuurveld forced the British settlers to abandon virtually the whole country east of Algoa Bay, saving only the towns of Grahamstown and Fort Beaufort. The Xhosa now carried guns as well as their assegais and shields.

But in 1835 the colonial forces soon went on the offensive and cleared the Xhosa not only out of the Zuurveld area once again, but also from strictly Xhosa-occupied lands further east. They suffered severely when the British applied the same strategy as in 1811 – a scorched earth policy which destroyed their economic base.

As a result, many were reduced to eating herbs and roots and forced to seek employment in the Colony from the very people who had destroyed them. Once again, the large-scale importation of British troops secured a military victory for them after nine months of fighting.

A militarised racism

The deep-seated racism of settler capitalism was linked to war. The war of 1834-35 was the first in which the settlers participated, and it created a particularly vitriolic racism. In the words of one of the settler elite, Mitford Bowker, the Xhosa were ‘ruthless, worthless savages’.

The landscape around Grahamstown was the scene of many violent encounters in the wars of dispossession and the settler elite were directly involved as soldiers, as a source of supplies to the British forces and as members of the colonial administration. They had the most to gain, in the form of new lands available for their own use. Some of these same people made small fortunes as war profiteers and war mongers. Overall, as Timothy Keegan wrote, the British settler elite, were marked as exhibiting “acquisitive, warmongering propensities”.

This settler elite promoted their personal economic interests. They did so initially through the occupation and commoditisation of Xhosa land and through establishing and extending lucrative trading networks. Land speculation was extensive and involved buying up conquered lands and establishing sheep and cattle farms. Cattle sales and wool exports became the basis of many settler fortunes. Between 1837 and 1845 property prices in the Eastern Cape quadrupled.

Settler capitalism also involved the incorporation and exploitation of the amaXhosa as wage labourers.

The war of 1835 resulted in the importation of 16,000 amaMfengu as cheap labour for the colonists, while the war of 1846 concluded with major labour recruitment among the defeated amaXhosa. Settler capitalism also involved the establishment of the financial institutions and infrastructure to promote speculation and trade.

The new social order that emerged was defined by racism, primitive accumulation and ‘free’ labour. It involved a continual displacement and transformation of social relations. What historian Clifton Crais calls ‘racial capitalism’,

tore up communally based societies and began to replace them with a single colonial order.

It is not hard to see the roots of the 20th century apartheid policies in the legacy of the settlers. From 1811, they advocated total domination and geographical separation along race and colour lines. Over the entire 19th century, the principles of dispossession, accumulation and domination grew and affected more and more land and people.

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The arrival of the British at the Cape changed the lives of the people that were already living there. Initially British control was aimed to protect the trade route to the East, however, the British soon realised the potential to develop the Cape for their own needs.

Indigenous population

With colonialism, which began in South Africa in 1652, came the Slavery and Forced Labour Model.  This was the original model of colonialism brought by the Dutch in 1652, and subsequently exported from the Western Cape to the Afrikaner Republics of the Orange Free State and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. Many South Africans are the descendents of slaves brought to the Cape Colony from 1653 until 1822.

The changes wrought on African societies by the imposition of European colonial rule occurred in quick succession. In fact, it was the speed with which change occurred that set the colonial era apart from earlier periods in South Africa. Of course, not all societies were equally transformed. Some resisted the forces of colonial intrusion, slavery and forced labour for extended periods. Others, however, such as the Khoikhoi communities of the south-western Cape, disintegrated within a matter of decades.

Initially, a colonial contact was a two-way process. However, Africans were far from helpless victims in the initial encounter. Colonial contact was not simply a matter of Europeans imposing themselves upon African societies. For their part, African rulers saw many benefits to be had from maintaining relations with Europeans, and for a considerable period of time they engaged with Europeans voluntarily and on their own terms.

Most importantly, trade with Europeans gave African rulers access to a crucial aspect of European technology, namely firearms. More than anything else, those who had ownership and control over firearms were able to gather around themselves larger and larger groups of people. In short, the ownership of firearms turned into a status symbol and a means to gain political power.

Sadly, the article of trade in which Europeans showed the greatest interest, and which Africans were prepared to sacrifice, were slaves. The Atlantic slave trade stands at the centre of a long history of European contact with Africa. This was the era of the African Diaspora, an all embracing term historians have used to describe the consequences of the slave trade. Estimates of the number of slaves transported from their African homes to European colonial possession in the Americas range from 9 to 15 million people. Although a great deal of violence accompanied the trade in slaves, the sheer scale of operations involved a high degree of organisation, on the part of both Europeans and Africans. In other words, the Atlantic slave trade could not have taken place without the cooperation, or complicity, of many Africans.

As the number of transported salves increased, African societies could not avoid transformation, and 400 years of slave trading took their toll. Of course, not all African societies were equally affected, but countries such as Angola and Senegal suffered heavily.

The most important consequences of the Atlantic slave trade were demographic, economic, and political. There can be no doubt that the Atlantic slave trade greatly retarded African demographic development, a fact that was to have lasting consequences for the history of the continent. At best, African populations remained stagnant. The export of the most economically active men and women led to the disintegration of entire societies. The trade in slaves also led to new political formations. In some cases, as people sought protection from the violence and warfare that went with the slave trade, large centralised states came into being.

To read more visit our grade 10 archive lesson on Slavery

1820 Settlers

After the Napoleonic wars, Britain experienced a serious unemployment problem. Therefore, encouraged by the British government to immigrate to the Cape colony, the first 1820 settlers arrived in Table Bay on board the Nautilus and the Chapman on 17 March 1820. From the Cape colony, the settlers were sent to Algoa Bay, known today as Port Elizabeth.

Lord Somerset, the British governor in South Africa, encouraged the immigrants to settle in the frontier area of what is now the Eastern Cape. This was in order to consolidate and defend the eastern frontier against the neighbouring Xhosa people, and to provide a boost to the English-speaking population.

This period saw one of the largest stages of British settlement in Africa, and approximately 4,000 Settlers arrived in the Cape, in around 60 different parties, between April and June 1820. The settlers were granted farms near the village of Bathurst, and supplied equipment and food against their deposits. A combination of factors caused many of the settlers to leave these farms for the surrounding towns.

Firstly, many of the settlers were artisans with no interest in rural life, and lacked agricultural experience. In addition, life on the border was harsh and they suffered problems such as drought, rust conditions that affected crops, and a lack of transport.  Therefore many settlers left the eastern border in search of a better life in towns such as Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown and East London. The eastern border therefore never became as densely populated as Somerset had hoped.

The settlers who did remain as farmers made a significant contribution to agriculture, by planting maize, rye and barley. They also began wool farming which later became a very lucrative trade. Some of the settlers, who were traders by profession, also made a significant contribution to business and the economy. New towns such as Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth therefore grew rapidly.

Changing Labour Patterns: the slave trade and it abolition

Slavery affected the economy of the Cape, as well as the lives of almost everyone living there. Its influence also lasted long after the abolition of slavery in 1838.

In South Africa under Dutch settlement, there was a shortage of labour, especially on the wheat and wine farms. But the VOC did not want to spend its money on the expensive wages that European labourers demanded. Nor could the VOC use the Khoi people as slaves. The Khoi traded with the Dutch, providing cattle for fresh meat. The Khoi also resisted any attempts to make them change their pastoralist way of life.

The Dutch were already involved in the Atlantic slave trade and had experience in buying and controlling slaves. They thus imported slaves as the cheapest labour option. Slaves were imported from a variety of places, including the east coast of Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar), but the majority came from East Africa and Asia, especially the Indonesian Islands, which were controlled by the Dutch at the time. This explains, for instance, why there are a relatively large number of people of Malaysian descent in the Cape (the so-called Cape Malays).

Initially, all slaves were owned by the VOC, but later farmers themselves could own slaves too. Slaves were used in every sector of the economy. Some of the functions of the slaves included working in the warehouses, workshops and stores of the VOC, as well as in the hospital, in administration, and on farms or as domestic servants in private homes. Some slaves were craftsmen, bringing skills from their home countries to the Cape, while others  were fishermen, hawkers and even auxiliary police. The economy of the Cape depended heavily on slave labour.

The lives of the slaves were harsh, as they worked very long hours under poor conditions. They were often not given enough healthy food and lived in overcrowded and dirty conditions. Slaves had no freedom at all ”” they were locked up at night, and had to have a pass to leave their place of employment. As they were regarded as possessions, they were unable to marry, and if they had children, the children belonged to the slave’s owner and were also slaves. They also had little chance of education. Women slaves were at risk of being raped by their masters and other slaves. 

A traveller, Otto Mentzel, observed that: "It is not an easy matter to keep the slaves under proper order and control. The condition of slavery has soured their tempers. Most slaves are a sulky, savage and disagreeable crowd ”¦ It would be dangerous to give them the slightest latitude; a tight hold must always be kept on the reins; the taskmaster’s lash is the main stimulus for getting any work out of them." - Source: Mentzel, A Geographical and Topographical Description of the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town, 1921

While there were many laws inhibiting the lives and movements of slaves, there were also rules to protect them, for example, female slaves could not be beaten. In theory, slave owners would be punished for treating their slaves badly ”” for example, if they went so far as to beat them to death ”” but the laws were often ignored.

The Abolition of Slavery Act ended slavery in the Cape officially in 1834. The more than 35 000 slaves that had been imported into South Africa from India, Ceylon, Malaysia and elsewhere were officially freed, although they were still bonded to their old masters for four years through a feudal system of "apprenticeship". For many years wages rose only slightly above the former cost of slave subsistence.

The abolition of slavery and the emancipation of slaves caused a lot of resentment and opposition from the Cape colonials towards the anti-slavery lobby, as embodied in the

London Missionary Society that had put pressure on the British government to take this decision. Even before emancipation, the publicised cases of missionary intervention on behalf of mistreated black workers on farms, sometimes even winning convictions against farmers, made them enemies of the largely Afrikaner farming community in the Cape. Reverends John

Philip, Johannes van der Kemp and John Read were the most hated missionaries because of their fight for the rights of oppressed black Cape residents.

In fact, one of the reasons for the Great Trek, which would lead to the migration of many white, Dutch-speaking farmers away from the Cape after 1833, was the abolition of slavery by the British government. The farmers complained that they could not replace the labour of their slaves without losing a great deal of money. Importantly, the abolition of slavery did not change the colonial–feudal "slave–master" relations between black and white. Instead, these slave–master relations imprinted themselves on South Africa’s political, social and economic structures for years to come. Black people were "enslaved" by the oppressive laws of industrialisation, pass regulations, and labour ordinances such as the Masters and Servants Act of 1841, which made it a criminal offence for a worker to break a labour contract. It was only after 1994, and the dawning of democracy in South Africa, that all South Africans were truly emancipated from slavery.

For a useful and interesting article on slavery got to africanhistory.about.com

Expanding frontiers and trade

Boer responses

By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Cape settlers were expanding their territory northeast.  The Trek Boers seeking fresh grazing for their cattle, primarily, led this expansion.  These cattle farmers had no fixed dwelling places and many led a semi-nomadic existence, moving ceaselessly between summer and winter pastures. As most trek farmers had large families, the system encouraged swift expansion.  The Cape Government had done nothing to hinder expansion inland since it provided a source of cheap meat.

As the trekkers’ expansion increased, they inevitably came into conflict with, first, the Khoikhoi and later the Xhosa people into whose land they were encroaching.  This marked the beginning of the subjugation of the Tembu, Pondo, Fingo and Xhosa in the Transkei.  The Xhosa in particular fought nine wars spanning a century, which gradually deprived them of their independence and subjugated them to British colonial rule.

In the towns, tension was also increasing between settlers and the Dutch authorities, with the former becoming increasingly resentful at what they perceived as administrative interference.  Soon the districts of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinette pronounced themselves independent Republics, though this was short-lived - in 1795 Britain annexed the Cape Colony.

This development and, in particular, the emancipation of slaves in 1834, had dramatic effects on the colony, precipitating the Great Trek, an emigration North and Northeast of about 12 000 discontented Afrikaner farmers, or Boers.  These people were determined to live independently of colonial rule and what they saw as unacceptable racial egalitarianism.

The early decades of the century had seen another event of huge significance - the rise to power of the great Zulu King, Shaka.  His wars of conquest and those of Mzilikazi - a general who broke away from Shaka on a northern path of conquest - caused a calamitous disruption of the interior known to Sotho-speakers as the difaqane (forced migration); while Zulu-speakers call it the mfecane (crushing).

Shaka set out on a massive programme of expansion, killing or enslaving those who resisted in the territories he conquered.  Peoples in the path of Shaka's armies moved out of his way, becoming in their turn aggressors against their neighbours.  This wave of displacement spread throughout Southern Africa and beyond.  It also accelerated the formation of several states, notably those of the Sotho (present-day Lesotho) and of the Swazi (now Swaziland).

This denuded much of the area into which the Trekkers now moved, enabling them to settle there in the belief that they were occupying vacant territory.  Of these Voortrekkers, about five thousand settled in the area that later became known as the Orange Free State (present day Free State).  The rest headed for Natal (present day KwaZulu-Natal) where they appointed a delegation, under the leadership of Piet Retief to negotiate with the Zulu King, Dingaan (Shaka's successor), for land.  Initially, Dingaan granted them a large area of land in the central and southern part of his territory but Retief and his party were later murdered at the kraal of Dingane.

The newly elected Voortrekker leader, Andries Pretorius, prepared the group for a retaliatory attack and the Zulu were subsequently defeated at the famous Battle of Blood River, 16 December 1838, leading to the founding of the first Boer Republic in Natal.

Xhosa response

Europeans who came to stay in South Africa first settled in and around Cape Town. As the years passed, they sought to expand their territory. This expansion was first at the expense of the Khoikhoi and San, but later Xhosa land was occupied as well. During the later half the 16th century, the Xhosa encountered eastward-moving White pioneers or Trek Boers in the region of the Fish River. The ensuing struggle was not so much a contest between Black and White races as a struggle for water, grazing and living space between two groups of farmers.

The first frontier war broke out in 1780 and marked the beginning of the Xhosa struggle to preserve their land, customs and way of life.  It was a struggle that was to increase in intensity when the 1820 British settlers arrived on the scene.

This embittered struggle involved some of the greatest War Veterans in South Africa's history e.g. renowned warrior Maqoma (the father of Guerilla Warfare), Sir Harry Smith (military legend and England's favorite General), Chief Hintsa (martyr) and Adriaan van Jaarsveld (known as the ruthless 'red captain' among the Xhosa). It was also during these wars that the Trek-Boers developed the technique of the Laager as a way of defending themselves against a large enemy force.

Laager: A type of 'military camp', with 5-or more heavy wagons in a circle, and thorn trees thrust between the openings. In the middle were four wagons in a square, roofed over with planks and raw hides to serve as protection for women, children and the elderly. Here the farmers could defend themselves until reinforcements arrived or the enemy decided to retreat.

To read more about the VOC frontier wars and the British Frontier Wars visit SAHO’s detailed feature on the Frontier Wars.