Settler Colonialism in the Eastern Cape and beyond, 1800–1880s

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides a comprehensive survey and historiography of the construction of settler colonialism through the conquest of the Khoekhoe, amaXhosa, and abaThembu in the Eastern Cape. The chapter begins with a discussion of the notion of frontier in South African historiography. It charts the eastward movement of trekboers, and shows how the dispossession of land through successive frontier wars enabled the recruitment of British and German settlers in the 1820s and 1840s. The chapter critiques the narrative of “empty land” used to justify settler recruitment and explores the uneven development of capitalism and stratification among settlers in the nineteenth century. It examines the making of race, and the emergence of a Coloured identity in the struggles of the Kat River Settlement and explores the disconnect between indigenous and Nguni notions of work and the racial labor regulations imposed by the Masters and Servants Act (Act 15 of 1856). It highlights how the convergence of settler, government, and missionary attitudes to gendered culture facilitated a process of colonial othering of the amaXhosa, abaThembu, Khoekhoe, and people of mixed heritage. It concludes by suggesting that traces of these pasts remain visible in the present. The chapter identifies gaps in the literature and calls for the opening of new lines of inquiry.