2014/01/01 by Mohamed Adhikari · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #African studies and sociopolitical issues #South African History and Culture
paper · doi:10.58331/uctpress.30
openalex publication_date 2014/01/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Dutch-speaking pastoralists who infiltrated the Cape interior dispossessed its aboriginal inhabitants and damaged the environment with their destructive farming and hunting practices. In response to indigenous resistance, colonists formed armed, mounted militia units known as commandos with the express purpose of destroying San bands. Pervasive settler violence ensured the virtual extinction of the Cape San peoples. In 1998 David Kruiper, the leader of the ≠Khomani San who today live in the Kalahari Desert, lamented ‘… we have been made into nothing’. His comment applies to the fate of all the hunter-gatherer societies of the Cape Colony who were destroyed by the impact of European colonialism.