sided with—European settlers to maximize their power. The actions of regional power brokers and/or rival factions were central to the subsequent movement of European settlers into the Southern African hinterland, a fact that undermines simplistic narratives of colonization and conquest.
The movement of Europeans inland was enabled by colonial war, and settlement contributed to changes in sociopolitical organization that reverberated across the region. Central to the settlement of South Africa’s interior was conflict between British and Dutch colonists in the Cape Colony, which encompassed the present-day Western, Eastern, and Northern Cape Provinces. In repossessing the Cape Colony in 1806, the British crafted an alliance with the Dutch elite based on shared political and economic interests, such as the continued function of Cape Town as a port of supply for mercantile trade. Political compromise led to the continuation of established colonial practices, such as the utilization of a pass system for black South Africans. Since the 1760s, a pass system had been used to distinguish between enslaved and free Africans, whereby those engaged in wage labor were required to present passes provided by employers to prove their freedom (Lester 1996, 24). The British adoption of the pass system maintained a racially defined labor structure established during early Afrikaner rule.10
In adapting to local conditions, British colonial administration secured the support of Dutch farmers on the frontier who supported mercantile trade. There, Dutch settler social organization was associated with decentralized political and legal authority. Within each district (drostdy), a field cornet (veldkornet) combined the roles of district administrator, judge, and militia leader.11 The field cornet embodied, both de jure and de facto, colonial authority and law in rural areas under Dutch political control. While British legal and institutional norms were established in urban areas, rural areas maintained social order based on the practices developed by Dutch colonial settlers.12 One effect of British support for Dutch landholders was to uphold and extend their “labor-securing practices,” which in practical terms meant the conquest and enslavement of African people.13
The alliance between the British colonial state and the Dutch farming sector would not last long. The Cape Colony’s economic dependence on slave labor undermined the political and economic ties that bound two variants of European colonial settlement. The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 banned slavery across the British Empire, and the formal end of slavery in 1834 undermined the farming sector across the Cape Colony.14 Dutch landholders sold their properties and headed north in search of farmland outside of British colonial oversight, producing a mass exodus of Dutch farming families. The migration of Dutch settlers to the areas north of the Orange River, known as the Great Trek, precipitated an increase in British landownership in the Cape Colony.15 In turn, British ownership increased the production of cash crops, reconfiguring the agricultural sector. As the economy and demography of the Cape transformed, the movement of Dutch settlers northward reverberated throughout Southern Africa as the settlers came into contact with established African polities and secured access to land and resources through varied means, including warfare.16
While Dutch settlers moved northward, British expansion of the Cape Colony eastward ran up against Xhosa lands, leading to conflict. Since 1779, Dutch and subsequently British settlers had engaged in intermittent conflict with the Xhosa social formations on which they had encroached in what are known as the Xhosa or Cape Frontier Wars.17 Xhosa cattle raiding and reclamation of former lands were central to intermittent conflict between Xhosa peoples and colonial settlers. British and Dutch forces fought together in many of these conflicts, as their political and economic interests aligned relative to the expropriation of African land.18 Continued conflict with the Xhosa on the eastern front enriched British traders and farmers who supplied the British Army, further entrenching the economic power of British settlers in the Cape Colony.19 However, conflict between settlers and the Xhosa came to a head via unforeseen means. A Xhosa prophetess named Nongqawuse experienced a vision that indicated that the gods would send settlers into the sea if the Xhosa people killed their cattle and destroyed their crops.20 The vision was presented to a paramount chief in 1856; however, the cattle killing expanded beyond the scope of his region to encompass Xhosa society. This millenarian response to British encroachment and violence was devastating, leading to famine, death, and the destruction of Xhosa society’s economic foundations.
Cattle had been a central component of Xhosa society, and were particularly important for social reproduction, as they were used to the pay bride price (ilobola) necessary to consummate marriage. Without cattle, Xhosa people migrated westward, seeking wage labor in the Cape Colony’s agricultural sector, now primarily under British control.21 The cattle-killing crisis also moderated conflict along the Cape Colony’s eastern frontier, leading to the increased influence of Protestant missionaries. The missions established in Xhosa areas later known as the Transkei and Ciskei brought access to Western education, English-language training, religious conversion, and medical treatment based on Western conceptions of health and healing.22 The establishment of missions in what is today South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province transformed social dynamics among the Xhosa and African resistance to colonization. Children sent to receive mission education, learn English, adopt Christianity, and take on Western styles of dress became known as “school Xhosa.” Those who raised their children according to traditional modes of socialization were characterized as “red Xhosa,” as they continued to adorn their bodies with red ocher, along with other customary cultural practices (Mayer and Mayer 1971 [1961]). The increased exposure of Xhosa people to wage labor, education, and Christianity led to their involvement in early campaigns for African equality that took a political, rather than military, approach.
The missionary movement contributed to the emergence of an educated class that sought to transform colonial society by expanding the political and economic rights of black South Africans.23 For example, Lovedale Missionary Station offered education to both white and black South Africans while also providing medical care via an adjoining mission hospital.24 Those who attended classes at Lovedale Missionary Station include Z. K. Matthews, who went on to study at Yale University and the London School of Economics before becoming a leading member of the ANC. Govan Mbeki, a leading figure within the SACP and father of future president Thabo Mbeki was also educated at Lovedale Missionary Station. In addition, Steve Biko, a leading figure in the Black Consciousness Movement traced his roots to the same rural mission. While many more attended and were educated at Lovedale Mission Station, the historical import of these figures underscores the influential role of rural missions in educating those who led early efforts for equality and justice.
Settler Expansion and Colonial War
Alongside early movements for African equality, the nineteenth century saw an increase in export-oriented productive activities and growing economic power for the Cape Colony’s British settlers, which transformed the colonial state. A growing economy enabled infrastructural investment and the expansion of state institutions throughout the Cape Colony. The Cape Colony’s development was financed internally through the expropriation of land and resources from South Africa’s indigenous peoples, the maintenance of a low-wage labor environment to ensure profitability in the agricultural sector, and continued expansion of the colony’s productive base.25 Here, one can see corollaries with the experiences of other British colonies, where the land, labor, and resources of indigenous peoples served as the basis for colonial development (Rodney 1972).
A bias toward the needs and interests of European colonists permeated the development of colonial state institutions, including those that focused on public health. The dynamics of colonial health in South Africa were based on a clear distinction between those who were defined as citizens (European settlers) and those whose health outcomes were seen as peripheral to public health (black South Africans). As with other colonies across the continent, health facilities were developed in urban areas and focused on providing curative services to white colonists (Packard 2000). When African people did receive medical care, it was often due to their proximity to white settler populations, as was the case for those who worked in the
