NEWSLETTER - MAY 2026

On 9th April Aron Coetzee, speaking from Cape Town, told us a bit about the KhoiKhoi Wars 1652-1795.

Initially he explained that the KhoiKhoi and San peoples (sometimes called KhoiSan) were present in the Cape Peninsula long before the Dutch arrived to start a half-way station. It is thought that these indigenous groups had migrated from the area now known as Ethiopia some time between 1800 and 900 years ago.

The San are hunter-gatherers, do not own animals and are not territorial by custom. [We sometimes refer to their descendants as "Bushmen" and are in awe of their tracking abilities.] The KhoiKhoi on the other hand were pastoralists, following their cattle and building new huts as the seasons dictated their search for good grazing land. Their mobility was tied to the cattle who carried the goods and chattels when they moved to a new place to re-erect their grass huts.

As early as 1400 there were records of ships trading with the people in Table Bay - at that stage mainly Portuguese vessels. But in 1510 some of the sailors on a Portuguese vessel objected to receiving fewer cattle and goods than expected in an exchange from the KhoiKhoi and they persuaded their leader, Vice-Admiral de l'Alma, to lead a party of 150 of them in a punitive expedition against a KhoiKhoi settlement. The ensuing clash was called the Battle of Salt River and the Admiral as well as some of his men were killed. This led to the Portuguese avoiding the Cape as a stop-over for the following 150 years.

But in 1652 van Riebeeck arrived to start a half-way station to supply fresh food to the ships en route to and from the Spice Islands. Initially there was little friction between the Dutch and the Khoi-Khoi - until the first Fort of Good Hope was constructed. The KhoiKhoi objected - partly because their traditional access to water and grazing land was interrupted. So they boycotted the fort ... but without trading their small communities became impoverished, especially when they were later forced to trade ONLY with the Fort, who then dictated what was sold or bartered with passing spice trade vessels. The Europeans were all employees of a Dutch company, VOC, and the settlement was not intended as a colony but started as a purely commercial venture.

The KhoiKhoi did not share the Dutch concept of land ownership so clashes became even more inevitable as the first "free burghers" were let go from the staff of the VOC (Vereenigde Oos-Indiese Compagnie) and granted land along the Liesbeek River where they were expected to farm both crops and livestock to supply not only passing ships but the company's Fort's inhabitants.

Mutual cattle raiding (which would carry on from then onwards, maybe even til today?) led to a large hedge being planted along the border of the Liesbeek River - thus preventing the KhoiKhoi from accessing their traditional summer grazing grounds.

A KhoiKhoi man called Doman - who had seen the harsh servitude life of the Malayan people when he was sent there by the Dutch to be trained as a translator - persuaded the KhoiKhoi to rise and steal cattle from the farms in 1659. But once a herdsman had been killed, van Riebeeck allowed a commando to take on the farm protection and retaliation.

About a year later a truce was concluded - although not all the captured cattle were returned to the KhoiKhoi.

A similar uprising, led by another translator by the name of Gonnema, who had managed to consolidate several KhoiKhoi groups under his leadership, was eventually put down in 1677. A treaty leaving the Dutch in control of what became the Cape Colony, for which a price of 800 Rijksdalers in compensation to the KhoiKhoi was promised, was agreed. (Eventually only about a tenth of that amount was actually paid to them.)

Aron then expanded on how the key issue of land ownership - as regarded by the European occupying colonists - continued to break down the economic and social systems of, later the mainly Bantu tribes, as the expansion of first the Dutch (until 1795) and especially the British (after 1806) colonies continued, as far as, eventually, the Orange and Limpopo Rivers.

His video recording is, as usual, recorded in the Society's Video Library on the website.

Thursday 14th May 2026 at 19h30 and then 20h15

Speaker: Dr JP Scherman

Subject: Session 1: The beginning of Military Intelligence: From Moses to the Last Supper.
Session 2: Intelligence Operations in Ancient Greece: Myth and Reality from Odysseus to Alexander the Great

MI might think it started with British MI-numbered military organisation but we shall see its workings from antiquity!

SAMHSEC Zoominars

In recognition of the Centenary of Afrikaans as an Official Language in 2025, presentations to SAMHSEC zoomeetings in May 2026 will be in Afrikaans.

Monday 11th May 2026:
Spreker: Louis Eksteen
Onderwerp: Die 'Dundee Diehards' en die geskiedenis van militêre skyngevegte in KwaZulu Natal van die Eerste en Tweede Vryheidsoorloë en Anglo-Zulu Oorlog slagvelde; en Fort Amiel Museum in Newcastle.