A SHORT HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE of Southern Africa.
Prior to 1600 there were only a few Khoisan (Bushmen) living, roaming and hunting in Southern Africa. Their rock paintings throughout Southern Africa are proof of this fact for all to see.
According to historian Chief Dan Julius 5 Main Groups exist under the Khoisan. He makes the comment that "This includes the KhoiKhoi, the San, and the Nama. Most of them were pushed out as the whites came in (arrived in Africa) and as the blacks came down from the North."
The Khoisan have roamed and lived a nomadic life for centuries in mainly the hotter and dryer north western parts of Southern Africa. 'Bushmen' paintings on rocks and in caves in Southern Africa are also proof of their previous nomadic life.
There were NO other White, Brown or Black Africans living, working and playing in the Southern part of Africa which has a Mediteranian Climate i.e. ...it is like the Mediteranian in Southern Europe where it also rains in the colder winter months and is dry with little or no rain in the summer months!
The cold and wet winter months and the dry summer months may explain why the various Black African tribes and families (Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, Manica, Shona, etc) were living, hunting, working, playing and even fighting with one another in the more Northern and Eastern of Southern Africa and not in the southern and the western parts of South Africa. It is understandable because the warmer more tropica climate and more fertile soil of the more northern and eastern parts of Africa where it rains in the summer months is more ideal for growing crops. The mild winter months are also a more pleasant and dry time (no raine) of the year to go hunting. The winters further north and on the east coast of Southern Africa are also ideal destinations to be on holiday in the country side and on the beaches.
Ndebeli who were chased by the Zulus from Zululand on the East Coast fled to the drier west and north areas in Zimbabwe around Bulawayo.
Before the fore-fathers of the present day Christian White Africans (Dutch, French English) arrived at the Southern Point of Africa there were NO roads, farms, mines, houses, churches, policie stations, courts, schools, clinics, hospitals, businesses, shops or sport stadiums.
In 1652 a Dutch expedition of 90 Calvinist settlers under the command of Jan Van Riebeeck founded the first permanent settlement near the Cape of Good Hope in1652. The Families and people from Holland were THUS the first White Africans. They settled their families in and around Cape Town in the Cape Province of South Africa.
Their mission was to grow and supply meat, fish, vegetables, fruit and wine inorder to meet the needs of the explores and sailors who were working on the lucrative spice trade ships which were sailng between Europe and the East.
In 1653 the first Moslem Brown Africans were imported as slaves from the East to live, work and play at the Southern Point of Africa. The first slave was Abraham van Batavia. Shortly after his arrival in the Cape of Good Hope, a slaving voyage was undertaken from the Cape to Mauritius and Madagascar.
On December 31,1687 some 180 Huguenots from France and 18 Walloons from the present-day Belgium, eventually settled at the Cape of Good Hope, comprising about one sixth of the free burgher population. The French Huguenots and Walloon settled mainly in and around FrenchHoek (Franshoek).
The Walloons, who make up about one-third of the Belgian population, speak dialects of French and live chiefly in the south and eastern part of Belgium
The White African families (Christian Africaners) and Brown African families (Moslem Africaners) lived and worked to supply the food for the colony and the passing sail boats. In the process they created wealth & jobs. They built the renowned Castle, houses and suburbs like the Malay Quarters.
The White African settlers made Africa home and worked, farmed, made clothes, played, danced, made love and populated the Cape of Good Hope .... initially under the governance of the Dutch and then later the British!
1793, both Britain and France tried to capture the Cape
1795 The British went to war with France and occupied the Cape to control the important sea route to the East and ending the Dutch East India Company’s role in the Southern Point of Africa.
English replaced Dutch as the language of administration and the British pound sterling replaced the Dutch rix-dollar.
1824 Newspaper publishing began in Cape Town
1825 Advisory Council for the governor was established
1834 Britain began appointing Colonial Governors, which was then upgraded to a Legislative Council in 1834 with a few “unofficial” settler representatives.
A virtual Freehold system of Landownership gradually replaced the existing Dutch Tenant System, under which European colonists had paid a small annual fee to the government but had not acquired land ownership.
1820 The English fore-fathers of the White African families (Christian English) = the 1820 Settlers were settled in the Eastern Cape of South Africa by the British Government and by the authorities of the Cape Colony.
1835 -1846 The Great Trek was a movement of Dutch-speaking and iBible believing colonists who moved up into the interior of Southern Africa in search of land where they could establish their own homeland, independent of British rule.
October 11, 1899, to May 31, 1902, The Boer War between Great Britain and the two Boer (Afrikaner) republics—the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State.
White, Brown and Black South African Families lost many of their family members in the Boer War against the British and also in the two World Wars against Nazi Germany. My grandfather on my father's side was one of those who were captured and imprisoned in Boer War Concentration Camps scattered all over the world. Concentration camps as far as Bermuda were used to prevent the Boers from re-grouping. His movable assets on his farm was confiscated and he was forced to sell the farm. He apparently died of a stress peptic ulcer!