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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Traces in the Landscape: Hunters, Herders and Farmers on the Cedarberg Frontier, South Africa, 1725-95 |
Author: | Mitchell, Laura J. |
Year: | 2002 |
Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
Volume: | 43 |
Issue: | 3 |
Period: | November |
Pages: | 431-450 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | Khoikhoi San colonists Europeans land use agricultural land history 1700-1799 History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) colonialism Ethnic and Race Relations Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/4100602 |
Abstract: | Land tenure was at the centre of the struggle between settlers and Khoisan on South Africa's colonial frontier during the eighteenth century. Different perceptions of land claims and differing patterns of land use prevented the possibility of mutual accommodation. Although precolonial hunters and herders coexisted in the Cedarberg region, the introduction of competition from settler pastoralism challenged the survival of both San and Khoikhoi patterns of subsistence. The fight for territory was rooted in competition over specific locations - sites endowed with resources such as permanent water, defensible shelter and ritual significance for the San. Colonial social structure supported settler land claims, eventually enabling successful occupation of a rugged region relatively isolated from the rest of the colony. In the last quarter of the century some Khoisan individuals worked within this system to make land claims of their own. Superior technology and a tightly woven social structure did not alter the basic features of the landscape, so colonists continued to subsist from transhumant pastoralism throughout the century. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |