CAPE UNDER BRITISH RULE - Eastern frontier - GRADE 7 HISTORY

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When the British took over the Cape, they bought with them soldiers and officials to govern the colony. The most important official was the Governor, because it was the Governor’s job to report to the government in Britain.
The Chief Military Officer was in charge of the army and the soldiers. At different times, the army in the Cape Colony was made up of different groups of soldiers, called regiments. There were regiments of soldiers from Britain, of Britain colonists, Khoikhoi soldiers and farmer-settlers who were part-time soldiers.
There was tension between the British government and some of the trekboers farmers on the eastern frontier of the cape colony. As the British government was in charge, some new changes occurred. The Circuit Courts were introduced by the British government. The Khoikhoi servants could make complaints against ill treatment by their white employers at a Circuit Court. Some of the trekboers referred to this as the ‘Black Circuit’ as they thought the British court was biased against them.

The British had to control the vast eastern frontier, because it had been weakly administered for a long period. To 0do this the government introduced laws to control the freedom of movement of the Khoikhoi still living in the Cape Colony.
David Stuurman was a Khoikhoi leader living in the Eastern frontier. He led a group of Khoikhoi on the frontier that was in Cape colonial territory. The Khoikhoi leader gave shelter to runaway slaves and Khoikhoi who refused to register and who refused to do military service. In 1823, the British exiled David Stuurman to Australia
In 1820, the government in Britain paid for a large group of about 4000 unemployed British people and their families to come to the cape as settlers. The ships carrying these settlers landed in Algoa bay. Each family was given a small piece of farm land to grow crops.
More than half the settlers who came to the cape were form towns and cities, and didn’t how to farm,
They didn’t know about southern Africa.
The settlers were given land in Zuurveld.
By 1882, most of the new settlers had left their farms, and worked in different jobs in the new small settler towns on the Eastern frontier. Some of the settlers had been traders in Britain and set up shops and businesses. They also traded shop- bought goods for things like ivory and animal skins with the Xhosa across the border.
The remaining farmers planted maize, rye and barley and also began farming with merino sheep, introduced from Britain. There was a great demand in Britain for wool for the textile factories. Sheep farming became very profitable, and by 1846 wool had become the Cape’s most successful export.
During the late 18th century the British started to question the practice of slavery and their own involvement in the trading of slaves. In 1807 the British stopped the slave trade in all its colonies. But this did not mean that slavery ended, the ending of the trade in slaves did not help people who were already slaves. No new slave could be bought into a British colony and sold within the colony itself.
A lot people in Britain thought that slavery was wrong and that all human beings should be free. They believed that slavery was cruel, and against the will of God.
People began to say that Britain would become richer if workers in the colonies were paid wages. The following are some of the reasons why they thought so:
Workers would be motivated to work harder if they free and if they were paid for their work.
Workers would use their wages to buy products, and this would help the economy to grow.
By the 19th century these livestock farmers, also called “boers”, or “trekboers” was staring to move further and further away from Cape Town. They used the land as they wished, and led self-sufficient lives. The Dutch authorities were unable to control the trekboer. However, when the British arrived in the early 1800’s, with their English language and culture, this changed. The British began to control the boers’ use of land.
But this also changed, because in 1828, the British had passed the law known as ‘Ordinance 50’ which allowed Khoi to move freely in the Cape Colony, and in 1838, all colonists’ slaves had to be freed.
After the 6th Frontier War, which was between the years 1834-1836 and Chief Maqoma’s attack on the colony, colonists began to leave the Eastern frontier. In 1836 the British Governor returned the land between the Keiskamma and the Kei Rivers to the Xhosa, and made peace with the Xhosa chiefs.
Between 1835 and 1841, about 7 000 Boer men, women and children crossed the Gariep/ Orange River and left the Cape Colony. This was about half the Boer population of the Eastern Cape. Years later, this immigration was called the ‘Great Trek’. The boers who were part of the Great Trek were called ‘Voortrekkers’.