A social history of southern Africa's KhoiKhoi community: 2000 BP- 1880. (Patreon)

"These people [the Khoikhoi] hold freedom very much to heart and are very jealous of it. They keep the law of Nations so unimpaired, that they can rival the most civilized peoples of Europe. Furthermore, it has been seen that they are brave in battle as was experienced by Franciscus Almeida."

Abraham Bogaert, 1702

The KhoiKhoi (Khoe) speakers of South Africa have for long played a very important role in the country's history; from the use of the first domesticates to the emergence of complex states. Their societies embody a dynamic form of socio-economic and political organization that must be taken into account in attempts to reconstruct the complex mosaic of situations that characterize southern Africa's diverse social landscape.

Khoe society was highly adaptive, able to adjust to the shifting social and political landscape of southern Africa in which they played an active role as agents of social-economic transformation. Their adaptability was displayed not just in their capacity to build fortified towns and raise powerful armies to resist colonial expansion, but also in the creation of independent states that formulated their own constitution and issued currencies.

This article explores the history of the Khoe community of South Africa, beginning with the emergence of the first neolithic societies, to the earliest documentation of the Khoe societies during the 15th-17th century, to the creation of the various Khoe kingdoms of the 18th and 19th centuries.

18th-century drawing of a village in the Khoe Kingdom of Gonaqua, and a 19th-century illustration of a trek.

An early history of the Khoe from 2,000 BP -1487: formation of a pastoral community.

The term 'Khoe' refers to a large language family that is the largest of the three Khoe-San language families, the others being the 'Ju' and 'Tuu'. It is sometimes called Khoe-Kwadi to include the related but mostly extinct Kwadi family of southern Angola.

The Khoe family has two major branches; the larger one being the Khoekhoe branch of herder groups, which includes dialects of the Nama language plus the divisions of the Cape Khoi, the Griqua, Korana, and Gonaqua. The second branch is the Kalahari languages, which have five subgroups, all of which are spoken by forager groups outside South Africa; in Botswana, Angola, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Linguistic and genetic evidence indicates the Khoe language family is distantly related to Sandawe speakers of Tanzania, with whom they also share a pastoral tradition, but that the Khoe languages are themselves younger than the Bantu languages.

(The Khoisan Languages of Southern Africa, On external genealogical relationships)

The Khoe were initially thought to have reached southwestern Africa in the late 1st millennium CE, and acquired livestock (mainly sheep) from resident foragers (San), but obtained pottery and cattle via diffusion from neighboring farmers (Bantu). Other scholars have recently argued that the ancestral Khoe arrived much earlier around the turn of the common era, bringing with them pottery, as well as livestock that consisted mostly of sheep and some cattle.

(A linguist’s view: Khoe-Kwadi speakers, Linguistic hypotheses on the origin of Namibian Khoekhoe speakers)

Map of southwestern Africa showing the location of the various Khoe-San groups in the 16th and 17th centuries.

There is some archeological evidence for the earliest Khoe populations in southwestern Africa at the site of Kasteelberg in the Western Cape. Kasteelberg is a collection of 36 discrete sites, it was initially occupied by Middle Stone Age hunters around 30,000 BP, but the main occupation is much later, about 200 CE. It was an intensively used site, with an enormous amount of shell and bone remains which suggests that it was a place herding people aggregated.

The sites at Kasteelberg are named in sequence of excavation: KBA, at the top of the hill has produced the oldest herding date of 200 CE. KBC is a small cave that shows two occupation periods: one before the common era, which was used by hunters because the main fauna are small buck, followed by a second period around 800CE with sheep. The richest site is KBB at the bottom of the hill, dated between 700-1200 CE, with an intermittent break of 140 years around 1000 CE.

(Excavations at Kasteelberg and the Origins of the Khoekhoen, Atop Kasteelberg: Social Complexity in the Later Stone Age of South Africa)

Undated cave painting from Cristol cave, south Africa, showing the types of cattle herded by the region's pastoralists.

The sites of Kasteelberg  (in red) and other prominent archeological sites associated with the Khoe pastoralists

KBB was also the site of what was initially the oldest evidence for cattle remains in southwestern Africa, dating to around 700 CE. However, recent discovery of older cattle remains at the site of KN2005/041 in Namaqualand near South Africa’s Atlantic coast, has provided an earlier date of 420 CE. The location of this site and the early date for cattle support the hypothesis for the early arrival of the ancestral Khoe population with their cattle, rather than diffusion from contact with distant Bantu speakers in southeast Africa. This is further corroborated by the ancient DNA analysis of a burial of a young woman found at the site of KBB, who shares 40% of her genome with a herder skeleton from Tanzania.

(An early date for cattle from Namaqualand pg 117-118)

The increase in cattle herds after 1000 CE transformed the herder society who were now bulk grazers that became more mobile to find pasture and maintain herd quality. As they moved camp more frequently, they left a minimal signature on the ground, and became almost archaeologically invisible, leaving their only evidence in Portuguese and later Dutch records.

The Khoe and the Portuguese from 1487-1510: External contact, Trade and Warfare.

Upon reaching southern Africa in 1487, Europeans encountered pastoralist populations, presumed to be Khoe-speakers, along the western and southern coasts of southern Africa.

The earliest account of the encounter between the Khoe and the Europeans comes from November 1487, when Vasco Da Gama landed on St Helena Bay and later at Mossel Bay. Both Khoe encounters were initially peaceful, as Vasco Da Gama's crew ate with and exchanged items such as copper coins and hats with the Khoe who in return gave them ivory bracelets.

However, the meetings later turned violent due to miscommunication and misgivings over the Portuguese having used the Khoe's watering holes without permission. A small skirmish ensued with the Khoe throwing assegais (spears) while the Portuguese fired their crossbow and killed one. Vasco Da Gama's crew erected a stone cross, which was pulled down by the Khoe before the former left. When Bartholomew Dias' ships passed by the same place the following year, the Khoe quickly drove their cattle away from the beach and showed no interest in meeting with the Portuguese.

(The Cape Herders pg 52-56)

The next Portuguese ship to land on the South African coast came in 1503 and was led by Antoni de Saldanha at Table Bay near modern Cape Town, where he sighted and climbed the famous Table Mountains. After summiting the table mountain, Antoni de Saldanha clashed with the Khoe after a failed attempt to trade mirrors and glass beads for two sheep and a cow. The Khoe ambushed de Saldanha's party, wounding him and taking back the animals.

De Saldanha was later followed by Francisco de Almeida, the viceroy of Portuguese India. When Fransico de Almeida landed on Mossel Bay in March 1510 for supplies, an initial friendly meeting and exchange of goods was marred by certain members of the crew seizing one of the Khoe as hostage, so that the others would bring more animals for trade. This backfired on them when the Khoikhoi, "outraged at this violation of their hospitality", immediately attacked the Portuguese. The next day, de Almeida marched on the Khoe settlement with a force of 150 and forcefully seized the animals and children, forcing the Khoe to retaliate by mustering a force of 170 and annihilating the Portuguese force, killing 50 of them.

As one chronicler describes the battle:

"the blacks began to come down from where they had assembled in their first fright, like men who go to risk death to save their sons, And although some of our folk began to let the children go, the blacks came on so furiously that they, came into the body of our men, taking back the oxen; and by whistling to these and making other signs, they made them surround our men, like a defensive wall, from behind which came so many fire- hardened sticks that some of us began to fall wounded or trodden by the cattle."

80 years would pass before another European ship dared to land on Khoe territory.

(Imagining the Cape colony pg 10-20, Cape herders pg 59-60)

Death of Francisco d’Almeida at the Cape of Good Hope, 1510. engraving by Pieter van der Aa, ca 1700

The Khoe society in the 16th and 17th century was characterized by semi-sedentary groups of herders, organized into villages that recognized a clan headman who mediated disputes and directed the village's migration. The clan villages were united into much larger social units made up of several linked clans, with the seniority of one of the clans, and thus their headman being recognized as a chief. Access to land and resources was granted by leaders of such units to both insiders and foreigners, but such access was temporary in exchange for tribute, and neither the land nor its resources were 'owned' by the Khoe chieftains nor by the people/groups it was granted.

(The Cape Herders pg 39-40)

The basic unit of the Khoe village was a household that included kinsmen with their dependents/servants, the latter of whom at times included the San foragers. These all lived in a mat house (matjieshuis), a reed hut of mat thatching that could be moved every few months as the herders searched for pasture. They kept large herds of fattailed sheep, long-horned cattle, and goats.

With their low population density in a semi-arid environment, there was less competition for land among the Khoe before European settlement. According to one botanist’s report from the 1700s, the Khoe, by moving around continually, were less destructive of the ecology than Dutch farmers who settled in one location.

(General History of Africa Vol II pg 664-667, The Cape Herders pg 37-39)

A historical Khoekhoe kraal depicted by the illustrator of Peter Kolb’s Caput Bonae Spei Hodiernum (1719)

Relations between Khoe, the San foragers, the European settlers at the coast, and the Bantu-speaking farmers further east varied over the 17th century. The present-day Western and Eastern Cape provinces in South Africa were once home to many, now extinct, Khoekhoe languages.

Many of these groups were severely affected by the persistent warfare and epidemics introduced by the new settlers. Some of the Khoe groups were assimilated into the colonial society, while others migrated beyond the reach of the nascent colonial state.

The Early Cape Colony Showing African and Boer Settlements.

The Khoe and the Dutch from 1652-1800: Colonial warfare and migration

Contacts between the Khoe and European trading ships resumed in the 1590s and continued through the early founding of the Cape colony after 1652. Many of these early contacts were relatively peaceful, although they included the occasional capture and release of a Khoe headman who would later act as a go-between for both groups. The Khoe gradually began trading regularly with the Europeans, exchanging sheep and cattle for copper and iron items. But as the European settler's population grew, farms expanded, and the demand for supplies outstripped the Khoe's ability to supply them, the Dutch bypassed neighboring Khoe communities to send scouting parties further inland in the late 17th century, inevitably leading to a series of wars between the Khoe and the Dutch.

(An Archaeology of Colonial Identity pg 69-70)

Each group of Khoe speakers had its own living and grazing territory, with its leaders who controlled rights over access to its resources. The varying relations the Khoe had with the Dutch informed the response of both parties in trade, migration, and settlement. Some of the Khoe groups allied with the Dutch, taking up roles as interpreters, traders, and cultural brokers (called 'captains') between the two groups, as well as adopting Christianity and occasionally visiting Dutch overseas territories in Indonesia. Most Khoe groups, however, opposed Dutch expansion, with some moving further inland, while others fought against the Dutch.

(The Making of south Africa pg 27-31, Cape Herders pg 67-70)

The first Khoe-Dutch war broke out in 1659, as a consequence of the Dutch settler expansion, which put a constraint on the Khoe's grazing land and resources. Armed parties of the Khoe raided Dutch farms and seized cattle, and peace with the Dutch was only reached once the Khoe were compelled to relinquish control over the Liesbeeck valley where Dutch farms had been established.

(An Archaeology of Colonial Identity pg 70-71)

The second Khoe-Dutch war started in 1676 when a force was sent against the Khoe chief Gonnema, of the Cochoqua group, in retaliation for the latter's execution of Dutch hunting parties who had entered his territory. The Dutch force included forces of the Chainouqua, an allied Khoe group that was a rival of the Cochoqua, and was led by a certain captain Dorha. They defeated Chief Gonnema after two expeditions, and rewarded Chainouqua for his alliance, although he would later fall out with the Dutch, be imprisoned, and be killed by a rival Khoe captain.

(Cape herders pg 77-78)

Expansion of the cape colony of south Africa in the 17th century

"In 1672, just twenty years after the arrival of Van Riebeeck, certain representatives of the Khoikhoi entered into two treaties with the Dutch. In Richard Elphick’s words, these treaties ‘were written for the benefit of European powers and were not fully explained to the Khoikhoi signatories. The Khoikhoi received only a fraction of the payments that were first proposed, and in return, they gave up control not only of extensive lands but also of aspects of self-rule."

In the succeeding decades, The Dutch colony expanded as it acquired permanent control of the land at the expense of the Khoe, whose grazing and settling rights were reduced. Throughout the late 17th to mid-18th centuries, the Colonial authorities issued grazing rights to Dutch farmers (burghers) who moved their herds beyond the cape into still independent Khoe communities, with greater populations leading to an outbreak of smallpox in 1713 that devastated some of the Khoe communities.

Several rock paintings from the Western Cape depict the covered wagons, mounted horsemen, and weapons of the trekking Dutch farmers.

(Cape herders pg 82-85)

Painted rock art panel at Swartruggens showing horse-drawn wagons, and figures in European-style clothing with guns. British Museum

The kingdoms of the Khoe from 1800-1879: The Griqua and Gonaqua states.

As the trekkers moved inland, some Khoe migrated further northwards and eastwards into regions dominated by the Bantu-speaking kingdoms such as the Xhosa and Tswana states. While other Khoe entered a complex pattern of interaction with the trekkers, some working for and/or raiding the frontier farms. The most successful of these groups lived in mixed communities of Khoe and Dutch groups, adopted Christianity and writing, registered their farms, and intermarried with the Dutch.

The most notable products of these mixed Khoe communities were the Griquas, who trace their forefathers to two clans, the Koks and Barendse, the first made up mainly of Khoe and the second of mixed European descent.

(Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa pg 193, Cape Herders 86-87)

The Kok clan was founded by a freed slave named Adam Kok (1710-1795), who managed to obtain grazing rights and acquired several farms, becoming a successful middleman in the ivory trade between the Tswana and the Cape colony.

Kok attracted a large following of other mixed Khoe-Dutch clans known as 'Bastaards' such as the Barends and Waterboers and acquired firearms and wagons and moved northwards to the Orange River valley. Adam Kok died in 1795 and was succeeded by his son Cornelius, and later by his grandson Adam Kok II, whose community founded the town of Klaarwater in 1803, which was later known as Griquatown.

(Cape Herders pg 86-88, The Making of Griqua pg 96-99)

Griquatown,  Griqualand West. Southern Africa. 1820.

An outspan expedition in the Traansvaal, Late 19th-century illustration by C.D. Bell depicting a Khoe migratory party. "C.D. Bell's painting shows colonial KhoiKhoi wore the same (often cast-off) clothing as the colonists. They acquired colonial goods as wages in kind or through buying what they could afford"

Under missionary influence, the Griqua adopted a formal constitution in 1813 for their new state (later called Griqualand West), and “Griqua Town” coins were struck in England a year later. The diverse group also adopted the ethnonym of Griqua, and abandoned the pejorative ethnonym of 'Bastaard', recognizing that most of them could trace their lineage to the Khoe clan known as the Chariguriqua.

Poor relations between Adam Kok II, Waterboer, and the Barends caused Adam Kok II and the Barends to split and to move away from Griquatown with his followers beyond the Orange River to Philippolis in 1826. During this time, the afrikaans language was first spoken alongside other languages by the Griquas and other Khoe groups, who also maintained extensive contact with missionary groups as well as the incoming Boer trekkers who were displaced by the British occupation of the cape colony.

(The Making of Griqua pg 100-101, Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa pg 194, Rethinking Khoe and San Indigeneity)

Ruins of Adam Kok's residence in Philippolis, Dreamstime

As the Griqua were establishing themselves in the north, other Khoe groups were moving east into the eastern cape region and the central region of south Africa. Here, the Khoe established more harmonious relations with the Xhosa and Tswana speakers and eventually founded an independent Khoe kingdom during the late 18th century. The description of the Khoe kingdom of Gonaqua by the traveler Francois Le Vaillant in 1782 suggests a history of close ties between them and nearby Xhosa, including considerable intermarriage and trade.  While accounts about the Khoe-speaking Korana indicate a less cordial relationship with the neighbouring San and Bantu-speaking groups.

(Travels into the interior of Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, The Impact of Contact and Colonization on Indigenous Worldviews pg 101-102)

Le Vaillant and his party arriving at a Gonaqua village in 1782

a, Korana horseman observed by Arbousset and Daumas in 1836.

b, Rock art made by the Korana; the horses are finger painted in bright orange, the rider in fine-line black

There were likely periods of conflict between Khoe-San and Bantu speakers, that may have been depicted in some rock paintings which appear to show battle scenes in which small bowmen steal cattle (or protect it?) from larger figures with spears and shields. Interpretations of such images evade simple explanations, as such paintings were not made by one individual at one point in time but by several people over many years. They also utilize visual motifs and color symbolism whose meaning is lost to most scholars who instead project their own understandings of motifs and color symbolism onto the paintings.

As one scholar contends "the same image, which one might suppose would enrich the historian’s documentation, is in reality informed by the historian’s presuppositions, thus allowing diametrically opposed readings"

(Cattle theft in Christol Cave pg 104)

Enigmatic cave painting of a battle scene, in the Christol cave,  first documented and reproduced in the 19th century

In the north at Philipolis, conflicts between the Kok's Griquas and the Boers over land prompted the British to intervene and initially rule in favor of the Koks who were to receive tribute from the Boer. During this time, Adam Kok II died in 1835 and was succeeded by his son Adam Kok III Later changes in British policy shifted favour to the Boers, prompting Adam Kok III to sell his rights and move his followers to the territory of Griqualand East, where they arrived in 1860. This region was located in modern Lesotho, and was home to the chiefdom of Mpondo.

(The Making of Griqua pg 101-3)

After settling down they succeeded in setting up a government and a legislature of East Griqualand. The territory was initially divided into four magisterial districts centered at Matatiele, Mount Frere, Umzimkulu, and Kokstad, the latter of which eventually became the capital. They raised their revenue through tax, trading licenses, and fines. In 1867, they printed their own currency, which, however, was only used in their jurisdiction.

(The Making of Griqua pg 104 , Banking and Currency Development in South Africa pg 127)

Sketch of 19th century south Africa showing the Boer republics and the Griqua states.

By the late 1870s, the two Khoe states of Griqualand West and Griqualand East were one of the few independent African states in southern Africa. When diamonds were discovered in Griqualand west, its captain Nicholas Waterboer tried to fend off claims by the Boer Republic of Orange Free state, as well as the influx of speculators, by accepting to become a British protectorate. While Nicholas hoped for autonomy and protection, more white settlers flooded into the state, bought up the land, and after several incidences of land-related violence, the British formally annexed it as a colony by 1880.

(The Making of Griqua pg 107)

A similar trajectory of gradual annexation befell Griqualand east. Its captain, Adam Kok III maintained good relations with the British and even assisted them in a campaign in Natal around 1874 before his death the following year. In the ensuing succession turmoil, many Griquas sold their land to new settlers, and the Cape Colony placed Griqualand East under a custodial government the same year. Adam Kok III was eventually succeeded by Adam Muis Kok who raised a large rebellion against the British, joining in with the Xhosa and Mpondo. After two years of vicious fighting in 1878-1879, the Griqua rebellion was crushed, marking the collapse of the last independent Khoe kingdom, which would be formally annexed in 1886.

(History of South Africa Since September 1795 pg 182-199, The Making of Griqua pg 107-108)

Conclusion: the Khoe in South African history.

The history of the Khoe-speakers of South Africa traverses many key points in the country's historiography. From the emergence of the first food-producing societies (Neolithization), to the period of anti-colonial warfare and migration, to the creation of large modern states with constitutions and currencies.

They were not isolated communities of nomads, but mixed societies whose social history is invariably intertwined with their neighboring San and Bantu-speaking communities, as well as the later European settlers.

The Khoe played a seminal role in the emergence of complex societies in southern Africa and in the complex process of South Africa's modernization. These communities were not simply victims of an ever-expanding colonial frontier, but were active agents of resistance, collaboration, and transformation of South Africa's political landscape, leaving an indelible mark on modern South Africa.

References:

Excavations at Kasteelberg and the Origins of the Khoekhoen in the Western Cape, South Africa by Andrew B. Smith

The Cape Herders: A History of the Khoikhoi of Southern Africa by Emile Boonzaier

Rethinking Khoe and San Indigeneity, Language and Culture in Southern Africa

edited by Julie Grant,

Imagining the Cape colony by David Johnson

General history of Africa Vol II by UNESCO

An Archaeology of Colonial Identity by Gavin Lucas

The making of south Africa: Culture and Politics by Aran S. MacKinnon

Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples by Alan Barnard

The Making of Griqua by Erwin Schweitzer

Travels into the interior of Africa via the Cape of Good Hope by François le Vaillant

Banking and Currency Development in South Africaby Ernst Heinrich Daniel Arndt

History of South Africa Since September 1795 by George McCall Theal

The Khoisan Languages of Southern Africa by Menán du Plessis

On external genealogical relationships of the Khoe family by Edward D Elderkin

A linguist’s view: Khoe-Kwadi speakers as the earliest food-producers of southern Africa by Tom Güldemann

Linguistic hypotheses on the origin of Namibian Khoekhoe speakers by by WHG Haacke

Cattle theft in Christol Cave : A critical history of a rock image in South Africa by Jean-Loïc Le Quellec et al.

Atop Kasteelberg: Social Complexity in the Later Stone Age of South Africa by Karim Sadr

An early date for cattle from Namaqualand, South Africa by Jayson Orton

The Impact of Contact and Colonization on Indigenous Worldviews, Rock Art, and the History of Southern Africa by Sam Challis and Brent Sinclair-Thomson

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