were joined by groups of Mfengu-Africans
who had fled southward from
the expanding
Zulu empire. The settlement also bore the brunt of the
frontier wars of 1834-35,
1846-47,
and 1850-53.
In the first two of
those wars, the Kat River Khoikhoi provided loyal and courageous service
to the colony. In 1847, for example, the British commanding general said
that nine hundred of the one thousand male adults in the settlement were
on active service, compared with "not more than three per cent of the adult
population
. . . of any other Division of the Colony."65 IOneach occasion,
the Khoikhoi of the Kat River lost most of their livestock, their crops were
destroyed, and many of their houses were burnt down.
Unlike the British 1820 Settlers, the Kat River people eventually became
the victims of racism and official hostility. By 1847, Stockenstrom was out
of office, and in that year the colonial government appointed T.J.Biddulph
as magistrate in Kat River. Biddulph was an 1820 Settler and so was his
successor, J.H. Bowker. Both held their subjects in utter contempt, calling
them inferiors and wastrels and their settlement "the abode of idleness and
imposture."66 When some Khoikhoi managed to make a living by felling
timber and taking it to market, Biddulph killed their business by quadrup-