ment was imposing a tariff against Basotho grain, and the diamond- and
gold-mining industries were vigorously recruiting Sotho labor. By 1900,
the colony of Basutoland was set on its tragic course from its nineteenth-
century role as the granary of the Orange FreeState to its twentieth-century
role as an impoverished labor reserve for white South Africa.F?
In the rest of the region, where white people had effectivelegal claims to
the land, far from expelling the Africans, they were trying to harness their
productive capacities, in various ways and with varied success. As yet, few
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