from the original settlements in the Transvaal republic. Step by step, they
were subjected and impoverished. Much of their land lay inside the bound-
aries of Griqualand West, as annexed by Britain in 1871. After 1880, when
it was incorporated in the Cape Colony, the colonial government corralled
the African inhabitants into reserves, thereby freeing land for white spec-
ulators. De Beers acquired no fewerthan 400,000 acres. Transvaal farmers
meanwhile were penetrating the territory between Griqualand West and
the Molopo River, playing off one set of southern Tswana chiefs against
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