scholars, or as it is taught in South African schools, and as it was taught to us
at Fort Hare. . . . The syllabus for matriculation emphasized South African
history, so ...
we struggled through the white man's version of the so-called
Kaffir Wars, the Great Trek, the struggles for control of South Africa ...
and ...
we had to giveback in our examination papers the answers the white
man expected.t?
Africans who lived on white farms had exceptionally bitter experiences.
"Unskilled and easily replaceable," as well as "isolated and illiterate," they
were "grouped in tiny clusters, and separated by vast distances and
wretched poverty from others, evenwithin the same district."6o Their main
concern was to retain theuse of the land they regarded as rightfully theirs.
But white landowners, operating in adverse market conditions and coping
with droughts and pests, were themselveshard pressed to make a living and
were trying to do so by squeezing the utmost from their "volk," expelling
those who were surplus to their needs, converting the rest into laborers,
and paying them as little as possible.
Following the white conquest, new cleavages meshed with old in the
African societies. One can distinguish four main tendencies.61The African