speaking chiefdoms, including the Gqunukhwebe, who had incorporated
numerous people of Khoikhoi origin.
In the first three conflicts-I
779-8
I, 1793, and 1799-the
Zuurveld
Xhosa held their ground. Indeed, in the third war they benefited from a
period of exceptional weakness in the colonial state. Trekboers were rebell-
ing against the new British government of the Cape Colony, and some of
their Khoikhoi servants absconded and joined the Xhosa. By 1800, the
Xhosa and their allies had destroyed white farmsteads as far west as the
Gamtoos River and were in firm control of the Zuurveld. The tide turned in
181 I and 18 I 2 when, as we have seen, acting on the recommendations of
Colonel Collins, the colonial government mustered a large force of regular
troops and Afrikaner and Coloured auxiliaries who drove the Xhosa men,
women, and children beyond the Fish River,"
The government then tried to make the Fish River an absolute barrier
between the colony and the Xhosa territory, impermeable to Whites and
Blacks. In pursuit of this goal, it entered into cordial relations with the chief
Ngqika, treating him as the supreme chief of all the Xhosa (whereas the
Gcaleka chief had that status in Xhosa custom) and holding him responsi-