CHAPTER
3
African Warsand
White Invaders:
SoutheastAfrica,
1770-1870
White invaders and their diseases destroyed most ofthe hunting
and herding societies in the western part of Southern Africa
during the regime of the Dutch East India Company. They did
so to such an extent that, with the exception of a few bands of
hunters who still eke out an existence in arid, isolated terrain in
Namibia and Botswana that Whites have not coveted, the only
descendants of the aboriginal Khoisan are the so-called Cape
Coloured People-an
amalgam of people of diverse origins
who possess few of the cultural traits of their precolonial
ancestors.
White people did not begin to invade the eastern part of
southern Africa-the
terrain of the Bantu-speaking mixed
farmers whose background was described in chapter I-until
the late eighteenth century. Most of the mixed-farming commu-
nities were scarcely affected by European colonization before
the I 83os. In the early stages of contact in each successive
chiefdom, Africans welcomed and assisted the intruders, de-
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