originated in the seventeenth century, minus the overt practice of slavery.
The British settlers in the Cape Colony and Natal, and in the towns and
villages in the republics, had rapidly complied with the established mores.
In spite of their setbacks as a result of the Mfecane and white expansion,
the African peoples of the region were proving to be remarkably resilient.
They showed no signs ofdisintegrating like the aboriginal peoples ofNorth
America and Australia. In 1870, they wereprobably more than ten times as
numerous as the Whites in the area covered by the modern Republic of
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