THEWHITEINVADERS
biers), as well as domestic servants and laborers. The greater the distance
from the town, the larger the proportion of Khoikhoi among the Coloured
People and the more severe their subjection. By 1870,
the traditional
culture and social networks of the Khoikhoi had been destroyed by the
process of conquest and subjection. Scattered as they were in small groups .
under white control, they had no means of contesting the new order.
Under favorable circumstances, the people who becarne known as Colo-
ured People might have been expected to merge socially and biologically
with the Afrikaners. There had always been considerable cohabitation
across the color line, and the Afrikaner community had incorporated many
individuals of mixed descent. Afrikaner race consciousness, however, was
strong enough to limit that process. In 1857, social pressures caused the
synod of the Dutch Reformed church of the colony to authorize the separa-
tion of Coloured from white congregations, which led to the creation of a
distinct and subordinate mission church for Coloured People. By 186 I,
moreover, Coloured children were effectively banned from the public
schools. Those who received any formal education did so in mission in-