the white settlers were few in number, their polities were frail, and their
pockets of settlement were bordered by autonomous African polities, in-
cluding the Tswana chiefdoms in the northwest, the Venda in the northern
Transvaal, and the Pedi, the Swazi; the Zulu, and the Mpondo in the east.
In this chapter we follow these events down to 1870, when the white
impact intensified dramatically as a result of the discovery of the world's
greatest deposits of diamonds, soon to be followed by gold, in the heart of
southern Africa. Since there were great variations over time and place, we
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