Spatial and Oscillatory Migration of White Settlers: Implications on Southern African Peoples

Abstract

The paper investigated a checkered history of South Africa vis-a-vis the implications of white settlers on black aborigines. The Portuguese were among the first European traders that registered their presence and impact in the coastal area, followed by the discovery of the Cape as an amusement and transiting area to Asiatic countries trade by the Dutch in 1488. The Dutch East Indian Company used the Cape as a fort for constant resupply of its ships with fresh meat and milk obtained from the KhoiKhoi in exchanged for tobacco, brass wire, and copper bars. These products were exchanged for tobacco, brass wire, and copper bars, but due to the inequality in exchange, the native objection led to series of resistances. For effective domination, the society was stratified; notably, the free-white, the white servants (Knects), the mulattoes (artisans) and the natives. The degradation of the natives’ status triggered the instantiation of racial discrimination of the black aborigines by the white settlers. Between 1806 and 1808, the British mercantilists’ reasserted her presence by re-conquest and introduction of new reforms that abolished the Dutch-Boers institution of slavery and slave trade activities. This action led to the Great Trek of 1836-1841 of thousands of Dutch-Boers spatial and oscillatory migration leading to genocidal of the blacks known as the ‘Soweto massacre.’ The accumulated colonial varied experiences still lingers, and has become part of the underlying contemporary imbroglio with black settlers of different African countries in South Africa. However, the paper adopted historical method of data collection and interpretation.