Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars
The Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars (or Khoekhoe–Dutch Wars) refers to a series of armed conflicts that took place in the latter half of the 17th century in what was then known as the Cape of Good Hope, in the area of present-day Cape Town, South Africa, fought primarily between Dutch colonisers, who came mostly from the Dutch Republic (today the Netherlands and Belgium) and the local African people, the indigenous Khoikhoi.
[6] Though Europeans had already been trading with Khoikhoi for more than a century, the VOC's colonisation of the Cape in 1652 caused serious disputes to break out over the ownership of land, and especially livestock.
Tense competition, deteriorating into violent attacks and counter-attacks by both sides, resulted in the Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars, which eventually ended with the defeat of the Khoikhoi.
[9] Van Riebeeck also ordered the construction of a line of forts, connected by a series of hedges, today known as Kirstenbosch, with the intention of fortifying the expanding free burgher farms.
Nommoa timed the Khoikhoi's attacks to coincide with the rainy season, knowing that the downpour would render the VOC's matchlock muskets useless, which were incapable of firing while wet.
[14] During the council meeting a party of Khoikhoi, led by Nommoa, raided a farm for cattle and killed a man named Simon Janssen in battle.
Within an hour of the council's adjournment, news of the Khoikhoi attack reached the Fort De Goede Hoop, causing panic and confusion to set in among the colonists.
In order to augment the Colony's limited armed forces, some free burghers were summoned from their farms and formed into a corps, and soldiers were commandeered from VOC ships as they resupplied at the Cape.
[13][14] In August of 1659, Van Riebeeck and the Council commenced the construction of the redoubts Kijkuijt (The Lookout), Keert de Koe (Stops the cow), and Ruijterwacht, connected by timber fences, in order to further fortify the borders of the VOC's occupation against the threat of cattle raids.
Ruijterwacht was erected about 4.8km south of the shore, among the free burghers' farmsteads, and as the name suggests, it served as a mounted infantry station.
After the conflict ended, the Strandloper clan moved back to the area near the Fort where they had lived before and a time of peace emerged.
Both parties agreed that neither would attack each other in future and that Doman's people would only enter the settlement's territory, and remain on the designated paths as pointed out, for the purpose of trade in order to replace the stolen cattle.
It was further declared that the free burghers and the Company would retain ownership of the land occupied by them and that the settlers would not treat the natives harshly for what had happened during the war, upon which all parties agreed.
In November 1672 the governor at the Cape sent three hunters to Riebeek's Kasteel to hunt for meat when upon their arrival they were ambushed and robbed by Gonnema's gang.
[16] Cochoquas, disguised as traders, arrived at the Company's trading post at Saldanha Bay on 6 July 1673 when suddenly they attacked and murdered four of the soldiers stationed there.
Reinforcements in the form of eighteen horsemen under leadership of freeburgher officer Elbert Diemer were dispatched a few days later to assist Hieronymus Cruse in his mission.
The settlements combined forces marched across the area of Twenty Four Rivers when their scouts discovered a Cochoqua kraal among the mountains on 18 July.
Another force were dispatched under guidance of the spy Jacob to Saldanha Bay where they found and killed several of Gonnema's followers.
Furthermore, the Cochoquas would instruct their people to refrain from stealing livestock from the settlers and their allies and severely punish those who committed such a crime.
[23] Some modern scholars have observed that superior war-making ability was not the only means whereby the Dutch forced the Khoikhoi to submit and concluded that, in addition to having superior technology, European settlers also used bureaucratic support from the Dutch East India Company to occupy better watered and more productive lands in the interior, whereas Khoikhoi pastoralists were denied access to these lands.
[24] The disappearance of these people from the land can be attributed to the conflicts of the Khoikhoi Dutch Wars and the political and legal aftermath in the resulting areas.
