SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The central concern of this thesis is the changing nature of production and socio-economic relationships among the Southern Tswana of the northern Gape under the impact of colonisation in the late nineteenth century. It considers the importance of the region's ecological limitations which, combined with its proximity to the industrialising centre of Kimberley, contrasts the Southern Tswana's experience with that of other colonised peoples in more agriculturally suited regions of southern Africa. These combined factors greatly shortened the duration of prosperity enjoyed by African 'independent producers' and magnified the impact of colonial repression, especially in land alienation. The thesis traces the steady closing of the region's economically viable options under the impact of merchant, speculative and mining capital, and examines the extent and consequences of the Southern Tswana's participation in early diamond prospecting as well as their exploitation in the 187Os and 80s of Kimberley's provisioning and firewood markets. The thesis also investigates the development of colonial policy towards land ownership and African administration and illustrates the conflict between the missionary/merchant's Cape 'liberalism' of fostering African 'peasant' prosperity and the capital interests of land speculation and Kimberley's mining industry. It concludes with the conquest and subordination of the Southern Tswana following the rinderpest epidemic and Langeberg 'rebellion' of 1896-7 and the consequent triumph of the colonial state in support of capitalist employers and land speculators.