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Progress and decline in the Kat river settlement, 1829–1854*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Tony Kirk
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Extract

The Kat River Settlement was established in the eastern Cape Colony in 1829 as a measure of frontier defence. In 1851 many of its coloured inhabitants rebelled against the colonial government. The rebels' motives were beyond the comprehension of contemporary officials, and no thorough investigation of them has since been made. All accounts agree that the Settlement initially thrived, despite the harmful effects of a frontier war in 1835. In later years, however, the government used the Settlement as a dumping ground for coloureds and tribesmen dispossessed elsewhere. The coloureds' system of economic clientship was simultaneously challenged by the extension of commercial farming techniques in the eastern Cape. Coloured people failed to obtain credit to enable them to adapt. Overcrowding and insecurity bred discontent, particularly among certain coloureds of Gonaqua (Khoi) origin, who remembered suffering earlier injustices at the hands of the whites. Unsympathetic colonial officials and the declining military importance of the Settlement compounded these basic grievances. In 1851, under cover of another frontier war, numbers of Settlement coloureds rebelled. The rebellion failed and the government appropriated the land belonging to the rebels, thus dispersing the last concentration of Gonaqua Khoi.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 1973 , pp. 411 - 428
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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