In the aftermath of the rebellion, the world had changed. The inhabitants of the Kat River valley and of the mission stations no longer had the confidence to challenge the racist order that came to prevail in the Cape. The rebellion was crushing in its effects, even for those who had remained steadfastly loyal, as the Kat River valley was, as far as possible, opened up to white settlement. The levels of authority which the original settlers in the valley had held over their lives were undermined. Men of Khoekhoe descent were systematically excluded from any positions of responsibility, and any land that came free was granted to whites, under the pretext that this would provide a leavening of the racially exclusive settlement. In fact, of course, it was the beginning of a long process of dispossession.

In these circumstances, Khoekhoe politics turned increasingly inwards. Although on occasion Khoekhoe descendants did participate in public debates on a variety of issues, most notably on the attempts to partition the colony between the Western and the Eastern Provinces, in general political energy was expended on the details of the new settlement in the Kat River valley, and above all on the organisation of the various churches. It was both a sphere in which the Khoe could still wield power, and one which was under threat as the funding for mission churches declined and the call went up that congregations of converts, and increasingly of men and women brought up in the faith, should be financially self-supporting and independent.