Colonial Expansion and Indigenous Displacement

The VOC needed meat so they pushed farmers inland to claim territory. These Trekboers

traveled in ox wagons with slaves, horses, and guns, marking farms on

horseback. As sons grew up wanting land, the frontier kept expanding eastward.

They lived independently, connected to the land, hunting wild animals and trading ivory

for coffee with traveling merchants. But this expansion came at a devastating cost.

The San and Khoi lost their land to Dutch guns, forced north or into servitude.

Then smallpox wiped out ninety percent of the Khoi population. When Trekboers reached the Fish River,

they collided with the Xhosa, who were also farmers needing grazing land.