!Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert are most researched old culture. Studies include religion, art, paintings, music

Recorded Bushman History

Despite literary distortions, most records have important information that can be gleaned from the tarnished words, with a little careful polishing. The attached Bibliography gives a list of the most important (my assumption) with sometimes a note of caution if I thought some observations were grossly inaccurate in any way.

It has been implied that the Bushmen troubles started with the arrival of the whites (and the launch of recorded history). Not so - As has been mentioned before, they faced a variety of problems throughout Africa in the past from other Africans of all types - from Egypt to the mid South, and from the Arabs along the full eastern seaboard. The fact that rock art and archeological evidence shows they once were a very widely spread culture, by the time the whites arrived, the far South was virtually the only area where they were to be found in any significant numbers.

Upon van Reebeck's arrival at the Cape, he recorded a running battle between the Khoikhoi , with whom he was trying to trade for cattle, and the Strandlopers (a similar coastal people without cattle), mostly revolving around the Strandlopers theft of Cattle. The first true Bushmen encountered were to the mountains north of Table Bay in 1655. Also noticeable in all these records was the absence of any Bantu in the southern Cape. These people were certainly encountered further north in the northern & eastern Cape regions, Natal and the Transvaal. Despite virulent objections from some quarters, every written record from a multitude of different sources state that the southern Cape was only populated by Khoisan peoples at a time when the Bantu pastoralists were migrating down through areas conducive to cattle. The very arid regions of the Karoo and Namaqualand to the north & northeast would have been virtually impenetrable barriers to these people.

It is however fair to say that the Dutch arrival in the Cape raised the persecution of the Bushmen to a new level, which eventually resulted in their near extermination in South Africa. Frequently forming treaties or pacts with both Khoi and Bantu at various times and supplying arms, both the Dutch & the British succeeded in "freeing the sub continent of their vexing problem" (Their words).

The scattered Bushmen in the Cape were eventually eliminated piecemeal in the mountains to the north. Small pockets remained in more inaccessible regions for many years until they too succumbed. Many no doubt survived by integrating themselves in the growing mixed colored communities that serviced the Cape Colony while records show that many were imprisoned by the Dutch in the 1860's & 70's and used in harbour and defense construction. Their former prison is now the Breakwater Lodge Hotel in Cape Town.

The expansion that resulted from the Freeburghers (Settlers freed from the constraints of the Cape Colony) meant that this same persecution continued further afield to encompass the whole Cape Province and the Orange Free State. There is too much to fit into these few short pages but I will mention two particular events, that of the demise of the Free State Bushmen at Wepinaar and the end of the Natal Drakensburg Bushmen.

Both these conflicts culminated in pitched battles virtually destroying the existing Clans but intriguingly there seems to be a direct link between the Free State Bushman and the later events in Natal. There is much evidence to suggest that survivors from the Free State massacre, traveled up the Orange River into Lesotho, later teaming up with local Bushmen in the northeast Drakensburgs and starting to steal cattle over the escarpment in Natal. Survivors from the final Natal Commando raid in Lesotho apparently escaped over Bushman's Nek and continued to live in fairly peaceful isolation the southern Drakensburgs. In both these events there seemed an uncharacteristic (but very understandable) ferocity on the part of the Bushmen.

Throughout this devastating period, however, much evidence exists of pockets of cooperation between white farmers & the Bushmen, and indeed the Bantu & Bushmen. These isolated events certainly pale into insignificance when faced with the overriding opinion of the day, that Bushmen were vermin, cattle thieves and scavengers but, despite this general feeling, there were several researchers who saw an honorable and worthy side to these people and recorded heavy volumes on them, while many farmers, while displacing them, actively employed Bushmen to look after their livestock and children.

While a great many died from the actions of the whites, many more just faded into the landscape as these changes occurred, surviving in isolated communities. Later game reserves were declared and resident Bushmen were ejected, farmers moved in and killed or pushed them out. Far from running vast distances into the deserts, most survivors just assimilated themselves into the growing mixed/colored settlements that were springing up, supplying seasonal and casual labour to anyone willing to employ them.

The Kalahari Bushmen seem to have always existed in that region and became some of the last survivors simply because they lived in an area unattractive to the keepers of cattle. Botswana, Namibia, Angola and Zambia provided the last real refuge for these people until the advent of the modern world.

The Khoikhoi

The Cape Hottentots became totally involved in the developing Dutch Cape Colony with increasing interbreeding, understandable with many of the white inhabitants without women and a bustling seafaring trade. The familiar "Cape Coloureds" are a product of this and the many other peoples, like Malays, who were brought in to provide labour for the settlement. I would guess that a measure of Bushman blood is present here from those captured and imprisoned in Cape Town.

The expansion of the Freeburghers out from the Cape had a similar effect, where coloured communities evolved, providing services to the white communities. From this kaleidoscope world, several distinctive and proud groups emerged, who claimed their measure of White parentage. The Witboois (White Boys) and the Afrikaners (not to be confused with the white Afrikaaners) were two such groups which emerged from this melting pot along with the later Basters who were Dutch settlers with Hottentot wives. Squeezed out, they first travelled north and then west and finally north again finding themselves in the very inhospitable Namaqualand and Namibia.

These groups made a name for themselves by giving all aggressors, including the Germans, a good fight. The end however was a collection of severely weakened clans who, for the most part, still survive today. Now usually associated with dry habitats and having been further diluted with Bantu blood, they are generally called "Nama" in Namaqualand & Namibia, and represent a very diverse group of physical and cultural characteristics. The Khoi language (called Nama here) generally still remains but with a large smattering of Afrikaans and a little German.

Similar groups can be found in the Karoo as well, although there is little or no Bantu blood found here. Very likely that Bushmen surviving the various commando raids would have blended in here, the women if not the men.