The Birth of a Plural Society: South Africa Lecture Notes

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the historical development of South Africa from the early years of European settlement through the emergence of a stratified plural society under V.O.C. rule.

Jan van Riebeeck

The Dutch official who arrived in Table Bay on 6 April 1652 with three ships to establish a settlement for the V.O.C.

V.O.C.

The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or Dutch East India Company, which established a base at the Cape to provide a vegetable garden and hospital for sailors.

Scurvy

A disease caused by Vitamin C deficiency that resulted in heavy mortality among V.O.C. sailors, leading to the need for a vegetable garden at the Cape.

Free burghers

Ex-Company servants released from service to establish private farms at the Rondebosch in 1657, marking the commitment to a full-fledged colony.

Simon van der Stel

The governor who arrived in 1679 and established the district of Stellenbosch for twenty new settlers.

Huguenots

Approximately 180 French refugees who fled to the Cape in 1689 and were settled in the Stellenbosch district near Franschhoek.

Afrikaner

An amalgam of nationalities that came into being during the century after Hendrik Bibault first described himself as an 'Africaander' in 1707.

Khoikhoi

Indigenous pastoralists of the Cape who initially traded livestock with the Dutch but eventually lost their land and were forced into labor.

Gonnema

The Cochoqua chief who fought a military campaign against the V.O.C. from 1673 to 1677 and eventually accepted tributary status.

Klaas (Dorha)

A Chainoqua middleman for the V.O.C. who exchanged goods for livestock with other tribes until he was imprisoned on Robben Island in 1693.

Smallpox epidemic of 1713

The most severe of several eighteenth-century outbreaks that drastically reduced the numbers of the Khoikhoi population.

Slaves

Unfree laborers imported to the Cape from 1658 onwards, primarily from Madagascar, Asia, and other parts of Africa.

Manumission

The legal process of freeing a slave, which occurred at the Cape at a very low rate of under two per thousand per annum.

Heren Zeventien

The board of seventeen directors headquartered in Amsterdam that governed the V.O.C.

Council of Policy (Politieke Raad)

The governing body at the Cape consisting of eight senior merchants that issued regulations called placaten.

Landdrosts

Official district magistrates who, along with burgher heemraden, managed local government starting in 1682.

Independent Fiscal

An unpopular officer appointed in 1689 to act as a watchdog over the administration of finance and justice at the Cape.

Trekboer

The Cape's first white frontiersman, typically a stockfarmer who advanced north and east into the interior starting in the early eighteenth century.

Loan farm system

An informal system where a trekboer could claim a 2000 morgen farm in exchange for an annual 'recognition' fee to the Company.

Transhumance

The practice of seasonal trekking with livestock to different regions for summer and winter grazing.

Commando

Units of whites and Khoikhoi organized for retaliatory military strikes against San resistance.

Bastaards

Offspring of marriages or illicit unions between whites and Khoikhoi who became a distinct people in the interior during the eighteenth century.

Griquas

A name adopted by the Bastaard community at the suggestion of the London Missionary Society to reflect their Khoikhoi (Grigriqua) ancestry.

London Missionary Society (L.M.S.)

An organization that established stations for the Griqua and provided advice on government structure in the early nineteenth century.