Frontiers

A frontier

• A frontier is an area of land where two different group meet and fight for control of the land

• An expanding frontier is when one group begins to control more of the land.

Settlers begin to move inland

• As European settlers began to arrive in the Cape , these settlers began to take over more and more land from the people that had lived there for hundreds of years (indigenous people).

• Dutch trek-boers settlers began to move inland (north and eastward).

• They were in search of freedom from the VOC and sought to build out their own farms, growing wine, wheat, and cattle (for meat).

The Zuurveld

• The settlers found the Xhosa communities in the area called the Zuurveld. This is between the Sundays and Fish Rivers.

• Zuurveld means ‘sour grass’

• This was good grazing for cattle and sheep in the summer

• In the winter the cattle grazed on the sweet grass found in the river valleys of the Zuurveld

Conflict arises

• The Xhosa and Dutch fought frontier wars over the land of the Zuurveld.

• The both kept cattle and raided cattle (stole cattle) from one another

• The Xhosa fought fiercely to defend their lands

• The European weapons were too strong for the Xhosa to fight against.