For the next three weeks, we will be looking at the history of societies in conflict with one another, starting with South Africa. Not only are cultures in conflict with one another, but there are conflicts between the different ways that cultures interact with the natural world. Dr. Mitchell claims that "nature" is at the heart of the conflict between cultures. We will consider the control and use of natural resources, the proper relationship between humanity and nature and the nature of humanity itself.
We will focus on historical thinking skills, an introduction to geography and culture of South Africa, and the importance of contingency and specificity of time and place. Time-place specificity means that certain truths arise in a particular time and in a particular place. For historians, an attachment to time-place specificity means that there is almost always an exception to universal laws and rules. The clearest universal law seems to be that humans are diverse and unpredictable. Our specific place for this unit is the Cape of Good Hope and the time is 19th century. To say that something is contingent upon something else means that it is dependent upon that thing. For example, the fact that Afrikaans, a language in South Africa, sounds like Dutch is contingent on the fact that there were so many white Dutch colonists in South Africa hundreds of years ago.
South Africa has many different climates. Dr. Mitchell notes that the landscapes impact the lives of people living there. For example, not all of South Africa has significant rainfall. Also, some areas are cut off from other areas by mountains. The diverse countryside ranges from dry deserts to sub-tropical forests. Cape Floral Kingdom, which is .5% of the size of South Africa, has 20% of the diversity of the country. There is also a lot of diversity of species within every genus. Also, approximately 30% of plants are endemic, meaning they grow nowhere else naturally. The biodiversity of the Cape Floral Kingdom has made it the subject of much scientific interest.
Early humanoid evolution has been documented in South Africa. Australopithacene fossils as old as 2.6 million years old have been found. There is archaeological evidence of humans hunting and foraging in this place 20,000 years ago, known as the San. Herders, or pastoralists, the Khoi, arrived 2,000 years ago. Bantu-speaking farmers arrived by 300 C.E. (300 A.D.) and moved down the East coast of South Africa.
The sources about Khoisan culture are somewhat questionable. European colonists described the locals as a mix of bushmen (foragers) and hottentots (herders). By 1750, Khoisan culture was almost entirely obliterated because of the disturbance caused by European colonists. There is linguistic evidence that the Khoisan culture had significant interactions with early versions of Bantu culture. We have rock art from this culture, which has no clear meaning and can be interpreted in many ways. There is also some further material culture and art, some colonial records and 19th century ethnographies.
"Bushmen" and "hottentot" are words used by colonists that were often intended as insults. From the European perspective, it appeared as if these people were somehow living "outside of time", suspended in a prehistoric way of living. But this ignores the complexity of the lives of such cultures.
In modern South Africa, there are 11 official languages, each of which carries socio-historical significance. Afrikaans, spoken over most of Western South Africa, in the places with significant rainfall, is spoken by the descendants of Dutch settlers. The Dutch East India Company was established to take advantage of trade opportunities with India. The Cape of Good Hope was supposed to be an outpost on the trading lines. In 1652, a small garrison was assigned to the area in order to establish a pit-stop for sailors. Jan van Riebeeck was in charge of this garrison. By 1656, he convinced the directors of the Dutch East India Company to import slaves from Asia to perform labor. In 1659, there was the first Khoi-Dutch war. In 1666-1679, Europeans built the oldest stone building in Capetown, the Castle of Good Hope. By 1763, the settlement had grown significantly from the original outpost.
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