The KhoiKhoi

Decline of the Khoikhoi

           In 1652, the Dutch East India Company established a trading settlement in what is now known as Cape Town to "provide refreshment and supplies to scurvy-ridden ships on their voyages around the southern tip of Africa en rout to the Far East" (Lester). The Khoikhoi became the first native people in Africa to come in contact with these Dutch settlers, and traded with them upon their arrival. The Khoikhoi population soon dwindled as the Dutch enslaved them and took over their land for farming. In 1659, the first of the Khoikhoi-Dutch Wars broke out over disputes of land ownership and livestock. During this war the Dutch built a series of fences along the present-day Liesbeek River and Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden separating the Khoikhoi from their ancestral lands and the Dutch. The second and third Khoikhoi-Dutch Wars occurred in 1673 and 1674 which resulted in over 6,800 head of livestock being taken from the Khoikhoi. These wars, along with the introduction of smallpox from the Dutch colonists, eventually ended in the defeat of the Khoikhoi.