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| 2. South of the Limpopo |
| 1500–1650 |
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| Arid western half of southern Africa was dominated by Khoi herdsmen and by San hunters who in lean times became clients of the Khoi. San lived in small nomadic bands while Khoi lived in larger, seminomadic, and differentiated groups. At the Cape, Khoi traded cattle to occasional European ships. At the east-west divide, marked by grazing land that was marginal for agriculture, there were economic relationships between Khoi herders and Bantu cattle-keeping farmers. The latter (Nguni along the coast and Sotho/Tswana in the interior) lived in late-iron-age mixed farming communities based on grain and livestock. These communities were formed into chiefdoms but were not highly centralized; the basic unit was the homestead, linked to the chiefdom through a patrilineage and a clan. | 1 |
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| 1652 |
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| Dutch East India Company established a settlement at Cape Town as refreshment station for ships in trade between Europe and Asia, under command of Jan van Riebeeck. Meat was procured from the Khoi and vegetables grown in the company garden. Since Khoi labor was not forthcoming, the company imported slaves from Asia and other parts of Africa (especially Madagascar). The settlement slowly expanded as Europeans engaged in extensive pastoralism and hunting with Khoi and slave laborers. Burghers freed from company service at Cape Town came into conflict with Khoi on Cape Peninsula, leading to series of wars between the company and Khoi. | 2 |
| Bantu speakers in present-day South Africa also began to adopt MAIZE, which has higher yields but is less drought-resistant than sorghum. The century was generally dry in South Africa and concluded with a serious drought and famine. Preceding the drought, however, there was considerable population growth based on the early adoption of maize in the northern Nguni areas and a proliferation of chiefdoms. Sotho-Tswana peoples began to form large chiefdoms in southern and western Transvaal and in Botswana, living in large central settlements and ruled by a chief with religious and political authority advised by a council. | 3 |
| Cape Town became an entrepôt for an extensive pastoralist economy. Its population increased from slave importations and immigration; by 1800 there were 20,000 free burghers and 25,000 slaves. The colony's expansion pushed the Khoisan from the western interior. | 4 |
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| 1666 |
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| First Calvinist church erected at Cape Town. | 5 |
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| 1667 |
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| Indians and Malaysians began to arrive at the Cape. | 6 |
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| c. 1685 |
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| First wines successfully grown at the Cape. | 7 |
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| 1688 |
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| Two hundred Huguenot refugees from France arrived at the Cape and strengthened Dutch settlement. | 8 |
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| 1707 |
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| At least one Dutch settler began to call himself an Afrikaner. | 9 |
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| 1713 |
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| Smallpox epidemic in Cape killed large numbers of Khoi and was followed by cattle disease that led to loss of herds. Impoverished Khoi became clients of cattle-keeping Africans and Afrikaners. | 10 |
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| c. 1730 |
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| Dutch began trekking into the interior of the Cape. | 11 |
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| 1730–80 |
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| Independent mixed-race communities of Kora, Griqua, and Nama cattle-raiding and trading pastoralists thrived north of Cape Town along the Orange River beyond the white frontier. The trading frontier east of Cape Town for ivory and cattle became the frontier of white settlement, leading to conflict with Xhosa semipastoralists over grazing land and to series of frontier wars at end of century. | 12 |
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| 1736–42 |
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| George Schmidt, first Protestant missionary at the Cape, began evangelization among the Khoi. | 13 |
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