Section 2 Overview: European Encroachments in South Africa
Section 2 of Fox Bourne's work, Blacks and Whites in South Africa: an account of the past treatment and present condition of South African Natives under British and Boer control, provides a more detailed account of the narrative of the ongoing European expansion and relationship with the peoples of Transvaal. In the formative stages of their relationship, Europeans sought trade and resources not to seize and plunder native lands; however, as the natives became ever more pressing obstacles impeding economic progress, the Europeans looked for an excuse to deal with them. They eventually used quarrels with the natives to justify the seizures of their lands. When force would not suffice, the Europeans used trickery to cheat chiefs out of their lands and further justify expansion. They broke up Hottentot tribes and warred with the Bushman.
In 1795, the English took full control. According to Fox Bourne's account, the English dominion led to a growing white population which in turn led to the seizing of even more lands and even greater impacts on the native peoples. It also led to importing ever greater numbers of slaves from other regions of Africa. The abolishment of slavery bolstered the ranks of the black colonists and brought them into more direct conflict with the white colonists. This led to ever greater atrocities like the slaughter of the cattle of the native which caused thousands to starve. The conflict came to a head when the lands of the black colonists were to be seized unless they willingly became British citizens fully subject to imperial laws and bound to the empires service. All of which culminated in an ever increasing European presence that pressured the natives and inevitably impacted them culturally and materially. This impact is the main subject of the second section of Foxbourne's work which uses it as the justification for the moral plea he makes in the first section.
