Both the Xhosa and the Boers were cattle-farming societies competing for fi nite land and pasture resources on the frontier. At the same time, they traded with each other, and growing numbers of Xhosa worked as cattle herders on farms. The Company banned all trade with the Xhosa, but the burghers nonetheless enthusiastically sought to trade because they could acquire cattle cheaply in exchange for tobacco, copper, iron and beads.
Unlike the Khoikhoi, the Xhosa could retaliate if duped or dispossessed of their cattle. Colonel Collins wrote that the Xhosa, at first, ‘gave their cattle and labour without knowing its value, but a little experience having opened their eyes on these points, altercations between them and the farmers were the necessary consequence. These contentions grew into enmities.’
The tie of labour also bound and chafed. Many Xhosa began to work on farms – sometimes for food and other times for beads, buttons and trinkets, or a heifer or two. Some burghers beat and humiliated their Xhosa workers as they did the Khoikhoi, but with the Xhosa chiefdoms intact, maltreated workers could draw on their chiefs to avenge themselves. Many years later an old coloured man said of the pioneer frontier: ‘The [Xhosa], when not regularly paid or [when they were] flogged, informed their chief and came and stole cattle from the farmers by way of repaying themselves for the injuries they had sustained.’
Despite this, the frontier farmers continued to employ Xhosa servants. At the same time, however, they remained anxious about the large numbers of Xhosa in their vicinity, especially those who wandered in parties through the district. They became increasingly irritated by frequent requests from Xhosas who stopped at their houses and begged for ‘presents’.
The points on which the Boers felt superior – the Christian religion, monogamous marriage, dress and artifacts of western civilisation – had little meaning for the Xhosa. For their part, the Xhosa attempted to enmesh the farmers in their networks and eventually integrate them into their society along the pattern of the Xhosa absorption of Khoikhoi clans. Trading and military alliances all formed part of the Xhosa’s initial interaction with another society, followed by marriage and other forms of social incorporation. All hinged on outsiders accepting African leadership and on payment of tribute to a chief, according to Xhosa custom.
