These Oppressions won't cease: An Anthology of thePolitical Thought of the Cape Khoesan, 17771879 Robert Ross (AFRICANA OUT OFPRINT NEW)
The Khoesan were the first people in Africa to undergo thefull rigours of European colonisation. By the early nineteenth century, theyhad largely been brought under colonial rule, dispossessed of their land andstock, and forced to work as labourers for farmers of European descent.
Nevertheless, a portion of them were able to regain adegree of freedom and maintain their independence by taking refuge in themission stations of the Western and Eastern Cape, most notably in the KatRiver valley. For much of the nineteenth century, these Khoesan peoplekept up a steady commentary on, and intervention in, the course ofpolitics in the Cape Colony.
Through petitions, speeches at meetings, letters to thenewspapers and correspondence between themselves, the Cape Khoesanarticulated a continuous critique of the oppressions of colonialism,always stressing the need for equality before the law, as well as theiropposition to attempts to limit their freedom of movement through vagrancylegislation and related measures. This was accompanied by a well-groundeddistrust, in particular, of the British settlers of the Eastern Cape and aconcomitant hope, rarely realised, in the benevolence of the British governmentin London. Comprising 98 of these texts, These Oppressions Wont Cease an utterance expressed by Willem Uithaalder, commander of Khoe rebelforces in the war of 1850-3 contains the essential documents of Khoesanpolitical thought in the nineteenth century.
These texts of the Khoesan provide a history of resistance tocolonial oppression which has largely faded from view. Robert Ross, the eminenthistorian of precolonial South Africa, brings back their voices from the annalsof the archive, voices which were formative in the establishment of blacknationalism in South Africa, but which have long been silenced.
