Discuss the production relation among the Khoi-San and show how they were affected by the settlement of Whites after 1652

Relation of production is the sum total of social relationship that people must enter into in order to produce and reproduce for their subsistence or means of life. As people enter in this relationship participation to them is not voluntary, the totality of this relationship constitute a relative stable and permanent structure of the economic structure. It involves with the production ways and productive forces. Khoi-San were the native pastoralist of Southern Africa who lived Sothern part of Africa since the 5th century AD. When European immigrants colonized the area after 1652, the Khoikhoi were practicing pastoral agriculture in the Cape region with large herd of Nguni cattle. The Dutch labeled them as Hottentots in imitation in the sound of the Khoikhoi. Archeological evidences found that the Khoikhoi were from Botswana they entered through the two distinct  route  travelling West sticking the Kalahari to the West coast the down to the cape .

The term Khoi-San generally refers to the two groups of Khoikhoi and San. It was coined during 1928 by an academic Leonard Schultz who used the term Khoi-San to denote both Khoikhoi and San groupings. The San included indigenous inhabitants of Southern Africa before the South ward Bantu migration from Central and East Africa reached their region. While the Khoikhoi abandoned pastoralism and adopted the hunter-gatherer economy of the San probably due to dry climate. These two groups shared language, geography and cultural values for the most part as well as similar genetic ancestors. The San generally lived as hunter-gatherers while the Khoikhoi lived as pastoralist, but through intermarriages they come into contact. The evidence that show the presence Khoi-San in South Africa is the distribution of their language today which is of clicks consonants and vocabulary .

Literatures show that the development relation of production of the Khoi-San was contributed by all aspects of life which are political, economic and socio-cultural aspect. The following are the forces which contributed to the development of relation of production in the Khoi-San societies;

The role of indigenous education, researches shows that, Khoisan societies provided informal education which was mainly targeted to make good upbringing to their youngsters. This education was provided so as to make the current generation to be acceptable in the future generation something which led to the advancements of the relation of production. Forinstance, the youths were taught on how to conduct hunting and gathering activities. Also, in the Khoikhoi societies the youngsters were taught on how to practice good domestication of animals (Pastoralism) something which led to the availability of enough food and formation of semi-nomadic societies especially during 1500-1650 .

The issue of language, both Khoikhoi and San spoke click language. According to Augustin de Beaulieu (1620), he commented that,”Khoi-San spoke from the throat something which led them to sob and sigh when they were speaking. Apart from Augustin,”Vasco da Gama said that,”when Khoi-San met,”they used to dance a song as a symbol of greeting among the Khoisan something which brought unity and solidarity in the society. This cementation led to the development of relations of production. For example, the click language was used in various activities like hunting, gathering, fishing and livestock keeping activities .

The question of religion and societal ceremonies, studies show that, “Both Khoikhoi and San believed in various natural phenomena something which led them to gather on the same place so as to conduct their religious activities. For instance, Khoi-San believed on hills, valleys, trees and moon. For example,”Khokhoi employed great significance to the moon hence the new and full moons were important time for rain making. This made them to view the moon as the physical manifestation of a supreme being associated with the heaven and the earth. Apart from that, “religious activities were incorporated in various activities and societal ceremonies like burial ceremonies, birth and marriage .

The issue of housing conditions, due to their nomadic way of life,” both Khoikhoi and San preferred the use of dome-shaped huts which were made from the stripped branches of tree something which facilitated their easily movement from one place to another. Both Khoi-San lived in a nomadic life in their whole process of searching good areas for settlement. For instance, Khoi-San moved from drying regions like in the Kalahari Desert to other fertile areas in search of water and pastures for their herds .

The Khoi-San are descendants of Early Stone Age ancestors. Clans and loosely connected family groups followed seasonal game migrations between mountain range and coastline where by Khoi- San involved in production communally based as team work, but soon after the whites arrived interfered them because the Europeans owned horses and firearms as the tools for their fighting against Khoi-San where by the number of Khoi-San was greatly reduced. They fought to the death and preferred death to capture where they would be forced into slavery .

The Khoi-San had the system of migratory way of life searching and supply food in different areas but colonialism destroyed the Khoi-San migratory way of life, so they were no longer allowed to roam freely and trophy hunters destroyed the vast herds of game that formed their principal supply of food. Both Black and White farmers built up huge herds of cattle that destroyed the foods that had been the Khoi-San staple diet for centuries . 

Also due to enslavement and sometimes mass destruction of Khoi-San communities, by both White and Black farmers, most of the Khoi-San became farm labourers and some joined black farming communities, and intermarried with them, which added to the destruction of the social identity of the San people .

The Khoi-San had no formal authority figure or chief, but govern themselves by group consensus. Disputes are resolved through lengthy discussions where all involved have a chance to make their thoughts heard until some agreement is reached. Certain individuals may assume leadership in specific spheres in which they excel, such as hunting or healing rituals, but they cannot achieve positions of general influence or power. White colonists found this very confusing when they tried to establish treaties with the Khoi-San .

But leadership among the Khoi-San was kept for those who had lived within that group for a long time, who had achieved a respectable age, and good character. Khoi-San are largely egalitarian, sharing such things as meat and tobacco. Land was usually owned by a group, and rights to land are usually inherited bilaterally, kinship bonds provide the basic framework for political models, membership in a group is determined by residency. As long as a person lives on the land of his group he maintains his membership. So it was possible to hunt on land not owned by the group, but permission must be obtained from the owners all these emphasized them to have the effective productions in their societies .

Division of works or specialization of works among the Khoi-San people, both female and male were responsible to provide their contribution in the society since the men hunt, the women, who are experts in foraging for edible mushrooms, bulbs, berries and melons, gather food for the family while children stay at home to be watched over by those remaining in camp, but nursing children are carried on these gathering trips, adding to the load the women must carry from that specialization people were able now to participate in their responsible positions as the society member to achieve their goals(relation of production) .

Gender roles are not jealously guarded in the Khoi- San society. Women sometimes assist in the hunt and the men sometimes help gather plant foods. Because there was no clear defined political system, leadership among the Khoi-San was not considered much in the issue of gender work based but only were focused on the food collections for their needs together with their kids as it was explained before. From that point they were able to perform the production effectively because every individual participated fully . 

The main economic activities among the Khoi-San were pastoralist ,hunters and gatherers; they lived in the area chiefly  along the southern and western  coastal strips where adequate grazing was to be found .The Khoi-San kept herds of animals such as goat ,cattle and sheep and had to move around and find  where they could get enough grazing  land for their animals .But it should be well known that the movement of the Khoi-San was taking place seasonally and stayed at one place for few  weeks. As Khoi-San also involved in hunting and gathering, women were responsible for gathering wild plants from the Veld and men killed games for every day food .

But for side of the San mainly depended on hunting and gathering, where depended on collecting fruits, honey and in hunting the San smeared poison, gathered from beetles on the arrowheads, which would kill or paralyses their prey. But for Bushmen the activities were closely cooperated in the group where men were responsible in hunting and women involved in gathering the wild plants food, and fishing.

The following are the effects of Whites settlement at the Cape of Good Hope after 1652 towards the Khoi-San:-

Changes in labor form, by the 1870s agrarian capitalism had emerged with large commercial farms buying up smallholdings and producing commercial farms goods for sale in the towns. This resulted in tens of thousands of black and white farmers losing their jobs, and being forced to work as wage-labourers on commercial farms or migrates to the cities in search of work. These changes greatly increased South Africa’s agricultural output as commercial farms were more efficient and had greater access to farming machinery than small farms and saw social changes in rural areas. The peasantry effectively disappeared and a new class farmers, midway between the large commercial farms and small holdings were able to significantly increase their earnings by producing cash crops such as coffee, tobacco, sugar and grapes which were not labour-intensive and which fetched high prices at urban markets. Animal husbandry also increased with increasingly large swathes of land being turned over to sheep and cattle farming .

The Khoi-San were also affected by extensive land alienation, the Whites settlement at the cape led to increase of different economic activities such as Agriculture and mining. For example The Khoi-San were forced to leave in areas such as Natal and Transvaal due to gold and diamond mining, they went to areas with no fertile  thus they faced famine and hunger. Also, the whites introduced land Act in 1981 so as to confer on a purchase or perspective purchase of land the right to revoke an offer to purchase or to terminate a deed of alienation in certain circumstances and to provide for matters connected therewith due to this land Act of 1913 the Khoi-san had no right to possess the land . 

Rise of antagonism between the Khoi-San against the whites; the Cape of Good Hope was established for supplying the ships going east with fresh fruit, vegetable and meat. In achieving this the whites engaged in growing vegetable and fruits in case of meat the whites conducted trade with the Khoi-San through this trade relationship conflicts arouse between the Khoi-San against whites where by the whites raided and slaughtered Khoi-San’s cattle, thus leading to conflicts between the Khoi-San against the whites .

Enslavement of the Khoi-San; the arrival of the whites at the cape of good hope deteriorated Khoi-Sans’ lives where by the whites stated to enslave the natives who were the Khoi-San this was the results of whites settlement at the cape of good hope in which they engaged in vegetables and fruits production .With this situation the whites encountered serious shortage of laborers that were needed in the farms of the whites, therefore as the solution to laborers shortage the whites decided to use the Khoi-San as slaves .

Massive destruction of properties and loss of lives of the Khoi-San; this were the results of the Khoi-San resistances against the whites settlement and expansion at the Cape of Good Hope. It took place into guerrilla war on three occasions during the 17th century, where by the first occurred in 1659 in which the Khoi-San settlements were destroyed. Although between 1799 and 1803 the Khoi-San achieved to challenge the whites later the Khoi-San were badly killed by the whites .     

Khoi-San were affected with diseases; the expansion of whites in South Africa led to the spread of diseases like smallpox in 1713. The Khoi-San had no natural immunity to this killer’s disease which spread after the arrival of Europeans in the cape. Many Khoi-San died in the Regions near the Cape Town but only few Khoi-San survived. The disease killed many Khoisan livestock where by many Khoi-San who had ready lost their livestock moved into the hills to establish new settlement. The Boers commanders went out on shooting Khoi-San hunters on sight or hurting them into ambush. One night in 1775, for example the notorious commander leader Adrian van Jaarsveld ambushed 149 Khoi-San hunters in the mountains north of Graaff-Reinet. Due to this circumstance the Khoi-San submitted voluntarily and agreed to work for the Boers as farm labourers and herdsmen. In this way Khoi-San remained in their land and allowed to graze some of their own livestock. By the end of 18th century there were very few independent Khoi-San left within the borders of the colony .

Khoi-san were affected by slavery at the Cape, initially, slave labour was widely used at the Cape as the person servants of senior company officials and as the main source of agricultural labour. Jan van Riebeeck enslaved Khoi-San and seized their livestock under the company of Dutch East India Company. There after slaves were mostly brought from Angola, Madagascar and few from Mozambique and Indonesia. The slavery in the Cape made the Khoi-San to react against the Dutch as at the first the Khoi-San welcomed a certain trade with European ships they were able to sell off their surplus livestock especially old and sick animals in exchange for brass, copper, beards, tobacco and alcohol. After the introduction of slavery the Dutch stopped Khoi-San’s trade something which led the Khoi-San to work as slave labour and paid only food, old clothing, cheap alcohol, vary rarely and occasional life animal. This led to the destruction of Khoisan relation of production .

Also, Khoi-San were affected by new European culture, before the coming of Whites in South Africa Khoi-san had their own culture such as language and religion, but after the arrival of Whites for example Dutch introduced new language and religion. The Dutch East India Company insisted that Dutch should be the only official language at the Cape. This led the dialect of Dutch to spread quickly to the local area. Words were adopted from other European languages as well as from their Malagasy and Indonesian slaves. Also new religion which is Christian church was introduced in South Africa. This was an extreme Protestant faith insured by the writings of the Old Testament. Many remote frontier Boers could barely read or write, but none the less every family owned a Bible. Believing that they were God’s chosen people; they justified the conquest of the natives. The European used this notion to underestimate the Khoisan culture by regarding themselves as superior that is why they come in South Africa just to civilize Africans. For example British regarded colonialism as a tool of African civilization .

Once we make a critical analysis concerning the arrival of the Whites in South Africa particularly Dutch and the British, “we may come up with the fact that, the Whites caused a lots of troubles and misunderstandings to the Khoi-San societies as how have elaborated. Although the beam balance leans more on the negative happening of the Whites settlement in South Africa, “there also positive aftermaths like advancement of agricultural activities, replacement of the click language which were used by Khoi-San with English language, advancement of various infrastructures in South Africa like roads, railways. Also there replacement of the Khoi-San’s indigenous ruling system by the modern European ruling system. These changes have notable replications on the history of South Africa up to date for example the ruling system of South African government which is used up to date is highly resembling to the ruling system which were initiated by the Whites

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