was far removed from slave markets, and the inhabitants of
the Ciskei and Transkei, known as the Xhosa, were just far
enough inland not to attract anyone’s attention. As a
consequence, these societies did not feel the brunt of many
of the adverse currents that hit West and Central Africa.
The isolation of these places changed in the nineteenth
century. For the Europeans there was something very
attractive about the climate and the disease environment of
South Africa. Unlike West Africa, for example, South Africa
had a temperate climate that was free of the tropical
diseases such as malaria and yellow fever that had turned
much of Africa into the “white man’s graveyard” and
prevented Europeans from settling or even setting up
permanent outposts. South Africa was a much better
prospect for European settlement. European expansion
into the interior began soon after the British took over Cape
Town from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars. This
precipitated a long series of Xhosa wars as the settlement
frontier expanded further inland. The penetration into the
South African interior was intensified in 1835, when the
remaining Europeans of Dutch descent, who would
become known as Afrikaners or Boers, started their
famous mass migration known as the Great Trek away
from the British control of the coast and the Cape Town
area. The Afrikaners subsequently founded two
independent states in the interior of Africa, the Orange
Free State and the Transvaal.
The next stage in the development of South Africa came
with the discovery of vast diamond reserves in Kimberly in
1867 and of rich gold mines in Johannesburg in 1886. This
huge mineral wealth in the interior immediately convinced
the British to extend their control over all of South Africa.
The resistance of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal
led to the famous Boer Wars in 1880–1881 and 1899–
1902. After initial unexpected defeat, the British managed
to merge the Afrikaner states with the Cape Province and
Natal, to found the Union of South Africa in 1910. Beyond
the fighting between Afrikaners and the British, the
development of the mining economy and the expansion of
European settlement had other implications for the
development of the area. Most notably, they generated
demand for food and other agricultural products and