SOUTH AFRICAN 



QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



SSCCND SERXES. 



Wo. I. OCTOBER— DECEMBER, 1833. Parti, 



An Account of the Amdkosae, a tribe of Caffers adjoining 

 the Eastern Boundary of the Cape Colony. By N. 

 Morgan, Esq. Assistant StafF-Suigeon. — (Abridged.) 



[Read at the South African Institution.] 



The formation of a colony of Europeans at the Cape of Good 

 Hope in 1652, was the precussor of a great change in the con- 

 dition of the Hottentot people, the original possessors of the 

 country. A settlement was obtained by treaty, and an increase 

 of territory at various times was gained both by seizure and 

 conquest, so that from possessing a few acres of land only in 

 1659, the Dutch at the time of the British conquest, were 

 masters of nearly all the country, and the original proprietors 

 of the land were the servants of their conquerors. 



Though the desire to possess land capable of affording pas- 

 turage for their flocks induced many of the Dutch inhabitants 

 to leave the protection of their own Government and seek it in 

 a dangerous and troubled country, yet others made this re- 

 moval from a far more culpable motive, in seeking thereby to 

 obtain possession of the flocks of the defenceless natives. This 

 was done under various pretences, sometimes by interfering in 

 their internal disputes and acting as the avengers of those who 

 were sufferers; at others, by boldly attacking the neighbouring 

 kraals and taking the flocks of the scattered people. These 

 causes produced a state of hostility against thd European in the 

 surrounding tribes, and by them they were often deprived of 

 their ill;^otten herds. Their lands and houses were frequently 

 ravaged and destroyed, and their lives even at times fell a 

 sacrifice to this general feeling of depredation and revenge. 

 On these occasions the Colonists always had recourse to their 

 own Government for protection ; and the usual plan to remedy 

 these evils was, to unite to the colony that part of the land so 

 inhabited. While the Dutch were thus gradually encroaching 

 on the Hottentot limits from the Westward, the Caffers were 

 making encroachments on the East, and about 1786, when the 

 district of Graaff-Reinet was formed, the two parties of Con- 

 querors, or aggressors, came in contact ; and the Caffers still 



