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QUEEN’S BUSINESS SCHOOL ECONOMICS SEMINAR SERIES

Monday 17^th November

1pm

“When Worlds Collide: Indigenous Political Economy and the Making of the Early Cape, 1652–1713”

Stellenbosch University

Abstract

How do small, decentralised societies adapt when they are abruptly drawn into global markets and emerging colonial states? This paper re-examines the political economy of the Indigenous Khoekhoen pastoralists at the Cape of Good Hope between 1652 and 1713. Using detailed records from the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and recent demographic evidence, we reconstruct how different Khoe communities responded to Dutch expansion. Groups closest to the VOC (such as the Goringhaiqua and Gorachouqua) faced immediate ecological and political pressures, while more distant groups (such as the Cochoqua and Inqua) showed resilience and strategic adaptation. We challenge technological explanations of Indigenous collapse, showing instead that ecological shocks, intergroup conflict, and shifts in trade networks progressively undermined Khoe autonomy. We argue that “venture” and “settler” colonialism operated through distinct political economies: the VOC’s early dependence on Indigenous trade constrained expansion, but as local provisioning faltered, it pivoted to land seizure and settler farming. The decline of the Khoe was neither inevitable nor uniform—it was contingent, uneven, and shaped as much by internal dynamics as by colonial violence.

QBS Conference Hub, Seminar Room 01.012