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This is episode 36 and its time to return to Xhosaland. Before we do that, let\u2019s step back a little and consider the effect of action beyond Africa that was having an influence on the continent, particularly the southern reaches.
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\nAdam Smith may have been somewhat bemused, as American historian Noel Mostert writes in his book frontiers, to find that the very year in which his masterwork was published saw the start of a struggle on the seas that rested on his own declared twin pillars of global destiny \u2013 America and the Cape of Good Hope.
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\nThe American colonies were in the process of being lost to Britain as Smith published his work \u2013 and a wider war was buffeting the seas. The Cape had been drawn into the American War of Independence which changed the destiny of Southern Africa. It\u2019s not well remembered these days, but as America\u2019s early history is interwoven with South Africa\u2019s.
\nAs all of this was taking place on the high seas, the colonists in the Cape found themselves at war on two fronts with two different groups of people. The Xhosa and the San.
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\nAs the Dutch East India company feebly tried to stop trekboers from advancing beyond the Gamtoos river near Algoa Bay, a true frontier had developed from 1770 onwards. It was a loose, ill-defined area along the south east coast and the Dutch colonists had now hit a human barrier that stopped their freedom of movement.
\nThat barrier was the Xhosa people.