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Originally Posted by 31-05-1961

I didn't get that from Apartheid history books, but read it somewhere on the internet, can't remember the site.

Don't believe all you read on the internet.

Originally Posted by 31-05-1961

What I should've said was 'no Bantu-speaking' blacks (Nguni, Tswana, Sotho etc.) lived anywhere near Cape Town and this is the point I was getting at, in response to Bantu Africans' claims that whites took their land. They in fact took the Khoi and San lands in Natal and the Transkei area (Please correct me if I am wrong).

When the Bantu people arrived in the Natal and Transkei region, they did come across Khoi-San people. The Khoi-San people who didn't migrate south/west were incorporated into the Bantu tribes, as equals. Many of the Bantu people in South Africa today have Khoi-San ancestors too. The clicks in the Bantu languages of South Africa were adopted from the Khoi-San languages when those people were integrated into the tribes.

The Afrikaners who moved eastwards (literally hunting Khoi Khoi people to extinction as they went) stopped their eastward progression around the time that the British showed up, because they encountered the Xhosa at the Fish River. They wanted to British to run the Xhosa off the land to the east of the Fish River, and when the British refused, and at the same time abolished slavery, they decided to trek. The Xhosa were well established all the way down to the Fish River by the time white folks showed up.

Originally Posted by 31-05-1961

Thus the Khoi were driven towards the Cape and in turn into the Kalahari.

Not entirely true. Remains in the Peers Cave in Fish Hoek (south Cape Peninsula) date back to near the time of the missing link. The Khoi-San and their ancestors have been in the Western Cape for thousands of years. They were not displaced there by the Bantu Migration.

Originally Posted by 31-05-1961

So it is them who in fact should be most vocal about land claims etc, not other black Africans, as 'their' land (according to their views on white land ownership) is not 'theirs' but the San people's.

Really, what it boils down to is that the original "contracts" over land that the colonists entered into were not exactly valid contracts. A valid contract requires intent on both sides. The colonists' intent was that the land belonged to them in the western tradition, while the tribal leaders' intent was that the colonists use the land. There is no traditional concept of land ownership. The colonists knew the intent of the tribal leaders, but deceived them. This is one of the reasons why Bantu people say the land was taken from them.

Originally Posted by 31-05-1961

It could've been the other way round, with black Africans colonising parts of Europe, but unlike white Europeans they didn't have the capability of travelling across oceans.

Europe was far more densely populated than Africa at that time, in fact it still is. Africans didn't lack the ability, they lacked the need. If there had been land pressure, they might have travelled, but there was no reason to. European society was more advanced based on need, not any kind of superior ability. The Maori and other Pacific Islanders were the first colonists, colonising Australia, New Zealand and other South Sea islands thousands of years before Europeans took to the oceans. My point is that ocean voyaging doesn't require much technology.

Originally Posted by 31-05-1961

My post was mostly written out of frustration as a result of the continuous attacks aimed at whites for their robbery of the black man's land, even though we brought with our colonising technology etc. which blacks all gladly use without question. I agree with you that perhaps white colonisers went about their business the wrong way (ie Apartheid, racism etc) but their should be some credit given to white Europeans and the positive things they brought with them. After all the attacks on white South Africans for Apartheid and colonialism i believe it is fair to acknowledge the white man's positive contribution to SA society.

I guess that any value in the "technology" that white settlers brough to South Africa is overshadowed by the parasitic manner in which they used it. You just don't get far in celebrating a piece of ingenuity brought to South Africa before you get slammed in the face with the injustice with which it was applied.