African Studies

This book examines the ways in which racial and economic stratification were brought to coincide in pre-industrial South Africa by describing in detail the history of one group, the Griquas of Philippolis and Kokstad. These people, of very mixed origins, were central, both physically and symbolically, to the processes of South African history in the nineteenth century. They were able to gain control over a very large area of the southern Orange Free State, where they established what was, for a time, a prosperous little state. Very many Griquas became Christian, although this did not mean that they were dominated by the missionaries - rather the reverse. A substantial number were literate. Moreover, they made use of all possible means of developing their own wealth, first as ivory hunters and then as successful horse and sheep ranchers. In short, they fulfilled all the criteria for acceptance into the ruling class of white South Africa. except that they were not white.