First Khoikhoi-Dutch War (1659-1660): Conflict at the Cape

The First Khoikhoi-Dutch War (1659–1660) was the first armed conflict between the Dutch settlers of the Cape and the Khoikhoi herders who lived there. Led by a former interpreter named Doman, Khoikhoi groups of the Cape Peninsula raided settler farms to drive the newcomers off their grazing land. The war ended in a stalemate, but the Dutch kept the land, beginning a long process of Khoikhoi dispossession.

Background

In 1652 the Dutch East India Company (VOC) set up a supply station at Table Bay (see Founding of the Cape Colony). At first the Dutch depended on trading with the Khoikhoi for cattle and sheep, and relations were cautious rather than hostile. The Khoikhoi were pastoralists whose wealth and social standing rested on their herds, and they moved seasonally between pastures.

The situation changed in 1657, when the company released nine employees as “free burghers” and gave them farms along the Liesbeek River, east of Table Mountain. These lands lay across the seasonal grazing routes of Peninsula groups such as the Goringhaiqua and Gorachouqua. The settlers fenced fields, used the water and resented Khoikhoi cattle that strayed onto their crops. Disputes over stolen livestock and the low prices the Dutch offered for animals deepened the mistrust.

The two sides also understood land differently. For the Khoikhoi, pasture and water were shared resources used by herding groups in turn according to the seasons, not plots owned permanently by individuals. For the Dutch, land that was fenced, ploughed and granted by the company became private property. Each side saw the other as breaking the rules, and there was no agreed way to settle the dispute.

Doman and the outbreak of war

Doman belonged to the Goringhaicona, the small shore-dwelling group whose leader Autshumao had worked with the Dutch. Doman served as an interpreter and was sent to Batavia in 1657–1658, where he saw the strength and methods of the VOC. He returned convinced that the Dutch meant to stay and take the land, and he urged the Khoikhoi to resist.

Doman’s main rival as an interpreter was Krotoa, a young Khoikhoi woman raised in van Riebeeck’s household, whom the Dutch called Eva. Doman accused her of serving the Dutch rather than her own people, while van Riebeeck came to see Doman as a dangerous schemer. Their rivalry shows how the few Khoikhoi who could move between the two worlds were pulled in different directions.

In May 1659 Khoikhoi bands began attacking the burgher farms. They drove off large numbers of cattle and sheep and killed at least one settler. Doman noticed that the Dutch matchlock muskets could not fire in wet weather, so the raiders struck mainly on rainy days, when the colonists’ firearms were least useful.

Course of the war

The settlers abandoned outlying farms and gathered near the fort, while van Riebeeck strengthened defences and built small watch-posts along the frontier. Dutch patrols on horseback tried to pursue the raiders but rarely caught them. Van Riebeeck also distrusted the Khoikhoi go-betweens he had relied on; Autshumao, accused of cattle theft, had already been banished to Robben Island in 1658.

Later in 1659 Doman was badly wounded in a clash with a Dutch patrol. Neither side could force a decision: the Khoikhoi could not drive the Dutch out of their fortified base, and the Dutch could not defeat mobile herders who knew the land. The fighting also disrupted the cattle trade on which the colony depended.

The peace of 1660

In April 1660 the Peninsula Khoikhoi made peace. According to van Riebeeck’s own journal, Khoikhoi leaders protested that the land had always been theirs. Van Riebeeck replied that it had been won in war and would not be given back. The Khoikhoi agreed to stay away from the settled area and to use set routes when coming to trade.

To mark the boundary, van Riebeeck had a line of watch-posts built and a hedge of wild almond and thorn bushes planted. A section of this wild almond hedge survives in Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. Doman died in 1663.

Consequences

The war confirmed that the colony would expand onto Khoikhoi land and that the company would defend the free burghers. Within a few decades many Khoikhoi had lost their herds and become labourers on settler farms. The Second Khoikhoi-Dutch War (1673–1677), fought against the Cochoqua leader Gonnema, further weakened Khoikhoi independence. Disease also played a part: a smallpox epidemic in 1713 killed a large share of the Khoikhoi of the south-western Cape and left survivors even less able to resist. Conflicts on the moving frontier continued for more than a century, later with the Xhosa in the Cape Frontier Wars.

Timeline

• 1652, April: The VOC station is founded at Table Bay.
• 1657: The first free burghers receive farms on the Liesbeek River.
• 1657–1658: Doman travels to Batavia.
• 1659, May: Khoikhoi raids on burgher farms begin the war.
• 1659, later in the year: Doman is wounded in a clash with a Dutch patrol.
• 1660, April: Peace is agreed; the Dutch keep the land.
• 1660–1661: A boundary hedge of wild almond is planted.
• 1673–1677: The Second Khoikhoi-Dutch War against the Cochoqua.

Why it matters

The First Khoikhoi-Dutch War was the earliest armed resistance by Indigenous people to European settlement in southern Africa. Its outcome, in which the colonists kept land taken by force, set a pattern that would be repeated many times as the colony spread inland, and Doman is now remembered as an early leader of resistance.