Abstract
In order to put the topic of this presentation into proper perspective, let me relate the history of our struggle which began decades before the Luthuli'Mandela era. The white settler community at the Cape of Good Hope arrived in 1652. The Dutch East India Company needed to obtain regular supplies of fresh meat, fruit and vegetables for the trading post and transient ships rounding the Cape. Many wars were fought between the indigenous people and the newly arrived whites as they pushed into the interior and extended to the northeast. The Dutch and the English first fought the Khoikhoi and San peoples whom they easily decimated. Later they met the more
militant Xhosas and Zulus in frontier wars. Fierce military confrontations with those indigenous nations lasted 250 years. The Africans were no easy prey, but eventually in 1906 Chief Bambatha was crushed. The superior technology of the whites gave them the victory and they took our land by means of gunpowder.