Challenge: Wank the Khoisan

[Pat the Baker]

Indigenous to Southern Africa, the Khoisan are group made up of the pastoral Khoekhoe and the hunter-gatherer San. They've had a pretty rough time of it, between the Bantu expansion, smallpox epidemics and colonialism, and they still suffer from serious problems today.

Your challenge is to put the Khoisan in a better position, historically speaking. They could have more advanced technology, powerful polities of their own, or something else to make them better off than how things were for their OTL counterparts. Bonus points if you can somehow have them avoid being colonized.

 

[twovultures]

I believe that @Revachah took a crack at a Khoisan agricultural civilization. I've toyed with the idea of wheat or teff being somehow introduced to the Khoisan, allowing them to develop a large, agricultural society with higher numbers, though more people doesn't necessarily mean they can resist colonialism (and causes big problems given the potential water situation in South Africa). @leopard9 currently has a thread exploring the possibility of having horses adapted to Africa. In such a scenario, the Khoisan of the cape could potentially adopt horses from agriculturalist Bantu, and become mounted nomads. While this does not prevent them falling to European colonialism, it allows them to resist it longer, and with a strong cavalry to resist conquest they will be able to surrender to better terms when/if conquered.

I'm not sure if a Khoisan metis society meets your challenge, but changing the colonial history of the Cape could allow the Griqua or an equivalent of them to gain more power/wealth/agency under the auspices of a colonial regime.

 

[barbarism]

I believe that @Revachah took a crack at a Khoisan agricultural civilization. I've toyed with the idea of wheat or teff being somehow introduced to the Khoisan, allowing them to develop a large, agricultural society with higher numbers, though more people doesn't necessarily mean they can resist colonialism (and causes big problems given the potential water situation in South Africa). @leopard9 currently has a thread exploring the possibility of having horses adapted to Africa. In such a scenario, the Khoisan of the cape could potentially adopt horses from agriculturalist Bantu, and become mounted nomads. While this does not prevent them falling to European colonialism, it allows them to resist it longer, and with a strong cavalry to resist conquest they will be able to surrender to better terms when/if conquered.

I'm not sure if a Khoisan metis society meets your challenge, but changing the colonial history of the Cape could allow the Griqua or an equivalent of them to gain more power/wealth/agency under the auspices of a colonial regime.

In scenario with the absence of sleeping sickness resistant breed, would an alternative scenario be early horse introduction to madagascar(possibly from arabia or the horn?) Then from madagascar to southern africa south of sleeping sickness zone......and you can get powerful horse nomad Khoisan groups that way?

 

[twovultures]

In scenario with the absence of sleeping sickness resistant breed, would an alternative scenario be early horse introduction to madagascar(possibly from arabia or the horn?) Then from madagascar to southern africa south of sleeping sickness zone......and you can get powerful horse nomad Khoisan groups that way?

I don't know much about horses in Madagascar, so I can't comment on the feasibility of that. But once south of the sleeping sickness zone, yes, horses can do quite well. There is no South African equivalent to the Plains Indians (the Griqua arguably come close) but I think that the Khoikhoi could adapt horseback riding as part of their traditional pastoralist way of life.

 

[leopard9]

Indigenous to Southern Africa, the Khoisan are group made up of the pastoral Khoekhoe and the hunter-gatherer San. They've had a pretty rough time of it, between the Bantu expansion, smallpox epidemics and colonialism, and they still suffer from serious problems today.

Your challenge is to put the Khoisan in a better position, historically speaking. They could have more advanced technology, powerful polities of their own, or something else to make them better off than how things were for their OTL counterparts. Bonus points if you can somehow have them avoid being colonized.

Best thing would be for the Khoisan (really the Khoi-Khoi and San peoples) to have a start on agriculture and somehow get a Mediterranean crop package that would allow them to more extensively settle the Cape region and increase their population densities so that when the Dutch come, there's simply too many of them to be fully marginalized like IOTL, similar to how the Mexica people of Mexico were so numerous that even with all the oppression, slavery, and epidemics, they're still a genetic majority of the country. Of course, the question is what changes from TTL to ATL that they 1) get exposed to a crop package and 2) adopt it. AFAIK the VOC/British used the Cape as a resupply station and had contacts with the Khoisan people for a while before serious colonization efforts began and it didn't happen.

Introduction of horses from the Cape and having them spread upwards might also work as that would enable a more martial culture that blunts the worst of the Great Trek, though again IOTL, that didn't really save the Plains Indians. Introducing horses from Portuguese-controlled Madagascar means that Bantus get them first and while that might result in horseback mounted Xhosa and Zulu that give the Trekboers and British far more trouble ITTL than IOTL given their probable greater numbers and stronger militaries, it'll just place the Khoisan in between a hammer and an anvil.

 

[longtimelurker]

I have wanted to make a TL with the Khoisan people doing well as well.
So I am looking forward to seeing ideas

 

[Sol Zagato]

Have Carthegenian circumnavigation introduce the Mediterranian agricultural package, including cattle, pigs and horses.

The Bantu never even settle Natal.

 

[twovultures]

Introduction of horses from the Cape and having them spread upwards might also work as that would enable a more martial culture that blunts the worst of the Great Trek, though again IOTL, that didn't really save the Plains Indians. Introducing horses from Portuguese-controlled Madagascar means that Bantus get them first and while that might result in horseback mounted Xhosa and Zulu that give the Trekboers and British far more trouble ITTL than IOTL given their probable greater numbers and stronger militaries, it'll just place the Khoisan in between a hammer and an anvil.

I think that mounted Xhosa could be a problem for the Khoisan, but it's not an insurmountable one. Because the Xhosa and related peoples were agriculturalists, they would prefer to stick to where they could go crops; mass abandonment of their territory in order to invade the western cape would result in starvation. A "cossack Xhosa" migration, where a small fraction of Bantu-speaking peoples abandon their farms to live purely nomadic pastoralist lives in the western cape could result in them conquering the Khoisan, but I think that it's as likely that the 'cossacks' would be assimilated to Khoisan language and culture as the other way around.

 

[Deleted member 107190]

I think that mounted Xhosa could be a problem for the Khoisan, but it's not an insurmountable one. Because the Xhosa and related peoples were agriculturalists, they would prefer to stick to where they could go crops; mass abandonment of their territory in order to invade the western cape would result in starvation. A "cossack Xhosa" migration, where a small fraction of Bantu-speaking peoples abandon their farms to live purely nomadic pastoralist lives in the western cape could result in them conquering the Khoisan, but I think that it's as likely that the 'cossacks' would be assimilated to Khoisan language and culture as the other way around.

Problem is the Xhosa had a partly militarised culture, with young men trained in fighting and using weapons, from a young age. That gives them a distinct advantage over the Khoisan’s in the event conflict does arise. Neither the Khoi-Khoi or the San have that advantage so they could end up conquered. Though as you say maybe their Xhosa conquerors would adopt their customs and culture and marry into the families of their Khoisan subjects. Either way I don’t think casualties among the Khoisan would be high. Bantu warfare was never very destructive until Shaka turned up.
Either way expect a much more difficult colonisation of the Cape. One of the Afrikaaners earliest advantages was the fact the indigenous Khoisan lacked horses.

 

[raharris1973]

Nice antidote to the frequent threads trying to whiten up South Africa or other parts of the continent.

 

[Deleted member 107190]

Here’s a thought - since the Khoi-Khoi were pastoralist is it possible that the introduction of horses could see the development of a nomadic culture analogous to the early Slavs or Turkic peoples.

 

[leopard9]

Nice antidote to the frequent threads trying to whiten up South Africa or other parts of the continent.

Yeah, some of the posts on this forum and r/imaginarymaps on Reddit are a little *ahem* far right-wing leaning in their effect if not their intent. Those earn a sideeye from me.

I think that mounted Xhosa could be a problem for the Khoisan, but it's not an insurmountable one. Because the Xhosa and related peoples were agriculturalists, they would prefer to stick to where they could go crops; mass abandonment of their territory in order to invade the western cape would result in starvation. A "cossack Xhosa" migration, where a small fraction of Bantu-speaking peoples abandon their farms to live purely nomadic pastoralist lives in the western cape could result in them conquering the Khoisan, but I think that it's as likely that the 'cossacks' would be assimilated to Khoisan language and culture as the other way around.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that at least in Sub-Saharan Africa, "elite" ethnic groups oftentimes end up having their cultures adopted by the subordinate peoples instead of the other way around a la China. Pastoralist groups in the Great Lakes region at least initially wound up ruling over agriculturalist groups and Rwanda is a large example of this. Very little intermarriage and a surprisingly fairly rigid caste system. It struck me as very different as opposed to when Germans would move eastward into primarily Slavic and Baltic lands during the Middle Ages where things seem to have been fairly peaceful and equitable.

Problem is the Xhosa had a partly militarised culture, with young men trained in fighting and using weapons, from a young age. That gives them a distinct advantage over the Khoisan’s in the event conflict does arise. Neither the Khoi-Khoi or the San have that advantage so they could end up conquered. Though as you say maybe their Xhosa conquerors would adopt their customs and culture and marry into the families of their Khoisan subjects. Either way I don’t think casualties among the Khoisan would be high. Bantu warfare was never very destructive until Shaka turned up.
Either way expect a much more difficult colonisation of the Cape. One of the Afrikaaners earliest advantages was the fact the indigenous Khoisan lacked horses.

Shaka was an outgrowth of the ecological conditions that struck the Zulus where they'd adopted maize as their primary grain crop due to its higher yields and protective sheaths (against parasites) as opposed to sorghum and millet and then a particuarly bad drought struck the region leading to the classic dilemma of "too many people, not enough food" and prompting more intensive warfare. Shaka was a genius, but imo an intensification of warfare would've come sooner or later given the conditions. Horses introduced into a grain-dependent society will lead to plow agriculture which will lead to higher population densities, which may result in more violent warfare as horses become yet another source of wealth aside from cattle. I can see periodic "pulses" of subordinate young men packing up in groups and heading south and becoming nomads. If they bring women with them, then they might become a ruling Bantu (Zulu or Xhosa) caste above the Khoisan, but if it's mostly men, then they'll probably take Khoisan wives as what happened ITTL with the Xhosa and blend cultures. But I don't see horse-riding Bantu people or their culture being completely absorbed either way.

 

[Sol Zagato]

Herodotus' Histories, Book 4, Chapter 42

Herodotus, The Histories, Book 4, chapter 42

My emphasis in bold.
"Libya is washed on all sides by the sea except where it joins Asia, as was first demonstrated, so far as our knowledge goes, by the Egyptian king Necho, who, after calling off the construction of the canal between the Nile and the Arabian Gulf, sent out a fleet manned by a Phoenician crew with orders to sail west about and return to Egypt and the Mediterranean by way of the Straits of Gibraltar. The Phoenicians sailed from the Arabian Gulf into the southern ocean, and every autumn put in at some convenient spot on the Libyan coast, sowed a patch of ground, and waited for next year's harvest. Then, having got in their grain, they put to sea again, and after two full years rounded the Pillars of Heracles in the course of the third, and returned to Egypt. These men made a statement which I do not myself believe, though others may, to the effect that as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya, they had the sun on their right - to northward of them. This is how Libya was first discovered by sea."

This gives us the earliest reasonable time for the tech transfer. Necho II ruled from 610 to 595 BC, and hired Phoenicians to circumnavigate Africa.

This should just predate Bantu invasion of South Africa. Have the experience rub off on the local khoikhoi (the cattle herders) who would very naturally trade beef to the fleet. Alternatively or additionally:
A. Marroon at least some part of the fleet in S.A.
B. Have some part of the fleet decide they want to settle.

We could handwave horses in- probably a population that will suffer for being too inbred, but far, far superior to nothing.

The resultant people: Genetically, almost completely khoikhoi. Culturally, more than a bit Phoenician. Only get some essentials (iron, agriculture, horses, other domesticates, weaving). Population density should skyrocket, causing all kinds of societal turmoil, reorganization and advancement.

When the Bantu show up without an agricultural package adapted for the climate, they're just going to bounce off.

 

[Pat the Baker]

Here’s a thought - since the Khoi-Khoi were pastoralist is it possible that the introduction of horses could see the development of a nomadic culture analogous to the early Slavs or Turkic peoples.

That would be an interesting idea.