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What if the British, seeing the advantages of a colonial position in southern Africa had formed a colony in the 1700s, preferably in the first half, to the east of the Dutch Cape Colony. If they had sent colonists to that area (roughly between the Gamtoos river and the Great Fish river, and including Port Elizabeth and East London) how would it have fared and altered subsequent South African history? This area was as yet unsettled by Cape Boers yet. Would Britain in the 19th century have been happy to keep its eastern Cape Colony and gradually expand it, and returned the Dutch Cape Colony despite short wartime occupations? Or would the British have taken Capetown to totally monopolize southern Africa and shut out competition?
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