History Cycle Test

• The San people lived in Southern Africa 20 000 years ago
• Social system of the San people

  • Lived in small groups (20-30 people)
  • Men hunted and women gathered
  • Egalitarian system (treated equally)
  • Hereditary headman
  • Elders made decisions
• What the San people ate

  • 25% meat (kudu, springbok, buffalo, zebra, ostrich, seafood)
  • 75% vegetation (berries, leaves, fungi, roots, bulbs, fruit)
• Shelter of the San people

  • Nomadic, moved around often
  • Lived in open shelters, caves, and grass/thatch structures
• Religion and culture of the San people

  • High regard for nature
  • Believed their gods shapeshifted into animals
  • Had cultural ceremonies and rituals
• How long ago the Khoi people lived in Southern Africa

  2000 years ago
• Government systems and Politics of the Khoi people

  • Hereditary headman made decisions and judged civil disputes
• What the Khoi people ate

  • Meat-cattle, goats, sheep, wild game, seafood
  • Vegetables, wild plants (nothing was grown)
• Types of shelter/what the Khoi people lived in


  • Semi-nomadic, moved between shelters
  • Covered in reeds, round hut frame ( mat house, Matjiehuis)
• Religion and culture of the Khoi people

  • Worshipped milestones and animals, not vegetation
  • Had rituals for important life events like weddings, births, and deaths
  • Made tools and crafts
• African farmers settled in Southern Africa

  1600
• Government systems and Politics

  • Autocracy ruled by 1 person (chief)
  • Chieftain controlled trade and made laws
  • Chieftain's power limited by the elders
• Social System

  • Men hunted, tended to animals, and protected villages
  • Women looked after crops, childcare, cooking, and cleaning
  • Men and women not equally valued
• Wealth: African Farmers

  • Cattle used as currency and for rituals
  • Lobola - cattle used for transactions
• Shelter: African Farms

  • Kraal - circular arrangement of huts around the Kraal
  • Huts are round and made of mud, brick-like stones, and/or thatch
  • They did not move around often
• VOC

  Verenigde Oost-Indische Campagnie (Dutch East Indian Company)
• The VOC was a trading company that traded around the world
• The VOC was formed to challenge the Spanish and Portuguese domination of the European spice trade with the East
• The VOC did this by colonizing lands in the East to gain a monopoly and expand trade routes
• Monopoly

  Complete ownership and control of the supply of goods or services in a business
• Jan Van Riebeek arrived in the Cape, representing the VOC

  1652
• Ships that arrived

  • Dromedoris
  • Reijger
  • Hoop
• Main purpose for being stationed in the Cape

  1. Defend against Khoi attacks by building a fort for defense

  2. Act as a halfway mark on the route between Asia and Europe to provide fresh fruit, vegetables and water to prevent scurvy

  3. Defend the Dutch trade routes from the French and British
• The first building built was the Castle and the Company Gardens, but this was too small in the beginning and Jan van Riebeeck was allowed to expand 'Cape Town'
• In 1657, the VOC allowed the first free farmers to settle in the Cape