What were the foundations of British colonial identity in South Africa?
British policies at the Cape must be seen as yet another process of state formation. From as early as 1806, the British had decided to drive the Xhosa from the areas shared with the trekboers. In 1809 the British ordered the Boers to dismiss all the Xhosa living and working on their farms. The British conquest and expulsion of the Africans from the area west of the Fish River in 1811-1812 marked the beginning of the conquest of the Southern Nguni. This process was marked by wars, advances of colonial boundaries and forced removals of Africans from the land that they used to occupy. The colonial wars of conquest were extremely brutal as many of the British soldiers and settlers did not think of the Xhosa as fully human. Nevertheless, the Xhosa put up long and often heroic resistance, fighting desperately in 1819, 1834-1835, 1846, 1850-1853 and 1877-1878, by which time they were a conquered people. The British exploited existing divisions in African societies. Conflicts between chiefdoms
