Editing History of South Africa (section)

====Wars against the Xhosa====
In early South Africa, European notions of national boundaries and land ownership had no counterparts in African political culture. To Moshoeshoe the BaSotho chieftain from Lesotho, it was customary tribute in the form of horses and cattle represented acceptance of land use under his authority.<ref>Paul Germond, ''Chronicles of Basutoland'', Morija (Lesotho): Morija Sesuto Books, 1967, pp. 144f, 252–53</ref><ref>Elizabeth Eldredge, ''A South African Kingdom'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 48–9, {{ISBN|052144067X}}</ref> To European settlers in Southern Africa, the same form of tribute was believed to constitute purchase and permanent ownership of the land under independent authority.

As European settlers started establishing permanent farms after trekking across the country in search of prime agricultural land, they encountered resistance from the local Bantu people who had originally migrated southwards from central Africa hundreds of years earlier. The consequent frontier wars became known as the [[Xhosa Wars]] (which were also referred to in contemporary discussion as the [[Kaffir (racial term)|Kafir]] Wars or the Cape Frontier Wars<ref>{{cite journal|title=Surgeon-General SIR CHARLES MacDONAGH CUFFE, K.C.B., LL.D|journal=BMJ|volume=2|issue=2859|year=1915|pages=589|issn=0959-8138|doi=10.1136/bmj.2.2859.589-b|pmc=2303193}}</ref>). In the southeastern part of South Africa, Boer settlers and the Xhosa clashed along the Great Fish River, and in 1779 the First Xhosa War broke out. For nearly 100 years subsequently, the Xhosa fought the settlers sporadically, first the Boers or Afrikaners and later the British. In the Fourth Xhosa War, which lasted from 1811 to 1812, the British colonial authorities forced the Xhosa back across the Great Fish River and established forts along this boundary.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Eastern Cape Wars of Dispossession 1779-1878 {{!}} South African History Online |url=https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/eastern-cape-wars-dispossession-1779-1878 |access-date=2022-07-12 |website=www.sahistory.org.za}}</ref>

The increasing economic involvement of the British in southern Africa from the 1820s, and especially following the discovery of first diamonds at Kimberley and gold in the Transvaal, resulted in pressure for land and African labour, and led to increasingly tense relations with Southern African states.<ref name=":1" />

In 1818 differences between two Xhosa leaders, Ndlambe and Ngqika, ended in Ngqika's defeat, but the British continued to recognise Ngqika as the paramount chief. He appealed to the British for help against Ndlambe, who retaliated in 1819 during the Fifth Frontier War by attacking the British colonial town of Grahamstown.