Immigration
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Abstract
The paper argues that the immigration of single European males to the Cape throughout the Dutch period has been overlooked in the debate about the expansion of the frontier. The presence of these immigrants affected the demography of the settlement and accounts for the consistently high free male sex ratio at the Cape. The paper challenges the mythology of large self-perpetuating pre-1707 settler families using up available land and pushing the frontier forward. It also draws attention to the fact that the Dutch East India Company, while not actively supporting immigration, was favorably disposed to able-bodied single men in their service taking up residence at the Cape, as thousands of successful applications for burgher status indicate. These immigrants, drawn from economically depressed urban areas of northern Europe, cautiously entered the settler economy first as knechts, bywoners, hunters, traders, and graziers, before ultimately acquiring their own farms. It was they, who as early as 1702, made contact with the Xhosa. Moreover, they vied with Cape-born men for marital partners. Local women, both slave and free, showed a preference for the newcomers, demonstrating a tendency to exogamy not appreciated in the persistent mythology of a closed settler community, or a herrenvolk democracy.