EKH Seminar - Calumet Links

Calumet Links at the University of Stellenbosch and visiting researcher at EKH, will present a seminar titled:

Reframing Indigenous Decline: The Khoesan between Ecological Stress and Colonial Expansion

Calumet Links webpage (sun.ac.za)

Abstract:

This paper revisits the long-debated decline of the Khoesan in the early Cape Colony. Traditional historiography has framed their fate as a straightforward consequence of European colonial expansion, while revisionist scholarship emphasizes indigenous resistance and agency. Yet both perspectives often lack systematic empirical grounding. We argue that the Khoesan’s decline was not solely the product of dispossession but also reflected deeper structural and ecological vulnerabilities. Using a novel integration of VOC archival records with environmental data (dendrochronological and speleothem proxies), we trace how recurring droughts, epidemic shocks, and trade disruptions intersected with colonial encroachment to weaken indigenous coping systems. Preliminary evidence from textual corpora highlights shifting references to conflict, disease, and indigenous groups, while environmental reconstructions reveal repeated climatic stress. Our findings suggest that by 1652 Khoesan society was already experiencing gradual economic and demographic fragility, which colonial interventions then amplified. The analysis reframes Khoesan decline as a joint outcome of endogenous vulnerabilities and exogenous shocks, offering a template for reassessing indigenous experiences of decline in other colonial contexts. In doing so, the paper bridges economic, environmental, and archival history, contributing both to debates on the role of indigenous agency and to wider discussions on the dynamics of colonial encounters.