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significance of these developments was that the Makgabeng communities
were beginning to be exposed to external influences which came to shape
their identities.
The Makgabeng communities gradually came to feel the pressure of the
presence of the Boer settlers. The struggle to control resources such as
land, water, grazing, hunting grounds and labour inevitably led to the
competition which led to conflicts between these communities and the
Boers. The Boers, who were also pastoralists, coveted fertile grazing and
water areas, as well as the livestock of the Black communities, and their
attempts to control such means of production led to clashes 240 .
Land was one of the most valuable, hotly contested assets. Initially the
Makgabeng communities allowed the Boers to use their land in exchange of
goods such as guns and gunpowder. However, such regulation was
mistaken by some Boers as a passport to individual landownership. Some
of these Boers went as far as employing land speculating companies such
as Oceana Land Company 241 to survey and develop land which the local
communities still regarded as theirs. Another source of conflict between the
locals and the Boers was taxation. In order to consolidate their authority
240 T. J. Makhura, The Bagananwa Polity…, p. 82.
241 T. J. Makhura, The Bagananwa Polity…, p. 79.
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