White settlers in Africa

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33869, 14 June 1975, Page 14

White settlers in Africa

Sir, — The South African Minister of Information and of the Interior claims that the Dutch settlers arrived in • South Africa some 160 years (earlier than the blacks who . came there from the north. 'This is one of the oldest I myths of Afrikanerdom; it crudely falsifies the historical record. As M. Wilson and L. Thompson show in their; "Oxford History of South! Africa,” 1969, both Portuguese and South African historians record Bantu-speak-! ling tribes already settled inj what is modern South Africa (by 1300, two centuries be-’ • fore the arrival date of the! first white settlers. The Ox-: (ford History, along with I other recent scholarly writ-] I ing, has incontrovertibly I : established the facts of prior' [African occupation. The, 'Bushmen and the Hottentots,, 1 • the African peoples immediiately encountered by the! white settlers, were quickly; (decimated in numbers. A' (common pastime of these ; early white settlers was to hunt down the Bushmen and shoot them like vermin. — Yours, etc., UHURU. [ June 12, 1975.