[DB]

As I understand it, SA when colonized by the Dutch we pretty much unpopulated. As the Dutch created a modern civilization there they brought in blacks to work their farms etc.

The mistake was not working their own farms.

We’re making the same mistake.

[Nowhere Man]

As I understand it, SA when colonized by the Dutch we pretty much unpopulated. As the Dutch created a modern civilization there they brought in blacks to work their farms etc.

The mistake was not working their own farms.

We’re making the same mistake.

Correct with our immigration policies with the illegals and the H1-B visas. If I may, this may not be PC to say but we made that same mistake before as well. As much of a pro-Confederacy sympathizer I am, I think we made the same mistake with slavery and it has come to bite us in the butt many times from the Civil War to what we see today. Sure they saved money at the beginning, maybe, even slaves use resources, but it was postponing the huge payments of money and blood later on along with huge interest. I often wonder if the Dutch worked their own farms or the Southerner here did, how would history have been different, sometimes I think we'd be better off.

[Maine Mariner]

The problem was so much land and so few white settlers and this was before mechanization. Please correct me if I am wrong but a wheat farmer in ND can farm a couple thousand acres with very little help with the right equipment.

[kearnyirish2]

The Dutch didn’t “bring the blacks” to work the farms; blacks were migrating down the southwest side of Africa into lands settled by the Dutch. Some were employed by the Dutch, while others did their own thing. The Zulus who fought the British in the later half of the nineteenth century weren’t farmhands for Boers.

[publius911]

As I understand it, SA when colonized by the Dutch we pretty much unpopulated. As the Dutch created a modern civilization there they brought in blacks to work their farms etc.
The mistake was not working their own farms.

The historical fiction novel, The Covenant, by James Michener, was first available in 1980, when I first read it.
As far as I know, no one has seriously challenged his facts about the area when the Afrikaaners arrived. It was a deserted corner of Africa, and they made mo attempts to expand beyond their original area.

But they did attract natives from far and wide, eager to abandon their primitive uncertain existence. No one forced them to gravitate to Afrikaaner territory. They just did.

What happened after that makes for some fascinating reading.

It's been a few years since I have re-read it. I think it's time.

[softengine]

Indeed we did.