I have been looking for statistics (but they probably aren’t very good from 200 years ago) - but was told that when Dutch arrived to South Africa, it was nearly unpopulated. There were local bushmen (who still exist) but otherwise, much of the land was not settled.
Like the USA - black africans were brought (or immigrated) from elsewhere to South Africa, for work. Any truth to this?
Absolutely.
I am going from Memory and I'm getting old, but read the historical fiction The Covenant, James Michener for a pretty complete, unacademic, but engaging history.
Yes, the recently most successful South African nations were totally uninhabited when the Europeans arrived.
A very few, nomadic hunter-gatherers obviously don't count.
Yep; mostly unpopulated, dry steppe lands, close to the American midwest (think north Texas, Oklahoma, eastern Colorado). Not much to draw primitive natives in.
On the plains the Europeans introduced cattle, sheep, and turned it into a ranching area.
In the foothills and more wet areas they introduced irrigation and farming.
Up to then it was pretty much just trash land that nobody wanted, lots of mineral resources but they hadn’t been discovered yet.