{"id":91,"date":"2008-11-07T11:05:40","date_gmt":"2008-11-07T15:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itech.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/?p=91"},"modified":"2008-11-07T11:05:40","modified_gmt":"2008-11-07T15:05:40","slug":"king-williams-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/2008\/11\/07\/king-williams-town\/","title":{"rendered":"King William’s Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

King William’s Town, South Africa<\/a> | Khayelitsha, South Africa<\/a> | Coahoma County, Mississippi<\/a><\/h3>\n

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King William’s Town<\/strong><\/p>\n

Geography and Environs<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"king-williams-town.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Set in the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape<\/span><\/a>, King William’s Town<\/span><\/a>, or “King,” sprawls across the banks of the Buffalo River about 30 miles west of Port Elizabeth, which lies at the mouth of the river.\u00a0 The Buffalo River is the only navigable river in South Africa, giving King and Port Elizabeth an economic advantage, making them a key point of trade from the 19th<\/sup> century onward.\u00a0 King lies at the foot of the Amatola Mountains, after which the local Amathole Museum (formerly the Kaffrarian Museum, a racially derogatory term) was renamed.<\/p>\n

The environs of King William’s Town are home to a number of other small towns and townships-a reflection of South Africa’s tumultuous history.\u00a0 Townships like Zwelitsha, Dimbaza<\/span><\/a>, Phakamisa, and Schornville were created for those forcibly removed and as a funnel for labor to places like King.\u00a0 Ginsberg Township<\/span><\/a>, the birthplace of Bantu Steve Biko, was originally created during an outbreak of the bubonic plague as a neighborhood for blacks from the surrounding rural areas.\u00a0 Bhisho<\/span><\/a> (formerly Bisho), the site of the infamous 1992 massacre, is another major town near King, and now has a memorial near the site where the shooting occurred.\u00a0 While traveling through the environs of King, one will also encounter Steve Biko’s graveyard and home, the Amathole Museum, the Botanical Gardens, and even a memorial to Queen Victoria.<\/p>\n

History <\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally founded in 1835 at the site of a mission built nine years earlier, King William’s Town-named for King William IV of England-soon became the premier trading outpost of the then British Kaffraria (the area of King and Port Elizabeth today).\u00a0 In 1857, a number of Germans who had fought in the Crimean War settled in the area, giving the distinctly German names to nearby places in the district such as Berlin and others.\u00a0 These German ex-soldiers effectively doubled the white population there, bringing it to nearly 4,000, as opposed to the Xhosa population which at the time numbered as many as 52,000.\u00a0 By 1889, the number of whites had climbed to over 8,000 and remained such for nearly a century.\u00a0\u00a0 The 120,000 Xhosa, however, grew to over 630,000 by 1980.<\/p>\n

\"xhosa-dancing.jpg\"<\/a>In 1880, King was connected to other towns by a railway, effectively making it the major trading center of the colony.\u00a0 This economic success was largely due to extensive trade with the indigenous African population, sending colonial goods in return for wool and animal hides.\u00a0 This influx of foreign goods and the colonizing effects of Christianity from the missions were major factors in the social and cultural subjugation of the native Ama Rharhabe Xhosa population.\u00a0 White society continued to flourish in King on the backs of black Africans who, in spite of their vast numerical superiority, were ultimately forced to submit to white domination.<\/p>\n

King’s fortuitous position on the banks of the Buffalo River made it not only a trading center, but also a military outpost until 1913, especially after trade began to decline at the turn of the century, in conjunction with the rise of Port Elizabeth.\u00a0 In 1901, King was hit by the bubonic plague, which prompted increased segregation of the town.\u00a0 Ginsberg, the township where Stephen Bantu Biko was later born, was founded as a response to the outbreak.\u00a0 Many Xhosa seeking economic opportunities came from the surrounding countryside to Ginsberg, where they faced exploitative white landlords.\u00a0 Furthermore, a new wave of Xhosa arrived when they were forcibly removed from nearby Brownlee Station.\u00a0 Segregation and ghettoization continued, most notably with the creation of new townships in the environs including Dimbaza, Phakamisa, Zwelitsha, and Schornville.<\/p>\n

With the establishment of the Ciskei homeland between 1961 and 1981, Bhisho – a close neighbor of King William’s Town – became the capital of the new “sovereign” Bantustan (part of a series of “homelands” created by the apartheid government as a way pacifying black and international criticism).\u00a0 In 1992, nearly 80,000 people gathered in front of Bhisho to protest the authoritarian rule of Oupa Gqozo, the Ciskei military leader.\u00a0 Ciskei Defense Forces opened fire on the crowd without warning, killing 29 people and injuring over 200.\u00a0 The Bhisho Massacre ultimately led to new talks between Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk, then president of apartheid South Africa, which eventually resulted in a coalition government and transition to democracy.<\/p>\n

Economy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The economy of King William’s Town was traditionally based on its proximity to local Xhosa tribes that exchanged wool, hides, skins, and other goods for manufactured and imported goods from European settlers.\u00a0 The massive amount of trade that occurred between the two groups contributed significantly not only to the economic success of King, but also to the erosion of traditional culture among indigenous blacks.\u00a0 Christianity, the influx of foreign goods, and urbanization made many Xhosa economically dependent on the whites – an effect later reproduced on a massive scale by the apartheid government to subjugate the African population of South Africa.<\/p>\n

Trade in King William’s Town flourished in the latter half of the 19th<\/sup> century with the town becoming the main marketplace of nearby Port Elizabeth.\u00a0 The large amount of industry and its fortuitous location allowed merchants in King to trade with both settlers and native tribesmen.\u00a0\u00a0 When Port Elizabeth outstripped it at the outset of the 20th<\/sup> century, King was reduced primarily to a military outpost.\u00a0 It wasn’t until the region was declared the “autonomous” Ciskei homeland in 1981 that the town once again began to regain economic status with the influx of Ciskeian workers and a subsequent budding service economy.\u00a0 Today, the economy of King William’s Town, though mostly based on cattle and sheep farming, also claims an industrial sector that produces textiles, soap, candles, candy, cartons, matches, and leather.<\/p>\n

People<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Buffalo City Municipality – which includes King William’s Town, Bhisho, and East London – is home to people from a wide range of backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Black African residents number at 563,776.<\/p>\n

Coloured residents (from a diverse heritage of KhoiKhoi, South Asian, and other peoples) number at 38,391.<\/p>\n

Indian residents (whose ancestors came when the area was still a British colony) number at 4,692<\/p>\n

White residents number at 70,520.<\/p>\n

Most neighborhoods in and around King William’s Town are overwhelmingly or even completely populated by black Africans from a number of different tribal heritages.\u00a0 Apartheid’s legacy of economic inequality along racial lines still continues today, although no longer at a legal level.\u00a0 That said, initiatives like Black Economic Empowerment, or BEE, aim at correcting these inequalities by encouraging people from the previously disadvantaged groups to enter higher levels of the economy.\u00a0 Comparable in many ways to affirmative action in the U.S., BEE has done much to diversify corporations and increase employment opportunities for the disadvantaged.\u00a0 It has, however, come under criticism from a number of people for reinforcing socially-constructed racial distinctions and giving favor to Xhosa at the expense of other groups, like Coloureds, Indians, and non-Xhosa blacks who did not escape the oppression or dispossession of apartheid either.<\/p>\n

\"duncan-village-township.jpg\"<\/a>Legacies of apartheid can still be seen everywhere.\u00a0 The townships created to house non-white laborers continue to be places of abject poverty and rampant crime.\u00a0 Though much has been done to correct the ills of apartheid, centuries of racial oppression and systematic dispossession cannot be reversed in a few years.\u00a0 Thus, in spite of the incredible leaps and strides made in South Africa, there is still much work to be done.<\/p>\n

(Photos on this page Copyright \u00a9 2010, Ryan Koons)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

King William’s Town, South Africa | Khayelitsha, South Africa | Coahoma County, Mississippi King William’s Town Geography and Environs Set in the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape, King William’s Town, or “King,” sprawls across the banks of the Buffalo River about 30 miles west of Port Elizabeth, which lies at the mouth of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/blacklib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}