A Forgotten First People

Book excerpt: "The present book continues the series on South Africa’s ‘invisible’ earliest people with the Hessequa, who pastured their cattle along the south-east Cape coast – all the way from the present town of Swellendam to Albertinia, and even beyond – long before the European colonists arrived. They may be better described as a “Khoekhoe community”, rather than what the early history books pejoratively called “Hottentots”. In the current dynamic debate in South Africa about the rights of cultural and linguistic minorities, however, the voices of their descendants are not being heard, nor are they appropriately acknowledged by the powers that be. By writing about them and taking up their cause, Mike de Jongh opens a window on their history, their current lives, and their rightful place in the present-day Republic of South Africa."--Publisher description.