Almost certainly, for many years human beings have overlooked the major possibility of America being similar to Africa. Comparisons were ignored etc. But are these notions really as impossible as we were brought up to think? How could we possibly have had the same beginnings/history as one of the world's superpowers? During this essay I am going to concentrate more on the development of the America's as opposed to the development of South Africa as we have spent countless time and effort studying it in the previous years. Both were discovered by colonists trying to find a sea-route to India.

The first known inhabitants of South Africa were the San and Khoikhoi hunters and gatherers who were followed southward by Bantu-speaking peoples between AD 1000 and 1500. The san, were hunter-gatherers, did not grow crops. They were migratory and moved in small groups. They were a very peaceful group of people. However, the medicine man, who was responsible for divination and curing the sick, played a pivotal role in these small communities. Diet consisted of variety of animals including she

In Africa, much of the same thing was occurring. First explorers arrived in 1487.They were Portuguese under the leadership of Captain Bartholomew Dias who named it the Cape of Good Hope. The Khoi reacted violently and one got shot with an arrow. Vasco Da Gama went back ten years later where upon he met friendly Khoi and bartered with them. He reached Terra do Natal (Land of Birth, and subsequently known as Natal) on Christmas Day. Eventually, trips to the Cape were made frequently by inquisitive European nations. But it was the Dutch who managed to break Portugal/Spain's (united under Phillip II) newfound monopoly in the following century. In 1488, Portuguese mariners led by Bartholomew Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch East India Company or V.O.C (de Vereinigde Ooste-Indische Compagnie) came into existence in 1602 for the prime purpose of co-ordinating the Dutch trade with the East Indian Spice Islands. It was governed by a board of directors known as the Council of Seventeen. Owing to rivalry between the various Dutch trading companies, competition led to reduced prices and smaller profits and opened the door for other countries to oust the Dutch. Thus the Dutch government gave the V.O.C the monopoly of all the Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck established the first European settlement at Table Bay (now Cape Town) in 1652 as a station for the Dutch East India Company. Dutch language began to infiltrate the country, the only difference was that the Dutch mutated into Afrikaans, while French and Spanish remained the same. Dutch pioneers spread eastward, and in 1779 war broke out between Xhosas migrating south and the Dutch near the Great Fish River. Khoi were called Hottentots by Dutch. Because the Africans were so eager to barter their possessions, they had no qualms when doing exactly the same thing when the Dutch arrived. However, this soon turned into a mixed blessing, as contact with the white people helped to spread the smallpox epidemic in 1713, a disease which the indigenous people had very little resistance to. The word "Hottentot" was first used by the Dutch colonists to describe the pastoral people (Khoikhoi means men of men). Since they were nomadic pastoralists they paid little attention to agriculture. With the outbreak of a revolution in France in 1789 and the establishment of the French republic in 1792, France declared war on several European countries, including Holland and Britain. Holland was overrun in 1794. Those Dutch who supported the French Revolution, called the patriots, established the Batavian Republic in the Netherlands resulting in the ruler of the Netherlands, the Prince of Orange having to seek refuge in Britain, which opposed the French. The Prince, fearing that the French would now occupy the Dutch colonies, including the Cape Colony, asked the British government to occupy and protect the Cape. The British government accepted this offer, and in 1795 a fleet of nine ships was dispatched to the Cape Many Hottentot groups were weakened, and as a nation, they disappeared. The reasons for this was that they sold their cattle to the Europeans, therefore losing subsistence, the smallpox epidemics of 1713, 1755 and 1767 and the loss of land due to European expansion. They became poverty stricken and detribalised resulting in vagrancy, while some did work for the colonists on the farms, others lived in mission stations at Bethalsdorp, Genadendal, Elim and Suurbank. This spread of diseases by the white man occurred also in the Americas with It has been estimated that by the seventeenth century more than fifty million native Indians from North and South America had died as a result of war, disease, enslavement and the careless brutality of the Europeans. Virulent diseases such as smallpox and measles (to which the Indians had no immunity) wiped out whole tribes of Indians. In Yucatan, the Spaniards burned or destroyed almost every precious Mayan book i

Some common words found in the essay are:
South African, San Khoikhoi, South Carolina, Alfred Beit, England English, San Paleo-Indians, Eli Whitney, Africa America, Nevada County, Increasingly Natives, south africa, british government, south african, english people, massachusetts bay, cape hope, cotton gin, north american, north america, indentured servants, mass production methods, attention matters seek, seek opportunities outside, matters seek opportunities, opportunities outside tiny,
Approximate Word count = 6326
Approximate Pages = 25 (250 words per page double spaced)