<P> The San and Khoikhoi are grouped under the term Khoisan, and are essentially distinguished only by their respective occupations . Whereas the San were hunter - gathers, the Khoikhoi were pastoral herders . </P> <P> Archaeological discoveries of livestock bones on the Cape Peninsula indicate that the Khoikhoi began to settle there by about 2000 years ago . In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Portuguese mariners, who were the first Europeans at the Cape, encountered pastoral Khoikhoi with livestock . Later, English and Dutch seafarers in the late 16th and 17th centuries exchanged metals for cattle and sheep with the Khoikhoi . The conventional view is that availability of livestock was one reason why, in the mid-17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a staging post where the port city of Cape Town is today situated . The initial origin of the Khoikhoi remains uncertain . </P> <P> The establishment of the staging post by the Dutch East India Company at the Cape in 1652 soon brought the Khoikhoi into conflict with Dutch settlers over land ownership . Cattle rustling and livestock theft ensued, with the Khoikhoi being ultimately expelled from the peninsula by force, after a succession of wars . The first Khoikhoi - Dutch War broke out in 1659, the second in 1673, and the third 1674--1677 . By the time of their defeat and expulsion from the Cape Peninsula and surrounding districts, the Khoikhoi population was decimated by a smallpox epidemic, against which the Khoikhoi had no natural resistance or indigenous medicines . The disease had been brought to the Cape by Dutch sailors . </P> <P> The Bantu expansion was one of the major demographic movements in human prehistory, sweeping much of the African continent during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC . Bantu - speaking communities would have reached southern Africa from the Congo basin by the early centuries AD . The advancing Bantu encroached on the Khoikhoi territory, forcing the original inhabitants of the region to move to more arid areas . Some of the migrant groups, ancestral to today's Nguni peoples (the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, and Ndebele), preferred to live near the eastern coast of what is present - day South Africa . Others, now known as the Sotho--Tswana peoples (Tswana, Pedi, and Sotho), settled in the interior on the plateau known as the Highveld, while today's Venda, Lemba, and Shangaan - Tsonga peoples made their homes in the north - eastern areas of present - day South Africa . </P>

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