But at the end of the day, the white commercial farmer in this country is recognised as being in the top echelon of farming worldwide. The land north of the Limpopo river beckoned to the insatiable imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes negotiated a truce with the Ndebele chiefs to end the 'Native Rebellion' of 1896, but the project of creating a historically self-justifying Western nation was less thoroughly successful in Rhodesia than in other British imperial outposts. In North America and Australia, the whites virtually eliminated the native populations. In southern Africa that didn't happen, and now, finally, they are being overwhelmed by the sheer weight of history and demographics.
Browning says the early farmers had no knowledge of the crops and no rainfall records.
And basically, they chose the red soil because there were fewer blacks living there. So I don't think the white man actually came and kicked them off the land. They took the land that was unoccupied. Rhodes recruited this hodgepodge of people in Jo'burg. That was irrespective of whoever was living on the damn land.