The Challenge
Make a map showing the aftermath of a pandemic.
The Restrictions
There are no restrictions on when your PoD or map may be set. Fantasy, sci-fi, and future maps are allowed, but blatantly implausible (ASB) maps are not.
If you're not sure whether your idea meets the criteria of this challenge, please feel free to PM me.
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The entry period for this round shall end when the voting thread is posted on Sunday the 8th of February.
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THIS THREAD IS FOR ENTRIES ONLY.
Any discussion must take place in the main thread. If you post anything other than a map entry (or a description accompanying a map entry) in this thread then you will be asked to delete the post. If you refuse to delete the post, post something that is clearly disruptive or malicious, or post spam then you may be disqualified from entering in this round of MotF and you may be reported to the board's moderators.
Well, the Richards-Reagent collaborations strike again, this time we're revisiting the concept from our no-Mfecane Map in MotF 102.
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Excerpt from A History of the Indigenous Peoples of Southern Africa (Abridged), Revised 8th Edition, 2003 by R.K. Jones.
It is considered by some a curious quirk of fate that the area of the modern Union of the Cape should almost precisely match the traditional extent of those lands populated by the Khoi-San peoples prior to arrival of the Dutch, indeed the match is close enough for some to attempt to use it as evidence against the long held argument that the European colonial borders were drawn without regard to the groupings of the indigenous peoples of the continent. Yet this is to get the causal relationship the wrong way round, for it is not that the borders were drawn to match the extent of the Khoi-San peoples, but rather that it was that group who were the most vulnerable to European advances and least able to resist, and thus European rule and settlement dominated their lands to an extent not seen in the Bantu lands beyond the Orange River.
Comparisons have been drawn between the Khoi-San and the indigenous peoples of North America, and indeed the parallels are significant. In both cases the arrival of Europeans, and the diseases they brought, proved deadly to the relatively isolated natives who had never before encountered smallpox and other European diseases with the result that lands became depopulated and open to European settlement and exploitation. In both cases the weakening of both health and societal structures also reduced the ability of the native peoples to resist militarily, resulting in further loss of land.
The differences however are a stark illustration of the contrasting colonial attitudes to Africa and the Americas. While those areas closest to the Dutch settlement of Kaap-Stadt (the future Cape Town) saw as much as 90% of the population wiped out, further afield intermittent contact with the Bantu populations had strengthened immune systems sufficiently to allow this rate to fall to 70% in the area of Graaf-Reinet. It was the difference between complete societal collapse and partial survival of clan structures, but the depopulation of the land allowed increased Bantu encroachment from the east. The limits of this depopulated land, in contrast to the denser settlements of the Highveldt that would eventually give rise to the Rolong and Moshesh Kingdoms, would come to define the limits of European incursion into the African interior.
Yet the Khoi-San were also subject to the predations of slavery, with the result that as the Dutch farmers, or Boers, migrated inland even those communities that weathered disease enough to maintain societal structures found themselves attacked, enslaved and subsumed into the wider mass of the population, prompting further population decline and loss of land. The arrival of the British, and subsequent enforcement of the Empire-wide ban on slavery, brought the first relief for the Khoi-San, but the establishment of the Namibian settlements of Walvisbaai, Potgietersrus and Keetmanshoop following the Boer-trek north brought a whole new area of the population into regular contact with Europeans, and the decline barely halted.
Thus by the late 19th Century the population of what were by that point being referred to as 'Bushmen' had plummeted from over 100,000, to less than a tenth of that number, with the parcelling out of land in Namibia remaining government policy after the Cape was granted Dominion status in 1872 and achieved domestic independence. It was at this point that the foundations for the eventual recovery of the population were laid. The fashion for colonial missionary activity had grown throughout the 1870s and 1880s as Africa was, by and large, partitioned among the European powers, and for the ladies in the Cape the Bushmen, most of whom clung to their traditional beliefs and customs, seemed to be a perfect target of this trend, with Lady Mary van der Buick stating 'why minister to the savages of the Congo or the Veldt when there dwell those within our own borders who have not yet seen the light'. Though these ministries were often hardly less oppressive, harsh or colonial in nature than previous settlements, they did have the advantage of bringing improved healthcare to the Khoi-San through the establishment of small 'Bush-Hospitals' in Kghoni, Aminius, Tshane, Khutse, Kamp and Tsumkwe, and began the process of vaccinating the Khoi-San against Smallpox. In time, some of these became centres of Khoi-San settlement, with many abandoning their traditional nomadic ways and settling down, some converting to Calvinism in the process. Others stuck to their nomadic ways, though even there it has become tradition among some clans and groups for a mother to live in one of these settlements until the children have reached the age of 6 or 8, benefiting from ready access to healthcare and a basic education in order to 'know when the white man is lying' before returning to the Bush to learn their native ways.
It was perhaps the growth of these settlements that eventually saw the establishment of the Bushman Reservations in 1911, a tiny fraction of the ancestral lands of the Khoi-San but the first time that their essential rights had been recognised in law. In time, improved health, vaccination campaigns and a fairer society would see the population gradually recover to around 45,000 today, with the long running campaign for restitution against the long injustices of the people recognised by the courts in 1994 and resulting in the government passing a compensation act the following year which has allowed some of the leading Khoi-San activists to purchase areas of underused land outside the reservations expanding the amount of land owned by the people for the first time in almost a century.
