Chainouqua

The Chainouqua were Khoekhoe pastoralists of the Overberg, east of the Cape of Good Hope. Their cattle and sheep grazed across a landscape of coastal plains and valleys, and their herds became central to trade with the Dutch East India Company's settlement at the Cape. Dohra, whom the Dutch called Klaas, acted as an intermediary between the Company, the Chainouqua and the Hessequa during the later seventeenth century. In 1693 his refusal to supply livestock led the Cape authorities to send an armed force against his camp. As farms spread across the Overberg in the eighteenth century, access to water and grazing became increasingly restricted.