Thursday, June 16, 2005

Kaffraria

(from Arabic kafir, “infidel”), the territories along the southeast coast of Africa that were colonized by the Portuguese and British. The term referred more specifically in the 19th century to those lands inhabited by the Xhosa-speaking peoples of the Transkei and Ciskei. Now considered pejorative, the term Kaffir was used in the 19th century as a synonym for Xhosa. In 1847, during