Second Khoikhoi–Dutch War begins

The Cochoqua had remained outside the First Khoekhoe–Dutch War and became important suppliers of livestock to the Cape settlement. Their leader Gonnema also occupied a powerful position in the networks through which cattle moved from inland pastoral communities toward the VOC.

By the early 1670s, relations had deteriorated. The Company wanted more direct and predictable access to cattle, while colonial hunting, travel and settlement pressed farther into areas used by western Cape Khoekhoe communities. Competition over trade, disputes involving VOC travellers and mutual suspicion increasingly threatened Gonnema's political and economic position.

On 18 July 1673, the VOC Council sent a mounted force under Hieronimus Cruse on what Company sources treated as a punitive expedition. It attacked the Cochoqua and seized approximately 1,800 cattle and sheep. Company officials connected the action to Cochoqua hostility and insecurity along trading routes, but the linked secondary accounts do not identify one verified incident that immediately compelled the attack.

Historians also connect the Council's decision to the VOC's effort to obtain more direct access to inland livestock suppliers and reduce reliance on Gonnema as an intermediary. Both the stated security rationale and the commercial objective belong in the account; the predominantly Company-produced evidence limits certainty about Cochoqua decision-making.

Significance

The attack opened a four-year conflict in which the VOC and Cochoqua both depended on relationships with other Khoekhoe leaders. Livestock was both a strategic resource and a principal target: captured herds supplied forces, rewarded allies and reduced an opponent's ability to continue fighting.