Van Jaarsveld’s commandos claim to clear the Zuurveld

By the late 1770s, trekboer and Xhosa pastoral communities were both using parts of the Zuurveld. There was no boundary accepted and effectively enforced by all parties. Competition for grazing and water combined with cattle theft, recovery expeditions and retaliatory violence, making responsibility for individual incidents difficult to separate from the continuing frontier dispute.

During the First Frontier War, commandos led by Adriaan van Jaarsveld attacked Xhosa settlements and recovered or seized livestock. Van Jaarsveld reported that his forces had driven Xhosa communities eastward from parts of the Zuurveld by 1781. The campaign was understood by participating farmers as protection of their households and herds; affected Xhosa communities experienced it as expulsion from land they occupied and used.

Significance

The operations reduced immediate pressure on some frontier farms but did not produce a stable or mutually recognised settlement. Xhosa communities returned to contested areas, and disputes over land and cattle continued into later frontier wars. The extent of Van Jaarsveld's success should therefore be reported as a contemporary claim rather than a permanent clearance.