The Griqua Land Regime and Its Challenges

In the first 15 years of Griqua Philippolis, Adam Kok II, and the most important of his successors, Adam Kok III, constructed a system of private ownership in land. This was a rather novel land regime at the time for all polities in this part of sub-Saharan Africa, and for it to persevere in the face of increasing white interest in the region, the Griqua state — or ‘captaincy’ — needed to be extensive, bureaucratic, and respected: resilient in the face of serious challenge, coherent to both the Cape Colony administration and Boer communities.1 The organisation of this captaincy was key to its success. The Captain sat at the head of his volksraad, a nominated council of varying size and influence. The raad would come to decisions collectively, but the Captain always retained a right of veto. Together, the Captain and raad codified laws and pencilled out their own land titles. The enforcement of these laws was mostly left up to other executive roles, including the veldkornets, who performed a similar magisterial and policing role as the Boer officials of the same title did, and the kommandants, who also acted as police but were mostly in charge of organising military campaigns and commandos.