Frontier Wars (formally Kaffir Wars) is a term which describes the conflict between whites moving further east, out of the Cape, and Africans moving in the opposite direction, during the 18th and 19th centuries. Initial contact between the Xhosa and Boers was along the banks of the Great Fish River. Both groups developed settlements on the opposite side of the river, in the other's territory. The first Cape Frontier War (1779-81), which was actually more of skirmish, was the result of a dispute over pasturage.
The response of Colonial authorities in the Cape was to designate a border, which became the foundation of British policy in the area. Unfortunately, both the Boers and Xhosa had little sympathy for this solution and continued to cross the border into each other's lands.
There were nine Cape Frontier Wars, increasing in level of severity: 1779-81, 1793, 1799-1802, 1811-12, 1818-19, 1834-35, 1846-47, 1850-53, and 1877-78. British policy became one of containing the Xhosa, and by the end of the series of wars, the Xhosa had lost much of its prime pastoral land. The 7th and 8th Frontier Wars were particularly bitter, and resulted in the Xhosa Cattle-Killing, a millenarian movement amongst the Xhosa of the Ciskei area based on the prophecy of a teenage girl, Nongqawuse, that said the self-purification through the destruction of crops and cattle which would result in an intervention by the ancestors.
