A False Emptiness: How Historians May Have Been Misled by Early Nineteenth Century Maps of South-eastern Africa

Long-standing historical debates on the alleged depopulation of parts of south-eastern Africain the period between 1820 and 1835 may well have been affected by the use of pre-1850 maps, publishedbefore scientific surveys of the interior had been conducted. Much of the geographical and demographicinformation inscribed on the early maps was obtained from accounts of missionaries and casual travellersrather than from surveys. All the maps produced during those years appear to share a significant mistakeby which the headwaters of the Limpopo River system are shown as rising about 130 to 150 kilometres eastof where they ought to be. The result was the excision of territory containing significant African chiefdomsand tens of thousands of people. Boers proceeding on their Great Trek on to the South African highveld,British officials making policy and later historians appear to have made miscalculations based on thesemaps. Study of the early nineteenth-century maps can also shed light on recent historical controversiesabout South Africa’s mfecane and the impact of the Indian Ocean slave trade on Africans of the highveld.