Fight between Xhosa nation and Salem landowners in Constitutional Court
The rights of the Xhosa nation in the Zuurveld area of the Eastern Cape were extinguished when the nation was conquered and expelled from the area in 1812. This is one of the arguments put up by land owners of the Salem commonage near Grahamstown‚ who have taken the fight to keep their land to the Constitutional Court. ZuurveldTheir appeal follows two judgments‚ which held that the 6,598 ha of agricultural land belonged to the indigenous people. The land owners‚ who said they occupied the land from 1820 following the conquest of the Xhosa nation by the British during Fourth Frontier War between 1811 and 1812‚ want the court to set aside the judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal, passed in December 2016. The appeal court‚ in a 4-1 decision‚ dismissed the land owners’ appeal against a 2014 Land Claims Court judgment‚ which found that the community of black people existed in the area and that they had been dispossessed of the land after June 19 1913. The Salem community claimed it wa...
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