That same year the Dutch asserted themselves more by ordering the Khoikhoi to graze their cattle out of sight of the fort and company settlement. The Khoikhoi refused to move, declaring that the land was theirs and that they would attack the Dutch if they were not permitted to graze their cattle or build their huts wherever they chose. For instance, in 1655 when the Khoikhoi built their shelter and grazed their cattle close to the fort, the Dutch attempted to chase them away. Loss of grazing pastures became a source of friction between Khoikhoi and the Dutch. To this end, palisades were constructed along the Salt River bank, towers and signalling systems to the fort were also put in place. The hedge was aimed at protecting Dutch settlers from attacks by the Khoikhoi and preventing their cattle from wandering into VOC ‘owned’ land. “ The belt will be so densely overgrown that it will be impossible for cattle and sheep to be driven through and it will take the form of a protective fence.” (Jan van Riebeeck’s diary as quoted in Worden et al, p. Van Riebeeck ordered the planting of bitter almond trees, all sorts of growing brambles and thorn bushes as boundaries along farms including his own in Wynberg. A new plan to carve boundaries and barriers was implemented. Jan van Riebeeck argued against the plan because he deemed it impractical. One of the earliest proposals by the VOC of creating a barrier between the Khoikhoi and the Dutch settlers was a trench between Salt and Liesbeeck rivers right up to False Bay. Settlers began to invent and implement ways of keeping the Khoikhoi away from the settlement, regulating their access and also using their labour. Thus, the most contentious issue at the Cape that contributed to the rise in tensions and eventual outbreak of war between the settlers and the Khoikhoi was the exclusion of the Khoikhoi from accessing land for grazing pastures.
Khoikhoi herders were pushed out of the land surrounding the early settlement and were later pushed out of lands immediately surrounding the settlement. The earliest places of exclusion centred on land close to the castle and around the company settlement as access to it became restricted. Once the fort and the early settlement were established at the Cape, patterns of exclusion began to emerge as settlers drew imagined and physical boundaries between themselves and other people.
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