Many forces have interacted in the Eastern Cape Incoming Afrikaners and British met with Xhosa-speakers in the eighteenth century, and the long process of conflict, followed by the subordination and expropriation of the indigenous people, took place over more that one hundred years An important British base at this time, named after a military officer , and a small town of Alice grew near its environs The process of colonization and expropriation was paradoxical Brutal military conquest, and integration of the population into the colonial economy, was accompanied by the spread of Christianity