Seventeenth Through Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa Credit Hours: 3 Social, political, and economic changes in southern African societies (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique) as they assimilated non-African peoples, their ideas, and material culture. Independent, viable and adaptable, Africans engaged Portuguese, British, Boers, and Germans as they competed for land, cattle, and trade.