In the late 1860s, the African reserve of Fingoland was one of the wealthiest rural districts in the Cape Province.Around 6,000 African heads of family owned 182,000 sheep and 37,000 cattle — levels few settler districts matched. They ran the district’s transport system, hauling goods by wagon to frontier towns and markets, and by 1870 African wool production in Fingoland was valued at £60,000.Across the Ciskei and Cape Province, African produce was estimated at £150,000. By 1875, African purchasing power had risen to £400,000, and the value of produce to £750,000.This success was publicly acknowledged. At the 1864 Albany Agricultural Show in Grahamstown, it was “universally remarked” that the Fingo exhibition far excelled the Europeans in number and quality of entries.In 1870, Blore, the Resident Magistrate of Peddie — an African district bordering Albany — concluded that Peddie surpassed the European district of Albany in productive power.This was African farming at scale — rich, efficient, and world-class — before the settler colonial regime dismantled it.