Initially, the relationship between these people and the Khoekhoe was one of trade. In 1657, nine men were released from their contracts with the Dutch East India Company and given farmland in the area to settle down. Later that year, slaves were brought into the area and a white colony began to grow. The descendants of these groups of people are called "half-breeds" in today's society. Over the next hundred years, the Dutch and British would alternately control the region, slaves would be emancipated, leading to emigration, and these settlers would slowly envelop the region while intermingling with Bantu speakers and a few other small tribes. The Cape Colony subsequently gained British legislative representation in 1853 and self-government in 1872. 1897 was a period of aggressive British expansion which led to the incorporation of Zululand into Natal, but the regions became increasingly more unstable. The British would lose and regain control of the region until the region became the Union of South Africa on May 31, 1910. There was still a huge racial divide as black people were not allowed to be members of the Parliament. Of the approximately 6 million inhabitants, more than half were