The English East India Company and the British Crown: c. 1795-1803, the first occupation at the Cape of Good Hope
- Authors: Jordan, Calvin
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: East India Company , East India Company -- Influence , Cape of Good Hope (Colony) , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1795-1872 , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- Politics and government -- 1795-1872 , British -- South Africa -- History -- 19th century , Great Britain -- Colonies -- Commerce , Great Britain -- Colonies -- Administration -- History -- 19th century , Merchant marine -- Great Britain -- History
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63164 , vital:28369
- Description: My thesis aims to investigate the relationship between the English East India Company (EEIC) and the British colonial administration at the Cape of Good Hope during the first British occupation (1795 to 1803). Studies and literature that concern the EEIC have rarely gone beyond the surface, detailing the presence of the EEIC at the Cape, and neglecting the Company’s involvement in the administration thereof. My thesis draws on prior works but attempts to address both temporal and spatial gaps in this literature on the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, and the history of the EEIC. This study takes note of the seaborne related activity around the ports, bays and islands at the Cape – including the regulation of these spaces and issues related to securing British trade and colonial possessions more generally. I question the framing of the Cape primarily as a constituent of a national unit by locating the colony within a broader global and maritime context. A key interest is to determine the degree to which the EEIC influenced and participated in the British governance of the Cape, particularly by exploring the maritime dimensions of the relationship between the EEIC and colonial governance during this particular period. This involves understanding the embeddedness of the Cape in British (Crown and Company) networks and the constitution of a ‘British maritime zone’. This study uses archival sources drawn from the British colonial government records, Company records, and the private diaries and letters of Lady Anne Barnard that relate to the Cape. It is shown that a uniquely configured governance convention was constituted to secure the mutual commercial and imperial interests of both Crown and Company. By keeping the Cape secure, the British sought to keep their greater seaborne Empire secure. This study reveals that the EEIC was significantly involved in and influenced the way the British administration governed the Cape.
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- Date Issued: 2018
A reappraisal of the governorship of Sir Benjamin D'Urban at the Cape of Good Hope, 1834-1838
- Authors: Lancaster, Jonathan Charles Swinburne
- Date: 1981
- Subjects: D'Urban, Benjamin, Sir, 1777-1849 , Colonial administrators -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1795-1872
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2584 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005895
- Description: Preface: Sir Benjamin D'Urban only spent four years as Governor of the Cape Colony, yet to many people he is one of the most easily identifiable of all British Governors. The principal reason for this, it seems, is the continuing emphasis placed upon his short-lived settlement of the Colony's troublesome eastern frontier in 1835. The main objectives of this thesis have been to examine some of the most notable analyses of that settlement together with an attempt to remove D'Urban's governorship from the narrow and controversial confines imposed by his frontier policy. I have tried to place his governorship in the wider context of his day, examining the various controls upon him, and his overall role as Governor together with some of his administration's less well known but ultimately equally important aspects. In effect, I have tried to view D'Urban in 'the round '. The thesis makes no pretence at being a complete survey. Several important and possibly contributory aspects to a fuller understanding of D'Urban's Cape interlude - notably his ten years in various executive positions in the West Indies and British Guiana, and his period as commander-in-chief of the British army in Canada - were beyond the reach of anything more than a cursory review. Presumably there are documents relative to this period of D'Urban's life in the Archives in Montreal, Georgetown and London. D'Urban's reputation in South Africa continues to rest upon the short-lived system he established in 1835 and the great promise for future relations between black and white that many authors then and since saw in it, or alternately failed to see in it. With this in mind, and the realisation that 145 years and a succession of Governors, High Commissioners and Prime Ministers have passed since 1835, the following extract from the front page of The Daily Dispatch of 10 May, 1980, is revealing. It was reported that the Ciskei government demanded "all the land between the Kei and Fish Rivers, the Indian Ocean and the Stormberg Mountains to form the territory of an independent Ciskei ." The fundamental questions of to whom the land belongs and of how to establish a just modus vivendi with the Xhosa, which plagued both D'Urban's short administration and the Colonial Office for much of the Nineteenth Century are still with us today. Any analysis of his four year period as Governor of the Cape must necessarily be tempered by this realisation.
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- Date Issued: 1981
An analysis of Wesleyan missionary strategy in the eastern districts of the Cape Colony and "Caffreland" between 1823 and 1838, and an attempt to determine how far it reacted to government policies in the Cape
- Authors: Duff, Allen Ernest George
- Date: 1969
- Subjects: Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society , Missions -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope -- History -- Sources , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1795-1872
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:1250 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011606 , Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society , Missions -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope -- History -- Sources , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1795-1872
- Description: The purpose of this thesis has been to trace and examine the development of Wesleyan attitudes, and the actions which resulted therefrom towards the task of the evangelisation of the eastern districts of the Cape Colony and "Caffreland". These attitudes were conditioned throughout by the fact that they held certain religious principles as paramount. It is an attempt to clarify what was involved on the ecclesiastical side in this period of Wesleyan and South African history. A considerable amount of attention has been given, by various writers, to the history of the south-eastern area of South Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century. Some works have either been concerned with the more general history of the time or with the position of all the missionaries within the total political sphere. Others have concentrated on the Wesleyans particularly, either in a very general sense or in relation to one particular event, or the later decades or this half century. The period 1823 to 1833 was chosen because it covered the period of the origin of Wesleyan strategy and its first distinct phases. Where after it may be considered to have reached full maturity and become the basis of all future action in the succeeding decades. Wesleyan strategy was, to a large extent, a reaction to government policies and requires, throughout, such a consideration. The Wesleyan Missionary Society was chosen, not because on any denominational affiliations, but because of the part which it played in these areas during that time and has since played in the annuals of eastern Cape history. The approach has been to present the relevant documents in chronological order. This was done to emphasise the development over the years. Chapters have consequently been divided according to the stages or phases of this development. It has meant that subsidiary question which arise from this development have not been dealt with separately, but simply referred to as they occur. One point remains. Wesleyan correspondence from the Eastern Cape between 1837 and 1857 has disappeared from the archives of the Methodist Missionary Society in London. All attempts to trace these letters have proved futile. Consequently, it was necessary to reproduce a couple of quotes from letters contained in this correspondence which is referred to by D. Williams and C. Roxborough who had access to this material.
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- Date Issued: 1969
Genadendal and its satellites : a history of the Moravian Mission stations at the Cape, 1737-1869
- Authors: Krüger, Bernhard
- Date: 1966
- Subjects: Moravians -- Missions -- South Africa -- Genadendal , Missions -- South Africa -- History , Genadendal (South Africa) -- History , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- To 1795 , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1795-1872
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1284 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013470
- Description: J,F.w. Kühn, a member of the Moravian Mission Board, wrote in 1871 to the Superintendent at Genadendal that the closed settlements in South Africa were a precious and unique feature of mission work for which the brethren should be grateful. While he had been at the Gape, he had suffered under the difficulties of their management, but from the distance, and in comparison with mission work elsewhere, he had learnt to appreciate them as a great blessing. The questions arise: How dld they originate, develop and survive for so long? What were their characteristics, advantages and limitations? What factors contributed to their development? How did they fit into their milieu and influence it? The following thesis is an effort to give a detailed history of their development and an appraisal. I have endeavoured to give a vivid picture of personalities and events within the limits of historical correctness, because I consider it the noblest aim of historical research to confront us with the past in such a way that personal understanding becomes possible. In as much as we meet those who have made history. or have been part of it, in person, we can arrive at a deeper appreciation of their achievements, problems and failures.
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- Date Issued: 1966
The executive government of the Cape of Good Hope, 1825-54
- Authors: Fryer, Alan Kenneth
- Date: 1959
- Subjects: Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1795-1872
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2604 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011896
- Description: The study of administrative processes is a relaltively new one both in the field of history and sociology. In both disciplines what is required is study of the sructure and growth of adminstrative systems and of the impact of administrative action on the community it seeks to serve and which it often provokes. In the field of history, Professor F. Tout in his chapters on administrative history ... gave new vitality and understanding to medieval studies. In the main, South African history, though probably not more so than other Commonwealth countries, has been less fortunate. Preface, p. 1.
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- Date Issued: 1959
Robert Godlonton as architect of frontier opinion, with special reference to the politics of separatism, 1850-57
- Authors: Le Cordeur, Basil Alexander
- Date: 1956
- Subjects: Godlonton, Robert, 1794-1884 , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1795-1872 , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- Politics and government -- 1795-1872 , Press and politics -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , Editors -- South Africa -- History
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2619 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013497
- Description: [Preface] The broad outlines of Cape frontier historiography have so far been sketched from a study of official despatches and, to a lesser extent, of contemporary newspapers. There are many lacunae to be filled and many questions to be answered; here, it is evident that private papers have an indispensable role to play. Yet, despite isolated attempts to collect or index such papers, (such as that of Miss Una Long, in her Index to Unofficial, Privately-Owned Manuscripts relating to the history of South Africa), much untapped material still remains in private possession both in South Africa and overseas. In this study of a leading Eastern Province personality, prominence has been given to this type of material, and much of what has been used, has clearly not previoualy been examined by historians.
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- Date Issued: 1956