Land expropriation and labour extraction under Cape colonial rule : the war of 1835 and the "emancipation" of the Fingo
- Authors: Webster, Alan Charles
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Ayliff, John, 1797-1862 , Fingo (African people) -- History , Frontier War, 1834-1835 , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1814-1852 , Xhosa (African people) -- History , Gcaleka (African people) -- History , Bantu-speaking peoples -- Migrations , Rharhabe (African people) -- History , Historiography -- South Africa , D'Urban, Benjamin, Sir, 1777-1849 , Land tenure -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , Working class -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , Eminent domain -- South Africa -- History
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2572 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002425
- Description: The interpretations of the war of 1835 and the identity of the Fingo that were presented by the English settlers, have remained the mainstays of all subsequent histories. They asserted that the war of 1835 was the fault purely of 'Kaffir' aggression, that it was controlled by Hintza, the paramount chief, and that the ensuing hostilities were justifiable colonial defence and punishment of the Africans. The arrival of the Fingo in the Colony, it was claimed, was unconnected with the war. It was alleged that the seventeen thousand Fingo brought into the Colony in May 1835 were all Natal refugees who had fled south from the devastations of Shaka and the 'mfecane', and who had then become oppressed by their Gca1eka hosts. Both of these 'histories' need to be inverted. The 'irruption' of December 1834 was not unprovoked Rharhabe aggression, but the final response to years of the advance of the Cape Colony. Large areas of Rharhabe land had been expropriated, and their cattle regularly raided. Their women and children had been seized and taken into the Colony as labourers. The attacks were carried out by only a section of the Rharhabe on specific areas in Albany. The damage caused, and stock taken, was vastly exaggerated by the colonists. The Cape Governor, D'Urban, and British troop reinforcements arrived in Albany in January, and the Rharhabe were invaded two months later. D'Urban later invaded the innocent Gcaleka, took cattle, wreaked havoc and killed Hintza after he refused to ally with the Colony. The Fingo made their appearance at this moment. They were not a homogenous group. There were four categories within the term: mission and refugee collaborators (who were given land at Peddie and had chiefs appointed), military auxiliaries, labourers, and later, destitute Rharhabe seeking employment in the Colony. Only a small minority of the total Fingo were from Natal. The majority of the Fingo appear to have been Rharhabe and Gcaleka women and children, captured by the troops during the war and distributed on farms in the eastern districts to ameliorate the chronic labour shortage. Thus, instead of the year 1835 being one of great loss for the eastern Cape, as claimed by the settler apologists, it was a catalyst to the economic development of the area. All Rharhabe land was seized, to be granted as settler farms. Well over sixty thousand Rharhabe and Gcaleka cattle were captured and distributed amongst the colonists. The security threat of the adjacent Rharhabe and the independent Gcaleka was removed. And a large colonial labour supply was ensured.
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- Date Issued: 1991
The diaries of Thomas Shone: 1820 settler, 1838-39 and 1850-59
- Authors: Silva, Penny
- Date: 1982
- Subjects: Shone, Thomas, 1784-1868 , Shone family , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1814-1852 , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1853-1871 , Clumber -- History
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2583 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005799 , Shone, Thomas, 1784-1868 , Shone family , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1814-1852 , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1853-1871 , Clumber -- History
- Description: I first read the diaries of Thomas Shone in 1971, when working on manuscripts in the Cory Library, Rhodes University, for the Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles. The diaries were a significant source of South African English; but more than that, they created a moving and vivid picture of one man's life and personality, which made a deep impression. Written daily (unlike many other settler writings, which are reminiscences), the diaries proved to be a journey into the interior life of Thomas Shone, with all his guilt, pain and occasional joys, documented in his idiosyncratic style. Photographs show Thomas to have been a man with a determined, even hard, mouth, and piercing eyes under rather lowering brows. If he was like his son, Thomas junior, he was "erect and bright", and of the "typical Shone build, rather stumpy and fairly broad." His command of language suggests a good education and a sharp intellect, strangely at variance with his description as a labourer. His writing is imbued with the archaic ring of the King James Bible, and much of the charm of the diaries lies in their movement between the sublime and the mundane, as when Shone breaks a discussion of his need to be faithful to God, to note that "Sarah sat a hen on 22 eggs." Shone's diary is an intensely personal document, yet there are signs that he was at times conscious of a possible audience. His use of the phrase "My friends" to address his readers " is likely to have been part of a convention of the time, rather than overt acknowledgement of the presence of an audience; however at the most personal level of all, his relationship with his mistress, he was not explicit, but employed a form of code (.∶.) Furthermore, there is evidence that he kept a rough diary, from which he later made a neat copy. Thomas began his diary in order to record his attempt to stay away from drink, but his writing soon came to mean more to him than this. He gradually introduced notes on his daily activities, and his temptation to drink became just one part of a personal history. From 5 August 1838, when he first wrote of the loss of his wife, the diary became an important outlet for his misery. Despite his unhappiness, Thomas took delight in the use of sarcasm and wry humour to comment on the foibles of humanity. "Me and Billy went to Mandy's; I cut my thumb and three trees", he wrote; and "Indian corn bread makes my belly ache... (My relations have the mind ache; I believe it is worse than the belly ache.)" "Religion is flying away to other parts as fast as it can; the religion here is money, and Cattle and a covetious Spirit for other men's goods ", he grumbled of the Clumber community. The most effective (and prolonged) use of his gift for sharp conment may be found in his description of the watchnight service at Clumber. Shone seems to have possessed a natural flair for language, and used metaphor and simile to good effect, as in the following examples: "Now am I like a dove that as lost his mate"; Every thing seems quiet; I have still a war in my mind"; "Riches very often finds wing and flys away"; and "My mind is like the troubled sea, never at rest". He often showed an affinity for rhythm and alliteration, probably as a result of his familiarity with Biblical English: "These are my days of grief and sorrow"; "poor poverty"; and "Hard is my fate... all things seem to go contrary, strive which way I will." These examples of language provide a strong contrast with his reporting of everyday activities: Shone changes from one linguistic register into another in his movement from introspective to factual writing. At times Shone achieves an extraordinary vividness in his description of small incidents, as in his stories of encounters with monkeys, or his report of an altercation with his son Jack. One of the loveliest passages is his account of a day spent on his old location at Scott's Bottan. Thomas was "political" only insofar as politics touched his own life. For the political historian the diaries are frustrating; except for his descriptions of the War of Mlanjeni, Shone shows little interest in the wider issues of his time. However, the diaries show the complex web of relationships in a small community, and give insights into commercial interaction, domestic activities, marriage ties, religious attitudes, family behaviour and interpersonal conflicts, all set within the political tensions of the frontier society. As the diaries progressed, and Thomas Shone aged, he weed from being an active participant in the life of the frontier, to being an onlooker and commentator. Possessed of a mind (and tongue) which isolated him from many of his neighbours, he was no doubt also separated from his community by his relationship with Ann Hiscock and by his heavy drinking. The diaries became his vehicle for expressing the inexpressible; and in the end it was religion which gave him solace. It is the "interior" diary which provides much of the fascination which Shone's writings hold for the modern reader. Professor Guy Butler has pointed out that writing was a secondary activity for the settlers, whose chief preoccupation was survival in a difficult environment. Shone's diaries certainly reflect his economic struggle; but it is their portrayal of his pilgrimage through life which makes them remarkable.
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- Date Issued: 1982
The life and influence of William Shaw, 1820-1856
- Authors: Lyness, Peter Howard
- Date: 1982
- Subjects: Shaw, William, 1798-1872 , South Africa -- History -- Frontier Wars, 1811-1878 , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1814-1852 , Missions -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , Methodist Church of Southern Africa -- Missions
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2586 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006205 , Shaw, William, 1798-1872 , South Africa -- History -- Frontier Wars, 1811-1878 , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1814-1852 , Missions -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , Methodist Church of Southern Africa -- Missions
- Description: Preface: William Shaw was undoubtedly one of the greatest of the missionary pioneers to work in southern Africa and it is strange that up until now there has been no major research into his time spent in the Cape Colony and beyond. Apart from his own work, The Story of My Mission, and the Memoir of the Rev. William Shaw by William Boyce, published in 1874, there was nothing devoted exclusively to Shaw until Mrs Celia Sadler published extracts from his letters and journals in Never a Young Man, in 1967. Scholars have examined aspects of Shaw's career in a number of theses, articles and books, but, unlike the attention paid to Dr John Philip, William Shaw has never been the subject of close historical scrutiny. This has, most probably, been attributable to the unfortunate gap in the Shaw correspondence from the late 1830's to the 1850's, but, despite this, I have felt that so important a figure in southern African historiography - both ecclesiastical and secular - should be examined regardless of the lacunae which there might be. When - and if - the missing pieces ever come to light, then the time for the definitive study will have arrived, but until such time there is, most decidedly, a need for what we do have access to, to be sifted and placed in historical context. This is what this thesis has attempted to do with specific reference to his work in the Eastern Cape. As General Superintendent of Wesleyan mission work in "South Eastern Africa", Shaw also had oversight of work in the Bechuana country, but that lies outside the scope of this thesis and requires independent examination. Shaw wrote of the work of the missionary - with his own work firmly in mind, " ... I am fully satisfied ... that wherever there is a British colony in juxtaposition with heathen tribes, or natives, it will be our wisdom to provide for the spiritual wants of the Colonists, while at the same time we ought not to neglect taking earnest measures for the conversion of the heathen."¹ Such an approach made Wesleyan endeavours almost unique in mission history. The proponent of such uniqueness requires a sympathetic yet not hagiographical appraisal. This thesis seeks to accomplish just that. ¹ The Story of My Mission p. 213.
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- Date Issued: 1982
The letters of Hannah Dennison, 1820 settler, 1820-1847
- Authors: Edgecombe, Dorothy Ruth
- Date: 1968
- Subjects: Dennison, Hannah Elizabeth, 1791-1850 -- Correspondence , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) -- Correspondence , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1814-1852 , Women -- South Africa , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Women -- South Africa -- Correspondence
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2540 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002392 , Dennison, Hannah Elizabeth, 1791-1850 -- Correspondence , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) -- Correspondence , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1814-1852 , Women -- South Africa , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Women -- South Africa -- Correspondence
- Description: In 1959, the late Miss M.G. Masson of Salem, at the instigation of Mrs. Dorothy Rivett-Carnac, presented a bundle of Gush family papers to the Cory Library. Among these papers was a series of letters written by Hannah Dennison, who came to South Africa in 1820, as a member of Carton's party from Nottinghamshire. This thesis offers a transcription of the letters together with editorial comment, and the letters from the main source for a reconstruction of the life and attitudes of a most enterprising woman.
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- Date Issued: 1968