The interested reader will welcome the comprehensive source list, which includes a list of the consulted newspapers, official publications and secondary sources, as well as an impressive list of archival sources that were consulted locally and abroad. The sources are quoted in more than 750 footnotes arranged at the end of the different chapters. Two maps, 38 apt photographs and eight other illustrations, as well as a useful index, round off a publication that has not only been scholarly researched, but written in a very readable style which will hopefully give ait the wide audience it deserves.
ANDRE WESSELS University of the Orange Free state
AOULPHE DELEGORGUE. Travels in South-ern Africa. Volume I. (Translated from the French by Fleur Webb.) Killie Campbell Africana Library Publications No.5. Uni-versity of Natal Press: Pietermaritzburg,
1990.359 pp. Illus. R58,70 (exclusive). ISBN 0869807277.
I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated reading Delegorgue's Travels. Painted with Gallic elan, Delegorgue presents his flamboyant and graphic record with bold and evocative strokes. With all credit to the gifted translator Fleur Webb, the nar-rative engrosses one with its engaging style. Delegorgue's vibrant personality permeates every page. He had a zest and curiosity for life that filled his experience with real inte-rest, but he is far from being overawed by the dynamic events in which he was an active and courageous participant.
The eventual availability of the full text of this source in this hand-some volume makes it a must for historians interested in the period 1838-1844. Delegorgue is an incisive and independent observer of the interrelationship between Zulu, Boer and Briton, seen against the pris-tine loveliness of Natal's nature in most of its forms. His contribution is unique because he maintains his proud French outlook as he minu-tely, enthusiastically and ingenuously comments on the human foibles around him. He does not hesitate to express his opinions on many aspects of Natal -for example the Boers are real people who have faults unknown to most South African history text books. (Read about Andries Pretorius' vanity on p. 107.) Generally he admires the Zulu people but often lapses into paternalistic judgements. For example, after witnessing a sjambokking he is of the opinion that 'while we grit on teeth with pain, they (Zulus) in similar circumstances simply laugh' (p. 124) and 'I say that the Cafre has feelings' (p. 173). Delegorgue's passion as an observer is seen in the memorable descrip-tion and comments on the trial of Dambuza and Khambezana (pp. 111-114), the events surrounding the extension of the Republic of Natalia from the Thukela to the Black Mfolozi (pp. 120-121) on 14 February 1840 and life at Mpande's royal umuzis.
Delegorgue came to Natal to collect specimens (p.54). This he did with verve; for example he was ecstatic about the 'brilliant plumage' of the Natal birds. But he was also one of those 19th century European 'sportsmen' who participated in the often wanton decimation of vast numbers of Natal's big game. He even gives us insight into traditional Zulu hunting methods. What makes his observation so valuable is that it enables one to see Natal in its pristine ecological glory when, for example, herds of 500 to 600 elephants roamed Zululand.
This volume is of great value to the historian because of the parti-cular skills of those scholars who have been dedicated to its publi-cation over a long period. It is indeed a consummation that was devoutly wished, and for me not unexpected. Professor Colin Webb's [mal comment is peculiarly appropriate. All praise to him for his erudite introduction and annotated index, to Stephanie Alexander's scholarly introduction on Delegorgue as a scientist and her natural history index, to the immaculate oversight of Margery Moberley and finally to Fleur Webb who enabled the irrepressible Frenchman to come alive for readers of the English language. Seldom have such magnificent talents been harnessed in one volume. This handsome ad-dition to the history of Natal will remain one of its foremost classics.
W. JAMES and M. SIMONS (eds). The angry divide. David Philip: Cape Town, 1989. 258 pp. Illus. R33,84 (exclusive). ISBN 086486 1168.
Most South African historians focus on a particular time or a specific topic ofinte-rest. The angry divide focusses instead on a particular region: the Western Cape. This volume largely consists of papers pre-sented at the Western Cape: Roots- and Realities conference hosted by the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town. Some of these papers have al-ready appeared in print elsewhere. Per-haps it is the wide subject area of this conference that has resulted in one of the major shortcomings of this volume -a lack of a coherent unifying theme. Chapters are loosely grouped under three headings: 'Historical foundations'; 'Economy and labour'; and 'Politics and so-ciety'. Some of the more interesting contributions in these three areas will be assessed.
Nigel Penn's chapter on land, labour and livestock in the Western Cape of the 18th century represents a competent overview of some of the major developments of this period -ongoing European territorial expansion and the destruction of Khoisan society. Nigel Worden's study of the effects of the emancipation of slaves is both insightful and interesting in its discussion of the different modes of production that emerged in the Western and Eastern Cape. The reluctance of farmers in both regions to employ wage labour precluded the proletarianiza-tion of freed men. Instead many were kept in service through devices such as the 'dop' system or through a cycle of indebtedness. This ten-dency was reinforced by legislative measures such as the Masters and Servants Act. In his contribution Hermann Giliomee looks at the ori-gins of the consistent support that Western Cape wilie and wheat farmers have shown for the Afrikaner nationalist movement. (It is interesting to note that this group still forms the bedrock of National Party support today.) Economic concerns coincided with concern about the political status of Afrikaners, which resulted in the rural Western Cape becoming 'the most solidly bourgeois wing of Afrikaner
nationalism'. .
The 'Economy and labour' section consists of four articles on topics ranging from Van Duin's look at artisans and trade unions in the Cape Town building industry to Maree's more contemporary study of the General Workers' Union (GWU). Richard Goode looks at the Wolseley general strike of 1953-1954. Alan Mabin explores the change of South Africa's economic geography. It is argued that the reasons for this change were intimately tied up with agricultural depression in the Western Cape and the discovery of minerals in the Transvaal in the late 19th century. This resulted in much investment being channelled to the Transvaal at the expense of the Cape. Based on Maree's first-hand experiences of the emergence of the independent trade unions, his chapter on the GWU sheds light on the transformation of an advice bureau into a major force on the shop-floor. Particular atten-tion is paid to major strikes involving the GWU and the political stance of this union.
More problematic is the 'Politics and society' section of this volume. It is here that the dated nature of this volume becomes most apparent: almost all the chapters were written in 1986, while this compilation was published in 1989. Don Pinnock's chapter, 'Ideology and urban planning', suggests a dominance of the ideas and preconceptions of Swiss town planner Le Corbusier in the planning of Cape Town and more particularly the Foreshore area in the post-war period. While some discussion is given of changing municipal policy, there is little analysis of this, or of the state's policy which, after all, caused the mi-series of the Group Areas Act forced removals. If the Pinnock article seems to have many conclusions and few facts, Richard Humphries' contribution appears to suffer from the opposite malady -many facts and few conclusions. In dealing with the coloured labour preference policy, the Humphries article seems at times to be little more than a 'shopping list' of dates and figures without any useful line of argu-ment. It is doubtlessly interesting to note the exact extent to which the black population of Cape Town increased between 1960 and 1970, but it is unclear what this really means in broader political terms. No more is the dated nature of this volume apparent than in the Bundy article dealing with 'youth-student' resistance in the Western Cape. Written before the full effect of emergency repression was felt, Bundy is opti-mistic to the point of naivety. He sees the radical youth as being a source of both 'militant cadres' and intellectuals. Today the hollow-ness of this argument is exposed in the emergence of the 'lost
gene-ration' of poorly educated youths, themselves a result of incessant school boycotts.
It is clear that some of the contributions to this volume are of great value towards an understanding of the historical development of the Western Cape. However, there appears to be a lack of editorial direc-A.E. CUBBIN
University of Zulu/and
Western Cape. However, there appears to be a lack of editorial direc-tion by James and Simons. This impression is reinforced by the brief and superficial introduction. It seems strange that the editors saw fit to include a chapter on the tiny Unity Movement and neglect the ANC, surely the doIninant force in the Western Cape. Definitely this volume contains useful material, but it is by no means an authoritative social and econoInic history of the Western Cape.
l'AULA LJU l'LUUr University of South Africa
ditry and turmoil in the area was a major factor in the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War. Treason in the Phongolo air was to be breathed by both sides. Hamu, Cetshwayo's half-brother, lived in this area and defected to the British. What is less well known, but well brought out in this paper, is the ambiguous attitude of the Wakkerstroom Boers who openly co-operated with the Zulu in the area, although they did not take up arms against the British.
Thompson's section on the 'Defence of the Natal interior' contains four papers which provide a wealth of detail on the effects of the war on various regions of Natal. The panic measures to defend Durban and Pietermaritzburg in the aftermath of Isandlwana are meticulously described in separate papers, but, by contrast, the major difficulties faced by the colonial authorities in the rural areas which are well illus-trated in the paper on the defence of Ween en county are more interes-ting. This area had a very large black population, a small number of British settlers and a few hundred more Boer inhabitants. The district was crossed by the main transport route to the interior as well as one of the British army's main supply routes. Thompson has carefully used the information generated by a bureaucracy coping with a wartime crisis to reveal the composition, economy and social linkage in an important part of rural Natal.
Kingdom and colony is a fascinating compilation of papers on an evergreen theme. Technically it is well produced with interesting and unusual illustrations, many of which, such as the cover illustration, have never been reproduced before. The maps are of a high technical standard, although some of the information from the map on p. 118 has been erroneously duplicated in the Rorke's Drift map on p. 121. This is a book well worth having for general readers, libraries and for regional historians. What it does is use the crises of national war to show social microcosms in stress and place these case studies in a broader focus. This is surely the essence of good regional history.
GRAHAM DOMINY Natal Museum, Pietermaritzhurg
B.J.T. LEVERTON (ed.). Records of Natal, III, August 1835-June 1838. Government Printer: Pretoria, 1990. 331 pp. R6,06 (inclusive).
ISBN 0 7970 1603 1.
The third volume of Records of Natal is is a welcome addition to this well-established, meticulously presented series. This particular volume seems to be a much richer quarry for both the 'national' and the local regional historian, than the previous one. Much of the ma-terial herein contained has bearing on important themes in South African history currently under critical discussion. Such themes in-clude the relationship between the Great Trek and the 'Mfecane', the role of the missionary and the origins and early history of the Fingoes (Mfengu). It is a volume especially (and surprisingly) rich (because some of the material is outside the stated chronological range of the volume) on the armed confrontation between the Cape forces and the Ngwane at the battle of Mbolompo on 27 August 1828. This material is contained in a whole clutch of enclosures, dated 1828 and attached to a despatch by Governor D'Urban to Lord Glenelg, dated 22 No-vember 1837 (pp. 218-240), as well as in conflicting evidence before the 1835 parliamentary select committee on aborigines, printed on 5 August 1836 (pp. 64-69, 152-156 and 158-163). Equally fascinating is the contrasting accounts of the causes of the Great Trek (pp. 246-251 and 291-294).
For Cape historians this volume contains certain 'classics' like D'Urban's response to the Glenelg despatch of 1835 (pp. 41-43) and Harry Smith's account of the causes of the war of 1834-1835 and his defence of the killing of Hintsa (pp. 99-109). And there are perhaps even some surprises, like a defence of the then Lieutenant-Colonel Henry George Wakelyn Smith by Sir Andries Stockenstrom, though one must bear in mind the correspondent! 'All the Caffres whom I had an opportunity of conferring with,' writes Stockenstrom to D'Urban on 14 September 1836, 'expressed the most unqualified satisfaction with the Lieutenant-Colonel's conduct towards them and many symp-toms of regret at his departure, particularly on the part of Macomo, were apparent. My own opinion is that the Colonel's zeal and industry are beyond all praise and have greatly contributed to the tranquil state of the Caffre tribes' (p.94).
Natal historians will find plenty of confirmation, particularly via the letters and evidence of Captain Allen Gardiner (pioneer Natal missionary), of the extent to which the flight of refugees from Zulu rule to Port Natal bedevilled the relationship of the embryonic community of often unscrupulous traders with Dingane. Here, too, handy for reference are 'classic' Natal regional documents like Dingane's letter to William IV, dated 21 June 1837 (p. 188) and the objectives of the provisional committee of a Natal Association, presumably dated 1839 (pp. 252-254).
JOHN LABAND and PAUL THOMPSON. Kingdom and colony at war: Sixteen stu-dies on the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Vni-versity of Nata! Press and N & S Press: Pietermaritzburg and Cape Town, 1990. xvi + 358 pp. Illus. Paperback R49,95 (exclusive).
ISBN 0 86980 765 X (paperback ed.); ISBN 0 86980 766 8 (hard cover ed.).
This work brings together sixteen of John Laband and Paul Thompson's inde-pendently produced conference papers and articles, fifteen of which have been previously published in a variety of specia-list journals at various times between 1979 and 1988. The sixteenth, Laband's paper, , "O! Let's go and have a fight at Jim's!": The Zulu at the battle of Rorke's Drift', appears here for the first time. While several popular works have recently appeared to feed the Anglo-Zulu 'war buff' market, this is a work of the highest historical and technical standard which adds both new detail and new perspectives to our understanding of the topic. It is likely to appeal to many general readers, but it is principally of interest to serious historians and deserves careful study by those specializing in regional and local studies.
This work is a blend of military and social history in which there are papers on diplomacy, strategy, neglected aspects of the campaign and a variety of specialized case studies on the impact of war on various local communities. Several of these latter papers present deep slices of Anglo-Zulu War history as it affected various localities ranging from cities such as Durban, to districts such as Weenen, fieldworks such as Fort Eshowe, and to remote regions such as the under-researched Phongolo frontier.
The book is divided into three sections: The first deals with Zulu responses to the invasion of their kingdom; the second deals largely with hitherto neglected skirmishing along the borders of the kingdom; and the third describes the measures taken by the colonial authorities to protect settlers in various parts of Natal. This is a workable division although there are case studies which do not fit in with the main themes of the various sections and which would be better placed elsewhere.
From the general historiographical perspective, Laband's papers, 'The cohesion of the Zulu policy under the impact of the Anglo-Zulu War' (pp. 1-33) and 'Humbugging the General? King Cetshwayo's peace overtures during the Anglo-Zulu War' (pp. 45-67), are probably the most significant sections of this work. The first, which was initially published in 1979, but which has aged well, deals with questions of cohesion and loyalty which are fundamental to an understanding of Cetshwayo's state. The second highlights an issue repeatedly glossed over in works focussing on the war from the British point of view, namely Zulu diplomacy and Cetshwayo's repeated efforts to end the invasion through negotiation.
The work also contains important reinterpretations of military ac-tions, particularly Laband's paper, 'The battle of Khambula, 29 March 1879: A re-examination from the Zulu perspective' (pp. 80-110), which describes the battle as the 'crucial moment' of the second phase of the war (p. 81), and his previously unpublished paper, , "O! Let's go and have a fight at Jim's!" (pp. 111-130). This, coupled with Thompson's paper, 'The Natal Native Contingent at Rorke's Drift' (pp. 131-143), provides invaluable corrective detail which fleshes out and counterbalances the overworked grand saga of eleven Victoria Crosses and a valiant band stemming the advance of a multitude.
The following paper, Thompson's 'The active defence after Isandl-wana: British raids across the Buffalo, March-May 1879' (pp. 144-149), corrects the impression that the British forces along the Buffalo frontier remained inactive after Isandlwana. It also leads us into the area in which this book is of particular interest to the local and regio-nal historian, namely how the effects of major natioregio-nal and inter-national events are felt at local level, and conversely how events of local significance can influence military strategy and events of inter-national importance.
Laband's paper, 'Mbilini, Manyonyoba and the Phongolo River frontier' (pp. 183-216), is an absorbing exposition of these themes. This frontier was a zone of great instability for both the British and the Zulu. It was at the heart of the 'Disputed Territory' and the
ban-H.C. HUMMEL Rhodes University
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