A Cape Traveller’s Diary 1856 – Robert Wilmot

R200.00

Condition: Very good
Format: Hardcover with DJ
Published: 1984 (AD.Donker)
Pages: 174
ISBN: 0868520100

Out of stock

Description

Historically, he visited the Cape frontier at a time of exceptional tension and anxiety, between the end of the Eighth Frontier War in 18B and the extraordinary millenarian explosion, shortly after his departure, of the Xhosa tragedy of the cattle-killing. He records the insecurity and disquiet among the settlers and the military on the frontier. His visits to the Ngqilca chief, Xhoxho, the paramount chief, Sandile, and the great and famous warrior, Maqoma, are of exceptional interest, as is his conviction that it was the defenders not the white challengers of the traditional tribal society who held the military advantage. But he did not doubt, as an upper-class military elitist and man of his time, that whatever the cost it was the whites who would triumph. On missionary work he was more ambivalent, and foresaw its failure unless full integration was attempted.

-From the foreword by Phyllis Lewsen