“It was impossible not to be hooked by the stories that I found in the Cape Archives”, remarks Richard Price in his engaging description of how Making Empire came to be written, “the book […] has been the most enjoyable of all the books I have researched and written” (p. xiii). An established authority in the field of British history, Price had, by his own admission, little knowledge of African or South African history. But, as he read his way into the specifics of nineteenth-century Eastern Cape frontier history, he became increasingly aware of the extent to which the subject had been under-rated within the context of imperial history as a whole. “The Xhosa were the first people whom the British had to decide how to rule”, he explains on page 3, adding italics for emphasis. It is an astonishment he experiences again and again: on the short-lived Province of Queen Adelaide (“this remarkable episode is little known to imperial historiography”) for example; or on Sir George Grey’s policies (“imperial historiography has tended to ignore this nasty little episode […]. It is appropriate to try to remedy this silence”).
The central argument of Making Empire is that the “knowledge systems” by which the British eventually apprehended the Xhosa were not imported ready-made from the metropole but were the products of a long and difficult encounter in which Britain’s arrogant yet fragile assumptions were shattered by the unexpected strength of Xhosa antagonism. Empire ultimately derived its rationale from Sir George Grey in whose hands imperialism appeared as a democratic force and the indigenous leaders as agents of tyranny (p. 235). Price calls this process “colonial reasoning”, which he defines as “ways of thinking and reconciling cognitive contradictions that allow the imperialists to maintain their belief in their own supremacy and superiority” (p. 8). By such devious reasoning, the imperial mind projected onto its victims, its own deceits and dishonesties (p. 253), and “the values of liberalism were reconciled with the darker arts that were also prevalent in empire” (p. 10).
The burden of Price’s argument is carried by his narrative, and a very good narrative it is too. Price has read everything in print, as well as most of the official and missionary archives. He has mastered the personalia and the geography, and he seems equally at home with the Xhosa and the colonist. Much of the ground has become familiar, not least through recent major studies by Alan Lester (Imperial Networks, 2001) and Elizabeth Elbourne (Blood Ground, 2002), but Price has managed to arrive at his own distinctive line of argument. The book takes us through the missionary trajectory of initial optimism, via disappointment and frustration, to desire for revenge. It then turns to official thinking, concentrating on the unsuccessful efforts of Sir Harry Smith to govern the Xhosa through a “culture of personal rule” (p. 216). The last chapters cover the destruction of the Xhosa kingdom in the aftermath of the cattle-killing, lingering on such matters as “the relationship between empire and justice […] before the advantages of British justice could be realized in British Kaffraria, it first had to turn into the reverse of itself” (p. 316).
Price ends his book as he began it, by reflecting on the extent to which British historians have neglected the Eastern Cape and expressing the hope that he may have “reclaimed a small slice of that other empire for British history” (p. 356). I fully endorse this laudable objective and sincerely congratulate Richard Price on a provocative and accessible book. But, much as Price may have preferred to avoid “engagements with other historians or historiographies” (p. xiv), Making Empire does not appear in an intellectual vacuum. We South African historians also have an interest in the Empire, and we too require to engage with a work of this calibre.
Much as one appreciates Price’s account of the evolution of missionary thought, more especially his useful discussion of the key figure of Henry Calderwood, one cannot concur with the neat chronological distinction implied in his chapter, “The Closing of the Missionary Mind”. A conservative reaction manifested among the London Missionary Society as early as 1817, as Elbourne has shown, whereas liberal missionaries like William Greenstock had to be crushed by officialdom as late as 1860.
Moreover, many factors more significant than missionary thinking impacted on the imperial mind. Keegan, for example, has demonstrated Sir Harry Smith’s alignment to settler interests, and the extent to which the Smith regime provided for land speculation and labour coercion. Price presents Smith’s government in British Kaffraria as an early example of indirect rule, yet Smith proclaimed the abolition of all Xhosa laws relating to witchcraft, bride-wealth, and land, leading even so inacute an observer as A.E. du Toit to remark, way back in 1954, that Smith’s policies were “subversive of the whole framework of Kaffir society”. Either Price does not understand Smith, or else he does not understand indirect rule.
A second major shortcoming of Making Empire is its casual dismissal of the Mfengu as “British mercenaries”. Despite his acknowledging that “there is some historical controversy around their real identity” (p. 228n), Price unreservedly espouses an extreme view, which precludes him from appreciating the intellectual challenge which the Mfengu presence posed to imperial and colonial thinking. Whereas the Xhosa never offered themselves as candidates for membership of colonial society, the Mfengu swore a great oath in 1835 to accept Christianity, educate their children and obey the Government. They willingly gave of their labour, and willingly occupied land which the colonists did not want. The very same Governor D’Urban who condemned the Xhosa as “irreclaimable savages”, praised the Mfengu as “industrious, gentle and well-disposed”. When and how did imperial and colonial minds reduce all black people to the same racial stereotype? And why, with an affirmative model in full view, did they select the negative?
Making Empire is beautifully produced, as one would expect of Cambridge University Press, and priced accordingly. It is sad to report therefore that the quota of minor errors far exceeds what is reasonable. Charles Henry was a circumcised Xhosa not a Khoi convert; it is Burnshill not Burnside, Gcaleka not Gceleka, Kama not Khama, James Weir not John Weir, and James Read Junior or Joseph Read not John Reid. The indexer alone should have noticed Thyumie alternating with Tyhumie, and Kie with Kei. The photograph in Figure 7 is Dilima not Xhoxho, and the chief sitting next to Xhoxho in Figure 16 is Siyolo not Mhala. Worst of all, we have a Note on Sources but no Bibliography. One might be inspired to check the unpublished diary of the Revd Cummings, but we are not told where it is.
Be all of that as it may, Richard Price has something to say and he says it well. Now read the book.
