Description
Book SynopsisThe Gordonia region of the Northern Cape Province has received relatively little attention from historians. In
Hidden Histories of Gordonia: Land dispossession and resistance in the Northern Cape, 1800–1990, Martin Legassick explores aspects of the generally unknown ‘brown’ and ‘black’ history of the region. Emphasising the lives of ordinary people, his writing is also in part an exercise in ‘applied history’ – historical writing with a direct application to people’s lives in the present.
Tracing the indigenous history of Gordonia as well as the northward movement of Basters and whites from the western Cape through Bushmanland to the Orange River, the book presents accounts of family histories, episodes of indigenous resistance to colonisation, and studies of the ultimate imposition of racial segregation and land dispossession on the inhabitants of the region. A recurrent theme is the question of identity and how the extreme ethnic fluidity and social mixing apparent in earlier times crystallised in the colonial period into racial identities, until with fi nal conquest came imposed racial classifi cation.
Trade Review"This is a magnum opus, summing up a quarter century of research by one of the most senior and important South African historians." - Neil Parsons, former professor of history, University of Botswana. "There are few areas in South Africa that are like Gordonia. It is to Legassick's great credit that he recognised this, but nevertheless makes the history of the country's major area of desert part of South Africa's totality. It is a major achievement and an important book." - Robert Ross, historian and author of The Borders of Race in Colonial South Africa: The Kat River Settlement, 1829-1856
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Acronyms and abbreviations; Illustrations; Preface; Chapter 1 The prehistory of Gordonia; Chapter 2 The Baster settlement of Gordonia and its decline; Chapter 3 The will of Abraham and Elizabeth September: a struggle for land in Gordonia, 1898-2014; Chapter 4 From prisoners to exhibits: representations of Bushmen of the northern Cape, 1880-1900; Chapter 5 South African human remains and the politics of repatriation: reconsidering the legacy of Rudolf Poch; Chapter 6 The early history of the brown Afrikaners in Riemvasmaak; Chapter 7 The battle of Naroegas; Chapter 8 The Marengo rebellion and Riemvasmaak, 1903-1907; Chapter 9 The racial division of Gordonia, 1921-1930; Chapter 10 Keidebees and Blikkies locations, Upington, 1894-1974; Chapter 11 'All my powers have been swallowed by Upington': the life and times of Alfred Gubula; References; Index.
