| This study covers the period from Britain's final re-occupation of the Cape in 1806 to the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. I begin, therefore, at a point when formalized segregation was still in an embryonic phase and end when it embarked on a new stage of power, influence, and legitimacy which would not come under any kind of serious attack for many decades. It investigates the different kinds of stereotypes that emerged about different groups of Africans by different classes of British people and the changes these stereotypes underwent over time. The main groups that it is concerned with are the Khoikhoi, San, Xhosa, Zulu, and Fengu. It is concerned not only with the writings of missionaries, newspapermen, and storytellers, but with the official state documents and pronouncements which used these constructed images to formulate policy. The study is organized around a sequence of interrelated but distinguishable conceptions of Africans. These different images are associated in most cases with a particular social group. They are arranged chronologically, so far as possible, in the order of their emergence into the arena of public controversy. Studied in this fashion, the debate can often be seen as proceeding dialectically, with once conception provoking another which may then provoke some modification of the first. This dialectic, however, was not inherent in the ideas themselves but resulted from the interaction of prior conceptions with emerging historical developments and changes. |
