TY - BOOK ID - 85467986 TI - White chief, black lords : Shepstone and the colonial state in Natal, South Africa, 1845-1878 PY - 2010 SN - 1282707043 9786612707049 1580467067 158046341X PB - Rochester, NY : University of Rochester Press, DB - UniCat KW - Colonies KW - Anti-colonialism KW - Colonial affairs KW - Colonialism KW - Neocolonialism KW - Imperialism KW - Non-self-governing territories KW - Colonization KW - History. KW - Shepstone, Theophilus, KW - KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) KW - Province of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) KW - KwaZulu-Natal Province (South Africa) KW - Natal (South Africa) KW - Kwazulu (South Africa) KW - History KW - Politics and government KW - Great Britain KW - Administration. KW - Kolonialismus. KW - Colonial administrators. KW - British colonies. KW - Colonial administrators KW - Civil service, Colonial KW - Government executives KW - Colonial administration KW - Public administration KW - Shepstone, Theophilus. KW - Natal (Südafrika) KW - South Africa KW - South Africa. KW - Africa. KW - Eastern Hemisphere KW - Africa, South KW - African "chiefs". KW - African communities. KW - British colonial civilizing mission. KW - Colonial Natal. KW - Theophilus Shepstone. KW - colonial imperatives. KW - indirect rule. KW - post-apartheid South Africa. KW - witchcraft. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:85467986 AB -
White Chief, Black Lords
explores the tensions and contradictions between the British colonial civilizing mission and the practice of indirect rule. While the colonial imperative was to transform colonized societies and bring them within "civilized" norms, fiscal limitations frequently resulted in ruling through indigenous authorities and customs. In this book, Thomas McClendon analyzes this deep contradiction by looking at several crises and key turning points in the early decades of colonial rule in the British colony of Natal, later part of South Africa. He focuses a keen eye on the tenure of Theophilus Shepstone as that colony's Secretary for Native affairs, examining his interactions with subject African communities.
In a series of case studies, including high drama over rebellions by African "chiefs" and their followers and intense debates over the control of witchcraft,
White Chief, Black Lords
shows that these colonial imperatives led to a self-defeating conundrum. In the process of attempting to rule through African leaders and norms yet to discipline and transform African subjects, the colonial state inevitably was itself transformed and became, in part, an African state. McClendon concludes by spotlighting the continuing importance of these unresolved contradictions in post-apartheid South Africa.
Thomas McClendon is Professor of History at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. ER -