The Great Treks : The Transformation of Southern Africa 1815-1854

The mass migration of the Boer farmers from Cape Colony to escape British domination in 1835-36 - the Great Trek - has always been a potent icon of Afrikaaner nationalism and identity. For African nationalists, the Mfecane - the vast movement of the Black populations in the interior following the emergence of a new Zulu kingdom as a major military force in the early 19th century - offers an equally powerful symbol of the making of a nation. These two stories became part of divided South Africa's separate mythologies, treated as unconnected events taking place in separate universes. The end of Apartheid and the beginning of democracy in South Africa demands a new kind of history. Few present day historians believe the old assertion that the 'Great Trek' is the central event of South African history. This book puts an 's' on the phrase 'Great Trek' as a way of signaling its intention to deal with all the movements of people and their leaders which occurred in South Africa during the early nineteenth century.  The author avoids the colonizers point of view by taking the vantage point of the central highveld where African societies had flourished for more than a thousand years before the arrival of white people. The book also clarifies the ferocious debate over the so-called 'mfecane' which has raged over the last decade and asks whether it was really as violent and disruptive as it has made out to have been. Featuring a wealth of interesting anecdotes and stories, The Great Treks provides a fascinating new history for twenty-first century South Africa.  Norman Etherington has published widely on South Africa and Southern African history and politics and has spent long periods travelling and working in South Africa. He is currently Professor of History at the University of Western Australia.