Hidden histories of Gordonia : land dispossesion and resistance in the Northern Cape, 1800-1990 / Martin Legassick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Legassick, Martin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Politics and government.

South Africa--Politics and government--19th century.

South Africa.

South Africa--Politics and government--20th century.

Keimoes (South Africa)--History.

Keimoes (South Africa).

Northern Cape (South Africa)--History.

Northern Cape (South Africa).

Orange River--History.

Orange River.

Government, Resistance to--South Africa.

Government, Resistance to.

Africa--Orange River.

South Africa--Keimoes.

South Africa--Northern Cape.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 409 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Johannesburg : Wits University Press, 2016.

Summary:

The 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 final conquest came imposed racial classification. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The prehistory of Gordonia 1

Chapter 2 The Baster settlement of Gordonia and its decline 31

Chapter 3 The will of Abraham and Elizabeth September: a struggle for land in Gordonia, 1898-2014 85

Chapter 4 From prisoners to exhibits: representations of Bushmen of the northern Cape, 1880-1900 123

Chapter 5 South African human remains and the politics of repatriation: reconsidering the legacy of Rudolf Pöch 147

Chapter 6 The early history of the brown Afrikaners in Riemvasmaak 159

Chapter 7 The battle of Naroegas 195

Chapter 8 The Marengo rebellion and Riemvasmaak, 1903-1907 229

Chapter 9 The racial division of Gordonia, 1921-1930 265

Chapter 10 Keidebees and Blikkies locations, Upington, 1894-1974 317

Chapter 11 All my powers have been swallowed by Upington': the life and times of Alfred Gubula 343.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 381-395) and index.

ISBN:

9781868149544

1868149544

OCLC:

950444850

Publisher Number:

99969063426