The migrant farmer in the history of the Cape colony, 1657-1842 /

This is the first of a promised three volumes of translations of the major works written between 1938 and 1945 by van der Merwe, the Afrikaner historian. Dates in the title are misleading; the analysis ends about 1795. Van der Merwe was a nationalist, but differed from the polemicists by his scrupulous use of evidence and his focus on the social history of the Trekboers. His picture of the Afrikaner people in the years before 1795 was not flattering; he saw them as essentially similar to their Khoikhoi and Bantu rivals, formed by the same geography and dependence on cattle and grazing land, living at much the same standard. He also took issue with George M. Theal, the anglophone pioneer of South African history, in exonerating the Xhosa from the charge that they "caused" the "Kaffir Wars" by their cattle thieving. This translation will mainly interest students of the historiography of South Africa; it could offend others with its racist statements praising the rise of "color prejudice," which preserved "the purity of the blood of the white race" and made the "miracle" of the Afrikaner nation possible. For specialists. J. E. Flint; emeritus, Dalhousie University