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Although my research now focuses on the history of the American West and its borderlands, past Master's work on South African history culminated in a number of articles related to the Eastern Cape frontier zone of the 1850s. These are available for download below.
The Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement in History and Literature
History Compass :: Vol. 7 (September 2009)
In South Africa’s Eastern Cape frontier zone, a millenarian movement known as the Xhosa Cattle-Killing (1856-1857) devastated local populations and stunned observers. How could the messages of its prophetess, Nongqawuse, and the exhortations of her uncle, Mhlakaza, lead to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of cattle, to the death of tens of thousands of people, and to the subjugation of the Xhosa? Historians and authors of literary works have attempted to answer this question, and their explanations have followed the contours of South African history through three general phases. The first (1857-1947) characterized the movement as a failed revolt against British expansion and a necessary step in social and religious Darwinism. The second period (1948-1988) saw the continuation of these interpretations, and, with National Party rule and the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement, an increasingly radical group of historians brought about politicized and alternative interpretations embedded in Xhosa oral history. The third phase (1989-) began with the publication of Jeff Peires’The Dead Will Arise, which renewed interest in the history and has inspired a new wave of historical critique.
Duplicity and Plagiarism in Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness
Research in African Literatures :: Vol. 39, No. 3 (2008)
Hailed as "the first great novel of the new South Africa," Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness (2000) received widespread critical acclaim for intertwining numerous dualisms -- modernity/tradition, belief/disbelief, city/country, youth/elders -- to create a vibrant and complex postapartheid novel. The Heart of Redness acknowledges historian Jeff Peires's The Dead Will Arise (1989) as "informing" the novel's historical events, centered on the Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of the 1850s. Careful examination of the two books, however, reveals an abuse of textual borrowings and significantly undermines the novel's literary value. This article questions the use of historical materials in The Heart of Redness by surveying past syntheses of history and literature in writings on the movement, and by exploring issues of intertextuality and plagiarism in African literature. Based on this analysis, The Heart of Redness should be understood in terms of duplicity, in both meanings of the word: as a novel that explores binary themes, but also as a derivative work masquerading plagiarism as intertextuality.
> More about the writing of this article
Smallpox and Epidemic Threat in Nineteenth-Century Xhosaland
African Studies :: Vol. 67, No. 2 (2008)
A brief, broad survey of the presence of smallpox in Xhosaland, followed by a closer examination of the disease and two efforts to vaccinate during the 1850s, exposes this serious threat to the Xhosa. Smallpox heightened tensions along the frontier during the time of Nongqawuse and contributed to the cataclysmic environment necessary for the Cattle-Killing.
Applied Comparisons:
The South African War through the Prism of American History
Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies :: Vol. 8, No. 3 (2007)
At the start of the twentieth century, many Americans used comparative history -- or, more specifically, an applied form of it -- to understand, internalize, and opine on world developments. Open debates sought to sway public opinion and germinate foreign policy based on historical interpretation. In this context three noteworthy historians considered the war unfolding in South Africa between the British colonial government and the Afrikaners, what would come to be called the Boer War, the Anglo-Boer War, and more recently, the South African War of 1899–1902.
Telling Stories, Changing History:
The Xhosa Cattle-Killing in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Quarterly Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa :: Vol. 61, No. 3 (2007)
This article surveys the ways in which the history of the Xhosa Cattle-Killing has been recorded, told, interpreted, written, visualized, and distorted since South Africa's transition to democracy. This reveals how an important moment in South African history has been culturally encoded, and it offers a glimpse into contemporary South Africa, and how the nation comes to grips with a challenging history, one that continually changes.
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