The Historiographical Development of the Concept “mfecane” and ...

Babrow’s acknowledgment of Theal as ‘Historiographer of South Africa’ was
true with regards to his impact on history writing for most of the twentieth
century, however much one may disagree with his ideologies, philosophies or
methodologies. This was not just because of his use of archival research, or the
broad sweep - both chronological and geographical - of his massive output of
works on the southern African past, but also to a large degree because his
books reflected the prejudices and values of South African colonial society.
During his career he witnessed the political development of colonial society
from a state of antagonism between English and Dutch to one of unity with the
declaration of the Union of South Africa in 1910. It is conventional to regard
Theal as the founder of the “Settler School” of twentieth century
historiography. 61 However, from the material presented in this thesis it is clear
that the pro-settler approach to history goes back to Godlonton in the 1830’s.
Theal represented only its latest version, modified by both scientific racism and
social Darwinism.
Theal was born and raised in Canada by British loyalists. His family had lived in
Maine and then had moved to the Atlantic seaboard of Canada. Having
received a British-style “public school” education in Canada, which enabled him
to learn six languages, and, after travelling in the USA and to Sierra Leone, he
had planned to go to Australia in 1861. During a stopover in Cape Town he
decided to stay and thereafter spent seventeen years in the eastern Cape as a
journalist, teacher and proprietor/editor of two newspapers, one of them Dutch.
After an unsuccessful stint at the diamond fields in 1871, he commenced
teaching at the Lovedale mission - ‘a critical centre of evangelical humanism’
according to Schreuder - until the outbreak of the Ngqika war of 1877-78. 62
61 Smith, Changing Past, 31. Saunders, South African Past, 9.
62 D.M. Schreuder, 'The Imperial Historian as Colonial Nationalist: George McCall Theal and the
Making of South African History', in G. Martel (ed), Studies in British Imperial History: Essays in
Honour of A.P. Thornton (London, 1986), 108 and 104-8. B.J. Liebenberg, 'George McCall
Theal as Geskiedskrywer', in Liebenberg, Opstelle, 3.
128