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

Association”, for the British annexation of, and further settlements in, Natal. 49
His method was to reprint extracts from various publications, with his
comments. Kay 50 was an 1820 settler who first became a minister and then a
missionary. While based in Butterworth, from 1829 to 1831, he travelled in the
Transkei before writing his missionary autobiography on his return to England. 51
Pringle was a Scottish, pro-African, “liberal” 1820 settler. In mid-1822 he settled
in Cape Town where he worked as a librarian, opened a private academy, was
the founder member of the ”Literary and Scientific Society” and became co-
editor of newspapers until January 1825, when the ongoing battle for the free
press against Governor Somerset became futile. He published his criticism of
the race relations and labour systems of the Cape Colony in his two books. 52
These “liberal” authors treated most mfecane themes in a similar vein and can
thus be analysed together. They repeated all information on the Zulu and the
Mantatees which was already common currency. Bannister published an
important contradictory element when he quoted the Methodist missionary,
Threllfall, who wrote, ‘… the population is great indeed, in every quarter …’ in
the Port Natal area in 1823. That is one year before the arrival of the first Port
Natal traders and at a time that area was supposed to have been
depopulated. 53 The “liberals’” treatment of the Ngwane chiefdom did differ from
that of the settler apologists in that the “liberals” saw them as tragic victims
rather than monstrous marauders. The Ngwane chiefdom was thus seen as
having been expelled from Natal to the highveld by the Zulu state where it
became a raiding chiefdom, was then pushed south into the Transkei by armed
and mounted raiders before settling at Mbholompo. There they were mistaken
49 De Kock, W.J., Krüger, D.W. and Beyers, C.J. (eds), Dictionary of South African Biography, 5
Vols. (Cape Town, 1968), I, 50-51. P.R. Kirby (ed), Andrew Smith and Natal (Van Riebeeck
Society, Vol. 36, Cape Town, 1955), 181.
50 Kay, Travels and Researches.
51 De Kock et al. (eds), Dictionary S. A. Biography (1981), IV, 270-1.
52 Pringle, African Sketches. Pringle, Narrative of a Residence. Ritchie, Poetical Works of
Thomas Pringle, XXXIII, XL, LXVI, LXXIII, LXXIX – LXXX, CXVII, CXXI – CXXVII. ‘Thomas
Pringle', Cape Quarterly Review, 1 (October 1881), 110-17.
53 Bannister, Humane Policy, L, LXVI.
48