Eavesdropping on early Natal - Carol Maccallum

Eavesdropping on early Natal - Carol Maccallum - 2019 - Paperback

Three hundred and forty one years after Vasco da Gama landed on the east coast of Africa in 1497 and named it Natal, the first white settlers arrived in 1838.

So begins this fascinating history of Europeans in Natal. The first white pioneers to Natal, Henry Fynn and three mechanics arrived at Port Natal on the March 10, 1824 looking for King Shaka. Though they found no other inhabitants on arrival, Fynn did eventually find, and befriended the Zulu king.

Covering the Victorian era, 1837 1901, and meticulously researched, Carol Maccallum has written a captivating book with so much information of the whys and wherefores of the making of a now vibrant province of South Africa. In Eavesdropping on early Natal, the reader is transported to the days when society in Pietermaritzburg was beginning to develop, businesses were being set up, laws were made and broken and farms established to feed the growing population.