Published by Jonathan Ball, 1994

Hardcover with dustjacket in excellent condition.

 "Without question Maqoma was the most renowned Xhosa chief of South Africa's 19th-century frontier wars. But was he a drunken troublemaker and an erratic and volatile ruler? That was the verdict of colonial officials and three generations of historians - but both oral traditions and colonial and missionary documents paint a very different picture. They reveal a man of considerable intellect and eloquence, striving to maintain traditional social structures and the power of the Xhosa aristocracy in the face of colonial depredations and dispossession. . Imprisoned on Robben Island for 12 years, Maqoma was paroled in 1869. When he attempted to resettle on his stolen land, however, he was rebanished to the infamous island prison, where he died under mysterious circumstances in 1873. And yet his name lives on. In vivid prose the author records the evidence of living oral traditions - gathered from descendants scattered throughout the Border region - that support the documentary testimony to a leader of extraordinary tenacity, flexibility and political and martial skills, who tragically became the victim of an advancing colonial juggernaut.".