In 1857, at the height of the colonial period, as Britain was
advancing its control over southern Africa and absorbing the
formerly independent African chiefdoms, the Anglican Bishop of Cape
Town, Robert Gray, set up Zonnebloem College on an old wine farm on
the outskirts of the city. Working in partnership with the British
Governor, Sir George Grey, his plan was to enrol the sons and
daughters of leading African chiefs and equip them with an English,
Christian education, and then send them home to further the cause
of Christianity and ‘civilisation’ among their own people. This
elite educational project, which was at the same time cultural and
political in nature, soon gathered steam. Among the first entrants
were Gonya and Emma Sandile, heir and eldest daughter of the
Rharhabe chief Sandile; Nathaniel Umhala, son of the Ndlambe chief
Mhala; and George Tlali, son of the great Basotho leader,
Moshoeshoe I. Over the years a succession of sons from chiefly
dynasties, sometimes spanning several generations, would come to
Zonnebloem: the Moshoeshoes of Basutoland, the Pilanes of
Bechuanaland, the Lewanikas of Barotseland, and the Lobengulas of
Matabeleland. They and many others who followed in their steps
would, after their education at Zonnebloem, take up careers as
catechists, teachers, political secretaries, lawyers, newspaper
editors and priests and serve their communities with distinction.
Their stories – their trials and their achievements – are recounted
here, often in their own words, drawing on a unique collection of
school essays and letters to their various mentors that must form
one of the earliest bodies of writing by Africans in southern
Africa. This remarkable book, based on years of research and
written with great sympathy, tells the little-known early history
of the genesis of an African intelligentsia during the colonial
period.
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