Laura J. Mitchell concentrates on the contested dynamics of land
tenure in the Cedarberg region of the Western Cape, from the first
settler land claim of 1725 to the entrenchment of colonial
administration in the 1830s. Based on a decade of research,
Mitchell focuses on the conflict between Dutch East India Company
officials, settlers, indigenous Khoisan, and Indian-Ocean slaves,
detailing the ways in which settlers themselves--rather than
Company policy or an imperial army--drew the frontier into a
colonial orbit and then gradually placed it under colonial
control.
Against a backdrop of often violent resistance, settlers claimed
land one farm at a time. Family by family, household by household,
the inhabitants of the Cedarberg region were bound to each other
and to a colonial society based at Cape Town. The Khoisan resisted
displacement, the appropriation of their livestock and hunting
grounds, involuntary servitude, and subordination. Likewise,
settlers resisted the Dutch East India Company's efforts at
controlling territorial expansion, limiting their interaction with
independent Khoisan groups, and regulating bonded labor. At the
same time, the increasing presence of European material culture in
frontier spaces proved that many settlers still affirmed their
relationship to colonial power. Mitchell enriches her social
history with insights from anthropology, archaeology, sociology,
and environmental and women's studies, considering multiple sources
of power and identity and recovering the role of women in creating
settler society.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!