Microhistory unlocked new avenues of historical investigation and methodologies and helped uncover the past of individuals, an event, or a small community. Reclamation of "lost histories" of individuals and colonized communities of colonial South Africa falls within this category. This study provides historical narratives of indigenous Khoikhoi of modest status absorbed into Cape colonial society as farm servants during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Based on archival and other sources, the author illuminates the "everyday life" and "lived experience" of Khoikhoi characters in a unique way. The opening chapter recounts the love-loathe drama between a Khoikhoi woman, Griet, and Hendrik Eksteen, whose murder she later orchestrated with the aid of slaves and Khoikhoi servants. The malcontent Andries De Necker, arrested for the murder of his Khoikhoi servant, attracted much legal attention and resulted in a protracted trial. The book next features the Khoikhoi millenarian prophet-turned-Christian convert Jan Paerl, who persuaded believers to reassert the land of their birth and liberate themselves from Dutch colonial rule by October 25, 1788. The last two chapters examine the lives of four Khoikhoi converts immersed into the Moravian missionary world and how they were exhibited by missionaries and sketched by the colonial artist, George F. Angas.

The essays in this volume examine the nature and extent of disease on indigenous communities and local populations located within the vast regions of the Indian and Pacific Oceans as a result of colonial sea power and colonial conquest. While this established a long-term impact of disease on populations, the essays also offer insights into the dynamics of these populations in resisting colonial intrusions and introduction of disease to newly-acquired territories.

Prior to 2007 no books had been written on the culture and history of Deaf people in South Africa. This groundbreaking book within the Hidden Histories Series came about with the help of a group of courageous Deaf people who entrusted their stories to author Ruth Morgan and her team. It provides a direct window into the experiences, perceptions and world view of the Deaf narrators. ""We never had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Deaf people. There is nothing for the Deaf community. Deaf people were affected but they were not given an opportunity."" - Gavin Johnson. As part of an oral history project, Deaf Me Normal builds a bridge between the Deaf and the hearing worlds, so that hearing people can access the hidden lives of Deaf South Africans. The social discrimination against Deaf people during apartheid resulted in their extreme marginalisation and the silencing of their experiences. Deaf people in South Africa, together with Deaf communities worldwide, have a culture with a long and rich oral folk tradition based on the use of SASL. As in other cultures with an oral tradition, the language is used in face-to-face interactions and does not have a written form.