Military writers and their readers: the transnational circulation of campaign narratives of the Eastern Cape Frontier Wars between 1834 and 1853

Abstract

This article provides a discussion of selected campaign narratives associated with the Frontier Wars in the Eastern Cape between 1834 and 1853. Its intention is to insert these British military publications into their contemporary publishing landscape and consequently to make a contribution to the field of book history. It will be argued that the narrative accounts in the books and journal articles were indicative of both the geographical dispersion and of the interconnectedness of colonial “knowledge.” From this perspective, some of the publications portrayed a transnational, “horizontal” movement between colonies. But there were other routes: many publications demonstrated a more predictable north-south, vertical course which was evident in the campaign narratives printed in the influential metropolitan centre of London. The readership, that is the Warnerian “audience,” spanned both the colonies and the metropole, as the discussion on the commentary proffered by professional journal reviewers demonstrates. In an attempt to give substance to these textual confluences, the article provides a limited discussion of Harriet Ward’s and Edward Elers Napier’s narratives concerning the Cape and the 7th Frontier War. Their texts demonstrate how the global mesh of texts rematerialized and reconfigured itself in an array of publications during the 1840s and 1850s. Furthermore, it will be suggested that the integration of texts within the nineteenth-century knowledge and power nexus helped to shape metropolitan notions of the Xhosa and to delineate colonial relations with the Xhosa.

Keywords: Nineteenth century, British campaign narratives, Xhosa, Eastern Cape, transnational, publishing spheres, audience