The Great Treks: The Transformation of Southern Africa, 1815-1854

by Norman Etherington

The mass migration of the Boer farmers from Cape Colony to escape British domination in 1835-36 - the Great Trek - has always been a potent icon of Africaaner nationalism and identity. For African nationalists, the Mfecane - the vast movement of the Black populations in the interior following the emergence of a new Zulu kingdom as a major military force in the early 19th century - offers an equally powerful symbol of the making of a nation. With their parallel visions of populations on the move to establish new states, these two stories became part of divided South Africa’s separate mythologies, treated as unconnected events taking place in separate universes.

For the first time, in this groundbreaking book, accounts of both migrations are brought together and examined. In uniting these separate visions of African and Afrikaaner history, Norman Etherington provides a fascinating picture of a major turning point in South African history, and points the way for future work on the period.

Genres: Africa

360 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2001

About the author

Norman Etherington is Professor of History at the University of Western Australia and a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Geographical Society. A Past-President of the Australian Historical Association, he is the author of more than a hundred scholarly articles and book chapters.

Reviews

[Ron Nurmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A relook at the history of the Great Treks by the Boer farmers and natives of the area in South Africa and Botswana with a reinterpretation of this era from 1815-1854.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't have a blog, so instead I will tell a story. Once while traveling with my great friend Katharine Doar, whose husband very rarely posts books on goodreads, I was in Pretoria, South Africa. We were eating or perhaps drinking while trying to find a place to stay. A man overheard us striking out at hostel after hotel after campground and offered us the keys to his friends flat that he was taking care of. The next day he drove us around to the sights including the voortreker museum, which was amazingly cool and educational.