THE POLITICS OF A SOUTH AFRICAN FRONTIER, the Griqua, the Sotho-Tswana, and the missionaries, 1780-1840

394pp., maps, paperback, Basel, 2010

Martin Legassick's doctoral thesis on the pre-industrial South African frontier zone of Transorangia, submitted to UCLA in 1969 and only published now. He analyses the formation of the Griqua states outside the borders of the Cape Colony in the first half of the nineteenth century and their relations to the Sotho-Tswana, frontiersmen, missionaries and the British administration of the Cape.

Introduction by Robert Ross.

This dissertation "remains by far the best account of what is a crucial, and fascinating, episode in Southern African history...constructed on the impressive basis of documentary and other forms of primary source material." Robert Ross, Leiden University

Martin Legassick was Emeritus Professor of History at the University of the Western Cape. His other books include The Struggle for the Eastern Cape, 1800-1854 (2006) and Towards a Socialist Democracy (2007).