A victualling station had been established at the Cape by the Dutch United East India Company (VOC) in 1652. When the Dutch republic was invaded by Napoleonic France, Britain moved to occupy the territory at the Cape, defeating a Dutch militia...
A common, though disappointing, human trait is to decide on one’s opinion, and then try to twist reality to fit it, discarding anything that challenges one’s preferred prejudice. One can see this habit demonstrated by fanatical Defenders of the...
This cartoon perfectly sums up any attempt to bring facts into a discussion on the Boer War: Of course, only by frantically shouting over anyone who brings inconvenient facts into the debate, or by pretending to be ‘offended’ by a...
I am always amused that the various social media groups which purport to be about South African history are invariably frequented by people who have no interest in actual history at all. Instead, they seem to want to hang out in echo chambers...
My newly released Boer War Atlas has been very well-received so far, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before a few Defenders of the Myth crawled out of the woodwork to fight the good fight, frantically trying to maintain their cosy comfort...
Delighted to see the Boer War Atlas getting a bit of exposure: https://getitmagazine.co.za/ballito-umhlanga/blog/2020/12/09/armchair-travellers/ Still waiting for the normal gnashing of teeth and manufactured outrage from the Defenders of the...
On 1 December 1834, the ‘wicked’ British Empire outlawed slavery in the Cape Colony. The trading in slaves had been banned throughout the Empire in 1807 (the Slave Trade Act 1807, officially ‘An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade’), and...
There is a certain type of person[i] who, desperate to justify the republican invasions of British territory which started the Boer War, will claim that this was only done because ‘the British were massing on the borders’. Not only is this...
Was saddened to read of the passing of Jan Morris: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2020/11/20/jan-morris-travel-writer-historian-author-landmark-memoir-conundrum/ Very complex and talented historian who wrote one of the most interesting...
South African history is often viewed through the prism of South African exceptionalism, with little or no understanding of how events fitted into the world at large. Thus, the Boer War is (farcically) portrayed as a dastardly British attempt to...
I was watching a documentary series on Netflix the other day called ‘Wild, Wild Country’, and heard a phrase for the first time: ‘Mayflower Mentality’. A bit of Googling about this resulted in the following definition:The belief in the “First...
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