The Testing Grounds of Modern Empire: The Making of Colonial Racial Order in the American Ohio Country and the South African Eastern Cape, 1770s-1850sThe Testing Grounds of Modern Empire examines the transformation and the gradual creation of colonial racial order on an American and a South African frontier, respectively. This study focuses on the Ohio Country (a region including parts of present-day western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan) and the South African Eastern Cape (a region located on the southeastern tip of the African continent) in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century. This book compares and juxtaposes the processes of indigenous dispossession and white efforts at undermining Native American and African sovereignty. While the scenarios in the Ohio Country and the Eastern Cape did not repeat themselves identically in other locations, comparable patterns would emerge in later years as the United States expanded westward and Britain expanded into southern and eastern Africa. Christoph Strobel explores how various white and indigenous people tried to shape the creation of colonial racial order in the two regions. An emerging compromise among white settlers, government officials, and other white interest groups gradually led to the implementation of systems of colonial racial order in both the Ohio Country and the Eastern Cape by the mid-nineteenth century. This transformation, shaped by violence, conflict, and cooperation, left a legacy that influenced the development of colonization and the contested construction and representation of race in the United States, southern Africa, and around the world. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF TWO COLONIAL REGIONS | 11 |
WHITE COLONIZERS AND THE MAKING | 37 |
Humanitarians Settlers and the State The Transformation | 61 |
NATIVE AMERICANS AFRICANS AND THE MAKING | 89 |
This Land is Our Land Africans in the Eastern Cape | 117 |
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accommodation acts administrators advocated African allies argued attacks attempted authorities became believed British Cape Town cattle chapter chiefs Christian civilization Clair colonial racial order colonists communities continued Coshocton cultural Delaware demands developments early Eastern Cape efforts emerged especially European example expansion factions farmers followed forces Frontier further Governor Graham's Town Journal grounds groups growing hand Henry History House humanitarians ibid increasing increasingly indigenous influence interests issue John June Kat River Khoikhoi Khoisan labor land leaders lived London maintain major Mfengu military mission missionaries Native Americans Ndlambe Ngqika nineteenth century North Northwest Ordinance officials Ohio Country Ohio Indians political prophet quote region relations remained resistance River roll settlement settlers Shawnee Smith social Society South Africa sovereignty strategies territorial trade treaty United University Press violence vols Washington western white settlers Xhosa York