"Throwing Down White Man:" Cape Rule and Misrule in Colonial Lesotho, 1871-1884 (review)

In some sense this is a co-authored work based on a large collection of materials gathered in the mid-1960s by Anthony Atmore, who graciously turned those resources over to Peter Sanders. Since much of the original data in the Lesotho Archives were destroyed when they were unceremoniously dumped in a leaking house, Atmore's materials, comments, and suggestions on drafts were essential to the project. The unusual title of this history comes from a praise poem of Chief Maama Letsie. It reflects his jubilation and that of fellow rebels at their successful resistance to Cape forces trying to sustain Cape rule, to appropriate additional land, and to confiscate the substantial arsenal of weapons the Basotho had acquired from their labors at Kimberley and elsewhere in what became South Africa. Sanders justifies the use of praise poems as important sources, since they "were composed for a Basotho audience alone" (7) and were thus more authentic representations of Basotho attitudes than cautiously written official letters.

Sanders's thorough, superbly documented, and carefully edited work is a refreshing antidote to the postmodern doggerel that pollutes so many otherwise worthy doctoral dissertations and published histories. Without using contemporary jargon about "discourses" among the Basotho, Sanders manages to capture fully the complex range of opinions and perspectives held by the protagonists about their experiences of Cape Rule and of the resultant "Gun War." He provides, for example, an especially nuanced view of the conflict in northern Lesotho between the loyalist chief Jonathan Molapo and his rebellious half-brother, Joel. Whereas Joel has previously been portrayed as a bloodthirsty opportunist seeking only to displace his more senior brother, Sanders carefully examines his leadership skills, tactics, and base of popular support and also documents his genuine compliance with the provisions of the eventual settlement.

In his introduction Sanders presents several important issues to which he returns systematically in his chronological study of the origins of Cape Rule, the disastrous policy and military decisions made by Cape leaders, the successful strategies of Lerotholi, Masupha, Maama, and the other key rebel leaders, and finally the return of Basutoland to British imperial rule.

He questions what permitted the Basotho to defy their Cape rulers successfully, holding their troops at bay in what amounted to a humiliating defeat for the Cape forces, whereas all other African peoples that resisted had failed. He argues that the Gun War rebellion resulted from a "concatenation of interlocking events" dominated by powerful "political imperatives" apart from economic exigencies (121). Basotho chiefs were attempting not only to resist disarmament but also to "unite the people . . . behind them and to recover their old powers and privileges," many of which had been severely compromised by the colonial magistrates (4). Sanders contends that prior loss of land and a damaging drought were not the seminal causes as in the Eastern Cape rebellions, but rather"aggravating factor[s]" (121).

Sanders's second question is whether disarmament was "the crowning folly of a foolish policy, or an appalling error of judgment which undid all the good work that had been done before"(6). He documents the false assumptions about the military capacities and political will of the Basotho leaders that led to the confiscation of the Quthing District after the defeat of Moorosi and the subsequent imposition of disarmament on the Basotho who had assisted in that effort. He contends, however, that the Cape policy to "undermine the power of the chiefs" via the imposition of colonial magistrates had worked remarkably well (38). Protestant missionaries had welcomed this effort and it had gained "remarkable popular support" (4) among common people who used the opportunity to accumulate individual wealth. Whatever its benefits, Sanders recognizes the likely negative impact of continued Cape rule and concludes that, if it had persisted, "Basutoland's history would probably have been similar...