A South African Kingdom: The Pursuit of Security in Nineteenth-Century Lesotho(Series Number 78 African Studies)

The Basotho kingdom emerged and consolidated in the dramatic and dangerous environment of nineteenth-century South Africa. Elizabeth Eldredge provides a rich description of local agriculture, iron-working and craft industries, bringing out the resourceful responses of the Basotho to the challenges of drought and famine, and explaining the dynamics of the competition for land. During the colonial period, regional economic integration increasingly influenced local production, land use and internal politics, and drew the Basotho into the regional migrant labour system. Throughout these turbulent years, the overriding interest of the Basotho was the pursuit of security. Dr Eldredge analyzes the epic struggle which bound together rich and poor, chiefs and commoners, and men and women in a largely successful effort to sustain this fragile and innovative society in the face of political threats and environmental challenges.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction; 2. Settlement and trade patterns before 1830; 3. Political consolidation and the rise of Moshoeshoe in the 1820s; 4. The land of the Basotho: the geographic extent of Moshoeshoe's authority, 1824–64; 5. The European intrusion and the competition for land, 1834–68; 6. Food and politics: feasts and famines; 7. The rise and decline of craft specialization; 8. The allocation of labor, 1830–1910; 9. The local exchange of goods and services, 1839–1910; 10. Women, reproduction, and production; 11. The Basotho and the rise of the regional European market, 1830–1910; 12. The colonial imposition and the failure of the local economy, 1871–1910; 13. Economy, politics, migrant labor and gender; 14. In pursuit of security; Appendix; Note on oral sources.

Review :
"Impressively researched and influenced by the best of recent scholarship in various disciplines, Eldredge's study is an excellent example of the new history being written on southern Africa...There is no comparable work on Lesotho. Eldredge has made a very significant contribution to African studies." Choice "...one of the first empirical studies from southern Africa which demonstrates what many feminists have long argued in theory -that women and gender were central to the formation of African states and in affecting the early transition to capitalism...Eldredge challenges many of the false assumptions of earlier scholarship not only on Lesotho but throughout the region...an impressive achievement...a strong empirical, methodological and theoretical edition to southern African history, and a powerful counterpoint to historiography which posits Africans as 'tribal,' passive or conservative by nature." Marc Epprecht, African Studies Review "This book is a useful addition to the growing literature on the old Lesotho kingdom...Eldredges oral informants do tell her a great deal about the family organization of labour and changing gender roles during the transition from mixed farming to dependence on migrant labour. Her analysis is more subtle and convincing than that to be found in many other treatments of the subject." Norman Etherington, The International History Review "This is the best book yet published on the history of an African people in nineteenth-century southern Africa. No previous work on such a people is as thoroughly researched, as complete, or contains such valuable insights." Leonard Thompson, American Historical Review "...a thoughtful and challenging analysis of the history of Lesotho in the nineteenth century...Her book is a significant contribution to understanding the survival of an African people in the face of continuing threats." William F. Lye, Journal of Interdisciplinary History "...infuses new breath into an old story, the emergence of the Basotho as a distinct people and the survival of their nation in the face of the aggressively expansionist regimes which became South Africa." Marc Epprecht, Canadian Journal of History