Zonnebloem College and the genesis of an African Intelligentsia 1857-1933

In 1857, at the height of the colonial period, as Britain was advancing its control over southern Africa and absorbing the formerly independent African chiefdoms, the Anglican Bishop of Cape Town, Robert Gray, set up Zonnebloem College on an old wine farm on the outskirts of the city. Working in partnership with the British Governor, Sir George Grey, his plan was to enrol the sons and daughters of leading African chiefs and equip them with an English, Christian education, and then send them home to further the cause of Christianity and `civilisation' among their own people. This elite educational project, which was at the same time cultural and political in nature, soon gathered steam. Among the first entrants were Gonya and Emma Sandile, heir and eldest daughter of the Rharhabe chief Sandile; Nathaniel Umhala, son of the Ndlambe chief Mhala; and George Tlali, son of the great Basotho leader, Moshoeshoe I. Over the years a succession of sons from chiefly dynasties, sometimes spanning several generations, would come to Zonnebloem: the Moshoeshoes of Basutoland, the Pilanes of Bechuanaland, the Lewanikas of Barotseland, and the Lobengulas of Matabeleland. They and many others who followed in their steps would, after their education at Zonnebloem, take up careers as catechists, teachers, political secretaries, lawyers, newspaper editors and priests and serve their communities with distinction. Their stories - their trials and their achievements - are recounted here, often in their own words, drawing on a unique collection of school essays and letters to their various mentors that must form one of the earliest bodies of writing by Africans in southern Africa. This remarkable book, based on years of research and written with great sympathy, tells the little-known early history of the genesis of an African intelligentsia during the colonial period.