Colonel John Maclean (3 results)

Condition: Very good. A 19th-century anthropological and legal text compiled by direction of Colonel Maclean (Chief Commissioner in British Kaffraria), documenting Xhosa law, social customs, and genealogy in British Kaffraria. Bound in half green calf preserving the original green end papers. Bookplate to new marbled end papers. With foxing and age-toning to a number of pages along with a few ink marks. General signs of thumbing. Some light edge-wear to the fold outs. Bright gilt to top edge. 168 Pages.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Mount Coke, Wesleyan Mission Press (Printed for the Government of British Kaffraria), 1858. Octavo, viii (last blank), 168 pages plus 3 folding tables. Original cloth with the printed paper title-label on the spine, all edges speckled blue; cloth lightly marked, with slight loss near the head of the spine and to the title-label; cloth on the joints split in a few small spots; top edge a little marked; a very good copy. Both the front flyleaf and the title page carry the ownership signature of Sir Malcolm MacGregor, fourth Baronet MacGregor and a British naval commander stationed in New Zealand. The inscription is dated 19 December 1861 ('Auckland, New Zealand' added in the first instance) and indicates that he received this volume from Sir George Grey, the new Governor of the colony, recently arrived from South Africa. Sir George Grey (1812-1898), explorer, governor and politician: in June 1854 he 'was appointed governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner of South Africa. He arrived in Cape Town obsessed with a visionary native policy that would end all Kaffir wars, bring the tribes between Cape Colony and Natal under control, penetrate their lands with broad settlements of white immigrants capable of defending themselves, and finally unite all South Africa in a self-sufficing, self-governing federation. In attempting to crowd these idealistic projects into a five-year term, he alienated his Legislative Council and the colonists and Kaffirs as well as the War Office, the Treasury and the Colonial Office. Grey left Cape Town in August 1861 and in October was sworn in as governor of New Zealand for the second time' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). The book has two main contributors, and a miscellany of interesting smaller sections. The first section comprises 'Rev. H.H. Dugmore's Papers, as published in the "Christian Watchman" during 1846 and 1847' (pages 1-54). Almost as much space is given over to 'Mr Warner's Notes, dated Tambookie Residency, December 1st, 1856' (pages 57-109, with the last 35 pages devoted to 'Laws and Customs connected with their System of Superstition').

Pp. viii, 168. With three folding tables. Original cloth, paper label (partly chipped) on spine, sprinkled edges. With old inscription. Copy of Knut Olivecrona (1817-1905), renowned Swedish lawyer and philosopher. First edition. Colonel John Maclean (1810-74) was Chief Commissioner of the province known as "British Kaffraria" in South Africa. In 1860 it became a separate Crown Colony with its own administration under Maclean as Lieutenant Governor, and finally re-incorporated into the Cape Colony in 1866. The word Kaffir is derived from the Arabic term Kafir which means disbeliever and historically used as a neutral term for southern African people. This work is a comprehensive account of the natives containing papers and letters by the Rev. H.H. Dugmore, Warner, Brownlee and Ayliff. A fine copy. Mendelssohn i, 960.