Caffre War Chiefs

Advertisment for an exhibition of Caffre War Chiefs from South Africa, the immediate vicinity of the present Caffre War, together with an Amaponda Woman and her Baby, 1851.

The Cape Frontier or Kaffir Wars, 1779-1879, were a series of intermittent conflicts between the Cape colonists (South Africa) and the Xhosa peoples of the Eastern Cape. They ended with the annexation of Xhosa territory and the incorporation of its peoples by the Colony. The Eighth Kaffir War, 1851-1853, was the result of tribal resentments in British Kaffraria, an area reserved by the colonists mainly for African occupation (apart from British military outposts) after the deposition of the Xhosa ruler, Sandile in 1851. During the Eighth Kaffir War, the Xhosa were aided by Khoisan tribesmen, who rebelled at their settlement on the Kat River. However, by 1853 the Xhosa had been defeated and the territory to the north of British Kaffraria was annexed by Cape Colony and opened to white settlement.

The advertisement listed here was produced to illustrate a lecture at the Linwood Gallery, Leicester Square, London in 1851.

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Collection level description created by Paul Davidson, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House.

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