Caught between the Empire and the Republics

It has been said that the Anglo-Boer War resulted in the spilling of more ink than blood. However, within the meta-narrative of the Anglo-Boer War, spanning the past hundred years, not a single work tells the story of Natal Afrikaners and the war. The reason for this is that Natal Afrikaners, a small group on the fringes of both Natal Colonial and Republican society, were unlike other Afrikaners, never viewed as part of the Republican struggle against the British Empire. The Empire at the same time hardly welcomed their Natal Afrikaner subjects into the Imperial struggle against the Boer Republics. In this volume the historical events surrounding Natal Afrikaners, related by blood and culture to the invading Boer Commandos but, with legal loyalty to the British Crown, are investigated. This book, which addresses an area previously neglected in the historiography of the Anglo-Boer War, is a comprehensive Social History on what war was like for a marginalised minority in the shadow of military campaigns. As such this book will be of special interest to professional and amateur historians interested in war and society of the late Victorian era.