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Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers: Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison

Online ISBN:
9780252098246
Print ISBN:
9780252040047
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press
Book

Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers: Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison

Published online:
20 April 2017
Published in print:
1 April 2016
Online ISBN:
9780252098246
Print ISBN:
9780252040047
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press

Abstract

Small and isolated in the Colony of Natal, Fort Napier was long treated like a temporary outpost of the expanding British Empire. Yet British troops manned this South African garrison for over seventy years. Tasked with protecting colonists, the fort became even more significant as an influence on, and reference point for, settler society. This book reveals the unexamined but pivotal role of Fort Napier in the peacetime public dramas of the colony. Its triumphalist colonial-themed pageantry belied colonists' worries about their own vulnerability. As the book shows, the cultural, political, and economic methods used by the garrison compensated for this perceived weakness. Settler elites married their daughters to soldiers to create and preserve an English-speaking oligarchy. At the same time, garrison troops formed the backbone of a consumer market that allowed colonists to form banking and property interests that consolidated their control.

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