The Lieutenant-Governorship of Andres Stockenstrom

This thesis covers a short but critical and decisive period in South African History — the crowded and fateful years about 1836. These years saw the final act in slave emancipation; large-scale settlement of Boers beyond the Orange; the application to the northern and eastern frontiers of a treaty policy, based on regard for native rights and interests; and finally a revolt against the liberal British policy and a Great Trek of irreconcilables, which turned the story of the Colony into that of South Africa. To the knowledge and understanding of these events and changes I have tired to contribute something by a study of the papers of Lieutenant-Governor Stockenstrom, who was not only closely connected with all of them, but who also differs from most other witnesses in his mental approach to the problems of the Colony and the frontier.