Living Man from Africa

Jan Tzatzoe, Xhosa Chief and Missionary, and the Making of Nineteenth Century South Africa

Levine Roger S.

Born into a Xhosa royal family around 1792 in South Africa, Jan Tzatzoe was destined to live in an era of profound change – one that witnessed the arrival and entrenchment of European colonialism. As a missionary, chief, and cultural intermediary on the eastern Cape frontier and in Cape Town and a traveller in Great Britain, Tzatzoe helped foster the merging of African and European worlds into a new South African reality. Yet, by the 1860s, he was an oppressed subject of harsh British colonial rule. In this innovative, richly researched, and splendidly written biography, Roger Levine reclaims Tzatzoe's lost story and analyzes his contributions to, and experiences with, the turbulent colonial world to argue for the crucial role of Africans as agents of cultural and intellectual change.

About the Author

Roger S. Levine is assistant professor of history at Sewanee: The University of the South.

Reviews

"It is a study that should be indispensable for any student of the imperial nineteenth century, and indeed of the broad evolution of the western world franchise through that epoch, and by no means least, of what formed the deep generational background of men like Mandela" – Noel Mostert, author of "Supership", "Frontiers" and "The Line Upon a Wind"

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