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3 ‘Rude not to inform traditional leaders of Charles’s visit', Daily Dispatch (East London), 4 Nov. 2011.

4 ‘Holomisa is angry at royal snub’, Daily Dispatch, 7 Nov. 2011; ‘Britain called on to say sorry’, Daily Dispatch, 15 Dec. 2011.

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6 See, for example, R. S. Ehlers, ‘“This land is ours!” the shaping of Xhosa resistance to European expansion along the Cape Colony's eastern frontier, 1770–1820’ (unpublished MA thesis, University of Florida, 1992); J. A. Hopper, ‘Xhosa-Colonial relations, 1770–1803’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Yale University, 1980); Maclennan, B., A Proper Degree of Terror: John Graham and the Cape's Eastern Frontier (Johannesburg, 1986)Google Scholar; Milton, J., The Edges of War: A History of the Frontier Wars 1702–1878 (Cape Town, 1983)Google Scholar; Mostert, N., Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa's Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People (London, 1993)Google Scholar; Peires, J. B., The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of their Independence (Johannesburg, 1981)Google Scholar; Peires, J. B., The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement 1856–7 (Johannesburg, 1989)Google Scholar; Smith, K., Harry Smith's Last Throw: The Eighth Frontier War 1850–1853 (London, 2012)Google Scholar; Smith, K., The Wedding Feast War: The Final Tragedy of the Xhosa People (London, 2012)Google Scholar; Smithers, A. J., The Kaffir Wars 1779–1877 (London, 1973)Google Scholar. M. W. Spicer, ‘The war of Ngcayecibi 1877–8’ (unpublished MA thesis, Rhodes University, 1978); Stapleton, T., Maqoma: Xhosa Resistance to Colonial Advance (Johannesburg, 1994)Google Scholar; T. J. Stapleton, ‘Maqoma: Xhosa resistance to the advance of colonial hegemony (1798–1873)’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Dalhousie University, 1993). As a starting point, it is valuable to note that the term ‘Eastern Frontier’ or ‘Cape's eastern frontier’ as used by some writers is problematic when seen from the Xhosa perspective. See, for example, Giliomee, H., ‘The Eastern Frontier, 1770–1812’, in Elphick, and Giliomee, (eds.), Shaping of South African Society, 421–71Google Scholar. The conflict was obviously in the westerly parts of Xhosaland (emaXhoseni).

7 For scientific racism in South Africa, see Dubow, S., Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar; Z. Magubane, ‘From noble savage to native problem: images of South African blacks in British colonial discourse, 1806–1910’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Harvard University, 1997); and Magubane, Z., Bringing the Empire Home: Race, Class, and Gender in Britain and Colonial South Africa (Chicago, 2004)Google Scholar.

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10 ‘Hegemony’, for the purposes of this article, follows the work of Jean and John Comaroff and Jennifer Cooper as a stage where many of the colonised accept the structures and knowledge systems of the coloniser. In this sense, establishing domination is a precursor to hegemony. See Comaroff, J. L. and Comaroff, J., Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, Volume I (Chicago, 1991), 21–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooper, J., ‘The invasion of personal religious experiences: London Missionary Society missionaries, imperialism, and the written word in early nineteenth-century southern Africa’, Kleio, 34 (2002), 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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12 Lester, A., Imperial Networks: Creating Identities in Nineteenth-Century South Africa and Britain (London, 2001), ixGoogle Scholar.

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14 Ibid. 734–5.

15 ‘Instructions given to Landdrost Bresler by Governor Macartney’, 20 June 1797 in Theal, G. M., Records of the Cape Colony from December 1799 to December 1799, Volume II (henceforth, RCC II) (London, 1898)Google Scholar, 98.

16 Barrow, J., Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa, Volume I (London, 1806), 415Google Scholar; Letter by Brigadier General T. P. Vandeleur to Acting Governor F. Dundas, 3 Aug. 1799 in RCC II, 456; letter by Major General F. Dundas to Governor Sir George Yonge, 20 Feb. 1800 in G. M. Theal, Records of the Cape Colony from December 1799 to May 1801, Volume III (London, 1898), 50 and 56.

17 Maclennan, Proper Degree, 80, 97, 112, and 124–5.

18 Keegan, Colonial South Africa, 149.

19 Maclennan, Proper Degree, 97 and 109; Letter by Lieutenant Colonel J. Graham, 2 Jan. 1812, letter by Lieutentant Colonel J. Graham to Military Secretary Reynell, 8 Jan. 1812; and letter by Lieutenant Colonel Graham, 26 Feb. 1812 in G. M. Theal, Records of the Cape Colony from March 1811 to October 1812, Volume VIII (London, 1901), 237, 239–41, and 286.

20 Examples of the former category include Alexander, J. E., Excursions in Western Africa and Narrative of a Campaign in Kaffir-Land on the Staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Volumes I and II (London, 1840)Google Scholar; King, W. R., Campaigning in Kaffirland or Scenes and Adventures in the Kaffir War of 1851–2 (London, 1855)Google Scholar; Munro, W., Records of Service and Campaigning in Many Lands, Volume I (London, 1887)Google Scholar; Napier, E. E., Excursions in Southern Africa, Including a History of the Cape Colony, Volumes I and II (London, 1849 & 1850)Google Scholar. Amongst the regulars who became colonists were J. McKay, Reminiscences of the Last Kafir War (facsimile reprint, Cape Town, 1970 [orig. pub. 1871]); and le Cordeur, B. (ed.), The Journal of Charles Lennox Stretch (Cape Town, 1988)Google Scholar. The latter category includes career soldier Bisset, J., Sport and War or Recollections of Fighting and Hunting in South Africa from the Years 1843 to 1867 (London, 1875)Google Scholar; the burgher P. P. J. Coetser, Gebeurtenisse uit di Kaffer-Oorloge fan 1834–1835–1846–1850–1853 (facsimile reprint, Cape Town, 1963 [orig. pub. 1897]); and numerous irregulars like Thomas Stubbs in Maxwell, W. A. and McGeogh, R. M. (eds.), The Reminiscences of Thomas Stubbs Including Men That I Have Known (Cape Town, 1978)Google Scholar.

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34 Bank, ‘Of “native skulls”’, 387–403. See also Magubane, ‘From noble savage to native problem’, 192–244 for a general discussion of the influence of phrenology.

35 Bank, ‘Of “native skulls”’, 388.

36 Ibid. 401–2.

37 Ibid. 402.

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49 Interview with amaQwathi chiefs at Askeaton by Wandile Kuse and Denver Webb, 12 Sept. 2013. For the 1880–1 Transkei Rebellion, see Saunders, C. C., ‘The Transkei Rebellion of 1880–81: a case study of Transkeian resistance to white control’, South African Historical Journal, 8:1 (1976), 32–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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58 Harrison, ‘Skull trophies’, 825–6.

59 Everson, ‘Whitle letters’, letter by Ensign Whitle to his father Captain R. Whitle, 9 Nov. 1847.

60 Ibid.; Everson, ‘Whitle letters’, letter by Ensign Whitle to his father Captain R. Whitle, 14 Nov. 1847.

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62 Ibid. 94–5. The mysterious Dr A--- for whom the two dozen heads were procured deserves to be named after all these years. Surgeon Thomas Alexander is the only surgeon of the regiment at the time fitting the description. See Wallace, N. W., A Regimental Chronicle and List of Officers of the 60^th or the King's Own Royal Rifle Corps (London, 1879), 227–30Google Scholar.

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74 Barrow, Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa, I, 120; Rose, Four Years, 87; Napier, Excursions, II, 268.

75 ‘How we buried Sandile’, Cape Mercury, 12 June 1878.

76 Streatfeild, Ten Months' Campaign, 271.

77 Ibid. frontispiece.

78 Morris, ‘Trophy skulls’, 75.

79 Bunn, ‘Morbid curiosities’, 40.

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86 Godlonton, Narrative of Irruption, 1834–5.

87 Ward, Five Years, I, 213.

88 Munro, Records of Service, I, 127; Bisset, Sport and War, 61.

89 Ward, Five Years, I, 172.

90 Gordon-Brown, Narrative of Buck Adams, 121–3.

91 British Parliamentary Papers (henceforth BPP), ‘Correspondence with governor of the Cape of Good Hope relative to the state of the Kafir tribes on the Eastern frontier of the Colony’ (Feb. 1847), letter by Major J. H. Gibson to Colonel H. Somerset, 15 Apr. 1846, 119; ‘Frontier Affairs’ and ‘Despatches’, Graham’s Town Journal, 25 April 1846.

92 White, L., ‘The traffic in heads: bodies, borders, and the articulation of regional histories’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 23:2 (1997), 325–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar provides an interesting analysis of the rumours of a modern trade in body parts and children's heads in Southern Africa.

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97 Everson, ‘Whitle letters’, letter by Ensign Whitle to his father Captain R. Whitle, 6 Dec. 1847.

98 Ward, Five Years, II, 309–10.

99 Ward, Cape and the Kaffirs, 211–12 and 235–6.

100 Bisset, Sport and War, 102.

101 Coetser, Gebeurtenisse, 16–17.

102 BPP, ‘Correspondence with governor of the Cape of Good Hope relative to the State of the Kafir Tribes on the Eastern Frontier of the Colony’ (Feb. 1848), letter by General G. Berkeley to Governor H. Pottinger, 16 Nov. 1847, 149.

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109 Ibid. 76.

110 Ibid. 153.

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