K***R TRIBES

271 pages, blue paper wrappers - chipped around the edges and the upper hinge strengthened, preserved in a oatmeal buckram solander box, blue title label on the back.

Among the correspondence published in this blue book are despatches from the Governors: Sir B. D'Urban (June - Oct. 1837), Sir George Napier (Oct. 1837 - March 1844) and Sir P. Maitland (July 1844 - Jan. 1846).

The volume belongs to a series of Cape frontier papers tabled during the Eighth Frontier War (1850–1853) — also known as the War of the Axe, when Parliament was demanding to know why the Eastern Cape had again erupted in violence and who was responsible for the massive military expenditure.

The correspondence includes detailed reports on Xhosa political organisation, the role of chiefs (including Sandile), the functioning (or failure) of the treaty system, the commando system versus regular troops, and the causes of the War of the Axe (1846–1847). It is a crucial source for historians of the Cape Frontier Wars and of Xhosa-British relations in the mid-nineteenth century.

The 1851 debate in the Commons (Hansard, 15 April 1851) reveals how MPs used these documents to attack Sir Harry Smith's "unprecedented state of tranquillity" claims as delusory , and to argue that British policy had alternated between "subjugation" and "conciliation" without achieving either.

Ordered by the House of Commons, to be printed, 23, No. 424, June 1851