Gillian Vernon
 East London
 This article forms part of a study which examines the influence of the frontier on the
 lives of four women. It is based within the tradition of frontier history but has a
 female perspective. The written records of Harriet Ward, Amelia Gropp, Jane
 Waterston and Helen Prichard, all of whom lived on the Cape Eastern frontier for
 short periods during the 19th century, have provided the material on which the study
 is based. These women were all from the middle-class and regarded themselves as
 'ladies'. They brought with them European attitudes to the female role within a rigid
 class structure as well as their racial prejudices. In this article the focus falls on their
 attitudes to class and race. It is argued that their frontier experience moderated their
 racial prejudice to some degree, but that there is no evidence to suggest that they
 would have been prepared to accept a more egalitarian society.
 Harriet Ward (1808-1873) was the wife of a military offi-
 cer in the 91st Regiment, which was doing duty on the
 Eastern Cape frontier. Between 1843 and 1845 she lived
 at Fort Peddie, some 20 kIn east of the Fish River. This
 was in the Ceded Territory, the frontier zone between the
 Fish and Keiskamma Rivers, which had been declared
 under the control of Britain at the end of the Sixth
 Frontier War in 1836. The War of the Axe broke out in
 Strangers in a Strange Land: Four Ladies on the
 Eastern Cape Frontier: 1843-1878
 "There is our own happy land, no lions prowled in our
 neighbourhood, no panthers could we fancy glaring at us
 from the bush, no venomous reptiles awaited our feet as
 we stepped upon the green sod from the boat."
 Harriet Ward, 1843.1
 CONTREE 32 / 199216
 The attitudes of four women to class and race on the
 Eastern Cape Frontier, 1843-1878
1846 and at that time Harriet Ward and her daughter
 were living in Grahamstown. Her work, Five Years in
 Kaffirland, was published in 1848 in two volumes. It
 first appeared in a series of chapters in the United
 Services Magazine between the years 1843 and 1848 and
 was intended for an audience of military men. Much of
 the work is a narrative of events, especially .during the
 War of the Axe, but it incorporates her personal opinions
 and responses to the situation. She wrote with a view to
 influencing her readers towards her point of view so her
 work is very biased with often a stridently propagandist
 tone. As one of the first women who wrote about their
 experiences in Africa, let alone South Africa, and as one
 of the first English woman journalists, 'Harriet Ward has
 excited interest from both a literary and an historical
 point of view.
 Amelia Gropp (1832-?) was the wife ofa military officer
 in the British German Legion. Her husband, Alexander
 Gropp, accepted the offer made by the British
 Government to go to South Africa where he would be
 granted land in return for military service in the newly
 annexed colony of British Kaffraria. This colony, which
 lay between the Keiskamrna and Kei Rivers, had been
 annexed in 1848 following the War of the Axe. The War
 of Mlanjeni (1850-1853) did not have a decisive result
 and, so unsettled were the British authorities that, in
 1854, they retained 16 garrisoned forts andbetwee~ 1856
 and 1859 three new forts were erected.2 In .1856 Sir
 George Grey, Governor of the Cape and High
 Commissioner for British Kaffraria, put forward a plan to
 integrate the Xhosa into a European type of society by
 settling groups of European settlers among the black
 communities. For his scheme, Grey was offered the mili-
 tary men of the British German Legion, who had been
 recruited for the Crimean War but had not seen service.3
 The German Military Settlers landed at East London
 between 9 January and 28 February, 1857. Their arrival
 co-incided with the final stages of the Xhosa Cattle-
 Killing, the event which finally broke the power of the
 Xhosa.4
 Amelia Gropp
 By courtesy of the Kaffrarian Museum.
 in the journal of the Border Historical Society, The
 Coelacanth, in 1981.
 Jane Waterston (1843-1932) arrived on the Eastern
 Cape frontier in January, 1867 where she had been
 appointed as Superintendent of the proposed Girl's
 Institution at Lovedale Seminary. Lovedale Mission
 was situated near the village of Alice in British
 Kaffraria, which had been incorporated into the Cape
 Colony in 1866. The Seminary had been started by the
 Free Church of Scotland in 1841 with the Rev. William
 Govan as Principal. She spent six years on the frontier
 as a teacher, resigning in May 1873. She went to
 Britain where she managed to obtain a medical training
 with much difficulty being part of the first group of
 women who trained as doctors in Britain. After a short
 spell at Livingstonia Mission in Nyassaland (Malawi),
 she returned to Lovedale in 1880, where she ran a small
 medical department for three years. She then moved to
 Cape Town where she went into private practice as the
 first woman doctor in South Africa. Jane Waterston's
 records consists of the letters which she wrote to James
 Stewart, principal of Lovedale, between the years 1866
 and 1905. Stewart was her mentor, supporter and friend
 and it was through his influence that she came to work
 at Lovedale. The letters were personal and largely
 about matters of common interest. They were edited by
 Lucy Bean and Elizabeth van Heyningen and published
 in 1983. As the first woman doctor in South Africa and
 as one of the first group of women trained in medicine
 Alexander Gropp was a Lieutenant in the 2nd Regiment
 which had its headquarters at Berlin, and one of two offi-
 cers in charge of 66 men who were granted land at
 Breidbach, a newly-laid out village about 10 km from
 King William's Town.5
 Amelia Gropp was one of 30 wives of the 39 officers of
 the Legion, and her child was one of 36 of the officers'
 children. Out of a total of 2 363 soldiers, there were
 only 361 wives and 195 children,6 a very small number
 for a project which was supposed to establish stable
 farming communities. She lived at Breidbach from 1857
 to 1860. Amelia Gropp wrote her memoirs in 1913 at
 the age of 81 for her grandchildren. A weakness of this
 work is that she did not draw on a journal or letters so
 her record lacks immediacy, is very selective and often
 inaccurate. She was not trying to influence a wider audi-
 ence, but only trying to communicate her early experi-
 ences to her descendants. Her memoirs were published
 CONTREE 32 / 1992 17
In going to the frontier, all four women were aware that
 they were participating in unusual and significant events.
 Harriet Ward and Helen Prichard went reluctantly but
 were determined to be dutiful wives. Both had travelled
 with their husbands before, Harriet Ward to St. Helena
 and Helen Prichard to Jamaica, but this was a 'frontier'
 experience and was different. They anticipated hardship
 and facing a wild{;rness far from civilisation. Harriet
 Ward wrote: "I had shaken off my unavailing regrets in
 a great degree, and was prepared to meet my destiny with
 a fortitude worthy of a soldier's wife."7
 Prior to her departure, Helen Prichard confessed to anxi-
 ety over the rough frontier life which she anticipated fac-
 ing. As she 'bid adieu to civilisation and commence our
 march towards the wilderness, I felt as the explorer feels
 ...braced for any hardship.'8
 They both saw parallels between their own and the frontier
 experiences in America. Harriet Ward said that Peddie
 reminded her of Cooper's descriptions of groups of build-
 ings erected by settlers in the prairies of America,9 a refer-
 ence to the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, such as
 The Last of the Mohicans (1823), and Helen Prichard used
 the terms 'pale-faces' and 'prairie'.ID
 Amelia Gropp faced her life on the frontier with wholly
 unrealistic expectations about both the situation and the
 support which they would receive from the authorities.
 She believed that somehow a fortune would be made:
 "The government had promised to keep us for seven years
 in pay, but nobody of us thought to stay there after that
 time. We all thought by that time, we would be quite rich,
 and would return triumphantly to our fatherland." 11
 Dr. Jane Waterson c 1894.
 in England, Jane Waterston's life has evoked much
 interest.
 Helen Prichard, (dates unknown) came to the Transkei
 with her husband, an engineer, in 1877. By the time that
 she arrived, the Eastern Cape frontier zone had moved
 further east into the Transkei. Even though the Kei River
 was the boundary between the Cape Colony and
 Xhosaland, colonial magistrates had been sent east of the
 Kei to administer the area as early as 1864. Long-stand-
 ing friction between the Gcaleka and the Mfengu broke
 out and a clash occurred in August 1877 (heralding the
 onset of the Ninth Frontier War), the same month that
 Helen Prichard arrived in Idutywa.
 The government had in fact, promised to keep them on
 half pay, and that for three years only. Sir George Gray
 had kept them on full pay, against considerable opposi-
 tion, until March, 1858.12
 Harriet Ward and Helen Prichard lived on the frontier dur-
 ing times of war and for both there were times when they
 felt very threatened. Amelia Gropp was part of a settle-
 ment scheme, but while she did not live with any threat of
 violence, she was involved in an economic struggle for
 survival. Jane Waterston lived in a relatively secure situa-
 tion as a part of the missionary community. None antici-
 pated living on the frontier all their lives, but they were
 more than passing travellers as they lived there long
 enough to participate meaningfully in the experience.
 As Idutywa was on the main road between Butterworth
 and Umtata, she met many of the leading figures of the
 time, including Major Elliot, the Resident Magistrate and
 she entertained Gangelizwe, Chief of the Thembu, in her
 home. After the Gcaleka attack on Ibeka, Idutywa was
 not judged to be safe and she and her two children took
 refuge at Blythswood Seminary, together with other
 refugees from the area. Towards the end of the hostilities
 Helen Prichard decided to leave Blythswood and join her
 husband camping at Toleni as there was no immediate
 danger of an attack. In September 1879, after the peace,
 she and her husband left the Transkei to return to
 England. She wrote a book, Friends and Foes in the
 Transkei, which was published in 1880. In it she was at
 pains to show herself as a good wife and loyal British
 subject.
 None of the four women saw the frontier as an extension
 of their home lives. It was a strange and often frighten-
 ing experience and the conditions which they experi-
 enced played a part in divorcing them from their familiar
 home environments and set the scene for a relaxation of
 the traditional social codes.
 The Importance of Class
 "it was simply impossible to maintain the proper balance
 18 CONTREE 32 / 1992
of relative position that should exist between mistress
 and maid". 13
 Helen Prichard, 1877
 British-German Legion lowered his status. She always
 had servants even during her time on the frontier when
 she lived in straitened financial circumstances.
 Class consciousness was a part of the 'cultural baggage'
 which these women brought to the frontier. Their social
 position, as they perceived it, defined their relationships
 with the people they met as well as the code of behaviour
 to which they were expected to adhere.
 Once on the frontier, her class position would not have
 been as clearly defined as in Europe. The German
 Military settlers were not readily accepted into frontier
 society with language difference and lack of wealth con-
 stituting a re~l barrier. On her arrival on the frontier,
 Amelia Gropp's class position was reduced to that of the
 lower middle class, but, as the wife of an officer, she
 would have had upper class status within the German
 military community.
 The definitions of class have been debated at length by
 historians, but a common perception is that it was the
 possession of wealth, which gave people the means to
 employ servants, which demarcated the respective posi-
 tions between the middle and working classes. 14 Jane Waterston was the daughter of a wealthy bank man-
 ager, of a family which employed servants27 and so she
 was by birth a member of the middle class. The occupa-
 tion of Helen Prichard's father is not known, but here ref-
 erences indicate that he was of the wealthy middle class.
 She married a civil engineer, a professional man.28
 Helen Prichard always employed servants; a white nurse
 in Cape Town, another who accompanied her to the
 Transkei3o and later she engaged black maid;.servants.31
 According to Scott's model, a civil engineer was of the
 upper middle class, which places Helen Prichard into that
 class.32
 The class situation in the Cape in the mid-nineteenth cen-
 tury reflected that of Europe and the values of the middle
 class especially were adopted.15 The difference was that
 life in the Cape was less formal, society was more egali-
 tarian and there was more upward social mobility than in
 Europe. 16 With the unsettled conditions on the frontier
 and with a predominantly male population, class distinc-
 tions were less marked.17
 Bradlow accepts a definition of the Cape Elite during the
 1850's as consisting of members of a top sociai stratuml8
 and includes military and professional men in this group
 with the influence of the military most important during
 times of frontier unrest. The possession of wealth was
 very important for determining status and influence.19
 In their own perceptions of their class status on the fron-
 tier these women all regarded themselves as 'ladies' and
 distinguished themselves from the 'women' of the lower,
 classes. While on board the Abercrombie Robinson, dur~
 ing a tremendous storm in which the ship was wrecKed in
 Table Bay, Harriet Ward saw her role as one of setting an
 example of courage for "the poor uneducated women".33
 Once on the frontier, she indicated that she had a place in
 society with appearances to maintain, unlike a "mere
 clerk". A white couple who were farming near
 Grahamstown addressed her as "Ma'am", a term used by
 people of a lower class when addressing a person of the
 upper class. Harriet Ward was part of the rigid authori-
 tarian hierarchy of the military establishment where
 everyone knew his place. She believed that restraints
 "were necessary for the preservation of social order in all
 civilised communities".34 In her opinion, the social order
 on the frontier had been upset by the abolition of slavery
 and the lower orders, which included the freed slaves,
 should be forced into service by establishing a Vagrancy
 Act.35 She did not believe that they had any rights and
 was infuriated by instances of employers being sum-
 moned by a magistrate to answer to complaints laid
 against them by their ex-slaves, who were "worthless and
 misguided apprentices".36 She felt that more working
 class people were needed in the colonies, 'great inconve-
 nience arises from the want of servants" and that the
 Emigration Society should send out "this class of peo-
 ple".3? She also felt that the black people could be drawn
 into the working class provided that "proper laws were
 framed for preserving order and discipline between mas-
 ter and man" and complained that in mission education,
 no effort was being made to fit the women for service.38
 Harriet Ward did not accept the social code which bound
 In a detailed analysis of the social structure of the frontier
 town of Graharnstown from 1832-1853, Scott worked out
 a classification for the period. She identified five classes,
 with army officers, merchants and gentlemen in the
 upper class, and with professionals included int he upper
 middle class.20
 Harriet Ward was the daughter of a distinguished
 colonel. Of her three brothers, one became major-gener-
 al,21 one a captain22 and the third, a lieutenant23 and she
 married a military officer.
 Anny offices were by purchase at the time which argues
 that she was in comfortable financial circumstances. Her
 servants were drawn from the lower ranks of the army
 and she took it for granted that she should not do menial
 work.24 According to Scott's and Bradlow's classifica-
 tions, Harriet Ward would have become a part of the
 upper class establishment when she arrived on the fron-
 tier.
 The occupation of Amelia Gropp's father is not known,
 but her uncle was a wealthy physician in Hannover and
 there was a degree of wealth in her own family as she
 inherited money on the deaths of her parents.25 Amelia
 Gropp describes how, in her youth, she was only allowed
 to associate with selected companions and was very
 strictly chaperoned.26 She mried an officer of an elite
 Hannoverian cavalry regiment, but his transfer to the
 CONTREE32/1992 19
her in its entirety. In her writing she complained of her
 subordinate feminine position and her experiences on the
 frontier enabled her to break away from many restrictive
 mores. However there is no evidence that this extended
 in any way to her attitudes to class. In fact it was her
 vision of a European model of a class-structured society
 which she sought to impose on the frontier.
 Amelia Gropp made clear social distinctions between
 herself and the wives of the ordinary soldiers. When in
 Breidbach, she referred contemptuously to the solders'
 wives who were unable to help her during childbirth, "So
 I had to do with those women of the village, who went in
 and out of our house, at their sweet will".39 The Gropp farm at Breidbach. The present village of
 Breidbach is in the background.
 Photograph by Carl Vernon, 1991When Amelia Gropp's husband departed for America tofight in the Civil War, she lived with the Hitzeroth family
 of Uitenhage "my constant and faithful friends",4o
 Johann Hitzeroth, of German extraction, was an affluent
 man who owned many properties, including the salt
 pans.41 His wealth placed him in the upper middle class.
 It is clear that the family regarded Amelia Gropp as a
 woman of their own class, "the girls hanging with great
 love on mee [sic], and the old ones traiting [sic] one like
 a daughter".42
 Helen Prichard was extremely class conscious and certain-
 ly regarded herself as a lady, to the extent of being very
 snobbish. She prided herself on being what she called a
 "'Member of Society'" 47 Her class and race prejudices
 were inter-related and were not confined to the black/white
 relationship. This can be seen in her use of the differential
 terminology of 'dame' and 'lady' which indicates her per-
 ception of a lower class status being given to non-
 Englishwomen, "some Africander dame, very much over-
 dressed ...after which one's eyes would be refreshed by
 the delightful vision of an English lady (probably the wife
 of some officer), in simple, becoming morning attire."48
 Unlike Harriet Ward, Amelia Gropp was not analytical
 about the society in which she found herself. She indi-
 cates that she accepted society in which upper middle
 class men were not expected to do any physical labour or
 engage in trade as she constantly excused her husband's
 inability to make an adequate living. She said that as a
 military man, he could not be expected to know how to
 work at anything else.43 She herself was prepared to break
 the class barrier and seek paid employment while on the
 frontier, but still took it for granted that she should always
 have servants, even when times were extremely hard.
 However, on their return to Germany, she did not work
 and she and her family were supported by her brother. Of
 the four women, Amelia Gropp was the least concerned
 with class, but her record is slighter than the others and
 written at a greater distance from the actual events.
 When taking refuge in Blythswood during the war, she
 dreaded the association of the carpenter's children with
 her own. With the advent of another group of refugees,
 she determined to leave as the said "the whole tone of the
 place is changed, and Blythwood [sic] is no longer a fit
 place for a lady".49
 The conditions at Blythswood were such that there was a
 breakdown of the class hierarchy. Helen Prichard com-
 plained that "The publicity of the life, ...and the associa-
 tion with persons of every class and type were all equally
 trying".5o
 Jane Waterston regarded herself as a 'lady'. There is an
 awareness of class differentiation and a derogatory atti-
 tude towards the lower classes contained in a a comment
 she made when she did not approve of new appointments
 at Lovedale: "such teachers of sewing as I have seen in
 the Normal School were far from ladies."44
 Her relationship with her white maid, whom she called
 Johanna Gog, showed clearly that she was not prepared
 to make any concessions to a change in the mistress and
 maid relationship, even during the unusual conditions
 prevailing at Blythswood. When Helen Prichard first
 employed Johanna in Cape Town, she made it clear that
 she regarded her as being from the lower class, "the idea
 of anything so rough even touching my little Granville so
 inexpressibly ludicrous ...but rough people suited rough
 places and this hard-looking personage might make an
 invaluable cleaner or coOk".51
 Her idea of class was bound up with her religious preju-
 diced and she described a Baptist minister as being "terri-
 bly commonplace and common". When she arrived in
 Nyassaland [Malawi] she complained that "A little more
 decency and comfort might have been prepared for a lady
 coming all alone ...The artesans are all very pleasant."45
 On the trip to the Transkei, Johanna made herself indis-
 pensable and she became "a good creature, behaving nobly
 ...my brave and faithful white servant".52 Once in Idutywa,
 Johanna met a wealthy trader and became engaged to him,
 a situation which did not immediately affect the
 The class situation was not one which Jane Waterston
 addressed in her letters, other than how aspects of the
 acceptable mode of behaviour for a 'lady' were unaccept-
 able to herself.46
 20 CONTREE 32/ 1992
mistress/maid status quo. It was at Blythswood when the
 social order broke down, that the relationship failed. Helen
 Prichard said that "Very painful circumstances has made
 the dismissal of Mrs. Gog an imperative necessity".53
 Harriet Ward's view of British cultural superiority
 coloured all her dealings with the indigenous people she
 encountered. She saw Britain as being the fueling power
 of the world having risen from her "original state of igno-
 rance, insignificance and barbarism."58 She believed that
 civilisation would follow British rule59 and by following
 D'Urban's system, "the Kafir would be on the high road
 to civilisation."60 Once on the frontier, Harriet Ward
 found that some of the black people were allies and
 should be supported, and some were enemies and should
 be denigrated. She was therefore at pains to describe the
 Mfengu, who were the allies, in glowing terms. They
 were, she said "a fine muscular race ...a cheerful race"
 By contrast, the Xhosa, who were the enemy, were "the
 heathen invader ...the dark minded savage" and "bar-
 barous thieves ...'a people thirsting for blood', ''as well
 as having a nature of "cold blooded wickedness".61
 She attributed this situation to Johanna's engagement
 which made "anything like obedience distasteful".54
 However, the situation of a maid becoming engaged and
 leaving service was not an unusual one, this being the
 reason that her maid in Cape Town, had not accompanied
 her to the frontier. It is clear that the possibility of mar-
 riage gave Johanna Gog the means of escaping the
 drudgery of service, but this did not mean that she should
 suddenly become resentful of her status. The most likely
 reason was to be found in Helen Prichard's statement that
 there had been a breakdown of the social hierarchy, "Few
 ladies will wonder that, after the exciting nature of the
 scenes through which we had passed, and the close quar-
 ters in which we now found ourselves, it was simply
 impossible to maintain the proper balance of relative
 position that should exist between mistress and maid."55
 In an effort to persuade her English readers of the feroci-
 ty of the Xhosa foe and thus justify the failure of the
 British troops to convincingly defeat them, she said that
 "he is like the wild best after the taste of blood and loses
 all the best attributes of humanity... more resembling
 demons than men".62
 In an effort to reimpose her vision of a rigid class struc-
 ture on the frontier, Helen Prichard concluded her refer-
 ences to Johanna by saying that she wished her ev~ry
 happiness and would remember only her "faithful service
 in times of trouble",56
 In writing about the Xhosas she was endeavouring to jus-
 tify the claims of the whites to the disputed territory, to
 excuse the failure of British fighting tactics and to incite
 a hatred of 'the enemy'. Her response to the Xhosa was
 coloured by this attitude and her attempt to persuade
 readers to her point of view.
 Helen Prichard's comments show no evidence that she
 inclined towards a more egalitarian social structure dur-
 ing her time on the frontier nor that she was prepared to
 accept any social mobility.
 In spite of the propagandist nature of her writing, Harriet
 Ward did reluctantly come to concede some attributes of
 the Xhosa which she felt were worthy of respect. The
 African, she said, had ingenuity and "though a savage, is
 a keen lawyer, and a narrow observer of human nature",
 They were natural logicians and would not do anything
 without good reasons.63 She noted that they had their
 own social and political ideas of honourable principle,
 appreciated that they had a "steadiness to their own
 cause" and often commented on their pride and dignity,64
 She did have some insight into the fact that their response
 to European assumptions of superiority were not well
 received, "Our condescension in speaking kindly to
 then., ...they do not appreciate."65
 Bradlow and Scott maintain that there was a trend
 towards greater social mobility and that class distinctions
 were less rigid on the frontier. However, there is no evi-
 dence that these middle class women were prepared to
 accept this trend. Harriet Ward and Helen Prichard in
 particular, expressed strong feelings that the European
 class structure should be retained and strongly denounced
 any occurrences which disturbed what they understood to
 be the proper balance between mistress and maid.
 Perceptions of Race
 "I had conjured up a vague vision of a legion of
 Mephistopheles!! ...which used to terrify and yet
 fascinate me as a child".57
 Helen Prichard, 1877
 She also had some perception that perhaps her idea of
 civilisation need not be a necessary goal for all. When
 she saw groups of Mfengu and Xhosa, happy and busy
 with their own concerns and able to obtain their housing,
 food, utensils and clothing from the earth, she comment-
 ed that she could appreciate that they might not want or
 need to change. She continually makes blanket state-
 ments about the idleness of all the black people.66
 Although she sometimes broke with the group concept
 and looked at individuals, it was only to evaluate their
 'progress' in terms of adapting to her idea of civilisation.
 She commented that those who had learned to read were
 diligent and had a thirst for knowledge.60 Chief Khama,
 who had been converted to Christianity and was an ally,
 An essential part of the experiences of these four women
 on the frontier was their response to the indigenous peo-
 ple whom they encountered. Bound up with their class
 ideologies were their racial prejudices which they
 brought with. them as a part of their cultural baggage.
 The difference was that while they had participated in a
 class-structured society, contact with people of a differ-
 ent colour and race was a new experience altogether. It
 is argued that, within the framework of their conviction
 of their own racial superiority, they were more inclined
 to modify their racial than their class attitudes.
 CONTREE 32 / 1992
 21
was dealt with kindly as she said that his habits and
 demeanour were those of a gentleman.68
 While Harriet Ward's contacts with black people were not
 confined to trade or servitude, they were affected by the
 fact that the Xhosa, in particular, were regarded in the light
 of an enemy.
 The British German Legion was settled in British Kaffraria
 as a military force to be called out if necessary against the
 Xhosa. With this initial premise, and, as Amelia Gropp trav-
 elled to the frontier as part of a group, it is likely that she
 shared some of the violent anti-black sentiments of the mem-
 bers of that group. Gustav Stainbart, one of the legionaries,
 referred to the Xhosa as "cannibals"69 and said that he did
 not know whether to pity or detest this strange race."70 Helen Prichard's house in Idutywa
 Photo: H. Prichard:
 Friends and Foes in the Transkei, p. 11Amelia Gropp's interactions with the blacks were limited
 to trade and service. Unlike Harriet Ward, whose husband
 had been involved in the fighting, it is clear that she did not
 view the Africans as enemies but that she did not regard
 them with much degree of friendship.
 standing or tolerance of traditional ways and customs and
 she sought "to alter the whole tone of native life"}8
 They lived in "pigsty houses" with bad habits, and "that
 accursed Intonjane going on".79 However, once the
 Africans were converted to Christianity, living in clean
 square houses and doing steady manual labour, then she
 was prepared to accept them on an equal footing and
 there was no hint of racism in her attitude. For example,
 when she wrote of black people who had been converted
 to Christianity, such as Marth Kwatsha, who was educat-
 ed in Glasgow in 1875-1876, there was no hint of patron-
 age or racial distinction made in her letter. "Martha is
 much liked and has, I think, grown richer in thought in
 this country without losing her simple natural manner."
 The nearest black settlement she said was an "evil neigh-
 bourhood".71 This must have been a Xhosa settlement
 headed by the Christian chief, Dyani Tshatshu, of an
 Ndlambe clan.72 He had been an unbeliever during the
 Cattle Killing, had co-operated with the local colonial offi-
 cials and therefore would have had cattle to trade. He was
 probably the chief to whom she refers as coming to visit
 them to assure them of his goodwill and to offer to sell
 them cattle and fowls.73 This was not a threatening
 approach and Amelia Gropp does not indicate that she
 found it so. She complained that the cattle which they pur-
 chased from him "found in a strange way their old home
 again",74 but there is neither aggression nor fear to be
 found in her statements, which might have been ex:pected
 from someone who, on .arrival on the frontier, had been
 exposed to the idea that the black people were enemies.
 She regarded Lovedale people, white and black, as her
 friends, "Kindest regards to all my friends, white and
 black, not forgetting Knox, Isabella, Lambert and Antyi."
 Later in life she modified her initial harsh judgmental
 attitude.
 Jane Waterston's view, when she arrived on the frontier,
 was coloured by her religious convictions and her sense of
 the superiority of European civilisation.
 When in Cape Town, she said that she was getting more
 black patients, "The feel, I think, that I treat them like
 human beings and not niggers as the term is here."so
 "an African mission should really be ...a civilising, and an
 energising, as well as a Christianising, Agent." 75
 When Helen Prichard arrived on the frontier she also
 brought her racial preconceptions with her. She said that
 she had "conjured up a vague vision of a legion of
 Mephistopheles!!,... which used to terrify and yet fasci-
 nate me as a child".81 However, when faced with the
 physical presence of the black people themselves, she
 was prepared to abandon some of her prejudices. When
 she first saw them she said that she found it difficult to
 believe that they were "of the same nature as ourselves
 endowed with immortality and capable of infinite devel-
 opment into good."82 She then reflected that "we are all
 only clay and after all that I was simply looking at red
 clay instead of white."83 She also found that they were
 not as repulsive looking as she had expected and in fact
 were rather agreeable.84 She also discovered to her sur-
 prise, that she need have no fear of theft and that their
 good faith could be relied upon. Her response to
 Anything that was not Christian was roundly condemned
 "The Religion of Christ is the only lever by which the
 besotted, brutal African can be raised and made a civilised,
 energetic man". The "heathen dances", the "savage hea-
 then", "God's seed may not be choked by the flesh and the
 devil" and "the muck and mire of heathenism"76 were the
 derogatory terms which she used.
 She shared with James Stewart the passion for hard work
 and, in a similar manner to Harriet Ward, was condemnato-
 ry about "the accursed spirit of proud laziness which regard
 work as the lot of women and slaves."77 Like most of the
 missionaries of the nineteenth century, she had little under-
 22 CONTREE 32 / 1992
Gangelizwe, Paramount Chief of the Thembu, also indi-
 cated her willingness to abandon prejudice. She had
 heard dreadful stories about him which she found difficult
 to believe and far from being repulsive, she found him
 "handsome looking with a sweet gentle expression."85
 She said that she did her best to treat him with the respect
 due to his rank and the fact that at that time, he was their
 ally.86
 The race attitudes of these four women were a bound up
 with class and religious prejudices. They all began with
 a conviction of European cultural superiority which they
 termed 'civilising' and which they set against the 'bar-
 barian' and heathen. However once they had come into
 contact with the indigenous people they were prepared to
 modify their attitudes to some degree.
 28. Neale, Class and Ideology in the 19th Century, pp. 30 and
 120.
 29. Prichards, Friends and Foes in the Transkei, pp. 9-10.p
 30. Ibid., pp. 120,265.
 31. Ibid., p.277.
 32. Scott, An Approach to the early History of Graharnstown,
 p.122, and Bradlow, "The Culture of the Colonial Elite",
 p.387.
 33. Ward, Five Years in Kaffirland, Vol. I, p.16.
 34. Ibid., Vol. l,pp.3l, 107 and vol. 2, p.145.
 35. Ibid., Vol. I, p.45.
 36. Ibid., Vol. I, p.38.
 37. Ibid., Vol. I, p.I04.
 38. Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 46-47 and 110.
 39. Gropp, "The Memoirs of Mrs. ...", p.26.
 40. Ibid., p.29.
 41. Edith Maria Neethling, "The History of Swartkops and
 Amsterdam Hoek", Looking Back, Col. 14, No.4, pp. 111-
 114. -,
 42. Gropp, "The Memoirs of Mrs. ...", p.29.
 43. Ibid., pp. 27-28.
 44. Bean and van Heyningen, The Letters of Jane Waterston,
 p.119.
 45. Ibid., p.I60.
 46. Ibid., P.287.
 47. Prichard, Friends and Foes in the Transkei, p.72.
 48. Ibid., p.22.
 49. Ibid., pp. 244-24 and 254.
 50. Ibid., p.237.
 51. Ibid.,p.6.
 52. Ibid., p.201.
 53. Ibid., pp. 201 and 241.
 54. Ibid., p.242.
 55. Ibid., pp. 241-242.
 56. Ibid., p.242.
 57. Ibid., p.41.
 58. Ward, Five years in Kaffirland, Vol. I, p.66.
 59. Ibid., Vol. 2, p.176.
 60. Ibid., Vol. I, p.33.
 61. Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 90 and 179, vol. 2, pp. 68-69 and 104.
 62, Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 248-249.
 63. Ibid.,Vol.I,pp.105and 117.
 64. Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 161 and 179.
 65. Ibid., Vol. I, p.I06.
 66. Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 110, 124, 130, Vol. 2, pp. 217.
 67. Ibid.,Vol.l,p.123.
 68. Ibid., Vol. I, p.148.
 69. J.F. Schwar & R.W. Jardine (eds.), The Journal of Gustav
 Steinbart (Port Elizabeth, 1978), p.17.
 70. Ibid., p.23.
 71. Gropp, "The Memoirs of Mrs. Amelia ...", p.25.
 72. J.B. Peires, The Dead will arise, pp. 68, 118.
 73. Gropp, "The Memoirs of Mrs. Amelia ...", p.25.
 74. Ibid., p.25.
 75. Bean and van Heiningen, The letters of Jane Waterston, p.21.
 76. Ibid, pp. 21, 114, 123 and 124.
 77. Ibid., p.123.
 78. Ibid., p.114.
 79: Ibid., p.114.
 80. Ibid., pp. 98, 159 and 162.
 81. Prichard, Friends and Foes in the Transkei, p.41.
 82. Ibid., p.41.
 83. Ibid., p.41.
 84. Ibid., p.41.
 85. Ibid., p.158.
 86. Ibid., p.162.
 ENDNOTES
 I. Harriet Ward, Five Years in Kaffirland, Vol. I, (London,
 Henry Colburn, 1848), pp. 74-75.
 2. Denver A. Webb, The Fortifications of British Kaffraria,
 (Grahamstown, Annals of the Cape Museums, 1989), pp.
 229-241.
 3. T .R.H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History,
 (Johannesburg, Macmillan, 1977), p.IOI.
 4. J.B. Peires, The dead will arise, (Johannesburg, Ravan
 Press, 1989), pp. 157-158.
 5. E.L.G. Schnell, For men must work (Cape Town, Maskew
 Miller, 1954), p.267.
 6. Ibid., p.265.
 7. Ward, Five Years in Kaffirland, Vol. I, p.2.
 8. Helen Prichard, Friends and Foes in the Transkei (London,
 Sampson Low, 1880), p.63.
 9. Ward, Five Years in Kaffirland, Vol. I, p.IIO.
 10. Prichard, Friends and Foes in the Transkei, p.157.
 II. Amelia Gropp, "The Memoirs of Mrs ...", The Coelacanth,
 Vol. 19, (2), p.24.
 12. Schnell, For men must work, p.114.
 13. Helen Prichard, Friends and Foes in the Transkei, p.242.
 14. R.S. Neale, Class and Ideology in the Nineteenth Century
 (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), p.30.
 15. Edna Bradlow, "The Culture of a Colonial Elite: The Cape
 of Good Hope in the 1850's", Victorian Studies, Spring
 1986, p.391.
 16. Ibid., pp. 388-389.
 17. Patricia Scott, An approach to the early history of
 Grahamstown: 1832-1853 (Unpublished MA Thesis,
 Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 1987), p.129.
 18. Bradlow, "The Culture of the Colonial Elite", p.387.
 19. Ibid., p.389.
 20. Scott, An approach to the early history of Grahamstown,
 p.122.
 21. Haydn's Book of Digities, 1894, facs, reprint (Baltimore,
 Genealogical Pub. Co., 1970), p.903.
 22. Thom's Almanac and Official Directory (Dublin, Thorn,
 1879), p.542.
 23. British and Imperial Calendar (London, Winchester,
 1831), p.168.
 24. Ward, Five Years in Kaffirland, Vol. 1, p.175.
 25. Gropp, "The Memoirs ofMrs ...", p.14.
 26. Ibid., pp.17-18.
 27. Lucy Bean and Elizabeth van Heyningen (eds.), The
 Letters of Jane Elizabeth Waterston (Cape Town, Van
 Riebeeck Society, 2nd Series no. 2, 1983), p.105.
 CONTREE 32/ 1992 23