King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain through African Eyes

Amazon.com
In 1895 three Bechuana chiefs from southern Africa traveled to London to implore Queen Victoria not to turn their territories over to the empire builder Cecil Rhodes. King Khama and his associates won a few concessions, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. In their travels, however, they helped sway British public opinion to a more sympathetic view of indigenous issues in Africa, especially by favorably impressing the liberal clergy. Basing his account of the Bechuana leaders' tour of Great Britain on contemporary newspaper reports, Neil Parsons carefully reconstructs their itinerary, which included a strange stop at Madame Tussaud's famous wax museum. King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen is more than a narrative of events: in its pages, Parsons does a fine job of discussing the contradictions of imperial rule and of competing ideas of power and justice.


From Library Journal
In 1895, three African chiefs, dressed in the finest British clothing available, began a tour of the British Isles. That tour foiled empire-builder Cecil Rhodes's grand plan for Africa and culminated in the Chamberlain Settlement?the document that indirectly led to the independence of the present-day state of Botswana. Parsons (history, Univ. of Botswana; A New History of Southern Africa, Africana, 1993) writes this complicated and oblique story of Victorian England's relations with three of southern Africa's tribal rulers of the late 19th century. The author uses clippings from British newspapers, saved by each of the three African kings, and African archival material to reconstruct this account. Purportedly told through "African eyes," the story never clearly detaches from the London Missionary Society. Appropriate for academic libraries.?Harry Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. System, IolaCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
In order to protect their homeland from encroachment by Rhodesia, three African chiefs journeyed to Britain in 1895 to meet with Joseph Chamberlain, the secretary of state for the colonies. Initially rebuffed by Chamberlain and ignored by the queen, Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen, dubbed "the three kings" by the British press, decided to take their case to the public. With the assistance of a former missionary, they organized a barnstorming tour of the British Isles, mustering a groundswell of support from middle-class proponents of the burgeoning moral purity movement. Astonished by their achievement, Chamberlain drafted an agreement that permanently secured the territory of Bechuanaland. Recognized as the first step toward the independence of Botswana, the Chamberlain Settlement was a landmark concession in African colonial history. Utilizing press clippings culled from more than 135 newspapers and magazines, Parsons vividly re-creates the excitement and the energy generated in Victorian Britain by the visit of this remarkable trio of ambassadors. A significant contribution to the scholarship of imperial history. Margaret Flanagan


Book Description
In 1895 three African chiefs, dressed in the finest British clothing available, began a tour of the British Isles. That tour foiled Cecil Rhodes' grand plan for Africa and culminated in the Chamberlain Settlement, the document that indirectly led to the independence of present-day Botswana. King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen is the story of this bizarre journey, one of the most neglected events in British Victorian history, here revealed for the first time in its full detail and cultural complexity.

The chiefs initially went to England to persuade Queen Victoria not to give their lands to ruthless Rhodes and his British South Africa Company. Abandoned by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, and denied an audience with the queen, the three rulers decided to tour the British Isles to plead their case to the populace. Appealing to the middle-class morality of Victorian society, the chiefs were remarkably successful in gaining support, eventually swaying Chamberlain into drafting the agreement that secured their territories against the encroachment of Rhodesia.

Historian Neil Parsons has reconstructed this journey with the help of African archival materials and news clippings from British papers, garnered from the clippings service the chiefs had the foresight to employ. In equal parts narrative of pilgrimage, voyage of discovery, and colonial resistance, King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen provides a view from the other side of colonialism and imperialism. It demonstrates the nuances of cultural and religious interaction between Africans and Europeans, and it does so with the richness and depth of a fully realized novel.




Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

Neil Parsons has skillfully combined an extraordinary range of press reports and other archival materials to reconstruct day to day the uneasy encounder of two largely alien worlds. . . .This is a remarkable and unusual book -- Times Literary Supplement — Andrew Porter


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices