Sugar and Settlers: A history of the Natal South Coast, 1850-1910

Duncan Du Bois provides a detailed and fascinating history of a hitherto much-neglected part of what was the colony of Natal. Based primarily on original archival research, he traces the southward advance of the white settler frontier and its sugar-based economy from Isipingo to the Mzimkulu river and, without the sugar engine, to the Mtamvuna.
This study highlights challenges faced by settler enterprise which were not unique to that particular region, but crucial in shaping its history. These included rugged geography, slow infrastructural development, insufficient investment capital and a heavy demand for labour to meet the needs of plantation agriculture. The settler economy?s relations with and reliance on indigenous African people and imported Indian workers therefore constitute further important dimensions of the book.
As such it is a valuable addition to the history of white settlement and its impact, both human and environmental, on southern Africa.