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

Parsons, Neil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226647455 ISBN 13: 9780226647456

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1998

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

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.

About the Author:

Neil Parsons is a historian specialising in Africa, biography, and film and entertainment. He was professor of history at the University of Botswana between 1995 and 2009, and previously held positions at the Universities of Zambia and Swaziland, and at Botswana's National Institute of Research and its National Museum. He is the author of A History of Southern Africa (with Alois Mlambo, 2019), Black and White Bioscope: Making Movies in Africa 1899 to 1925 (2018), Clicko the Wild Dancing Bushman (2008), and King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen (1998).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0226647455
• ISBN 13: 9780226647456
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 340