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The Grammar of Domination and the Subjection of Agency: Colonial Texts and Modes ofEvidenceAuthor(s): Premesh LaluSource: History and Theory, Vol. 39, No. 4, Theme Issue 39: "Not Telling": Secrecy, Lies, andHistory (Dec., 2000), pp. 45-68Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678049

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History and Theory,Themnessue 39 (December 2000), 45-68 ( WesleyanUniversity2000 ISSN: 0018-2656

THE GRAMMAR OF DOMINATION AND THE SUBJECTION OF

AGENCY: COLONIAL TEXTS AND MODES OF EVIDENCE'

PREMESHLALU

Grammar s politics by other means.2

We must delve into the archaeologiesof the dead.3

ABSTRACT

This articlefocuses on colonial accountsof the killing of the Xhosa chief, Hintsa,in 1835

at the hands of Britishforces along what came to be known as the easternCapefrontier.

It explores the evidentiaryproceduresandprotocols throughwhich the event came to be

narratedn colonial frames of intelligibility.In proposinga strategyfor readingthe colo-

nial archive, he paperstrategically nterrupts he flow from an apartheidhistoriography o

whatis commonlyreferred o as "alternative istory."The aim in effecting this interrup-

tion is to call attention o the enablingpossibilitiesof criticalhistory.This is achieved not

by way of declarationbut rather hrougha practice whereby the foundationalcategory of

evidence is problematized.The paper alludes to the limits of alternativehistory and its

approaches o evidence on the one hand, andthe conditions of complicity within which

evidence is producedon the other.Whereas alternativehistoryidentifiesits task as one of

re-writingSouthAfrican history,critical history, t is suggested,offers the opportunity o

reconstitute he field of history by addressing he sites of its productionandalso its prac-

tices. In exploringtheproductionof the colonial recordon thekilling of Hintsa,thepaper

seeks to complicatealternativehistory's slippagein andout of the evidentiary ules estab-

lished by colonial dominationeven as it constitutesthe categoryof evidence as an object

for a politics of historyof the present.

I

In alternative accounts of the South African past-alternative, that is, to the grids

of colonial, liberal, and apartheid thought through which the past has been fil-

tered-the particular story of the killing of Chief Hintsa in 1835 is frequently,

1. QadriIsmail, Adam Sitze, MarissaMoorman,Gary Minkley, Leslie Witz, andAndrew Kincaid

generously commented on an earlier draft.Thanks to the HSRC (SouthAfrica) and the MacArthur

Program University of Minnesota) for financial support.The usual disclaimersapply. The article is

partof a largerprojectthatre-theorizes he historicaleventin colonial, nationalist,andhistoriograph-

ical accounts by reflecting on interventionsmade by Michael Taussig (on the frontieras a space of

death) and the recent work of PradeepJeganathan,QadriIsmail, John Mowitt, and ArjunAppadurai

(on violence and disciplinarity).This article is an uncomfortably entativegesture in the direction

chartedby these scholars. It is writtenfor my colleagues in the History Departmentat UWC for their

continuedsupport.

2. DonnaHaraway,Simians,Cyborgs,and Women:TheReinvention f Nature (New York, 1991), 3.

3. MarkEspin, "Beyond the Realm,"unpublishedpoem, 1998.



46 PREMESHLALU

andperhaps trategically,deferred o a third-person arrator r representedn the

idiom of doubt. The habit seems to have been formed many years earlierin the

literaryand historicalcontributions f Samuel Mqhayi and S. M. Molemaduring

the 1920s. Framed variously as a logical outcome of colonial advance, or interms of the predictabilityof colonial violence and the productof interpretation

by those complicit in the act of murder,both writers preface theirreferences to

the eventwith a measureof doubt. Samuel Mqhayi, for example, in seekingdes-

perately o narrate he storyof the killing in terms other than those prescribedby

a colonial archive, points out that while there is little doubt that Hintsa'sbody

was mutilatedand that his ear was cut off and sent to Grahamstown s a trophy,

thereis some doubt thathis head was cut off. S. M. Molema in his The Bantu

Past and Present, having identified Hintsa as the moving spirit behind the Sixth

Xhosa War,repeatsthe sequenceof events thathavecome to be associated with

Hintsa's death: escape, pursuit by Smith, and shooting by Southey. Molema

deflectsall responsibility orthe story by introducing he sequenceof eventswith

the phrase:"it is said."4The story of the death of a moving spirit is thereby

entrustedto an anonymousthirdperson, while the implicitly sarcasticgesture

implied by such a deflectionconveys a sense of narrativempasse.

Thatwhichcolonialrecordsdescribedntermsof the treachery f theXhosa wasthesign of anincomprehensibilityhatwouldenable an alternative ationalisthis-

toryof the event. The failureon thepartof the colonial forces to anticipateXhosa

responseshad far-reaching onsequencesfor colonized subjects and the colonial

expansionistprojectmoregenerally. t alsoformed he basison whichcolonialrep-

resentations f theevents leading upto thekillingof chief Hintsawere built.

In more recenthistoriographical ccountsof thecolonizationof theXhosa, the

storyof thekillingof Hintsa s toldwithextraordinary revityandwithreferences

that lead us back to the colonial archive or throughcircuitouscitations, to thepalacesof power.Upholdinga commitment o historyfrom theperspectiveof the

colonized, contemporary istorianshave sign-postedtheir invocationof colonial

sources, alerting he reader o thedangersof anunfamiliarand a politicallyantag-

onistic descriptivevocabulary.CliftonCraisremarks, or example,thatthere"is

no need to go into greatdetailrecounting he war [in which Hintsa was killed]."

It has been well described,he adds, particularly rom the perspective of the

colonists, by several authors.5 n proceeding,he stresses the emergenceof con-

flict as a responseto colonial expropriations f land and concludes with a sum-

maryof the eventby suggestingthat Hintsaattempted o negotiatewith the colo-

nial state andvoluntarily ntered he Britishcampin his territory.Madea prison-

er,Craisadds,he attempted o escape, was hunteddown, shot, and mutilated.

That which was said-in Molema's strategicphrasing-only managesa brief

footnotein Jeff Peires's House of Phalo with theriderthattheentirecourtrecord

4. S. M. Molema,TheBantuPast and Present:AnEthnographical& HistoricalStu6dyf the NativeRaces of SouthAfrica (Edinburgh,1920), 103

5. CliftonCrais,TheMaking of the Colonial Order:WhiteSupremacyand Black Resistance in the

Eastern Cape, 1770-1865 (Johannesburg, 992), 115.



THE GRAMMAROF DOMINATIONAND THE SUBJECTIONOF AGENCY 47

that serves as historicalevidence was extensively stage-managedby Smith and is

of little relevance to the historianseeking to constructan alternativeor truthful

account of events. As in a recent textbook of the SouthernAfrican past by Neil

Parsons,Peires managesonly a few lines on the killing of Hintsa.6In contrast to Crais, Parsons, and Peires, Timothy Stapleton, a historian of

Xhosa experience and resistance to nineteenth-century onquest, offers a brief

summaryof the prehistoryof the event-to borrowa phrasefrom ShahidAmin.

InStapleton'sversionD'Urbancrossed the Kei River on 20 April 1835 and estab-

lished a campnear theWesleyanmissionof Butterworth.Undertheguise of pun-

ishing Hintsa orencouraging he Rharhabe ttackon thecolony, Stapletonclaims

thatthe governordeclaredwar on the Gcaleka.After a campaignof terror n which

kraals were burnedand cattle seized, Hintsa and forty retainers, t is held, rode

into D'Urban's camp to negotiate a settlement.The account then points out that

they were subsequentlydisarmedand takenprisoner.Hintsawas instructed o sur-

rendercattle and horses to the colonial forces and to accept responsibilityfor

Rharhabehostilities. In turn, says Stapleton,Hintsa sent a message to Maqoma

describinghis captureandwarning heregentnot to trust heEuropeans.The con-

clusion of the storyis thatHintsawas forcedto accompanySmith'spatrolon a

mission to gather Gcalekastock, and on 12 May was shot throughthe head bycolonial soldiers, who proceeded o cut off the chief's ears.7

Narrative mpasse stems from the mannerin which the British cleared the

scene of the crime,removedtracesthatmay haveenabled an alternativehistory,

andleft in its place only one story:their own. It seems ironic, though perfectly

understandable,hat alternativeversions of the South Africanpast shoulddefer

the narration f such a crucialeventin historyto the very perpetrators f murder.

Moreimportantly,he deferralsand doubtsthatframeanalternativehistoryof the

killing of Hintsa seem to suggest that colonial sources are useful in describingeverythingaround he event but not the event itself. Phraseddifferently,why are

colonial sources seen as reliable for accessing some aspects of Xhosa pasts but

not others?How do historiansdiscriminatebetween reliabilityandliability?

In the present article,I will explorethe workthatevidence performs(or does

notperform) oralternativehistoryof the eventby unfolding the complex web of

techniquesand proceduresthroughwhich it was producedwithin the logic of

colonial domination.I am especially interestedin how a primarydiscourse-

understoodn this instance as a field of intelligibilitythat s more orless theprod-

uct of colonial rule-emerges as a primary ource-understood as theraw mate-

rial upon which the historian'spracticerests. In otherwords,how is an institu-

tionally bound discourseproducedas an indispensableresourcein the story of

the killing of Hintsa? To pose the question along these lines is to ask that we

attendto the very constitutionof evidence.Evidence,whether n the form of the

colonial archiveor archiveof opposition,does not necessarily providea window

6. Neil Parsons,A History of SouthernAfrica (London, 1982), 98-99; JeffreyB. Peires, The House

of Phalo:A History of the XhosaPeople in theDays of TheirIndependence Johannesburg, 981), 112.

7. Timothy Stapleton,Maqoma:Xhosa Resistance to Colonial Advance (Johannesburg, 994), 99.



48 PREMESHLALU

to some priorreality norshould it only be evaluated n termsof the categoriesof

"objectivity" nd "bias."Rather,I suggest thatby apprehendinghe procedures

throughwhichevidence is producedand therules that naugurateparticularways

of knowing we may encounteran altogetherdifferentperspectiveon domination.The article exploresthe modes of a colonial information conomy,which rest-

ed on the tactics of intelligence and surveillanceas it relates to the killing of

Hintsain 1835. My argument,briefly, s thatthe dismissal of colonial recordsas

biased limits the possibilities of understanding he interior ogic and effects of

dominationand unnecessarilysuggests the possibility of an objectivehistory of

the event.Colonialdominationcould not haveproceededwithout the accommo-

dation of theAfrican in thenarratives hat it producedof the conquest of African

societies, even when the narrativewas explicitly premisedon the will of the col-

onizer.The termsof that ncorporation recrucial to anunderstanding f theper-

vasive logic of domination n the writing of history.

In some respects, the article s a tangentialresponseto the questionpertaining

to the emergenceof the colonial stereotypeof "theAfrican as enemy" posed by

MartinLegassickin the closing momentsof his erudite nterventionon the fron-

tier tradition n South Africanhistoriography.8My response,however,is devel-

oped in a directionnot providedforby Legassick's intervention. do not wish toquarrelwith his conclusionson the shiftfrom master/servanto patron/client ela-

tions on the frontier,nor with the conception of the frontieras constitutedby

changingsocial relations. Mine is a modest appeal that asks us to pause on the

questionof the constitutionof evidence and its consequencesfor narrating he

killingof chief Hintsaalongwhatcame to be calledthe easternCapefrontier.The

tactic may yield a storyunimaginedandunanticipated y the perpetrators f this

cruel act of violence-a storyin whichwe track he itineraryof the emergenceof

truthas "empirical"9nd the social process of the subjectionof agency.'0The questionof agencyas a sign of resistancethathadpreoccupiedan earlier

generationof social historianshas been replacedin more recenthistoriographi-

cal interventionswith a conceptof agency as embedded n narrativepossibility.

Luise White, for example,affordsus a view of writtensourcesas a mode of nar-

rationthat is constrainedby oral narrative nd "invaded"herword] by orality."I

8. MartinLegassick, "The FrontierTradition n South AfricanHistoriography,"n Economy and

Societyin Pre-IndustrialSouthAfrica, ed. Shula Marks andAnthonyAtmore(London,1980).9. JohnandJeanComaroff,Ethnography nd the HistoricalImagination Boulder,1992),22. While

theComaroffspursue hisitineraryn termsof enchantment-a claim thatrecallsAdorno's"Dialecticof

Enlightenment"-I wish to pursue hequestion n termsof the relationship f history o theempirical.

10. I am especially indebted to John Mowitt, Text:The Genealogy of an AntidisciplinaryObject

(Durham,N.C., 1992), which offers a provocativediscussion in this direction. I would also like to

acknowledge a debt to Spivak's discussion on metalepsis in GayatriChakravortySpivak,ThePost-

colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies,Dialogues, ed Sarah Harasym(New York, 1990), 122 and

Judith Butler's discussion of speech and agency in her Excitable Speech: A Politics of the

Performative New York,1997).

11. Luise White, "'They Could Make TheirVictims Dull': Gendersand Genres,FantasiesandCures n Colonial SouthernUganda,"AmericanHistoricalReview100 (1995), 1381. Forexamples of

attemptsat problematizingoral histories see Isabel Hofmeyr, "Wailingfor Purity: Oral Studies in

SouthernAfricanStudies,"AfricanStudies54, no. 2 (1995), 16-31;CarolynHamilton,TerrificMajesty



THE GRAMMAROF DOMINATIONAND THE SUBJECTIONOFAGENCY 49

She insists on not treatingoral and written sources as discrete narrativegenres

andtherebybypasses the objective/biasedoppositionthat often structureshisto-

ry as a discipline.12The emphasis on genre, mediation, and narrative onstraint

relinquishes he burdenof authenticity mplicit in the promise of oralhistory.If,however,oral history was the means throughwhich an obscuredAfrican agency

was made visible, then how can we account for a concept of agency in what

might amountto a "blurring f genres"of evidence?13

WithoutrelinquishingWhite's innovative treatmentof genre, the questionof

agency,it seems, may be posed in ways otherthanin termsof the autonomous

subjector authorial ubject.14The emphasison autonomousor authorial ubjects

readily lends itself to an identity politics and may be redeployedin ways that

undermine he pursuitof an anti-apartheid istory.If agency serves alternative

history and identity politics, is it possible to recuperatea notion of agencywith-

out surrendering roundto a politics which establishesidentityas an end game?

To answer this question we may have to think of the ways in which agency is

(Cape Town, 1998); and CirajRassool and Gary Minkley, "Orality,Memoryand Social History in

SouthAfrica," n NegotiatingthePast: TheMaking of Memory n SouthAfrica,ed. SarahNuttall and

Carli Coetzee (Cape Town, 1998), 89-99.12. Foran innovativeuse of this method see Hamilton, TerrificMajesty.The concept of mediation

has been more thoroughly heorizedby RaymondWilliams, Keywords:A Vocabulary f Cultureand

Society (Oxfordand New York, 1985) and GayatriSpivak, "Canthe SubalternSpeak?" n Marxism

and the Interpretationof Culture,ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana, Ill., 1988).

Spivak especially allows us to review what we take as the function of representation y invokingtwo

terms fromMarx, Darstellungand Vertretung.White's interventionpoints in this directionbutis not

theorized o the same extent. See also Spivak'smore recent weaving togetherof "TheRani of Sirmur"

and "Canthe SubalternSpeak?" n Gayatri Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Towarda

History of the VanishingPresent (Cambridge,Mass., 1999), 198-311, which revisits the question of

the female informant n feminist historiography.This is not to deny the sophisticatedhistorical cri-tiquesandcritiquesof history thataddress the objective/biasbinarism.See, for example,Michel de

Certeau,The Writingof History (New York, 1988); Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in Their

Myths?transl.PaulaWissing (Chicago, 1988), 13 and85; Dominick LaCapra,Rethinking ntellectual

History (Ithaca, 1983). Suffice it to say that outside of this criticaltradition, he disciplineof history

retains ts commitment o this facile andunproductivebinarism.

13. The phrasebelongs to CliffordGeertz.I acknowledge tsreductionismnrelation o White'sspe-

cific intervention.Nevertheless,I am proposinga transactional eading n which the possibilitiesand

promise of an overall intervention retemporarily uspendedso as to contemplate he argumentbeing

pursued n a differentdirection.In this respect,I also stress that White's interventions xtendbeyond

the limitedreading suggestedhere. For an examplewherea readingof White in terms of Geertz failsdismally, see "The Trafficin Heads: Bodies, Borders and the Articulationof Regional Histories"

Journalof SouthernAfricanStudies 23 (1997), 325-338. The focus on genrehas gained widespread

currencyn recentAfrican(ist)historiography. ee for exampleIsabel Hofmeyr,WeSpend Our Years s

a Tale hatis Told:Oral HistoricalNarrative n a SouthAfricanChiefdom Johannesburg, 994);Karin

Barber, CouldSpeakUntilTomorrowEdinburgh, 991)andJohannesFabianandTshibumbaMatulu,

Rememberinghe Present:PaintingandPopularHistoryin Zaire(Berkeley, 1996).

14.This is not to suggestthatotherformulations f the notion of agency (ororal narratives should

bejettisoned.The debateon genderandlife strategies f womeninAfricanhistoryhas seen theconcept

of agency strategicallymobilized o interrupthe modes of production arrative. ee forexampleBelinda

Bozzoli, "Marxism,Feminismand SouthernAfrican Studies,"Journal of SouthernAfrican Studies 9(1983), 139-171; Susan Geiger, TanuWomen:Genderand Culture in the Making of Tanganyikan

Nationalism Dares Salaam,1997);HeidiGengenbach,"Truth-TellingndthePoliticsof Women'sLife

History nAfrica," nternational ournalof AfricanHistoricalStudies27, 3 (1994), 619-627.



50 PREMESHLALU

conditionedby the norms, practices, institutions,and discourses throughwhich

it is made available.In this sense the questionof agency may also be posed in

terms of the practices and proceduresof evidence-makingand the protocols of

history-the social process,in otherwords, of the subjectionof agency.To arriveat that possibility I wish to offer a brief reading of one example of the difficult

relationshipbetween genre and evidence in the South African context so as to

pave the way for a considerationof colonial descriptionsof the death of Hintsa.

II

Jeff Peires has pointed to a central problem of evidence and narration n an

accountof the 1856 Xhosa Cattle-Killingepisode. The event-which incidental-

ly has all the characteristicsand problems that have come to be associated with

the contemporary ontroversysurroundinghe deathof Hintsa-may be instruc-

tive in helping us to think about overcoming the narrative mpasse that emerges

in histories of acts of colonial violence andconquestmoregenerally.

Peires's initial approach o colonial documents was one of suspicionanddis-

trust.In The House of Phalo he argued vehemently againstthe use of colonial

records, suggesting that they were filled with lies and innuendo.By the timePeires came to write his award-winninghistory of the Xhosa Cattle-Killing n

1989, he had substantiallyrevisedhis position on the colonial archive and oral

sources.Intheprefaceto thatbookhe argued hattheprimary ourceswhichpro-

vide the evidence on which the historical account is based are riddledwith lies,

both "deliberate ies and self-delusions":

Most of the official documents, includingalmost all the printedofficial documents,are

contaminatedwith referencesto the "Chiefs'Plot,"the theorythat the Cattle-Killingwas

a conspiracyby theXhosa chiefs to bringabouta war with the Cape Colony.If we leavetheofficial documents o consult the archiveswhich are stored n the memories of theold

men of Xhosaland,we get the mirror mage of the "Chiefs'Plot,"namely "Grey'sPlot,"

the theory that the root cause of the Cattle-Killingwas a trick by Sir George Grey to

deceive the Xhosa into destroyingthemselves.Today,thereis hardlya Xhosa alive who

does not believe that Sir George Grey was in some way responsiblefor Nongqawuse's

prophecies.This madethe writing of a history extremely difficult.15

After six years of examining"all the evidence on the Cattle-Killing,"Peires

arguesthathe is convinced that no plot existed on either side. He argued nsteadthat the Cattle-Killingepisode was a "logicaland rationalresponse, by a nation

driven to desperationby pressuresthat people today can barely imagine."'16n

1990, Peires repeatedhis centralargument n a special edition of the Radical

HistoryReview showcasing writingfrom South Africa. This time, however,he

arguedmore forcefully that the claims made by Xhosa informants and elders

were simply not true. Peires noted:

We haveat ourdisposal

in theCape

Archives acomplete

set of unofficialcorrespondencebetween GovernorGrey and Colonel John Maclean, his chief subordinate n British

15. JeffreyPeires, The Dead WillArise (London, 1989), ix.

16. Ibid. x.



THE GRAMMAROF DOMINATIONAND THESUBJECTIONOF AGENCY 51

Kaffraria.These letters,the equivalentof today's privatetelephone calls, are completely

reliable and above suspicion.They prove beyond any reasonabledoubt that far frommas-

termindingthe whole operation,Grey and Maclean spent most of their time trying to

guess what was going on and whatwould happennext. Evenif private ettersdidnot exist,

it is surely self-evident that no distantVictoriangovernorcould ever have conceived so

far-fetcheda scheme, let alone blackened his face and hid in the reeds himself. But no

matterhow much contraryevidence is put before them, the Xhosa cling tenaciously to

their belief that Greywas an initiatorand originatorof the whole calamity. 7

In claiming the letters are more reliable thandispatches,an argument hat is

fleshedout in an earlierarticle n 1985 on Grey'smanipulation f the evidence,18

Peires treats evidence as constitutinga priorreality-prior, that is, to writing.

Evidence, in this respect, is open to interpretationand to manipulation-thatwhich is taken as the raw materials or the truth-claimsof the discipline of his-

tory.The discrepancy hat Peires detects between official dispatchesandprivate

correspondenceneed not, I wish to suggest,be viewed in terms of the gradations

of truth.Rather,we may think of evidence as producedunderconditions of con-

straint.Evidence may then be thoughtof as an effect of a discourse. In other

words,evidence is not necessarilya sign pointingto a prior realitybut the very

effect of power,in this case a colonizing project.

Peires's encounterwith the writtenrecord,oral narratives,and truth s impor-

tant for our purposesbecause it shows the foundationalcategory of evidence

uponwhich the disciplineof historyrests to be both contested and controversial.

His projectseeksto retrieve hevery categoryof evidence to countercolonialand

Xhosa explanations,and to suggest that the catastrophemay be understood n

terms of a rational response to objective conditions. As a result he largely

neglects the effects of evidence in relationto the emergenceof subjectivityor as

constitutiveof the colonizing project.

The failureto grapplewith the problemof evidence in ways that do not nec-

essarily hinge on an objectivist concept of history was seized upon by Helen

Bradford n an interrogation f the emergenceof gendered subjectivityand the

ways in which historiographical epresentationsof the Cattle-Killingepisode

perpetuatedrape myths and the marginalizationof a subalternwoman called

Nongqawuse.19Bradfordoffers us a readingof the colonial record thatsuggests

that Xhosa elders may have abusedNongqawuse-a possibility that has been

altogether gnored by historiansof the episode. The importanceof Bradford'sinterventiondoes not only rest with the new causalexplanationshe offers,norin

her contributiono a morerepresentative istorythat ncludesa subalternwoman

in a storydominatedby men as centralactors.Equally important,n my view, is

the questionthat Bradfordasks about how and why the story of Nongqawuse

17. JeffreyPeires, "Suicide or Genocide? Xhosa Perceptionsof the Nongqawuse Catastrophe,"

Radical HistoryReview 46 (1990), 50.

18. Jeffrey Peires, "The Late Great Plot: The Official Delusion Concerningthe Xhosa CattleKilling, 1856-57" History in Africa 12 (1985), 253-279.

19. HelenBradford,"Women,Genderand Colonialism:Rethinking he History of the British Cape

Colony and its FrontierZones, c. 1806-1870" JournalofAfrican History37 (1996), 351-370.



52 PREMESHLALU

came to be marginalandinconsequential n the firstplace.20AlthoughBradford

resolves that question by pointing to male bias in South African frontierhistori-

ography, wish to arguethat the questionof marginality ompels us to read evi-

dence as structured y specificrules thatboth constrainagency and produce thesubject as effect.2'It is the subalternor subject effect alluded to-but unfortu-

nately not developed-in Bradford's nterventionthat I wish to capture in the

subsequentreadingof colonial accountsof the killing of Hintsa.

III

In contrast to the brevity of contemporaryhistoriographicalaccounts of the

killing of Hintsa, the colonial record consists of more than 500 official docu-

ments of correspondenceand reportson conditionsin the easternCapeand200

pages of military court records pertainingto the death of Hintsa. Countless

adventurenovels, diaries, memoirs, autobiographies,and traveloguesmust be

added to this list. At first glance the size of the collection simply reaffirmsour

general sense of the bureaucraticapparatusupon which colonialism came to

depend.A closer reading,however,suggests thatthecolonial archive s designed

aroundseveral technologies of evidence-gatheringand surveillance.It relies onstrategiesof cartography,autopsy,22he building of alliances with the western

Xhosa, missionaries' and traders'accounts, travelers'reports,and information

gathered rom a scatteringof settlers on the frontier.

In these extensive-often arbitrary-networks of communication hat came to

be associatedwithcolonialrule,the name of Hintsa s oftenmentionedalongside

certainactive verbs such as "contrive," instigate," plunder,"nd "invade"which

emerge as stock phrases in dispatches from the eastern Cape frontier to the

administrative erve centersof colonial rule in Grahamstown,Cape Town, andLondon. These grammaticalorderingsexplain, to some extent, the subsequent

manner n whichHintsa'sdeath came to be described,understood,andjudgedin

colonial circles.In thecolonialcontext,these terms-which were reserved orthe

colonized-were neitherunusualnorsurprising.Theysuitedand indeedqualified

the objectnouns of colonialrule-also knownby the names"primitive," unciv-

20. In this regardsee also PatriciaHayes who has arguedthat "theempirical space-which is a

symptom,not a disease-is there for a reason, a reason that needs to be theorized."See "TheFamineof the Dams," n Namibia Under SouthAfricanRule:Mobility& Containment, 915-46, ed. Patricia

Hayes, Jeremy Silvester, MarionWallace, andWolframHartmannAthens, Ohio, 1998), 118.

21. There have been other nstances where apotentially mportant ritiqueof colonialism has been

forfeited through a treatmentof the colonial archiveas biased. In his critique of Terence Ranger's

study of theShona-Ndebeleuprisingof 1896,JulianCobbingcontestsRanger'sreadingof thearchive

and his treatmentof the Mwari and mhondoro cults as central to the rising. Cobbingdraws on the

charge of bias in seeking to refute the centralityof cults andemphasizingtheirconservatism.In this

way the secrecy and uncertaintyn colonial accounts areleft completelyunexplored n the interestsof

enabling a counter-narrative.ulianCobbing,"TheAbsent Priesthood:AnotherLook at theRhodesian

Risings of 1886-1887," Journal of AfricanHistory 18 (1977), 61-87.22. FrangoisHartog'sTheMirrorof Herodotus Berkeley, 1988) explores therelationshipbetween

observationand evidence at greater ength. Autopsy is based on observational echnologies but also

privileges a form of evidence and proof.



THE GRAMMAROF DOMINATIONAND THESUBJECTIONOFAGENCY 53

ilized,""savage," nd "Caffre."There was, however,a certainparadox n thecon-

figurationof the colonized as both capableof acts of intrigueand as objects of

colonial rule. If the first of these conferred the possibility of agency on the

Africans the second denied them any semblance of identity or agency of theirown. Such a paradoxmilitates, it seems, against the view of those who see in

colonial texts a deliberateattempt o denyAfricansubjectsthe capacityto act.23

It is strikingthat the deploymentof these verbsandnouns,however, was nei-

ther random nor arbitrary. n fact, active verbs and object nouns were always

organizedandperhapsorderedwithinan accepted system of reportagecommon

to colonial circuits of information and in relationto specific events-like the

killing of Hintsa-which threatenedheentirecolonial psyche and its moralizing

andcivilizing claims.

Colonial officialsdidmorethan nvent a vocabulary hroughwhichto describe

the colonized as other. They also transformed hemselves, in every manner of

speaking, nto victims of "savage"violence by surrenderingheir positionas pri-

maryreferent.Thus, GovernorD'Urban wrote in one of his dispatchesof mis-

sionary reportsof the Xhosa in which the latter were representedas "wolves

(which in truththey resemblevery much) which, if they be caught young, may

be brought o an appearanceof tameness, but which invariably hrowit off, andappear n all theirnative fiercenessof the woods, as soon as the temptationof

blood andravage,which never fail to elicit their natural erocity, presentsitself

to their instinctive thirstfor it."24 f such statementswere clearly motivatedby

colonial racism, they may also be said to alludeto the way in which colonialists

presented hemselvesas victims rather hanperpetrators-and this in spite of all

theirattemptsatcivilizing theXhosa for whatD'Urbanthoughtto be "theirown

interestsandgratificationn the matter."25

The reversal whereby colonial officials representedthemselves as victimsrather than perpetratorswas achieved throughtwo key mechanisms. First, by

reversingthe orderof subject and object, the Xhosa (and Hintsa in particular)

were guaranteeda certainagency. Hintsa after all could not be presentedas a

threat-as an instigator-if he had been rendered ncapableof acting. Second,

the need to confer upon the colonized subject an agency without denying the

British the belief in their superiorityor the very justificationof colonial rule

23. Such paradoxesare by no means unique. Tejaswini Niranjana,Siting Translation:History,Poststructuralism nd the Colonial Context Berkeley, 1992), 3, arguesthat translation,paradoxical-

ly, also provides a place in "history" or the colonized.

24. Cape of Good Hope: CaffreWarand Death of Hintsa,Blue Book 279 of 1836 [HereafterCape

of Good Hope], Dispatchfrom D'Urban to Earlof Aberdeen,19 June 1835, 15.

25. William Beinarthas drawnattentionto a similar tendency in his "Political and Collective

Violence in SouthernAfricanHistoriography" ournalof SouthernAfricanStudies 18 (1992), 455-

486. For Beinart"colonialor white settlerthinkinghad an extraordinary apacityto invertcausation

for a whole range of social phenomenon[sic], including violence."The relationshipof "thought,"

"capacity," causation," nd "social phenomenon" s, however, n needof further xplanation.Wemay

haveto considernot only how thoughtperformed uch a mean feat butalso which conditions enabledthoughtto perform his inversion.This may allow us to assess "thought"'s elationship o "violence"

in slightly different terms. Thoughtand violence may be seen as mutually reinforcing operations

rather hanviewed withina logic of sequentiality.



54 PREMESHLALU

dependedon a repressive tactic of colonial domination in which assumptions

were transformednto facts: thattacticwas given the sophisticatedandsurrepti-

tious name of intelligence-gathering.

The collection of dispatchesandreportsthatmakeup the bulkof the archivepertainsto the communicationsbetween frontierand colonial headquartersn

Grahamstownand Cape Town; between colony and metropole;and between

traders,missionaries, colonial bureaucrats,and military officials situated in

Xhosaland and along the frontier.Official reportsgenerally relate to military

strategy, he positioningof Britishtroops,and the costs-both financialand in

terms of the loss of troops-of the sixth frontierwar.The lettersof missionaries

and tradersbased along the Kei Riverare mostly concerned with informingthe

colonial officialsof the movementsof the Xhosa alongthefrontier.Missionaries'

and traders' eportswere included asenclosuresto supportadministrative eports

and decisions, and were at times used to show that those settlers who lived

among the Xhosa demandedmore stringentmeasuresthan those undertakenby

the military. n his report o colonial officials in Britain,GovernorD'Urbancited

the greatercontroldemandedby the head of the Wesleyanmission in the Cape,

W. J. Shrewsbury,who had "lived among the Xhosa and was thereforeexperi-

enced in their characteras in colonial frontierhistory."26hrewsburyhadwrittenin January1835 that "all Africans should be registered-every man wearingon

his neck a thin plate of tin containing his name and the name of his chief-to

identify offendersand enable the British governmentto know the number and

strength of frontier tribes."27The claims of expertise and dominance were

premisedon a desire to know.Thecorrespondencewhichforms such a corecom-

ponentof the colonial archiveon the easternCape,however,may also be read in

terms of an inabilityto penetrate he veils of secrecy that so confoundedBritish

forces in theperiodof the wars of conquest n the Cape.In a letter from thetrad-er John Rowles on 17 December 1834, for example, we find suggestionsof the

limits of colonial knowledge.Rowles writes:

I can state, from myownknowledge,thatHintsa'schief councillorshavebeen, forthe last

six months,-that is to say,fromtheperiodwhen Hintsa went to theuppercountryon the

pretextof hunting-close communicationwith the frontierCaffers;-as soon as one of

themreturned,anotherwas despatchedand this intercoursewas continued.Those coun-

cillors remainedupwardof a monthbeforetheyreturned o Hintsa.I never knew thiskind

of intercourse o subsist before between Hintsa and the FrontierCaffers.When I askedthem whattheyhad beendoing amongthe FrontierTribes,theymade some trivialpretext,

such as they went to get assegais,or some cattle or to pay a visit.28

Notwithstanding hese limits, the colonial archive is organizedaroundthese

fragmentaryreportsthat came from informants ocated close to the centers of

Xhosa political power andfrom an expansiveadministrative ndmilitaryinfor-

mationeconomy.The traces of thediverseresourcesuponwhich colonialknowl-

26. Cape of Good Hope, D'Urban to Aberdeen,January1835, 20.

27. Ibid., Shrewsbury o D'Urban, January1835, 41.

28. Ibid., Rowles to D'Urban, 17 December 1834, 26-27.



THEGRAMMAROF DOMINATIONAND THESUBJECTIONOF AGENCY 55

edge was based may be gleaned from a reportfrom the governor,Sir Benjamin

D'Urban, to the Secretary of State on conditions in the Districts of the Cape

Colony on 19 March 1835. The reportset out to identify the allies and enemies

of the British among the Xhosa, a task that provedimmensely importantforBritish operations n the frontierzones. Toward he end of his report,he noted,

with a hint of concern, that the strongest among the chiefs, Hintsa, seemed

untrustworthy.n the reportD'Urbannoted:

Hintsa,hemostpowerful f themall(andwhose erritoryxtends rom hemouth f theKaieto its sources n the StrombergMountains, ndbetween t, eastwards, nd theBashee) has been playing a double game. He has received theplundered attle intohis ter-

ritory, ome of his peoplehave evenundoubtedlyoined the invaders, ndhis council

(hemraaden)aredecidedly hostile; buthe himself professes not to be so, and so far as Ican discover, n some communicationswhich I have had with him duringthe last month,

he is very desirous of holding off, to await the result of our firstmovements in advance,

andthento act as may best suit his policy at the moment.In this, he may go farther han

may be for his advantage;because, if he holds back from giving his essential assistance to

theother ribes n theoutset,he willweakenhem,andwhen heyaredisposed f, will beleftbyhimself o meetthe ulterior roceedings ponourpart,which, f we shallfind texpediento adopt hem, have ittledoubtwe shallhavediscoveredmplecauseuponhis,tojustifyouradoption.29

The report s a testamentof the extent andimportanceof the colonial informa-

tion economy. Judgingfrom the regularityof such reportsand the requestfor

detail,thereportsproved ndispensable o supporters f colonial rule who had the

opportunityo influence the colonial processat a distance.The suspicionof the

double game, however,came largelyfrom the reportsproducedby missionaries

such as Shrewbury nd traders uchas John Rowles. To considerthe implications

of thisuncertainty,et us look at a secondreport o theSecretaryof State,dated19

June1835,to gaugethe full consequencesof the colonial information conomy:

Itmaybe in itsproper lacehere o apprize ourLordshipf myhaving, searlyasthemonthof February,scertainedeyondall doubt hatHintsa thechief of thecountrybetween heKyeand heBashee)hadbeen, f not theoriginal ontriver nd nstigatorfthe combinationmong he chiefsof thesavage ribesn westernCaffrelandgainsthecolony, very early referredto and consultedby them therein;that he affordedthem his

countenanceand advice; received into his territory he plunderedherds and effects sent

thitherfrom the colony; permitted(if not directed) many of his own tribe to join in the

invasion;andthat, consequently, he border ribes in all theirmeasuresrelied on hissup-port,anduponthe ultimaterefuge of his countryin case of their failure.This certainty,

afterwards till moreamply confirmed,had rendered t obviously at once just and neces-

sarythatmy operationsshould embrace the countryof Hintsa as theirconcluding stage,

anddictatedhegeneral utline f theplanof themwhich gaveconfidentiallyothechiefof mystaff orhis informationndguidance,nd o which hadafterwardsoundt nec-essaryo add hepostscriptnconsequencef intelligencehenreceived f achangen themovementsf theborderribes.30

At firstglance, there is very little discrepancybetween the two reports.Both

point to the threatposed by Hintsaand to the possibilities open to the Britishif

29. Ibid., D'Urban to Secretaryof State, 19 March 1835, 10-11.

30. Ibid., D'Urban to Secretaryof State, 19 June 1835, 15-22.



56 PREMESHLALU

these were to materialize.However,one small, though enormously consequen-

tial, exceptionformy argument merges upona closerreading.This relatesto the

certaintywhich framesthe secondreport.If in the earlierreportHintsa'sactions

arepresented n terms of possibilities,in the laterreportwe learnthat Hintsahad

been guiltyof conspiringwithneighboringXhosa againstthe British"beyondall

reasonabledoubt,"and that there was a certainty hat the events shouldend with

the colonizationof Hintsa'scountry.Between the doubtandthecertainty,anoth-

er event would guarantee he Britishthe conclusionthatthey sought.Thatevent

was the killing of chief Hintsaon 12 May 1835.

Muchof the literature ealing with theincidentof Hintsa'sdeathseems to sug-

gest that it was the abilityof the Britishto remainastep

ahead of the chief that

resulted in the colonizationof the region of the Kei River.To achieve this, the

Britishhad to be fully awareandknowledgeableabout what was occurringalong

the Capefrontier.However, t was not the certaintiesguaranteedby the informa-

tioneconomy,but rather hatwhich was beyondcolonial horizonsof comprehen-

sion-the movements,moods, andpoliticalalliances thatwerebeing forgedout-

side the purviewof the colonial stateandits information-gatheringpparatus-

thatprompted he Britishto colonize the land of the Gcalekaand to kill Hintsa.

The unknowable-or, more appropriately,he unverifiable-colonial imagi-nary was not only expressed in the period precedingthe killing of Hintsa as

demonstratedby the firstreport,or in racially chargedclaims that likened the

Xhosa to "untamablewolves" readyto prey on colonial society as soon as the

opportunitypresented tself. If readextremely closely, the unknowablemay be

discerned from the very tone in which colonial officials such as D'Urban

described heeventin its aftermath s colonial officials set aboutto tell theirstory

of a treacherousHintsa who was responsiblefor his own downfall.

In D'Urban'sreportto LordAberdeenin June 1835, the governorset out to

explain the circumstancessurroundingHintsa's death. Hintsa, in this version,

entered hecampof D'Urbanon 30 April 1835 to sign a peace treaty n which he

agreedto a Britishdemandfor the "return" f 50,000 cattle and 1,000 horses in

exchangefor a cessation of hostilities.Upon signingthe treaty,Hintsaapparent-

ly urged D'Urban to be allowed to remain at the camp with his son Crieli

(Sarhili) instead of returningto his residence. Hintsa had offered himself as

hostage to ensure that the British received the cattle and horses, which they

demandedas partof the settlement.Initiallythis strangerequestwas treatedby

D'Urbanas a sign of goodwill butlater,he claims, he came to see that the move

was motivatedby the fact that Hintsa feared being accused of selling out the

Xhosa by forcingthemto surrenderhe cattle and horses. By being a hostage at

the camp,Hintsa could now claim to be a prisonerof the British forced to obey

his captors'orders.But Hintsa,it was suspected,was conductinga war against

the British and their allies (the Mfengu in particular) rom withinenemy lines.

This was the doublegame alludedto in earlierreports.Hintsa,claimed the gov-ernor,was directing he attacksof chiefs residingin the Amatolamountains,and

every message sent out in terms of the treatywas accompaniedby anothermes-




sage-it was assumed-instructing a line of attack or a tactic to bewildercolo-

nial forces as to the whereaboutsof the stock they sought. The messages that

were sent out to the Xhosa chiefs, HarrySmith would admityears later in his

autobiography,were always secretive.31 After five days, Hintsa himself asked tobe taken to his people accompaniedby Britishtroopsso that he could attempt o

convince them to surrender he remainingcattle. In this instance too Hintsa

proved tentative n notifying the British where he was leading them.It was dur-

ing thisjourney that Hintsa escaped and was subsequentlyshot in the head and

killed while attempting o hide along the bank of the NqabaraRiver.

Two instancesin the reportareworth quoting, which may help to sustain the

claim that an unverifiable olonial imaginaryplayed a crucial role in the killing

of Hintsa.The paragraphwhere the single referenceto May 15 is made-three

days after the shootingof Hintsa-states thatthe extension of the colonial bor-

der had become not merely expedientbut absolutelyand indispensablynecessary

and unavoidable.The statementreadsas follows:

Theonlymeasurehatcouldpromiseorepay heexpenses f thewar,which hecolonyhadbeenmostunwillinglyompelledowagepro aris etfocis, andplace a defensible bar-

rierbetweenheheart f thecolonyand hesavageribes f Central frica,provideecu-rity or thefuture, ndajust indemnificationorthepast.32

This claim was not unusual.It bearsall the characteristics f an expression of

colonialarrogancehatcould claimvictoryin the face of suchbrutishactsagainst

those it encounteredas obstacles to its expansion.But it was really in the elabo-

ration of thatplace between the heart of the colony and what is referredto as

"CentralAfrica" hat we encounteran anxiety producedby theunknownand the

danger hat was signaled by the failureto know.In theverynextparagrapho the

onejust cited, D'Urban claimed:

A briefreferenceo thepubliccorrespondencef the ColonialDepartmentiththesuc-cessivegovernorsf thecolony ortheyearspast, ndeed versince t hasbelongedo theBritishCrown and ts previous istory, s a colonyof Holland,s the same),willsufficeto show hat hemainandnsuperablempedimento itsgrowing rosperity,nd hesourceof its greatestmisfortunes,aveeverbeentheinsecurityf its frontier, risingrom hecharacterof the countrythroughwhich the advancingboundary ine has been successful-

ly traced;of this the two last extensionsto the Fish Riverin 1812, and the Keishkamma

and Chumie n 1819,are remarkable nd incontrovertiblenstances.Both of these lines are

involved in tangled ungles, imperviouswoody ravines,and in fact madeby nature or thepreparatoryurkingplace of the savage,before he springs uponhis prey.33

Grapplingwith the insecuritiesof the frontiernecessitated he successful trac-

ing of the boundary ine-that is a literalcartographicmarkingout of a territory

that had been annexed.Cartographic laims, however,did not in and of them-

selves producethe desiredsecurities.34n February1835, D'Urban informedthe

31. HarrySmith, TheAutobiography f Harry Smith (London, 1903), 40.

32. Cape of GoodHope, D'Urban to Aberdeen,19 June 1835, 19.33. Ibid.

34. An earlierexpedition by Britishforces against the Ngwane in 1828 led colonial forces across

the Kei Riverto Mbolompo,south of the MthathaRiverandthe Mpondo chieftaincy.It did not lead



58 PREMESHLALU

colonialsecretary hat eventhoughtheKeishkammawas mappedas belonging to

Britain after the war of 1819, "Enno (sic), Bothman (possibly Bhotomane) and

Dushanie's (sic)" people had concentrated orces in the strongand impervious

country.35 'Urbansuspectedthat they had concealedthemselves there awaitingthe advanceof Britishtroopsto trapthe troops "forthe purposes of furtherrav-

ages." Each markingor tracing of annexedland by colonial officials, therefore,

demanded urtherannexationand cautioned he supposeddangers eft in its wake.

The extension of the line to the Fish River, for example, also pointed to the

Keishkamma nd Chumie(or Tyhume).In 1835 it pointedtoward he Kei River.

Giventhat"allmannerof danger urked n those unknownspaces," heimportance

of plotting-of extendingthe traced ine-was the only guaranteeof security.

The unknowable, n the case of Hintsa,was not merelythatwhich lay beyond

the colonial gaze. Since Hintsahadlocated himself within the Britishcamp after

30 April 1835 anddirectedaffairswithTyalie (Tyhali)andMaqoma rombehind

enemy lines, colonial officials increasingly doubted the reliabilityof theirintel-

ligence work.While they suspectedthatHintsa was organizingan attackagainst

theBritish, theywere unable to decipherthe messages-conveyed eitherin code

or in secrecy accordingto D'Urban-that Hintsa had dispatchedto the outer

reaches of the frontier.Hintsa was capable of threatening he colonial projectfromboth within andbeyond colonial spheresof controlor surveillance.The sen-

timent of doubtexpressedin the firstreportthat D'Urban sent to the Colonial

Secretarywas thereforeresolvedthroughan act of violence in which those who

threatenedheextension of a line on a map and the securitiesthatattended o that

cartographic racticewere killedand mutilated.Hintsa'sdeath, n much the same

way, was necessaryfor colonial expansionism.

If cartographic epresentationswere produced n relation to what I have sug-

gested were colonial insecuritiesand anxieties,how did these come to simulta-neously producea sense of security?Toanswerthisquestionwe mayhaveto con-

sider the way mappingworkedandwas organized n theCape.Accordingto J. S.

Berghand J.C.Visagie'scartographic uideof theCapefrontierzone, therewere

two mapsthat were centralto the unfoldingdrama n the region.36The firstwas

drawnby surveyor-generalC. C. Michell-listed in the Cape archiveas map

"M1/2666 MilitarySketch of the Route of the 1StDivision of the Army which

invaded Caffreland in 1835 . . . being sketched with accuracy by Chas. C.

to annexationof landbutrather o the captureof labor.Those capturedwere taken to Fort Beaufort,

according o Timothy Stapleton,and sold to white farmers.The captureresulted n the killing of 400

Ngwane who had hiddenin a nearbyforest and to the captureof 100 women and children. Colonial

officials claimedthattheexpeditionwas undertakenn the interestsof savingtheNgwanefromHintsa

and Vusani.Stapleton,however,suggests that it was an attempt o procure abor.Stapleton,Maqoma

(Johannesburg,1994), 56. See also Crais, Making of the Colonial Order, 98. Crais argues that the

colonial statejoined the Thembu, Mpondo,and Xhosa in the waragainst Ngwane and thatmanyof

the survivorswere rendereddestituterefugees or sourcesof servile labor.

35. Xhosa naming presented tself as a realdifficultyfor colonial officials. Reference to Dushaniein D'Urban's correspondence s often accompaniedby the corrective"orT'Sambie."

36. J. S. BerghandJ. C. Visagie, The Eastern Cape FrontierZone 1660-1980: A Cartographical

Guide or Historical Research(Durban,S.A. andLondon, 1985), 45-46.



THE GRAMMAROF DOMINATIONAND THESUBJECTIONOFAGENCY 59

Michell, Surveyor General,Provl. A. Q. M., c. 1835." The second, a sketch

map-"M 2/873 EasternProvinceof the Cape of Good Hope andKaffirland ..

with the movements [of troops]in March,April and May, 1835 in Kaffirland"-

according to Bergh and Visagie was clearly carried and used by GovernorD'Urbanto record andmarks nd place names as the invading orceprogressed.7

Maps,as ThongchaiWinichakulremindsus, anticipatea spatialrealityrather

than serve as a scientificabstraction f reality.38 nticipation,however,bearsthe

signatureof time so that maps preempt the configurationof an encountered

space.39Maps are thereforenot merely representativebut also preemptive.The

work performedby the map is thatof displacementand of negotiatingthe limits

of theuncertainandtheunknowable.Maps,we may argue,are constitutiveof the

will to power.

If D'Urban'smap constitutes heconditionsof theenhancementof power,then

Michell's map-which bears the marksof the surveyors'skill-fixes the condi-

tions of preservation. nD'Urban'smapwe havethereplayingof themythof the

empty land. Xhosa polities are isolated and are represented hrougha singular

symbolic inscription.No attempt s made to account for the expanseof Gcaleka,

Ngqika, Gqunukhwebe,or Ndlambe settlements,nor are the interconnections

reflected in any way. Instead we have a single symbol with the name Hintsainscribedbelow. WhereasD'Urban's survey depicts the corresponding ocations

and movementsof the first,second, third,andfourthdivisions of colonial troops,

Michell's mapcasts the territoryas secure and is moredetailed,representing he

extentof the various chieftainciesandthe areasof influence. If then D'Urban's

map anticipateda reality-casting its gaze intoa field of vision andopeningit up

so thatfrom out of thispossibilitiesmaybecome apparenthat will pointthe way

to an enhancementof power40-Michell's appropriatedhe anticipatedreality

and re-presentedt in terms of a scientific abstraction.Both power-enhancementandpower-preservationelong to the will to knowledge.

Through artographic ractices,knowledgeand colonial force coalesced to pro-

duce the securities or colonialofficials andthepossibilitiesfor the actual annex-

ation of land.Actual annexationaid to rest the insecurities hatcartographic rac-

tices failed to produce.Cartographyand colonization, it may be argued,were

mutuallyreinforcing echnologiesof displacement, onquest,andmurder.

Literature n colonialmappingunderscores hisargument.SimonRyanasserts

that in the Australiancase, new inscriptionsare first cartographicalbut also

metaphoricalof the transformation f the landby colonization-the cartograph-

ic inscriptionsare not simply reflections of realitybut organizeand license the

37. Ibid., 46.

38. ThongchaiWinichakul,SiamMapped (Honolulu, 1994), 130.

39. In thisrespectI have found the articleby Phil PorterandThomas Bassetton the elusive moun-

tainsof Kong very suggestive.CitingJ. B. Harley,PorterandBarrett uggestthatall maps stateanargu-

ment about the world and they are propositional n nature. See "Fromthe Best Authorities:TheMountainsof Kongin theCartographyf WestAfrica,"JournalofAfricanHistory32 (1991), 367-413.

40. Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, ransl.William Lovitt (New York,

1977), 80.



60 PREMESHLALU

expropriationand exploitation of land.41 Similarly, Thongchai Winichakul's

study of Siam andthe mappingof the geo-body framesthe relationshipbetween

cartographyand conquest in terms that echo Ryan's central argumentand that

being developedin this paper:

Force definedthe space. Mapping vindicated it. Withoutmilitary force, mapping alone

was inadequate o claim a legitimate space. But a map always substantiated he legitima-

tion of the militarypresence. Mapping and military became a single set of mutually re-

inforcing technologyto exercise power over space.42

An understanding f the effects of cartographicnscriptions s crucial to our

understandingf theconceptof thefrontier n SouthAfrica. Thefrontierwas also

a conceptualor imaginaryformationpremised on the rules of an informationeconomy, cartography, olonial myth models, and colonial anxiety which had

devastatingpolitical consequences for Xhosa polities. As in Ryan's argument,

cartographyn the Cape licensed colonizationbecause it demarcatedcertainty

anduncertainty, ear and security,the familiarand the unfamiliar.The colonial

advanceproduced evidence inasmuch as it dependedon evidence to effect its

advanceagainstXhosapolities.Thefrontier, wish to suggest,is not to be under-

stood only as a place where social forces compete for claims to the land or

authority.Rather t represented conceptual imit,a mappedspace,theformationof whichhadfundamentalpoliticalandeconomicconsequencesfor those caught

in the way of its operation.

If, as JohnComaroffhaspointed out, therewas a clashof threemodelsof colo-

nialism in the specific instance of the missionary imagination-a state model

which emphasizedtrade and allianceswith nativechiefs, the settlercolonialism

of the Boers which converted ndependentchiefdoms into servile labor,and the

civilizing colonialism of the missionaries-then perhaps t could be arguedthat

these competingstrandscame together n theproductionof evidence thatwas so

central o the annexationof landandso crucial to conceal that whichwas incom-

prehensible.43nsofar as each of these models contributed o knowledge of the

Xhosa, and since they were each markedby discrepant nterests,the evidence

was always partial f not contingent.

The dominantconceptof evidencethatsuggests itself in explaining the events

leading upto the deathof Hintsa s what we maycall legitimation hroughknow-

ing. Suchknowingis premisedon a wide-rangingset of techniquesfromintelli-gence-gatheringto cartographyto autopsy. Each of these technologies also

proves inadequate n representing ts object, which then establishes the limit to

what is knowable.That which is unknowablemust be confrontedwith an act of

aggression.Theunknowablealwayscarries hepotentialof returningo haunt he

securities establishedby neat lines on a map.Hintsa had shown how permeable

41. Simon Ryan, "Inscribing he Emptiness:Cartography,Exploration and the Constructionof

Australia," n De-scribing Empire:Post-colonialismand Textuality, d. ChrisTiffin andAlan Lawson

(Londonand New York, 1994), 127.42. Winichakul,Siam Mapped, 126.

43. John Comaroff,"Imagesof Empire, Contests of Conscience:Models of Colonial Domination

in South Africa," n Tensionsof Empire,ed. Anne Stoler andFred Cooper (Berkeley, 1997), 179-181.



THE GRAMMAROF DOMINATIONAND THESUBJECTIONOF AGENCY 61

those cartographic ecurities were, and in demonstrating he provisionalityof

colonial evidence he had to be destroyed. In ascribing motives for conquest,

especially explanationsderived from the suggestions of studies of the political

economy of conquest, we would benefit from consideringthis overlapof evi-dence andcolonization.

-IV

The descriptionof the events leadingup to the killing of Hintsaprofoundly haped

and foretold the ways in which the actions of Britishsoldiers were justified in

colonial circles. Such justificationproved importantn providingboth the moral

high ground that colonialism claimed for itself and the basis for a response to

accusationsvoiced by humanitarian roupsin the colonies and the metropole.44

On 15 July 1836, less than one year afterthe killing of Hintsa, D'Urban institut-

ed a military court of inquiry to investigate and reportupon the circumstances

immediatelyprecedingand followingthedeathof Hintsa,especiallyin lightof the

chargethathe hadbeen shot while beggingfor his life and the accusation hatthe

dead chief's body hadbeen mutilatedafterbeing shot.The militarycourtestab-

lished by colonial officials was a responseto public debatethatraged n thepages

of theSouthAfrican CommercialAdvertiserandThe Grahamstown ournal-and

keenly followed by humanitarian ampaignersn the metropole-on the question

of the mutilationof Hintsa's body. The inquiry institutedby D'Urban differed

from a regularcriminalcourt since the formerwas solely aimed at verificationor

refutationof claims aboutmutilationandnot at establishingguilt or innocence.45

Verificationand refutation, wish to suggest, are formsof evidence thatdiffer

from earlierconceptsof knowing.If knowing entailspiecing togetherheteroge-

neous technologies throughwhich informationwas filtered n partialways, veri-fication andrefutationdemand an exactitude n which the largercontext is tem-

porarily suspended.This differenceis noticeablein both the kinds of questions

thatwereposed by thecommissionersand the immediacywith which theycame

to perceivethe event.Thus,for example,theentire record s framedby questions

such as: "Whatspace and time elapsed between the shot that killed Hintsaand

your meetingthe Hottentots?"; Was he time so short as to lead you to suppose

that the Hottentots were presentwhen the shot was fired that killed Hintsa?";

"Whomdid you see on the spot when you came up to the body of Hintsa?";"In

what partof the body did he receive his mortalwound?";"Did you think the

brainsyou saw was the consequenceof the gun-shotwound?";and so forth.

In his study of the records of the militarycourtof inquiry,Pretoriouswarns

against too easy an acceptance of the explanation offered. According to

Pretorious, t is unfortunatelydifficultto establishexactly what happenedafter

Hintsa arrived n the Britishcamp, becauseof the lack of disinterestedevidence.

Pretoriousclaims:

44. For a discussion of these tensionsof empire see Timothy Keegan, Colonial SouthAfrica and

the Origins of theRacial Order (CapeTown, 1996).

45. Jay Naidoo, TrackingDown Historical Myths(Johannesburg, 989).



62 PREMESHLALU

The official accounts-those of HarrySmith and D'Urban-were written only after the

chief's death, and so were the accounts of other eyewitnesses. Not much importance

should be attached o the depositions of chiefs and otherpersons collected by Smith after

Glenelg had censured the D'Urban-Smithsettlement.The whites among these persons,

such as the Wesleyan missionaries, were all friends of D'Urban and Smith, while the

Xhosa, such as Tyali and Maqoma, could have madetheir depositions underpressureor

by means of the question-and-answermethod, have been made to say whatever Smith

wanted. All this evidence had the purpose of proving in retrospectcertain things about

Hintsa and must thereforebe treatedwith utmost care.46

Thereis good reason to acknowledgeand to acceptthis caveat.The possibili-

ty of extensive British annexation hat followed the death of Hintsa, or the strong

chance that various testimonieswere

solicited under pressure, may have influ-enced claims made at the commission. Tyalie, one of Hintsa's closest allies,

claimed thathis peoplewere never so happysince becoming British subjectsand

that Smith was their savior and "father."47uch statements rom a sworn enemy

of the British must cautionagainsttoo readyan acceptanceof the testimony.

Therecuperation f a storyin whichagentiarypossibilities maybe assignedto

Hintsa s, however,constrainedby theextensive way in which our encounterwith

the event is bound to confrontcolonial frames of intelligibility.These frames are

significant n identifyingthe limits of a historythatseeks to ascribea place in thestory for those formerlyexcluded or those who were victims of colonization.

Pretorious,however, gnoresthe strategies hroughwhich these alternativepossi-

bilities are excluded.If evidence,as Arnold Davidsonhas suggestedin reference

to CarloGinzburg's nterventions n this regard, s mediatedby codes, then we

need to "enter he codes of evidence" n orderto gaugehow they come to privi-

lege certainclaimsagainstothers.48 hepointof "entering he codes of evidence"

is not anattemptsimplyto detect interestsandbias,but rather o explorethe dis-

tributionof techniques hatproducea facticitythat is the foundationof evidence

in service of a claim. At best, Pretoriousoffers us a first-orderreadingof the

court recordwhich situatesthe text within a largerculturalandpolitical context,

the extraneousconditions which have accompanied he text's production.

A second-orderreading requires us to focus on the evidentiary strategies

implicitin thetext,whichprovidethe basis for verificationand refutation. nthis

respect, my suggestion is that we read the recordin a way where the story of

Hintsaproducedby colonial officials is also necessarilya storythatdependsonthe productionof the subalternas effect. In otherwords,the storyof Hintsa can

only be told by recourse to the marginalizationof those actantswho provided

materialfor a differentaccount of the killing of Hintsa. Here we must focus on

the narrativedistributionof Klaas (a member of the CorpGuides-a regiment

composed of soldiers co-opted from local chiefdoms), the place of Hintsa,and

46. JanGabrielPretorious,BritishHumanitarians Pretoria,1988), 179.

47. Evidence by Tyalie, MF 1253, SA Library,Minutesof Proceedingsof Courtof Inquiry,4 May1836, 58.

48. ArnoldDavidson, "Ginzburgand the Renewal of Historiography,"n Questions of Evidence:

Proof,Practice and Persuasionacross the Disciplines, ed. JamesChandler t al. (Chicago, 1994), 313.




those Xhosa along the banks of the NqabaraRiver who may have witnessed the

killing of Hintsa and the subsequentmutilationof his body.49

Two charges emerged as central to the court record. The first claimed that

Hintsa had been shot while asking to be taken prisoner, and the second thatHintsa had been mutilatedafter he had been shot. In his testimony to the com-

mission of inquiry,Dr.Ambrose George Campbellclaimed that the mutilationof

Hintsa's body was proverbialandspoken generallyin Grahamstown s a trophy

of some consequence.50 There appeared upon the church-door, claimed

Campbell,a numberof lines of poetry, dolizing Southey (the soldierresponsible

for shooting Hintsa)as the saviorof mankind;andpartof Hintsa'sbody,whether

his ears or his beard,was shownaroundGrahamstown s a markof achievement.

Klaas,who was namedby Campbellas one of his informants,proclaimed hat

he was close enough to the actualshootingto have heardthe chief cry out "taru

amapecati"-a cryformercy-before a second and fatal shot was fired.Klaasalso

noted that Southey pursuedHintsa down the banks of the river andthat he was

accompaniedby two membersof theCapeMountedRifles calledWindfogelJulie

and Nicholaas Africa (identified n the records as Hottentots).After the shooting

had taken place, Klaas (who is introducedas a Xhosa speaker)met Julie and

Africa who inquired about the meaningof "taru"-a claim that confirmedthatthey had heard the chief's plea for mercy and thatGeorge Southey's failure to

understandt provedfateful.Finally, Klaas pointedout that Hintsa's brain was

exposed by the gunshotwound but thathe could not tell for sure if the body had

been mutilated-perhapsbecausehe did not remainwith thebody for any signif-

icantlengthof time.Rather,he claim thatHintsawasmutilated merged romthe

testimonyof Julie andAfrica-and laterDr.Laingof the75th Regiment-who had

heardthat Southeycut off the ear as trophyand as proofof havingkilled Hintsa.

A crucial mechanism used by the courtof inquiryto vindicatethe actionsofSouthey (and Colonel Smith under whose commandthe operationwas carried

out),and to discredit he testimonyof Campbell,Klaas, Julie, andAfrica,was to

emphasizethe importanceof witnessing. Thus, in questioningJulie andAfrica,

proximityto the actualshootingwas emphasizedover claims made on the basis

of that which was heard.Witnessing-or autopsy-in this respect conveniently

pointsto a moreacceptedandpreferredorm of evidence. Klaas'stestimonywas

thus discreditedbecausehe was not a witness to the event:

COMMISSIONER:idyouknowwhetherHintsa adattemptedo resisthispursuersn

anymanner?KLAAS:He threw nassegai.COMMISSIONER:When did he throw the assegai?

KLAAS: I only heardthat he had thrownas assegai at Colonel Smith.

COMMISSIONER:idyousee Hintsa scape?KLAAS: I was not nearenoughto see Hintsarunning.

49. I am currentlyexploring the ways in which Nomsa and Sarhiliare invokedin the record assigns of intrigue.

50. Evidence by Campbell,MF 1253, SA Library,Minutesof Proceedingsof Courtof Inquiry,29

August 1836, 1-2.



64 PREMESHLALU

COMMISSIONER:f you were so far off as not to know who were pursuinghim, how

did you know that it was Mr. Southey who shot him?

KLAAS: I did not see him, I only heard so.51

Klaas's testimony, as it appears n the process of archival rearrangement,s

importantbecause it frames the rest of the questioning of the commissioners. It

might be argued hat while the outcome was not surprising, he methodby which

it was achieved s important, specially since it dependedon the marginalization

of testimony that may have been crucial to an alternativenarrativization f the

event. In this respect it was not coincidentalthat the testimony of Klaas is placed

at the beginningof the record. The entirerecordhinged on discreditingclaims

based on what was heardand upon privilegingthat which was actually seen.52

Autopsy helped to refute what may have been heard andcame to represent he

only basis forverification. n this sense Klaas is renderedmarginal o theunfold-

ing commission of inquiry. However,all the commission's questions sought to

prioritize hat which was seen over thatwhich was heard.In this respect Klaas's

testimony-based as it was on what was heard-guided the questions of the

commissionas a whole.

Autopsy,in the end, proved insufficientto establishthe colonial charge that

Hintsa was responsible for his own death. First, the charge that Hintsa wasinvolved in a conspiracy could not be proven throughan autopsy. Second, the

constantreferenceto the Xhosa who followed events fromthe oppositebanks of

the rivermay have producedan alternativeversion of the event thatundermined

colonial claims. Underthese conditions t becamenecessaryto provethat Hintsa

was plotting againstthe British while claimingto be at theirservice.

Verification,t seems, could not do withoutjustification.The threat hat colo-

nial officials speculatedaboutin the period preceding Hintsa's killing emerged

as an uncontested actwhich was basedon the testimonyof chiefs (bothHintsa's

allies andthoseco-opted by theBritish),missionaries,andtraders.Followingthe

testimoniesof Campbell, Klaas, Julie, Africa, and HarrySmith (who provided

the colonialjustification or the killing of Hintsa),the courtrecordre-introduces

more thanone hundredpages of lettersfrom traders,missionaries,andmilitary

functionarieswho had encountered he Xhosa east of the Kei River before the

killing.Theletterby Rowles thathadsuggestedaninabilityto interprethe emer-

gence of contactbetweenthe Xhosa on the frontierandHintsa was now deployed

as ajustification or the shootingof Hintsa.Similarly,a letterdated12 February

1835 fromCaptainA. B. Strongto Smiththat raised concern over Hintsa's deci-

51. Evidence by Klaas, MF 1253. SA Library,Minutes of Proceedings of Courtof Inquiry,29

August 1836, 3.

52. Hartogmakes a similarclaiminMirrorof Herodotus,261. Citing Benveniste,Hartogclaims that

"if two men arein dispute [in litigation], one saying 'I saw for myself' and the othersaying 'I heard

for myself,' the one who says 'I saw for myself' is the one whom we mustbelieve."That ruleapplies

as much to otherIndo-Europeananguagesas it does to Greek.Theabove is not always the case accord-ing to Benveniste who cites Latinas an aberration.mportantor ourpurposeshereis Hartog'sclaim

thatthe juridicalsense of historis premisedon a definite connectionbetween seeing andknowledge.

This is similarto Hegel's sense of "originalhistory"discussed in his philosophy of history.




sion to move his people a shortdistancefrom the frontierwas interpretedn 1836

as a plot aimed at threatening the security of British settlers. Finally, John

Ayliff-a missionary based at Butterworth-who had earlier complained of

Hintsa's secret intentionswhich were unsettling he missionarystation,was readin the contextof the court of inquiry as evidence of a conspiracy.To support he

interpretation f this correspondence,the commission heard the testimony of

Xhosa chiefs who-as Pretorioushas suggested-were used to confirmHintsa's

guilt.Chief Eno (sic), a lesser chief in theCapewho hadsupportedHintsa'scam-

paign againstthe British, stated thatHintsa, Tyalie, and Maqomawere in con-

stant communication.53 his claim, which could have been read as an indicator

of the permeabilityof colonial boundaries,now served the generalcase of the

British who wished to establish the truthabouta conspiracy.The cumulativeeffect of these testimonies-especially thatgiven by colonial

sympathizers-was to shift responsibility unequivocallyto Hintsa through the

invocationof racist myth models frequentlyused to characterize olonized sub-

jects. In the case of the chief's testimony,however, t is possible to discern amid

the praisesandgratitude or colonial rule the extent and limits of colonial intel-

ligence-gatheringand knowledge.

We have alreadynoted thatHintsa'sactions and behavioralways bewildered

colonial officials. No amount of translatingof the movements of the Xhosa

throughreportsand dispatchesclarified he chief's position vis-a'-vis he expecta-

tions of the British. Similarly,Hintsa'sadvice to Tyalie and Maqoma, nforming

them of the movements of the British-what might be called a counter-intelli-

gence in the guise of surrender-hamperedcolonial attemptsat retrievingcattle

to finance the war. It was also a constant sourceof doubt aboutthe dangersthat

lurkedbeyond the securities hat colonial society hadmappedout for itself. Most

importantly,hough, he best indicatorof the limitsof colonialknowledgewas theinabilityto anticipateanotherstory.In spite of all the collection of evidence-

whetherthroughheterogeneous echniquesof information-gatheringr through

processesof verification ndrefutation-the fearthatcounternarrativesouldpos-

sibly emerge n the intersticesof theuncertainty f colonial knowledge compelled

thecommissionto summonXhosachiefs to declaretheirallegianceto the British

and to implicateHintsa n a conspiracyagainstthosewhomTyaliecalled "British

saviors."Outsideof these institutional anctions herewerealwaysotherstoriesto

be told. Those storieswould, unfortunately, earthe tracesof the massive colonialevidentiarybase producedso as to defuse the tensions of empire.They were nei-

therdiscrepantnorblurred; ather hey were woven in a limitless butgenerically

contradictoryway so thatthevery conceptof evidence was brought ntoquestion.

V

In 1996, Professor Shula Marks,the eminent social historianof SouthAfrica,

presented he Bindoff lecture at theUniversityof London.The subjectof the talk

53. Evidence by Eno, MF 1253, SA Library,Minutes of Proceedings of Courtof Inquiry,23 May

1836, 61.



66 PREMESHLALU

was the rewritingg of history in contemporarySouth Africa. Marks approached

the topic by discussing the recent retrievalof a skull-allegedly that of Hintsa-

by thehealer-diviner,Nicholas TilanaGcaleka. Gcaleka attributed is mission to

a visitation by ancestors n a dream;he concluded that "SouthAfrica would notexperiencepeace until the head is returned.The rampant iolence and corruption

that plagues the new democraticSouthAfrica is because the soul of Hintsa,shot

dead and allegedly beheaded by the British in February1835 at the end of the

Sixth FrontierWar 'is blowing all over the world with no place to settle."'54

Having failed to prove the skull's authenticityby way of forensic testing andthe

archivalrecord,Gcaleka had of course fallen victim to his own truth-game.He,

afterall, desired to be the agent seekingto fulfill the promiseof his own dream-

a case of the dreambeing conflatedwith the ego.

But all was not lost. Ina bid to interprethe quest for the skull and in lightof the

failure to prove the skull's authenticityonce discovered, Marks declaredthat

Gcalekawas a manof his time.55By this MarksmeantthatGcalekaservedas evi-

dence of an identitythat mediatesthe economic difficultiesaccompanyingunful-

filledpoliticalpromises n thepost-apartheideriod-the agentthatmediates,and

perhapsrepresents,a social reality.Now a double victim of his own truth-game,

Gcaleka was to be mobilized againstthe postmodernistsand postcolonialists-themselves agents supposedlyseekingto undermine he sacreddomains of disci-

plinaryhistory-as a signof thelegitimacyof what Markscalls materialist istory.

54. Shula Marks,"RewritingSouthAfricanHistory,"Bindoff Lecture,Universityof London (June

1996), 6. See also Eddie Koch, "Mandela, he Chiefand the King's Head,"WeeklyMail and Guardian

(February16-22, 1996); Eddie Koch, "Chief's Headto be Put to the Test,"WeeklyMail and Guardian

(March29-April 3, 1996).

55. The Makoni dignitaries,PhilemonZambe Makoni,F. C. Makoni, and J. C. Makoni, who went

to Britain n 1987 to retrieve he head of Chief ChingairaMakoni,were also seen as men of theirtime.According to TerenceRangerthey werepossibly motivatedby a succession dispute, by chiefly inter-

ests not wholly incongruentwith those encountered n the tragicomedyof colonial administrators

attempting o come to terms with "African radition."Ranger claims that their quest-and its appar-

ent congruencewith colonial attemptsto establish chiefly genealogies-vindicated his shift from

nationalisthistoryto a people's history;one culled from the rusty heads of poverty.Inhis recollection

of the visit to Oxford by the Makonirepresentatives,Rangerpoints out that they had with themoral

and otheresoteric evidenceand writtensources-including his Revolt in SouthernRhodesia, 1896-7:

A Stud)' n AfricanResistance(London, 1979). Expressingpolite astonishmentat not being told the

truthwhile in Makoni, Rangerwas rebuked orpursuing he lives of peasantsrather han those of the

chiefs.At this pointin the text Rangerabruptly,andperhapswith a hint of irritation, nds the account of

the meetingandhastily goes on to pointout that these were the least likely men in Makoni to see the

pointof a people's history.ForRanger the meetingis illustrativeof the preponderance f nationalist

themes. In this respect the study of peasant consciousness that he had subsequentlyundertaken

appeared prematureas the mythic forms of cultural nationalism that gave Revolt in Southern

Rhodesia its authority,persisted. The paradoxis not merely thematic as Ranger has us believe.

Equally crucial t seems is the implicit suggestionof the need to theorize the discrepancies hat mark

the times of history,discourse,andwriting.In this way the declarative tance takenby Rangercould

be substitutedwith an enabling critique.That such eminent scholars such as Ranger, Marks, and

White have writtenabout the controversiessurroundingbody partsand heads suggests that the mat-ter cannotsimply be treated as a site of nationalistmobilization.See Ranger, "ChingairaMakoni's

Head: Myth, History, and Colonial Experience,"Hans Wolff Memorial Lecture, African Studies

Program, ndianaUniversity,29 March1988.



THE GRAMMAR OFDOMINATIONAND THESUBJECTIONOF AGENCY 67

Amid the clamor of Xhosaelites declaringGcalekaa fraudand a charlatan as

Xoliliswe Sigcau had done) and the personal communicationsbetween Shula

Marks andJeff Peires (recallthe authorityconferreduponthe personalcommu-

nication in Peires's earlierreference), the possibility that Gcaleka's statementmight be readas enablingorpossibly critiqued n relation o the discourses, nsti-

tutions, and practicesthat sanction truth-claimsand which renderedGcalekaa

subjectof his own truth-game,was completelyovershadowed. nstead,the state-

ment and also the man who had become a sign of the times were interpreted

againstthe backdropof-rather thanagainstthe grainof-the colonial archive

and the expertise of the professional historian so as to illuminate prevailing

socioeconomicconditions.

To critiqueMarks's nterpretive eductionof the searchfor Hintsa's skull, we

may ask how Nicholas Gcalekabecame a sign of the times, and how the times

cameto be representedby Nicholas Gcaleka.6 Forsurelythe questionof materi-

alism-the interpretiveramethat Marksassignsto herself-begs a furtherques-

tion of materialization nd the ways in which the latter s conditionedby specif-

ic rules andfieldsof intelligibility.This line of inquirydemands hat we attend o

the social processwherebyagency is conflatedwith the agent-defined various-

ly as object,subject,ormediator-by way of a studyof the agencyentailed n anactivatingdynamic-institutions, practices,fields of intelligibility,and discours-

es of intellectuals.The introduction f the activatingdynamic nto a studyof his-

toryis an attemptat radicalizing he projectof historyso as to undercut he pro-

liferationof essentialist identity politics thatseeks to appropriatehe workper-

formedin termsof the recuperation f the marginalsubjectof history.In under-

cuttingidentity politics, the demandhere is to intensifyour effortsby producing

morehistory-histories of concepts;criticalhistoriesof historicalpractices;his-

tories thatinterrupthe discourseof capitalismandmulticulturalism; istories ofthe formationof objectsandsubjects,systemsof knowledge,andthe elaboration

of discourses.Inthisway thepossibilityarises of forcingidentitypolitics-which

relies so heavily on historyfor its legitimacy-into a space of self-referentiality

where it must confront ts limits and interestsas it strugglesstrategicallybutin a

scrupulouslyvisible way. In the wake of the ascendancyof identity politics, one

task might be to consider what possibilities-ethical and political-lie in the

alternative ndpotentiallyenabling practiceof historyas criticism.57

56. HereI mustanticipatea critiquesimilar to thatmadeby BenitaParryof GayatriSpivak,Abdul

Jan-Mohammed, nd Homi Bhabha, n which she claims that they areunable to listen to the voice of

the native. Spivakrespondsas follows: "WhenBenitaParry akes us to task for not being able to lis-

ten to the natives,or to let thenatives speak, she forgetsthatthe threeof us, postcolonials, are 'natives'

too." See "Poststructuralism,Marginality"n GayatriChakravortySpivak,Outside in the Teaching

Machine (NewYork, 1993), 59-60. In her controversial ssay, "Can he SubalternSpeak?,"Spivakcri-

tiquesFoucault and Deleuze for failing to advance a theoryof interests.But rather han opting for

recuperation,Spivak argues for developingwork on the constitutionof the Other as object and sub-

ject. FollowingDerrida, he argues hatthatproject s also concernedwiththe constitutionof Europe's

ethnocentrism.57. Althoughcouchedin different erms,I have found a recentarticleby B. Jewsiewickiand V. Y.

Mudimberatherreassuring n its call for pluralizingthe researchagenda of African history. See

"Africans'Memoriesand Contemporary istoryof Africa,"HistoryandTheory,Beiheft32 (1993), 1-11.



68 PREMESHLALU

VI. CONCLUSION

The challenge to historiansreadingthe colonial archive, it seems to me, is to

pointout the inconsistencies(whereit stutters n its articulation,as Guha so elo-quentlyputs it) in the story of colonialism andto markthese as the sites where

otherstoriesmayhavetaken place. To claim thatsubaltern onsciousness, voice,

oragency canbe retrieved hroughcolonial textsis to ignore the organizationand

representation f colonized subjects as a subordinatepropositionwithin primary

discourses. While colonial discourses are premised on a subordinate will-

Foucaultwould say that silence and marginalityareconstitutiveof a discourse-

that will is neither representativeof a subalterncollective consciousness nor

independentof the determinations f a colonial will. Wemightthen seek to retaina sense of the colonized as an unfathomablepoint of irreconcilability-what

Spivakcalls misfits of the text-in dominantframes of intelligibility.To claim

thatcolonial textsunwittinglypermita recuperation f the subalterns to declare

a premature ictory.It is to surrender he consciousnessor will of subaltern ub-

jects to the workingsof colonial domination.

We need to approach hat which is often mistakenlyperceivedof as subaltern

consciousnessin colonial recordsas aneffect of dominationrather hanas repre-

sentativeof the consciousness of theunderclasses.What we aretreated o in colo-

nial texts is not the presenceof the subalternbut the mechanics of Europe pro-

ducingitself as sovereign subjectthrough ts Other.One cannothope to retrieve

a silence(d) subject(ashas been suggested n somerecenthistoriography) y way

of the colonial archive.Readingagainstthe grain,to use PamScully's namingof

a tacticwherebythe colonial archive s minedfor subalternagency,58s perhaps

moreusefully deployedas a practiceof criticismrather han as anattempt o rep-

resent.As I suggestin this article, agencyhas alreadybeen organized n relationto a condition of domination.We may then read the colonial archive n terms of

a practiceof criticismwhich, accordingto RanajitGuha,starts with examining

the componentsof a discourse, the vehicle of all ideology, for the manner in

whichthesemighthave describedany particular igureof speech.59

Universityof the WesternCape

Bellville, SouthAfrica

58. PamelaScully, Liberating the Family?Gender and British Slave Emancipation n the Rural

WesternCape, South Africa, 1823-1853 (Cape Town, 1998). In the work of Terry Eagleton and

GayatriSpivakthe idea of reading againstthe grainassumes a differenttacticalimplication. Spivak

suggests thata readingagainst thegrain s enabledby momentsof transgressionn thetext. But trans-

gressionis not seen in termsof an invasion-a la White. Rather t is intrinsicto the very operationof

theLaw.Transgressionmay interrupt rbringa discourse to crisis, butit can neverreveala transcen-dentalsubject. GayatriSpivak,A Critiqueof PostcolonialReason: Toward History of the Vanishing

Present(Cambridge,Mass., 1999).

59. RanajitGuha, "TheProse of Counter-Insurgency,"n SubalternStudiesII (Delhi, 1983), 9.

lalu - grammar of domination

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