Policing, Race, and the Formation of Nineteenth-Century British Colonial Natal

This book traces the creation, implementation, and evolution of the police institutions within British colonial Natal during ‘the formative period’ of the colony between 1845 and 1899. It examines how white and Black members of Natal’s colonial community formed their own systems of policing, creating structures of control that combined ideas from across multiple continents that illustrated the way imperial rule was not directed exclusively from the imperial metropole, but instead part of a complex mixing of indigenous and colonial ideals in the forging of colonial Natal. This influence had enormous ramifications for the police institutions in South Africa well into the twentieth century. Using numerous case studies involving the organization, actions, and influence of the police in Natal, this work provides examples of Black power and authority, prison escapes, violence by and against the constabulary, and recruitment and logistics within the colonial police. In the end, it places the history of KwaZulu-Natal centrally into the emergence of British imperial rule in South Africa in the nineteenth century.