Abner Nyamende

The Life and Works of Isaac Williams Wauchope (Citashe or Dyoba): a Product of Sincere and Honest Missionary School Education Abner Nyamende

Isaac Williams Wauchope (1852-1917), also known as Citashe and Dyoba, is a Xhosa writer and public figure who lived in South Africa before the apartheid era. He represents a new class of elite Xhosas and the first generation of school people and born Christians. This book provides us with a window into the lives and activities of the early Xhosa school people and how they prevailed in the South African society before the onslaught of apartheid. Generally, we only know about the struggles of the subjugated black people in South Africa during the aparheid era, trying to restore their lost glory. There are few published works that reveal for us the status and glory of black people in South Africa before apartheid. Indeed through Wauchope we see free, highly respectable and independent intellectuals who competed well with their white counterparts and existed on the same social level as the latter. This book reveals the writings and intellectual debates of the new Xhosa school elite of the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, the pioneers of today's democratic South Africa.