to whom they paid rent. Until the 1870S the white landowners were mak-
ing more money from "Kaffir farming" than from their efforts to produce
agricultural or pastoral products for the market. The colonial state, too,
exacted a substantial revenue from the Africans in the form of direct taxa-
tion and customs duties on imported commodities that they consumed.
The official responsible for controlling the African population WasThe-
ophilus Shepstone. Brought up in the eastern frontier region of the Cape
Colony as the son of a Wesleyan missionary, he spoke the Nguni languages
well. A convinced and skillful paternalist,
he improvised a method of
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