Publisher's Synopsis
A wryly humorous telling of the British colonialisation in South Africa, told from the point of view of a not-very-successful family.
Long before he became Emperor of the United States, Joshua Norton won his place in history as one of the 1820 Settlers, in the British colonialisation of the Cape Colony, in today's South Africa.
Many think the patron saint of Discordianism a myth, or his life absurdly exaggerated, but they are wrong. Reality is far stranger than fiction could ever be, and Joshua Norton is the absolute proof, a real-life Don Quixote formed in tragedy and triumph, scarred into a delusion of a better world by the violence of this one.
This volume covers Joshua's upbringing as an 1820 settler in the newly-formed Albany region, in what would become the Eastern Cape. It brings to life one of history's most turbulent periods, as Dutch, British, Xhosa, Khoi and Fingo all try to build a life on a land riven by constant war.
In his early life, Joshua Norton would:
Be an 1820 settler, intended as a meat shield against Xhosa retaliation for the destruction of their lands
Be One of ten children, half of whom would die before he left the colony
Move from living in London to a ship, farm doomed to failure, and a village that became a city of schools and churches
Live through the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Xhosa Wars
Be part of the earliest history of Judaism in the colony through his uncle, Benjamin Norden, who brought together the first Hebrew Congregation and built the first Synagogue in a colony defined by Anglican Church Ordinances
Have family go on the most legendary adventure in the history of the Cape Colony, the Great Trek
...and far more. Read on for a tale of heroes and villains, but mostly of people trying to survive where they can when all the odds are stacked against them and great political winds tear through their desperate lives.
The first volume of the definitive history of Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Told with with a wry dramatisation, it contains the most accurate and complete information on Joshua's early life in any book to date.
