Charles Brownlee

[1] Born in 1821, the son of the linguist, botanist and missionary, John Brownlee, who founded King William's Town in 1825.

Although Charles soon returned to the Cape, his brother was in Zululand during the Piet Retief Delegation massacre and was tasked with untangling the bodies from the still-living horses.

[5] In 1872, the Cape attained Responsible Government under the leadership of its first Prime Minister, John Molteno, and direct British rule ended.

Less interested in annexing or settling Xhosa land than the Colonial Office, the new Cape government was more concerned with ways to secure and stabilise the frontier, so that it could concentrate on internal development.

A system of communication and understanding with these tribal authorities, who controlled much of the land on - and beyond - the Cape's eastern frontier, was thus a primary concern of the new government.

He also explicitly wanted a minister in his cabinet who was openly sympathetic to the Xhosa, understood their main issues and spoke their language.

The new government held back white expansion into Xhosa lands, while offering equal political rights to Black Africans who were citizens of the Cape.

Liberals, such as the great Saul Solomon, held sway in the Cape Town parliament, and the frontier quietened and stabilised.