Genesis of project

My first experience in Africa was in February of 2008. I undertook the trip to South Africa for personal reasons. One was that a great old friend of mine from graduate school, Heather Shafer, had married a Portuguese diplomat and they were living in Maputo, Mozambique. The other reason is that my grandfather, Thomas McNay, was a private in the British Army's regiment of the Lancashire Fusiliers and served in the Anglo-Boer War, otherwise called the South African War, 1899-1902.

I never met my grandfather since he died in the 1930s. He and his wife, Bridget, had immigrated to Anaconda, Montana, in 1908, two years after he was discharged from the army. Above is a photo of the happy couple shortly before they immigrated from Wigan, England. While an unknown conflict to most Americans, I had heard about the war ever since I was young. Over the years, especially as I became a historian, I studied the conflict. While I am mainly a cold war historian, the blend of diplomatic, military, and international history involved in a study of the Boer War definitely dovetails with my interests.

On a trip the Britain's National Archvies to do some other research, I dug out Tom McNay's military record. With that in hand, I was able to visit some sites in South Africa where I know my grandfather was - for example, the Spion Kop battlefield and Venter's Spruit, the location of a clash between the Boers and the Brits where my grandfather was wounded.

This was such a great experience and South Africa such a fascinating place, that I contacted Kurt Olausen, director of UC's International Programs, when I returned. I suggested that a history course in South Africa could be a successful venture and he was very enthusiastic. So we began planning for the program.

The result of our plans was a program based at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, June 16-July 25. This blog is an effort to tell the story of that effort to investigate with a group of students the history and culture of South Africa.