The Scots have made a distinctive contribution to South Africa's history. As in North America and Australasia, they constituted an important element in the patterns of white settlement. They were already present in the area of Dutch East Company rule and, after the first British occupation of the Cape in 1795, their numbers rose dramatically. They were exceptionally active in areas such as exploration, botanical and scientific endeavour, military campaigns, the emergence of Christian missions, Western education, intellectual institutions, the professions, as well as enterprise and technical developments, business, commerce and journalism. This title is the first full-length study of their role from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. It highlights the interaction of Scots with African peoples, the manner in which missions and schools were credited with producing 'black Scotsmen' and the ways in which they pursued many distinctive policies. It also deals with the inter-weaving of issues of gender, class and race as well as with the means by which Scots clung to their ethnicity through founding various social and cultural societies. The title offers a major contribution to both Scottish and South African history and in the process illuminates a significant field of the Scottish diaspora that has so far received little attention.