After the AGM, members were riveted by the talk given by author Professor Nigel from the Department of History at UCT.
He has written about the impact of colonialism on the Khoisan societies of Southern Africa and the nature of early Dutch and British colonialism. At the meeting he spoke about his most recent book Murderers, Miscreant and Mutineers: Early Cape Characters. This is a series of historical narratives based on criminal cases found in the Cape archives. He discussed episodes explaining how these cases, drawn from the years 1700 to 1820, illuminate aspects of the social history of the Cape that are not accessible through other sources. In particular, he looked at issues related to sex and violence.