in this excellent edited volume, Fred Woods, Jay Buckley, and Hunter Hallows present the incredible autobiography of Eli Wiggill. Born in Gloucestershire, England, in 1810, Wiggill immigrated with his family in 1820 to South Africa as a colonist. For the next forty years, Wiggill traveled extensively throughout South Africa, working primarily as a wainwright. Amid this work, Wiggill started a family, became a Wesleyan preacher and missionary, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, migrated with most of his family to Zion, returned to South Africa, and then ventured back to Utah, where he died in 1884 as a high priest.While other editions of Wiggill's autobiography have been published, this new edition both remains more faithful to the original autobiography (with all its misspellings and quirks) and provides a wealth of information about the flora, fauna, culture, geography, politics, and history of South Africa in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Indeed, scholars and the reading public alike will find the footnotes immensely valuable. On more than one occasion, I found myself following links from the notes or trying to map out Wiggill's journey myself. The autobiography can be roughly divided into three sections corresponding to the three subheadings. After a brief preface by the editors, chapters 1–11 take us through Wiggill's initial settling in South Africa. Much time is spent recollecting cattle runs, learning his trade as a wainwright, and recounting conflicts. Chapters 12–22 focus on his work as a Wesleyan missionary and recount the Eighth Xhosa War in great detail. Finally, Chapters 23–37 explain how Wiggill came into contact with Latter-day Saint missionaries, his conversion, and his subsequent missionary work and travels as a Latter-day Saint.The first section introduces us to the surprisingly nomadic life of many British settlers. While Eli's brother Elijah did live a mostly settled life, Eli traveled around frequently, moving where work could be found or shifting to new settlements. For scholars of South African colonialism or settler colonialism in general, Eli's reflections on his life will prove helpful in their very mundanity. He tracks lost oxen, observes his surroundings (made legible to the reader by helpful footnotes), and remarks at length about the weather. Interspersed throughout are his encounters with slavery and conflict with Indigenous Africans. The brutal torturing of an enslaved child by a Dutch master was “a sight that I never can forget” (34). Despite this experience, Wiggill still expresses sorrow at how poorly the colonists were treated by the government when slavery was abolished. In more ways than one, Wiggill was a colonist through and through. As Wiggill introduces us to different characters, events, and locations, relevant pictures are helpfully included, bringing his words to life.The second section abruptly starts with Wiggill's appointment as a Wesleyan minister's assistant (60). While Wiggill must have been a Methodist beforehand, given that he named his firstborn son John Wesley Wiggill, next to nothing is mentioned by him about religion until this point. As a scholar of Wesleyan religion in the Atlantic world, I find this section tantalizing in its scraps of information. While Wiggill recounts farming to support his preaching in great detail, a fairly common occurrence, details of religious services are few and far between. The language Wiggill employs here aligns with recent work by historians of missions. He expresses a sincere desire to “preach to the heathens” and gets frustrated when administration gets in the way.1 His recollections of the Indigenous people he ministered to and his surroundings function as a form of “missionary intelligence,” enlightening late nineteenth-century readers on South Africa with self-proclaimed authority.2Readers of this review will be especially intrigued by Wiggill's extensive commentary on his conversion experience, recounted mostly in chapter 23. Wiggill's conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sparked persecution from many of his old Methodist friends, whom he realizes are “prejudiced and blind” to the truth (143). Shortly after converting in 1858, Wiggill was ordained an elder and spent the next three years preaching and proselytizing. This section details which pamphlets he relied on, where the initial outreach efforts occurred, and how a new church gets organized in a new location. After a few years, Wiggill and much of his family traveled to Salt Lake City, where he spent most of the next decade. While the travel narrative is rich in detail, Wiggill rushes through the time spent in Salt Lake City until he leaves again in 1869 for South Africa. His second stint in South Africa, before returning to Salt Lake City, contains many of his more general recollections about wagon making, Indigenous life, and his family. Wiggill returned to Salt Lake City in 1873 and died in 1884.The strengths and weaknesses of this edited autobiography are related. The footnotes and bracketed in-text corrections provide necessary commentary and context on Wiggill's life and observations. But the reader is sometimes left confused by which words are explained or defined and when. A couple of footnotes explain Wiggill's use of derogatory terminology to refer to South African Indigenous peoples and denounce it while explaining that “it appears that Eli did not mean for it to be offensive” (11n1; 31n5). A subsequent footnote, however, chooses an explanatory quote that replicates the denounced derogatory language (71n17). Yet, the research that went into the footnotes, including other journals, letters from and to Wiggill, and more is admirable, effective, and interesting.Overall, the strength of this text for teachers and researchers is in how the whole story coheres around life as a settler. Ironically, it was a profoundly unsettled experience; Wiggill and his immediate family settled dozens of times through South Africa and Utah. Scholars of the Atlantic world will appreciate how many different routes are discussed, showing how deeply interconnected this world was. In fact, given how much Wiggill traveled, a map of his journey and the relevant locations would have been invaluable. Relatedly, while Wiggill did serve as a missionary, his account pays far more attention to his work as a wainwright. The trade made his reputation and enabled him to pursue mission work. Multiple chapters describe how to make a good wagon, and he clearly took great pride in his work. It is fitting that the final word of the autobiography by his hand should be “wagon” (255).
Ethan Goodnight (Thu,) studied this question.