In 1913, three years after the Act of Union created the modern state of South Africa, H.P. Holt published a history of the police in colonial Natal. The book itself is typical early twentieth-century white South African historical writing, emphasizing the actions of the Natal Police and celebrating the bravery and courage of the men protecting the colony’s cities and frontiers for decades. Chapters dedicated to the Anglo-Zulu War, the South African War, and the Bambatha Rebellion fill the pages of this lengthy volume. Even the preface, authored by Major-General Sir John George Dartnell, K.C.B. and former commandant of the Natal Mounted Police (NMP), is filled with stories of the early recruits to this police force, including Dartnell fondly remembering this initial group as ‘a very fine, hardy lot of men, ready to go anywhere and do anything, and very willing and cheerful if a little troublesome in town; but in the country, away from temptation, they were excellent men, who grumbles occasionally, of course, but were more inclined to laugh at and make light of discomfort and hardship.’ Yet, the men Dartnell spoke of with fond memories were men like him: white, European, and facilitators of a colonial system that ruled millions of Black people across the continent for generations. Much of Holt’s account is devoted to these men.