This article uses a charity appeal made on behalf of one old white man in South Africa in 1912 as an entry into considering the importance of age for social histories of empire – and for settler colonialism in particular. John Lee, aged eighty-five when he made his appeal, demanded the restitution of a piece of land he claimed to have been given by an African king and, to gain public sympathy, had his life story published in the local press. The reception of that story by Lee’s contemporaries shows how the heroic imperial narratives of the nineteenth century were becoming less certain once the violent suppression of African peoples had been achieved and new colonial states established. Yet neither could Lee’s story be entirely discounted, not least because there were thousands of other ‘aging pioneers’ scattered across South Africa in the early twentieth century – each with his own account of the high imperial frontier. Though their memories often appeared exaggerated or deluded, the problem of these men’s credibility was made worse by the problem of their care. Lacking family members able to look after them – who might also validate the stories that they told – the problem of old age thus becomes an exploration into the consequences of heroic masculinity and the apparent invulnerability of the imperial pioneer.

中文翻译：

---

没有老人家的国家：约翰·李的生活和老年先驱者的问题

本文使用了1912年代表南非的一位白人老人发出的慈善呼吁，作为考虑年龄对于帝国的社会历史（尤其是殖民地殖民主义）重要性的开始。约翰·李（John Lee）八十五岁时，他呼吁上诉，要求归还他自称是非洲国王的一块土地，为了获得公众的同情，他的生平故事在当地媒体上发表。李的同时代人对这个故事的接受表明，一旦实现了对非洲人民的暴力镇压并建立了新的殖民国家，十九世纪的英雄式帝国叙事就变得越来越不确定。然而，李的故事也不能完全轻描淡写，尤其重要的是，在20世纪初期，成千上万的“衰老先驱”散布在南非各地-每个人都有自己对高帝国主义疆界的描述。尽管他们的记忆常常显得夸张或虚幻，但由于他们的照顾问题，这些人的信誉问题变得更加严重。因此，缺乏能够照顾他们的家庭成员（他们也可能验证他们所讲的故事），使得老年问题成为对英雄气概的阳刚之气和帝国先驱者显然无敌的后果的探索。