Plaatje had taken a leading part in the organisation's campaign against the Act and had written extensively about it in the columns of his newspaper, Tsala ea Batho (Friend of the People). He must have conceived the plan to set out the case in book form well before he set off for England, and he began writing it on board the SS Norseman once it set sail from Cape Town in May. ‘I am compiling this little book on the Natives' Land Act and its operation,’ he wrote when on board ship, ‘which I hope to get through the press immediately after landing in England.’ He added that it kept him ‘busy typewriting in the dining room all forenoons’, while ‘the afternoons I spend on deck, making notes etc’.1
His book was written in the first instance in the form of an appeal to the British public. This was so because Plaatje and his colleagues were under no illusions that the colonial secretary Lord Harcourt was likely to disallow the Natives' Land Act, and that they had therefore to appeal to the British public for support. From the beginning, the book was conceived as an integral part of this campaign. It would be nearly two years, however, before it was published – and, at more than 350 pages, would not be the ‘little book’ he had in mind when working on it aboard the Norseman.
The struggle to publish
For several weeks after their fruitless meeting with Lord Harcourt in July 1914, the Congress delegates pursued their campaign of public meetings, urging the British public to put pressure on the imperial government to reconsider its responsibilities to South Africa. In August their plans were thrown into disarray by the outbreak of war. Back in South Africa the SANNC, meeting in Bloemfontein, recalled the delegates from England, believing that they could strengthen their claim to justice by a display of loyalty to the Empire in its hour of need. They had in any case run out of money. Dube had already returned home, and Mapikela, Msane and Rubusana were ready to do likewise.
Plaatje, however, was not. He wanted to stay on long enough to complete his book and to see it published; he had unfinished business relating to Barolong land rights that he wished to take up with the imperial government, and in the courts if need be; and he also wished to travel to America, hoping to raise funds to support his newspaper and several other ventures. So he refused to agree to the terms of a loan arranged by the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society to cover the cost of his fare back home, determined to remain in England until he had achieved his objective.2
Although he was desperately short of money, Plaatje somehow survived the next few months, encouraged by the friendly response to his cause from the British public. He found lodgings at 25 Carnarvon Road in Leyton, an east London suburb, where Native Life in South Africa would mostly be written. His landlady, Alice Timberlake, showed him great kindness and did not press him for the money he owed for board and lodging. He also enjoyed the active support of a group of friends who rallied around him, impressed by his dedication to his cause. They included William Cross, a leading member of the interdenominational Brotherhood movement, with whom he formed a lasting friendship, and a group of women with South African connections who lived in and around London: Georgiana Solomon, widow of the famous Cape statesman Saul Solomon; Sophie Colenso, daughter-in-law of the famous Bishop of Natal; and Alice Werner, a lecturer in African languages at King's College, London. All would play a key part in helping him eventually to publish Native Life in South Africa.
Despite suffering through the bitterly cold winter of 1914–1915, Plaatje made good progress with his book. He found congenial employment assisting Daniel Jones, reader in phonetics at University College, London, to carry out a phonetic analysis of Setswana, his native tongue, and he wrote a number of articles for Leo Weinthal, editor of the London-based African World. Weinthal also supported his application for a reading ticket to use the library of the British Museum. ‘I want some information with reference to a work on South Africa which I am about to produce,’ Plaatje explained to the librarian, who issued him with the ticket he needed. Access to the British Museum and its unparalleled collection would be vital to his enterprise.3
He had also to raise the funds to pay for the printing and publication of his book for it had not taken long to discover that no publisher would take it on without a substantial subsidy. Of the publishers he had approached by the beginning of November 1914, the well-known firm of Longman, Green & Co. was the most expensive, quoting him a price of £120 to print 1000 copies of the book, while Edward Hughes & Co., who had printed the deputation's pamphlet several months earlier, was the cheapest at £87. Both required a down payment of £50 before they would embark upon the work of typesetting.
In the end he reached agreement with the London firm of P S King & Son. They were publishers as well as printers so would be able to sell and market his book through the normal channels. They were a well-established, reputable company, founded in 1819, and made a speciality, so they said, of ‘Publications dealing with Economics, Social questions, Politics, Local Government’.4 Their offices were in Great Smith Street, adjacent to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, and their letterheads and publicity material invariably carried an image of Parliament as if to emphasise their closeness to government. They were not sufficiently confident of the sales potential of Plaatje's book to take it on without insisting on a subsidy, however, so Plaatje was left with the problem of raising the necessary funds – though it seems that P S King & Son required only £60 to print and publish 1000 copies of the book, cheaper than the other quotes he had obtained.
Even this was a huge challenge. In February 1915, with completion of his manuscript in sight, and encouraged by the positive responses of people to whom he had shown it, he appealed for help to the Barolong chief regent, Lekoko, in Mafeking (later Mafikeng, now Mahikeng). Plaatje himself was of Barolong origin, had lived in Mafeking between 1898 and 1910, and knew Lekoko well. He reminded the chief how the book, if only it could be published, would help the cause of the Barolong by drawing particular attention to their circumstances, and how it would be a matter of pride for the chief and his descendants if he, chief regent of the Barolong, made possible the publication of the first book to state the case of the African people of South Africa, and thereby expose the lies told about them by hostile white people.
Unfortunately his appeal was unsuccessful. Lekoko fell ill and then died without sending any money. By May 1915 Plaatje had proofs of his book from P S King & Son but they would not proceed without further payment. Georgiana Solomon tried to raise a loan but she too failed in her efforts. Then another of his friends, Alice Werner, offered to help, launching an appeal on his behalf. She explained the circumstances, emphasised the loyalty of black South Africans to the imperial government in the current conflict, and ended with the assertion that it was ‘of the greatest importance that [Louis] Botha should be supported in the just and generous native policy to which I believe him personally to be inclined, though many of his supporters make his position difficult in this regard, so I understand’. Such a perception of the South African prime minister was common enough in liberal circles. It soon led to serious complications, however, for a copy of her letter found its way into the hands of John Harris, organising secretary of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society. Knowing Plaatje's views and the likely thrust of his book, Harris thought the appeal amounted to an attempt to raise money under false pretences, and concluded (unjustifiably as it turned out) that he [Plaatje] must have deliberately misled Alice Werner as to its contents. Harris advised potential contributors against donating money towards the book's costs of publication, and took every opportunity to cast doubt upon Plaatje's character and integrity, suggesting that he had been living off funds collected specifically for the book's printing costs. Again, as Alice Werner was eventually able to demonstrate to him, this was entirely without foundation.
In John Harris Plaatje had a determined and devious enemy. The two men had not met since Plaatje had stormed