14 Peter Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress 1912–1952 (London: Hurst, 1970), esp. 49–52.
15 Monica Wilson and Leonard Thompson, eds, The Oxford History of South Africa Vol II, South Africa 1870–1966 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 130 and 440.
16 Timothy J Keegan, Rural Transformations in Industrialising South Africa: The Southern Highveld to 1914 (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1986), 188.
17 Peter Delius and William Beinart, ‘The Historical Context and Legacy of the Natives' Land Act of 1913’, Journal of Southern African Studies 40/4 (2014), 667–688. The extent of African land purchase in the two decades after the Land Act was documented by Harvey M Feinberg and Andre Horn in ‘South African Territorial Segregation: New data on African farm purchases, 1913–1936’, Journal of African History 50/1 (2009), 41–60, and more recently in Harvey M Feinberg, Our Land, Our Life, Our Future: Black South African Challenges to Territorial Segregation, 1913–1946 (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2015).
18 Plaatje, Native Life, 151.
19 Op. cit., 20.
20 H I E Dhlomo, ‘An Appreciation’, in Umteteli wa Bantu, 25 June 1932.
21 T D Mweli Skota, ed., The African Yearly Register: Being an Illustrated National Biographical Dictionary (Who's Who) of Black Folks in Africa (Johannesburg: R L Esson & Co/The Orange Press, 1930), 245. The entry on Plaatje was probably written by Dhlomo who produced another profile on Plaatje, see H I E Dhlomo ‘Introducing some African Authors' in The Good Shepherd 12/21 (1938), 11–13.
22 S M Molema, The Bantu Past and Present (Edinburgh: W Green & Son, Limited, 1920); D D T Jabavu, The Black Problem: Papers and Addresses on Various Native Problems (Lovedale: The Book Department, 1921), 5; D D T Jabavu, The Influence of English on Bantu Literature (Alice: Lovedale Press, 1944), 6–7.
23 Z K Matthews, ‘The African National Congress’, Unpublished paper c.1952–53, B4.17, Z K Matthews Collection, University of South Africa, 3. In 2004 sociologist Bernard Magubane described Native Life in similar terms: ‘The brutality and injustice of the Land Act were memorialised in Sol Plaatje's book, Native Life in South Africa. Overnight, he wrote, African people became foreigners in their own country, and thousands of squatters were evicted from white farms.’ See Bernard Magubane, ‘Introduction: The Political Context’ in SADET, The Road to Democracy in South Africa (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2010), 23.
24 Mphahlele suggests that Peter Abrahams's Wild Conquest is a re-writing of Mhudi. See Es'kia Mphahlele, The African Image (London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1974), 213–214.
25 Mphahlele, African Image, 213.
26 Francis Meli, A History of the ANC: South Africa Belongs to Us (London: James Currey, 1989), 47–48. For similar sentiments expressed about S E K Mqhayi, see A C Jordan, Towards an African Literature: The Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 112–114.
27 See Bernard Magubane, The Political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1979), 82; ‘Resistance and Repression in the Bantustans' in SADET, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, 2 (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2006), 749; and ‘Race and Democratisation in South Africa’ in Macalester International, 9, After Apartheid: South Africa in the New Century, Fall 12–31 (2000), http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl. See also Ellen Kuzwayo, Call Me Woman (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1987), 20; Francis Meli, A History of the ANC, 41–42; Mzala (Jabulani Nxumalo), Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda (London: Zed Books, 1988), 23; and Don Ncube, Black Trade Unions in South Africa (Johannesburg: Skotaville, 1985).
28 Bernard Magubane, My Life and Times (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2010), 4.
29 Mothobi Mutloatse, ed., Reconstruction: 90 Years of Black Historical Literature (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1981). The volume also include Violet Plaatje's poem ‘What's in a Name (In Memory of Sol T Plaatje)’.
30 See the following editions of Staffrider: 2/2 (1979), 53 and 5/1 (1982), 12; and Sol T Plaatje, ‘Flight in Winter’, in Staffrider 5/2 (1982), 33–35.
31 Kuzwayo, Call Me Woman, 15. Kuzwayo recalls that her grandfather Jeremiah Makoloi Makgothi ‘worked closely with Sol T Plaatje’ and ‘[i]t is in this book that Grandfather is mentioned as an interpreter at the Dower Meeting held at Thaba 'Nchu racecourse on Friday, 12 September 1913’. See Kuzwayo, Call Me Woman, 61 and Plaatje, Native Life, 112.
32 Njabulo S Ndebele, ‘Noma Award Acceptance Speech’, in Staffrider 6/2 (1985), 39.
33 Ibid.
34 Njabulo S Ndebele, Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture (Johannesburg: COSAW, 1991), 74. See also Hlonipha Mokoena, ‘The Black Interpreters and the Arch of History’, in Xolela Mangcu, ed., The Colour of Our Future: Does Race Matter in Post-apartheid South Africa? (Johannesburg: Wits University Press), 169–183.
35 Umteteli wa Bantu, 12 June 1937.
36 Jabavu, The Black Problem, 74–75.
37 H I E Dhlomo, ‘The Evolution of the Bantu II’, Umteteli wa Bantu, 21 November 1921.
38 For discussion of the treatment of B W Vilakazi at the University of the Witwatersrand, see Bhekizizwe Peterson, Monarch, Missionaries and African Intellectuals: African Theatre and the Unmaking of Colonial Marginality (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2000), 89; on Archie Mafeje at University of Cape Town, see Fred Hendricks, ‘The Archie Mafeje Affair: The University of Cape Town and Apartheid’, in African Studies 67/3 (2008); and Lungisile Ntsebeza, ‘The Mafeje Affair and the UCT Saga: Unfinished Business’, in Social Dynamics 40/2 (2014); on Malegapuru Makgoba, see M W Makgoba, Mokoko: The Makgoba Affair: A Reflection on Transformation (Johannesburg: Vivlia, 1997) and James M Statman and Amy E Ansell, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Makgoba Affair: A Case Study of Symbolic Politics’, in Politikon 27/2 (2000); on Mahmood Mamdani at UCT, see Mamdani, ‘Is African Studies at UCT a New Home for Bantu Education’, http://cc.ukzn.ac.za/files/mamadani.pdf, accessed 20 January 2016.
39 Cherryl Walker, ‘Commemorating or Celebrating? Reflections on the Centenary of the Natives' Land Act of 1913’, Social Dynamics 39/2 (2013), 282–289.
40 Athambile Masola, ‘Native Life in South Africa’, Mail & Guardian, 26 August 2013, http://thoughtleader.co.za/athambilemasola/2013/08/26/native-life-in-south-africa/, accessed 1 March 2016.
41 Cited in Robyn Sassen, ‘The Human Face of Colonialism’, Mail & Guardian, 17 April 2015, http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-16-the-human-face-of-colonialism, accessed 1 March 2016.
42 For a retrospective highlighting the contribution of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century black South African leaders, see André Odendaal, The Founders: The Origins of the African National Congress and the Struggle for Democracy (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2012).
43 Mokoena, ‘The Black Interpreters and the Arch of History’ (2015), 169.
LOOKING BACK
Foreword to Ravan Press edition of Native Life in South Africa, 1982
Bessie Head
It is possible that no other legislation has so deeply affected the lives of black people in South Africa as the Natives' Land Act of 1913. It created overnight a floating landless proletariat whose labour could be used and manipulated at will, and ensured that ownership of the land had finally and securely passed into the hands of the ruling white race. On it rest pass laws, the migratory labour system, influx control and a thousand other evils which affect the lives of black people in South Africa today. The passing of the Natives' Land Act was devastating enough to evoke, for the first time, organised black protest of an intellectual kind. It stirred into existence the newly-founded South African Native National Congress (which later