Native Life in South Africa | Page 3

(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate

your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This etext was prepared by Alan R. Light ([email protected], formerly
[email protected], etc.). To assure a high quality text, the
original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared.

Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and
the Boer Rebellion By Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
[South African (ethnic Tswana) Editor, Author, Statesman.
1876?-1932.] First Secretary-General of the South African Native
National Congress (forerunner of the ANC), 1912-1917. Author of
"Mhudi", generally considered the first novel written by a black South
African.
[The two portraits are not available for this ASCII text. They are titled
"The Author." and "Mrs. S. T. Plaatje. Without whose loyal
co-operation this book would never have been written."]

[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED. Some
obvious errors have been corrected (see Notes).]

Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and
the Boer Rebellion
By Sol. T. Plaatje Editor of `Tsala ea Batho', Kimberley, S.A. Author
of `Sechuana Proverbs and their European Equivalents'
Fourth Edition

Foreword (Native Life in South Africa electronic text):

Sol Plaatje began work on `Native Life in South Africa' in 1914, while
on his way to Britain to plead with the Imperial Government against the
Natives' Land Act of 1913, as part of a deputation of the South African
Native National Congress. The book was intended as a means of
reaching the British public with the deputation's message.
The method seemed sound enough -- it was quite similar in form to the
successful deputation which had pleaded to keep Bechuanaland
(modern Botswana) under direct Imperial control in 1895. But
circumstances were different in 1914 -- South Africa had been granted
self-government, and the First World War began shortly after the
deputation's arrival in England and distracted all parties. This latter
event also influenced the final form of the book, as Plaatje played to the
patriotic sentiment so strong in Britain at the time. For all his appeals,
Plaatje did not succeed: the Act went on to become one of the first
steps toward the system of Apartheid. For all that, there is sometimes in
defeat the seeds of victory -- these troubles united black South Africans
like nothing before, and Plaatje's successors, in the form of the ANC,
finally succeeded in the early 1990's.
The Natives' Land Act of 1913, which forbade natives to buy or rent
land, except in a few small reserves consisting largely of wasteland,
was finally overturned in 1991.
Thanks should be given to Neil Parsons, for his advice on this subject,
and for being so kind as to research and write the introduction that
follows.
Alan R. Light July, 1998. Monroe, North Carolina (USA).

Introduction, by Neil Parsons

"Native Life in South Africa" is one of the most remarkable books on
Africa, by one of the continent's most remarkable writers. It was
written as a work of impassioned political propaganda, exposing the
plight of black South Africans under the whites-only government of
newly unified South Africa. It focuses on the effects of the 1913
Natives' Land Act which introduced a uniform system of land
segregation between the races. It resulted, as Plaatje shows, in the
immediate expulsion of blacks, as "squatters", from their ancestral
lands in the Orange Free State now declared "white". But Native Life
succeeds in being much more than a work of propaganda. It is a vital
social document which captures the spirit of an age and shows the
effects of rural segregation on the everyday life of people.
Solomon Tshekeisho Plaatje was born in 1878 in the lands of the
Tswana-speaking people, south of Mafeking. His origins were ordinary
enough. What was remarkable was the aptitude he showed for
education and learning after a few years schooling under the tuition of a
remarkable liberal German Lutheran missionary, the Rev. Ludorf. At
the age of sixteen Plaatje (using the Dutch nickname of his grandfather