New Contree, No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012) New Contree, No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012) New Contree, No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

A journal of Historical and Human Sciences for Southern Africa New Contree, No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

New Contree is an interdisciplinary focussed peer reviewed journal within the Historical and Human Sciences published by the School of Basic Sciences, Vaal Triangle Campus, North-West University. To accommodate more articles from a variety of Historical and Human Sciences disciplines (that especially reflects a fundamental historical approach), this Journal has slightly altered its name from 2008. Opinions expressed or conclusions arrived at in articles and book reviews are those of the authors and are not to be regarded as those of the North-West University or the editorial staff of New Contree. Two editions of New Contree are annually published. Articles appearing in New Contree are abstracted and/or indexed in Index to South African periodicals, Historical Abstracts, and America: History and Life. The Journal is also listed in The Bowker International Serials Database(New York), The Serials Directory (Birmingham, USA), The International African Bibliography (London) and Ebsco Host. New Contree, A journal of Historical and Human Sciences for Southern Africa, is mainly published in English though all the officially accepted languages in South Africa are accommodated in all editions. From November 2011 abstracts will only be in English.

Notes for contributors

Manuscripts, in any of the official languages, not exceeding 15 pages (approx, (one and a half spacing, 12 font) and on a CD disk or sent via electronic mail to the editor as an attachment in WORD are welcome. A summary/abstract must also be included in English, irregardless of the language of the manuscript. Contributors are asked to write in a clear and reader-friendly style. Please note: The language of both the abstract and the manuscript must be professionally edited before submitting the final approved manuscript to New Contree. Required proof must be provided in this regard. Also provide six to ten keywords (For more information, see template guideline for manuscript and footnotes on the last pages of this journal).

Approach to article (also see guidelines on the last pages of the journal)

The use of informative subheadings is important. No numbering is required. For general style and reference techniques of manuscripts, contributors are recommended to refer to the last pages in any recent copy of New Contree. One free copy of the edition in which a contributor(s) article has been published will be sent to the contributor(s). Page fees are necessary. As New Contree is an accredited journal, the cost of an article can be recouped from the earnings on research outputs. Authors employed by South African Universities and other national tertiary institutions should approach their institutions regarding subsidising their page cost for articles. Authors are not expected to pay for articles themselves. Approach the institution on your behalf. New Contree, No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

Editorial Advisory Committee

Prof. Patrick Furlong (Alma College, USA); Prof. Albert Grundlingh (University of Stellenbosch, Western Cape); Prof. Louis Grundlingh (University of Johannesburg, Aucklandpark); Prof. Karen Harris (University of Pretoria, Pretoria); Prof. Ackson M Kanduza (University of Botswana, Botswana); Prof. Bernard K Mbenga (North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, Mafikeng); Prof. Robert C-H Shell (University of the Western Cape & Commissioner of Truth and Justice for Mauritius); Mr. Nick Southey (University of South Africa, Pretoria).

Layout and Publishing

Editor

Prof. Elize S van Eeden (North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark).

Book Review Editor

Prof. Archie Dick (IT Department, University of Pretoria).

Assistant Control Editor

Prof. Eric J Nealer (North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, Potchefstroom).

Layout & Coverdesign

Artz Studio: +27 (0)82 553 6463 / +27 (016) 423 5412 / Email: [email protected]

Printers Bontshi Business Services Pty (Ltd), Wierda Park, Centurion, Pretoria Tel: +27 (0)12 653 7263

Postal address - New Contree

The editorial staff New Contree School of Basic Sciences North-West University PO Box 1174 Vanderbijlpark 1900 New Contree, No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

Telephone: (016) 910 3451 or (016) 910 3469 Email for enquiries or article presentations: [email protected]

Website address to find New Contree journals: http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/handle/10394/4969

Subscription fees for 2012 (A subscription form is available on the last page of this journal)

R 250.00 (Individual members - local) R 350.00 (Local institutions) R400.00 (Africa)

Overseas subscribers R660.00

ISSN Particulars 0379-9867 New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

EDITORIAL

In preparing for this Special 63rd Edition of New Contree to commemorate the Journal’s 35th birthday (January 1977 - January 2012), we came to the conclusion that a “down memory lane journey” also serves purposes other than just do it for the sake of remembering. Milestone memories in the past (especially the years where the Journal was known as Contree) served the purpose of remembering the bulk of production days regarding “how much” and “how many”. Academics from various disciplines and amateur writers made contributions. The inputs of these enthusiastic writers in the pioneering years of the Contree/New Contree were no “weaker” than their counterpart historical journals nationally.1 In 1987, after ten years of publishing, André Wessels (then an employee at the Human Science and Research Council [HSRC]) reminded readers that Contree received accreditation in 1985 (which also meant that an editorial advisory committee was appointed for the first time and that a peer reviewing process was introduced). Over many years, interesting information on Contree was shared with readers: Amongst others that the initial circulation (1977) was 1000 per edition, which increased to 1500 in 1987; that the readership was wide and the cost per edition paid by the buyer/subscription member R1.50 and that 95 articles were published in the first 10 years. Both English and Afrikaans were used. This arrangement has not changed, but more English written articles are included and writers have to present abstracts in English regardless of the language used. After 15 years of existence and 30 editions later, articles were produced with a local history focus that covered the many facets of communities (health, environment, economy, politics, local government and township developments, military activities, education etcetera). The “scientific” phase of the journal formally started when historians of the University of Johannesburg took over responsibility for Contree in 1992 from the HSRC. The late John Bottomley of the North-West University’s Mafikeng Campus became the new editor in 1996 – which was a time that also marked the name changed to New Contree. The New Contree Editorial

1 Compare B le Cordeur, “The South African Historical Journal and periodical literature on South African History”, South African Historical Journal, 20(1), pp. 1-16. Its interesting to know that the HSRC also financially supported the SAHJ in its pioneering years since 1967’s.

I New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

Board salutes his passionate contributions as Editor up to 2005. Times have changed since the first years of Contree. Editors of historical journals in South Africa today (which number about 15) know that it is even more expensive to publish one edition of a journal. It is equally true that peer-reviewing scientific articles have become more professional to ensure high-quality contributions. This often results in a dearth search for suitable articles. On top of this, writers are exposed to more finicky journal requirements. Changing times and obstacles have therefore led to a situation where New Contree only publishes an average of 7-8 articles per issue. The future ideal is four issues per annum with an even broader international exposure. However, present finances do not allow for this possibility yet. Since 2006, New Contree progressed to a new phase in its professional approach (which included an addition to its name as: “A journal of historical and human sciences for Southern Africa”). Book reviews, emphasised as an important part of journals, have been picking up in the two regular annual issues of New Contreey. Alhough this section is not comparable to the number of book reviews in the HSRC-years, other obstacles make comparisons difficult. Though historical journals do not have to function in historical societies or to be supported by such societies, those housed in historical societies2 certainly have the advantage above the “society-less” journals of having a platform for person-to-person-communication during conferences. Also, historical societies are provided with opportunities to be informed of recent research and to enspire its authors to progress to a publishing phase. No editorial team has the time to act as a marketing agent to remind historians and academics to subscribe to a “society-less” journal. Societies and the intellectuals they serve should therefore become more involved in the discipline they represent by familiarising with its journal base and focus and supporting it from that angle with research contributions and other means, before totally loosing it as platform. Despite these challenges, New Contree has made it to 2012 and will continue for the next 35 years if properly managed. This will be possible if its members and the rest of the academic community support its vision

2 Based on statistics by Johan Bergh’s research, it appears as if seven academic-related historical societies exist in South Africa. See JS Bergh, Historiese verenigings en tydskrifte in Suid-Afrika: Verlede, hede en toekoms, Historia, 38(2), November 1993, pp. 33-49. A II New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012) as a multidisciplinary journal with national, regional and local research foci. Perhaps the time has come that New Contree should develop into a scientific e-journal for easy dissemination to the general public and learners in schools. In many ways, the Journal lost the support of a wide range of people interested in regional/local history as it drifted towards a more professional and scientific outlook. Ironically, a key aspect of the regional/ local history methodology is the community’s involvement. Therefore reconsidering how New Contree can present research contributions to “ordinary people” in especially Southern Africa, should be part of its future thinking. Contree’s/New Contree’s vision was significant for South African historical scholarship. Apart from being the first to provide a formal platform for everyday histories – an assignment Historia took on in its pioneering years (also with Historia Jr) – New Contree has always been open to multidisciplinary contributions and the newer trends in Historical research. While New Contree’s contributions to the regional and local historiography of South Africa are interesting to some, its contributions to the methodology of such historical studies are interesting to others. In this regard the first contribution to this special edition discusses these matters and opens a historiographical and methodological debate about doing regional/local history, and integrative history and/or multidisciplinary research in regional/local areas. The rest of this special edition features a variety of regional research, covering micro histories on personalities in Graaff Reinet (on education related to race and class), the Cape (on diaries as source related to gender and class) and Potchefstroom (politics and economy in reporting on everyday life). The article on Pep Stores in the Cape Peninsula provides fascinating information on, amongst others, this local retailer industry’s efforts to improve the skills of its labour force (for example “black economic empowerment” in the early seventies. In many ways the contributions in the special edition of New Contree (and since at least 2007) have accommodated research disseminations in many spaces or/and places in Southern Africa’s history. Requests for a revisitation of the local/regional past3 spontaneously surface in most of the

3 To refer to Freund. See the first article in this edition.

III New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012) articles accepted for this edition. Yet, it does not cover the whole spectrum of micro-related research in regional studies research in South Africa4 as required for an inclusive macro regional history. And it could not, because the space for macro regional histories is much better accommodated in collective book publications, and their production should be supported. The response to present articles with a regional/local approach for this special edition was heartening. Yet not all could be included due to time and quality control constraints. In the New Contree publications to follow these revised contributions will certainly also be accommodated. Finally, the New Contree editorial board thank all the contributors of articles since 1977 for advancing historical research and debate in Southern Africa.

4 To quote C Saunders. See the first article in this edition. A IV New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

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A VI New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

VII New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

A VIII New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

Editorial I New Contree - 35 years V

CONTENTS Articles Elize S van Eeden Regional, local, urban and rural history as nearby spaces 1 and places: Historiographical and methodological reflections towards modern day practice

Anton Ehlers Business, State and Society - doing business apartheid style: 35 The case of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 1973-1974

Johannes D Froneman CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald 67

Jessica Murray “Thinking your journal unimportant”: A feminist literary 91 analysis of selected excerpts from Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries

Helen Ludlow George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”, 111 1848-1859

Johan Wassermann “It would be well now to wind up this rebel business sharp”: 139 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels

IX New Contree No. 63, Special Edition (January 2012)

Book reviews Nicol Stassen’s Afrikaners in Angola 1928 – 1975 161 Reviewed by Ina Fourie

New Contree info Guidelines for New Contree book reviewers 165 Template guidelines for writing an article 167 Reference guidelines for writing an article 169

Conferences, seminars, symposia and colloquia -History Prof John Bottomley: A Eulogy 175 SASHT 2012 Annual Conference, The Faculty of Education, 178 University of Stellenbosch Old Land, New Practices? The Changing Face of Land and 184 Conservation in Postcolonial Africa 2012 annual conference, A joint initiative between Rhodes University, University of the Free State and University of Witwatersrand SAHS 2013 annual conference, University of Botswana 186 HASA Call for Papers, “Doing History”, University of Pretoria 188 HGSA Versoek vir Referate, “Geskiedenisbeoefening”, Universiteit 190 van Pretoria UJ Seminars, Department of Historical Studies Seminar, University 192 of Johannesburg Wits local history seminars, NRF Programme in local histories & 194 present realities, University of Witwatersrand

New Contree subscription form 2012 195

A X Historiographical and methodological reflections

Regional, local, urban and rural history as nearby spaces and places: Historiographical and methodological reflections

Elize S van Eeden School for Basic Sciences North-West University [email protected]

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to review the almost 50 years of formal regional and local history research practices in South Africa under the umbrella of a variety of rural and urban trends, themes and phenomena. This revisit of research practice is not approached from the traditional angle of critically debating the visibility of the research in historiography through publications (it is, after all, an extraordinarily broad field of study to cover, which may not correctly serve each author in the broader and/or local history). Rather the focus is on analysing where and when regional or local history in South Africa got its momentum and how historians have broadly assessed their progress and future in presenting and carrying out regional and local history research. International influences on historians and other academics in the humanities and social sciences which surface are also discussed. The reader is also exposed to a concise exposition of modern-day efforts in the field of integrative research that have been necessary in regional and/or local history research for decades. Local research methodologies used in the past have been combined with integrative methodology models to create an integrative multidisciplinary research methodology required for carrying out regional and local research in modern-day practice. Because no single definition of the concepts of local and regional history exists, its meaning in literature is first thrashed out to strengthen understanding of the term and the approach to it in this discussion. This debate, among others, was inspired by, and is part of, the commemoration of the journal New Contree’s 35 years of existence. The journal’s involvement in the dissemination of regional and urban history, especially during the early part of its existence, is discussed. It is hoped that this article’s review of the past will inspire South African historians to revisit regional, local, urban and/or rural spaces and places in South Africa. This could be done perhaps with the view to strengthening the methodologies used in regional history studies and to ambitiously embrace possibilities for engaging in a variety of integrative research from bottom-up and top-down perspectives. This may be the only way to progress towards inclusive regional histories as contributions to the understanding of regions.

Keywords: Local history; Regional history; Urban history; Rural history; Methodology; Historiography; Integrative multidisciplinary research; Local ecohealth research; Environment; Humanities; Social sciences; History from Below; HSRC; Contree; New Contree.

• 1 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Introduction At various times, leading South African historical societies have looked back on the past with the intention of revising, reconsidering and reiterating important messages from the past as well as recommending some form of disciplinary renewal.1 After “The Tiger in the Grass” years,2 which appears to have been an ideological, political and racial work and perhaps also had something of a language connection, historians again gradually began to focus on the discipline itself and its shortcomings, and began taking note of methodological trends abroad.3 The relevance of historical research that serves society also received more attention.4 The debates and thoughts of the late 1960s and 1970s led to the snowballing of regional history. The Institute for Historical Research (IHR) at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in Pretoria, which was founded in 1969, established a section for the study of regional history. At this stage the writing of local history in the United States and elsewhere blossomed.5 On 1 April 1975 the dream of the IHR was realised, which was followed by the initiative of the HSRC to strengthen this effort through, among other things, the founding of the journal Contree,6 which later was renamed New Contree.7 Because academics and others appear to feel uncomfortable with the concepts local and regional when referring to this kind of study (and specifically studies related to regional history), I will briefly discuss my understanding of local, regional, urban and rural history as “roots” of the same “tree”. The purpose of this article is also to give a concise analytical review of the approximately 50 years of formal regional and local history research practice in South

1 See J Carruthers, “The changing shape and scope of southern African historical studies’, South African Historical Journal, 62(2), 2010, pp. 384-393; JS Bergh, “Historiese verenigings en tydskrifte in Suid-Afrika: Verlede, hede en toekoms”, Historia 38(2), November 1993, pp. 33-49; SP Olivier, “Die onderrig van plaaslike geskiedenis”, Historia, 13(4), 1968, pp. 237-245. 2 A reference to historian Rodney Davenport’s observation in the late 1970s of historians experienced as deeply divided and a reflection of a troubled society. See TRH Davenport, “The Tiger in the Grass”,South African Historical Journal, 9, 1977, pp. 3-12. 3 Compare J Carruthers, “The changing shape and scope of southern African historical studies’, South African Historical Journal, 62(2), 2010, p. 385; ELP Stals, “Ewewig”, South African Historical Journal, 16 (1984), pp. 1-5. 4 MCE van Schoor, “Kleio, hulle gee ons klippe vir brood…”, South African Historical Journal, 11(1), 1979, pp. 1-11; FA van Jaarsveld, “Stedelike geskiedenis as navorsingsveld vir die Suid-Afrikaanse historikus” , Publication Series B3, Die geskiedenis van die Afrikaner aan die Rand (RAU, Johannesburg, 1973), pp. 1-80. 5 C Saunders, “What of regional history? Towards a history of the Western Cape”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990, pp. 131-140. Saunders refers to the USA, Australia, Canada, France and Britain. 6 CM Bakkes, “Editorial”, Contree, 1, January 1977, p. 2. Contree is an old French word for country, area, region or environment. See Editorial [CC Eloff], Contree, 20, July 1986, p. 1. 7 JS Bergh, “Historiese verenigings en tydskrifte in Suid-Afrika: Verlede, hede en toekoms”, Historia, 38(2), November 1993, p. 44.

• 2 Historiographical and methodological reflections

Africa under the umbrella of a variety of rural and urban trends, themes and phenomena. This debate in its entirety was, among others, initiated as part of the 35-year anniversary of the journal New Contree in January 2012. The discussion in this article progresses from the traditional to a modern- day methodology of dealing with certain aspects of regional histories, such as the health history or wellbeing history in a wider context of locality or environment than just physical health. The integrative multidisciplinary research methodology for doing regional and local research required for modern-day practice is briefly introduced.

Conceptual differences between regional, local, urban and rural history Although each of the concepts under this sub-heading can be related to a micro or macro (broader) regional history in a particular space, and could be the “proud owner” of its own conceptual clarification,8 all these areas of research share commonalities which hardly make them separable when referring to or studying a specific region’s history.9 For example, in the United States the conceptual appreciation of regional history appears to be more geographically understood:10 … regional history occupies an ambiguous position within the larger field of United States history. Since the late 1950s, systematic revisionism that applies the approaches and insights of a wide range of social sciences to key issues of social and political change has revolutionized the field. Much of the intellectual excitement in American history has involved the definition, or redefinition, of thematic fields such as social history, family history, or urban history, and the analysis of processes such as class formation, labor force socialization, or the definition of gender roles. The usual arenas for testing hypotheses are specific localities, or the nation as a whole, rather than traditional multistate regions. Important summary volumes on historical writing about the United States have been organized around periods or thematic fields, rather than regions.

8 In the USA even “historic districts” are clearly defined. See RE Datel, “Preservation and a sense of orientation for American cities,” Geographical Review, 75 ( 2), 1985, pp. 125-141. 9 See examples of conceptual clarifications (available at: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/regional; http://www. thefreedictionary.com/locally; http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rural; http://dictionary.reference.com/ browse/urban). 10 C Abbott, “United States regional history as an instructional field: The practice of college and university history departments”, The Western Historical Quarterly, 21(2), May, 1990, p. 200.

• 3 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

From the arguments Abbott raises, it is clear that regional and local history are differentiated, although their differences are not at all explained. He remarks: … Indeed, the variability of regional definition is, itself, evidence of the vitality of the field. Unlike the stable and enduring South, the American West has always been defined in terms of growth and change. Perhaps for this reason, western specialists also seem the most flexible of regional historians in their willingness to entertain alternative regional definitions … has also served to encourage a regional approach… Regional history as a field of teachingper se is a long-standing discipline in the United States, and by 1990 no fewer than 11 respected journals serviced the regional histories of the country.11 In 2001 Susan Armitage12 observed that in the US: Regional history has been enjoying a resurgence lately. In western history the combined forces of environmental history and ethnic history have produced the perspective we call The New Western History. Environmental history directs attention to areas that share similar physical geographies, while the presence of large racial ethnic populations in specific locations … This particular trend is currently finding its way into South Africa through the need for research into indigenous knowledge systems, oral histories and the environmental status of, for example, industrialised areas.13 In Europe, British local history research and teaching gained momentum from 1947 onwards at Leicester School, especially through the rural research studies of Finberg and Skipp14 from 1952, who shared their ideas on the definition of at least local history. The use of the word “region” as a synonym in arguments, especially by Finberg, is rare. Based on the well-known approach of Arnold Toynbee15 to research on civilisations, Finberg gives the following

11 C Abbott, “United States regional history as an instructional field: The practice of college and university history departments”, The Western Historical Quarterly, 21(2), May, 1990, pp. 197-217. 12 SH Armitage, “From the inside out: Rewriting regional history”, Frontiers - A Journal of Women’s Studies, 22, 2001, pp.1-2. 13 See ES van Eeden., “Considering environmental history within the transdisciplinary methodology as research focus for today and tomorrow, Interdisciplinary Science Review, 36(4), December 2011, pp. 314-329; P Denis, “Oral history in a wounded country”, JA Draper (ed.), Orality, literacy and colonialism in Southern Africa, Semeia Studies vol. 63 (Pietermaritzburg, Cluster publications, 2003), pp. 206-216; D Morris, “Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and the teaching of history: Case studies in a museum archaeology context”, McGregor Museum Kimberley, 2005, pp. 1-8 (available at http://www.museumsnc.co.za/aboutus/depts/archaeology/pdf/IKS.pdf, as accessed on January 2012). 14 G Sheeran and Y Sheeran, “Discourses in local history”, Rethinking History, 2(1), 1998, p. 67. 15 See the 12 volume “magnus opus” of the British historian AJ Toynbee, A study of history, (Ilmamaa, 2003), pp. 960.

• 4 Historiographical and methodological reflections definition:16 The business of the local historian then, as I see it, is to re-enact in his own mind, and to portray for his readers, the Origin, Growth, Decline and Fall of a local community. Finberg also included the study of local communities and national history (as localised history) in his definition. For Finberg, the knowledge of the professional local historian had to be wide and well grounded as it is a requirement for understanding the relationships between national and the local, and vice versa, and the implications for each other.17 Finberg’s colleague Victor Skipp, a researcher in the field with extensive experience of local history study, stated the following about local history, with which one can easily associate:18 In the last resort, the boundaries of local history – or any other kind of history for that matter – are artificial. All history is one – like existence itself, a seamless garment … In 1998 George and Yanina Sheeran revisted the work on local history carried out by Finberg and others at the Leicester School half a century previously, but without attempting to define what local was. It was rather an effort to understand the definition of local history through the historiography and methodology of local history. Interesting trends they reported were the activities by historians on community history and popular local history.19 In the present-day international scenario regarding the simplicity or complexity of the definition of regional history, the Finnish philosopher and historian Sulevi Riukulehto recorded his thinking about historiography:20 The new regionally oriented directions in historiography are so recent that no generally recognised orthodoxy has yet been adopted. The various elements from localism to globalisation can still be seen in the first works written under the label of regional history. One of these “first works” referred to by Riukulehto is a book edited by Bill Lancaster, Diana Newton and Natasha Vall, titled “An agenda for regional

16 HPR Finberg and VHT Skipp, Local history. Objective and pursuit , p. 18. 17 See HPR Finberg and VHT Skipp, Local history. Objective and pursuit , p. 10 and G Sheeran and Y Sheeran, “Discourses in local history”, Rethinking History, 2(1), 1998, p. 68. 18 VHT Skipp, “Local history: A new definition and its implications”, Local Historian, 14, 1981, p. 328. 19 G Sheeran and Y Sheeran, “Discourses in local history”, Rethinking History, 2(1), 1998, p. 65-85. 20 S Riukulehto, “The concept of region in regional history”, (paper presented, Regional Studies Association annual International Conference 2010), (available at: www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/events/2010/may.../ Riukulehto1.pd., as accessed on 30 April 2010), pp. 1-7.

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history,”21 which has received some attention. It is regarded as the first major book written under the label of regional history in which the concept “regional” is more favoured than “local”. Regions are also referred to as either geographical, socio-cultural or economic. Riukulehto adds that administrative and discursive22 phenomena may also lead to an entirely different map of regions that makes the structure or form of a region simple or complex.23 Armitage’s critique of the vagueness of the definition of “regional” used in the US by 2001, together with some shortcomings in the historiographical approach to regional history in the past,24 are shared here (as it was no different in South Africa by 2012): Even when it is possible to agree on regional boundaries, further problems arise with the term. Historians owe the particular usage of the term regionalism to Frederick Jackson Turner, and like Turner’s more famous theory, the frontier thesis, the legacy is ambiguous. Following Turner’s commanding lead, subsequent historians used the concept of region both confidently and sloppily, assuming that some thing or things in the region bound people together in ways that superseded cultural and racial boundaries. This assumption of general regional commonalities, while recognizing differences between regions, ignored conflicts and differences within regions. In effect, then, regional historians wrote only the history of the dominant cultural group and not that of subordinate ones, ignoring class, race, gender, and other differences. Although the shortcomings outlined by Armitage were given some attention by some researchers, especially of urban and rural histories25 in South Africa since the 1970s, research in fields and themes within the broader regional area lies fallow and still requires the active attention of historians. Limitations in the field of regional history in South Africa include, for example, the proper recording of regional and township settlement of Africans all over South Africa since the 20th century, based on a research methodology for studying regional/local history.26

21 B Lancaster, D Newton and N Vall (Eds.), An agenda for regional history (Newcastle, Northumbria University Press, 2007), pp. 324. 22 The author refers to “discursive” as the secondary elements or phenomena not relevant to the main discussion. 23 S Riukulehto, “The concept of region in regional history” (available at:www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/ events/2010/may.../Riukulehto1.pd., as accessed on 30 April 2010), pp. 1-7. 24 SH Armitage, “From the inside out: Rewriting regional history”, Frontiers - A Journal of Women’s Studies, 22, 2001, pp.1-2. 25 See J Carruthers, The changing shape and scope of Southern African historical studies, South African Historical Journal, 62(2), 2010, p. 385; SP Lekgoathi, “An accessible history of rural society”, a review on the publication of P Delius, “A lion amongst the cattle”, South African Historical Journal, 37(1), 1997, pp. 214-217. 26 Based on the author’s personal experience and knowledge of regional/local history in South Africa.

• 6 Historiographical and methodological reflections

Debates internationally reflect the greyness of the concept, and the sharing of ideas in the approach to the concept “region” in regional history through interdisciplinary research has been on-going in Europe.27 In this regard the Finnish philosopher and historian Sulevi Riukulehto28 argues: What is a region? There exist competing views concerning the definition and criteria of a region … Such a branch as regional history does not really exist yet in the family of human sciences. But there should exist. In the past decade a growing number of scholars in the humanities and social sciences have turned their attention to space as a means of understanding historical processes. Specific conferences are arranged concerning the meaning of space. [For example in April 30, 2010 at Berkeley] Finally, after the twenty- years of linguistic turn, historians and other history-oriented scholars have deliberately risen such terms as “region”, “space” and “territory” into the focus of historiography, too. The turn to space has connections with the various forms of history from below, such as the traditions of local history, micro- history and family history. In all these directions of historiography the role of space must have been taken into account in a new way. [Olofsson and Öhman] The specific features of the place – the forum where history is made – may be decisive to historical analysis … The spatial turn also has connections to the general globalisation analysis and the wave of regionalism in the world. The regionalist paradigm is stressing the importance of place in explaining success and failure and the need for endogenous growth strategies [Hise; Klieman; Frisvoll and Rye; Gerber and Gibson]. The argument by Riukulehto (and the references he cites) regarding the historical value of research on regions is endorsed, and more so his introductory remarks on the absence of regional history having been done in the humanities (as part of History as a discipline in a research and teaching context).29

27 Compare P Aronsson, “The old cultural regionalism – and the new”, AG Green and AJ Pollard, Regional identities in North-East England, 1300-2000 (England, Boydell Press, 2007), p. 182; T Granier, “Local or regional identity in early medieval Latin Southern Italy”, B Lancaster, D Newton and N Vall, An agenda for regional history (UK, Northumbria University Press, 2007), chapter six; C Phythian–Adams, “Differentiating provincial societies in English history: spatial contexts and cultural processes”, R Tittler, Portraits, painters and publics in provincial England, 1540-1640 ( New York, Oxford University Press, 2012) p. 153; G Gerber, C Gibson, “Balancing regionalism and localism”, American Journal of Political Science, 3, 2009, pp. 633–648; A Jackson Andrew, “Local and regional history as heritage, The heritage process and conceptualising the purpose and practice of local historians”, International Journal of Heritage Studies. 4, 2008, pp. 362–379; LW Manuel, J Scoggins, “Why regions? Why now? Who cares? Journal of Urban Affairs. 3, 2009, pp. 269–296. 28 S Riukulehto, “The concept of region in regional history”, (paper presented, Regional Studies Association annual International Conference 2010), (Available at: www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/events/2010/may.../ Riukulehto1.pd., as accessed on 30 April 2010), pp. 1-7. 29 In South Africa the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg’s National Research Foundation Programme in “Local histories & Present Realities” that has been running in 2012 and earlier, is the only effort at providing histories of the region with a structured voice in a structured research or/and curriculum programme currently that the author is aware of.

• 7 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

The concise definition of regional history that Donald Worster and Patricia Limerick offer complements the environmental (Worster) and cultural (Limerick) sides of regional history that should and could (according to both authors) be adapted and applied to other countries on other continents:

[Worster]:30 The history of the region is first and foremost one of an evolving human ecology. A region emerges as people try to make a living from a particular part of the earth, as they adapt themselves to its limits and possibilities. What the regional historian should first want to know is how a people or peoples acquired a place and, then, how they perceived and tried to make use of it.

[Limerick]:31 Western history has been an ongoing competition for legitimacy – for the right to claim for oneself and sometimes for one’s group the status of legitimate beneficiary of Western resources. The intersection of ethnic diversity with property allocation unifies Western history. Published works by the dozen (internationally and locally) follow an approach to local and/or regional history under the umbrella of many names (which confirms that researchers exercise personal freedom in defining and understanding a region or local area).32 The following are but a few examples: In 2003 Carol Kammens of the United States published a guide for local historians titled On doing local history. Harm de Blij as well as the renowned writer Dolores Hayden both published works titled The power of place. The term “place” generally appears to be extraordinarily popular for scholars in their titles. Yi-Fu Tuan, on the other hand, prefers to refer to the local history he discusses as Space and place (2001). David E Kyvig and Myron A Marty in 2010 published their Nearby history: Exploring the past around you to exchange research ideas in North America on family and community history. Another is Joseph Anthony’s Rethinking home: A case for writing local history, which was published in 2002.

30 Compare D Worster, Under western skies: Nature and history in the American West (USA, Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 292. 31 Compare PN Limerick, The legacy of conquest: The unbroken past of the American West (USA, Norton, 1987), pp. 396. 32 See for example from a local perspective C Bundy, “Amafelandawonye (the Die-hards). Popular protest and women’s in Herschel District in the 1920s.”, Chapter 7, W Beinart & Colin Bundy, Hidden struggles in rural South Africa: Politics & popular movements in the Transkei & Eastern Cape, 1890-1930 (USA, University of California Press, 1987), pp. 326; I Hofmeyr, “The narrative logic of oral history”, African Studies Institute (University of the Witwatersrand, African Studies Seminar Paper), May 1988, pp. 1-19 (especially pp. 17); B Nasson, Abraham Esau’s war: A black South African War in the Cape 1899-1902, African Studies Series, 68 (UK, Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 272.

• 8 Historiographical and methodological reflections

The oldest contribution that I was able to find to a discussion in South Africa on what the definition of local history should and could be, is that of S P Olivier. His insightful contribution was published in an edition of Historia in 1968.33 Olivier’s understanding of local history is associated with omgewingsleer (directly translated it means environmental studies), but he explicitly associates it with plaaslike (local cum regional cum city cum town) history, and he envisages integrative teaching of the multidisciplinary nature of local environments (the peoples, the working place and the living place). Although his discussion does not included explicit references to capturing the local history-writing trends of the time, Olivier refers to several international authors in his arguments. One such author is a renowned geographer of the 1930s and 1940s, James Fairgrieve,34 who appears to have had a pivotal impact on Olivier’s thoughts regarding local and regional research and implementing them in the thinking and teaching of history in South Africa. According to Fairgrieve, the conceptual understanding of local studies include the following:35 Local studies form the basis of the whole structure of geographical knowledge (historical and civic knowledge). For no systematic geographical (historical or civic) account of any area, whether it be a “natural” region or one defined by political boundaries, or a whole can be taken until the writer (learner) has at his disposal a multitude of facts and the chief source of these facts is in local regional studies … The richness and variety of the sources in local history is stressed by both Fairgrieve and Olivier. Most of the time the concept of regional history in South African historical research (popular and academic) has, since the 1970s, been used as inclusive of regional, local, urban and rural histories.36 For example, in January 1977, the historians dealing with regional history in the newly established journal Contree defined this field as follows:37

33 See SP Olivier, “Die onderrig van plaaslike geskiedenis”, Historia, 13(4), 1968, pp. 237-245. 34 See J Fairgrieve and E Young, Real geography: Visiting South America, Australia and New Zealand, Book 1 (Philip, UK, 1939 and 1948 editions); J Fairgrieve, Geography in school (UK ,University of London Press, 1949) , and whose work were still very respected in the 1960’s. 35 SP Olivier, “Die onderrig van plaaslike geskiedenis”, Historia, 13(4), 1968, pp. 240-241. 36 Histories in a local or regional, or urban or rural context, most of the time relate to a specific, geographically local context which includes a community and relates to most socio-cultural aspects of the specific environment, and also cover oral history as opportunities to compile information that may not be stored or findable in any regional or national archive. Compare HPR Finberg and VHT Skipp, Local history, objective and pursuit (David & Charles, Great Britain, 1967, pp. 1-43; 128). 37 CM Bakkes, “Editorial”, Contree, 1, January 1977, p. 2 and indirectly confirmed by AG Oberholster, “Streeksgeskiedenis en die historikus”, Contree 6, Julie 1979, p. 29.

• 9 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Regional history studies the past from a local angle, is interested in the smaller community and the activities of ordinary people in their own environment. After all, true history is the story of change which occurs through the interaction of major determining events and the rhythm of the small, prosaic, almost unobtrusive course of daily life. PL Scholtz followed shortly afterwards by similarly deliberating on what regional history is.38 Nine years later – and with a look in retrospect – these blurred micro-divisions as varieties of local, urban and regional histories were confirmed by an editorial in Contree:39 The last decade saw 20 numbers being published, comprising more than 600 double-columned pages. Almost 80 per cent of the 95 articles, reviews and short communications deal with hamlets, villages, towns, cities and regions, while the rest mainly relate to aspects of theory and methodology of research into regional history. The editorial in 1987 for the first time directly refers to the definition of regional/local history. It concludes that it is difficult to “arrive at a precise … definition of local and regional history”.40 Then, without citing Finberg and Skipp’s 1967 publication on local history, the editorial quotes several passages from this publication to emphasise the difficulty regarding the definition and other features of local history practice at the time. One can only assume that the Contree editorial agreed with the understanding of local history according to Finberg and Skipp, which itself is a vague explanation of the “traditional”41 research methodology they endorsed. Andre Wessels’ definition of regional and local history, in his review in the same 1987 edition of Contree of the journal’s first years as a publication established to cover urban and regional history, perhaps provides insight into the understanding of historians in general regarding its practice. Wessels acknowledges the broadness of the definition, but adds that it can also be associated with environmental history,42 which includes urban history, local

38 PL Scholtz, Streeksgeskiedenis – ‘n fassinerende mikrokosmos (Belville, Publikasiereeks van die Universiteit van Wes-Kaapland, A26, 1978), pp. 1-7. Also see the thinking of Scholtz covered in the understanding of A Wessels, “Contree – Die eerse tien jaar”, Contree, 21, Januarie 1987, p. 26 and ES van Eeden, “Die geskiedenis van die Gatsrand vanaf die vestiging van die Trekkergemeenskap omstreeks 1839 tot die proklamering van Carletonville in 1948” (MA., PU vir CHO,1988), pp. x-xi. 39 CC Eloff, “Editorial”, Contree, 20, July 1986, p. 2. 40 Editorial, Contree, 21, January 1987, p. 3. 41 G Sheeran and Y Sheeran, “Discourses in local history”, Rethinking History, 2(1), 1998, p. 67. 42 This integrative nature of regional and local history thinking is shared by basically all historians dealing with this kind of history research. See for example G Sheeran and Y Sheeran, “Discourses in local history”, Rethinking History, 2(1), 1998, p. 68.

• 10 Historiographical and methodological reflections or town history and rural history.43 Apart from this effort, the voices of those practitioners of regional and local histories in South Africa, who based their contributions on Contree/New Contree regarding the conceptual clarity, methodology and historiography of regional/local history, were never fully heard from the founding years of the journal up to 2011.

In a very simplistic way, the definition of regional history studies in South Africa in the past four to five decades remained a very grey and broad one. Although it could be said of academia internationally that they at least still occasionally debate regional history conceptually, methodologically and historiographically, this is currently is not the state of affairs in South Africa, and should be reconsidered.

Going local in South Africa: Some historiographical reflections Historiographical pointers to the practice of local history in South Africa are represented in trends that are particularly evident in ideas from the French Annales School from the early 20th Century, some British historians (such as Eric Hobsbawm, Edward Thompson and Gareth Stedman Jones), the British “History Workshop Model”, which concentrates on the lives of ordinary people, the American “New Left” group and the German Alltagsgeschichte. These international trends are discernible in the thoughts and methodologies of the so-called Afrikaner nationalists – the liberal, radical and revisionist historians in South Africa.44 The thoughts on local history of HPR Finberg and VHT Skipp,45 for example, contributed to the author’s personal academic understanding and thinking of local and regional history in her early years as a researcher. However, if these two practitioners of English local history have ever categorised themselves as being part of the American “New Left” or have

43 A Wessels, “Contree Die eerse tien jaar”, Contree, 21, Januarie 1987, p. 26. 44 R Samuel (ed.), People’s history and socialist theory (Londen, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), pp. 141; TRH Davenport, “History in South Africa in the 1980’s: Why bother about it?”, South Africa International, 19(2), 1988, p. 102; K Smith, The changing past: Trends in South African historical writing (Johannesburg, Southern Publishers, 1988), pp. 164-170; C Saunders, The making of the South African past: Major historians on race and class (Cape Ttown, David Phillip, 1988), pp. 169-170, 184; R Samuel, “Local history and oral history”, History Workshop, 1, 1976, pp. 199-204; FA van Jaarsveld, “Demokratisering in die geskiedwetenskap: Van ‘n elitegeskiedenis van bo tot ‘n alledaagse geskiedenis van onderaf”, Historia, 32(1), 1987, pp. 34-42; FA van Jaarsveld, “Geskiedenis van die alledaagse lewe – ‘n Nuwe stroming in die Duitse sosiale geskiedskrywing” Historia, 35(1), 1990, pp. 3-12; P Bonner, I Hofmeyr, D James and T Lodge (eds.), Holding their ground: Class, locality and culture in nineteenth and twentieth century South Africa (Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1989, pp. 318. 45 HPR Finberg and VHT Skipp, Local history. Objective and pursuit (Newton Abbot, David & Charles,1967), p. 130.

• 11 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) associated themselves with the thinking of the French Annales, or the British “History Workshop Model” or the German Alltagsgeschichte, has escaped me in my naïve thinking, knowledge and exposure as a young historian (and fortunately or unfortunately still does). Broader regional and local history covers a variety of themes in which human involvement and human interaction are stressed. An icon of South African history practice, FA van Jaarsveld,46 supported disciplinary co- operation between history and other disciplines in the 1970s as an addition to the development of history’s expanding focus and fields of research. The then emerging fields of social history47 and local history48 in South Africa,49 for example, paved the way for history researchers to become more aware of regional social trends that allow closer interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary research opportunities because of the varieties of knowledge and insight required to conduct quality research in local history, which also includes environmental issues.50 From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, regional history research, as initiated by the HSRC, developed alongside the ideas of the History Workshop Group of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), supported as “history from below”.51 In essence, the research approach by this Group was to emphasise history from below, which meant that the everyday experience, role, input and knowledge of communities in certain environments and/or activities

46 FA van Jaarsveld,“Geskiedenis en relevansie”, Historia, 24(1), 1979, pp. 14-18; FA van Jaarsveld, “South Africa as an industrial society”, Historia, 34(1), 1989, pp. 95-99. 47 See FA van Jaarsveld, “Oor die opleiding van geskiedkundiges Deel 1”, Historia, 16(2) 1971, pp. 74-88; FA van Jaarsveld, “Oor die opleiding van geskiedkundiges, Deel 2”, Historia, 16(3) 1971, pp. 146-160; DJ van Zyl, “Geskiedenis as vak en wetenskap: Nuwe uitdagings”, South African Historical Journal, 19(1), 1987, pp. 1-5; A Grundlingh, “Herhistorisering en herposisionering: Perspektiewe op aspekte van geskiedsbeoefening in hedendaagse Suid-Afrika”, Historia, 46(2), November 2001, pp. 315-318. 48 Compare WM Macmillan’s Complex South Africa, an economic footnote to History (London, Faber and Faber, 1930), in which he points out the lack of social history in South Africa as quoted by FA van Jaarsveld, “Oor die onderrig van sosiale geskiedenis en riglyne vir sy metodiek”, Historia, 17(2), 1972, pp. 118-133. Van Jaarsveld has also mentioned examples of social history, such as PJ van der Merwe’s Die noordwaartse beweging van die boere voor die Groot Trek, 1770-1842 (The Hague, WP van Stockum & Zoon ,1937). 49 C Eloff, “History from below…”, Paper, 13th SAHA Conference, Unisa, 22-25 January, 1991, p. 12. 50 ES van Eeden, Impressions on conducting and reporting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental research in South Africa – a historian’s perspective (Inaugural lecture 07/2010, Platinum Press, NWU, Vaal Triangle Campus, March 2010), pp. 1-44; Elize S van Eeden, “Environmental history within a revitalised integrative research methodology for today and tomorrow”, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 36(4), December 2011, pp. 314-329. 51 Compare for example this approach to history with PJ Blok, “Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk” [seven volumes] as discussed in his inaugural lecture in 1894 in Leiden titled: De Geschiedenis als Sociale Wetenschap. Blok interprets social history as: “De geschiedenis der menschelijke maatschappij” as quoted in FA van Jaarsveld, “Oor die onderrig van sosiale geskiedenis en riglyne vir sy metodiek”, Historia, 17(2), 1972, p. 119.

• 12 Historiographical and methodological reflections should be utilised or acknowledged in the scientific research process.52 In 1977 Dr CM Bakkes of the HSRC in South Africa rightly noted in the very first edition of the journalContree that the “past as an object is so rich and vast that time and again the historian feels constrained to divide it into compartments.” But eventually the content that considers the world, the African continent and South Africa in specialised fields such as economic, social, military and cultural history do have the ability to be branched off, each with its distinguishable research methodology and focus. Bakkes also accurately observed that this was not the case in regional history studies, because this way of history research recognises the unity of history53 (and thus covers all the aforementioned fields), although it has to be narrowed down first before progressing towards being “united” again in a collective effort as regional historical studies. It furthermore complements bottom-up history, but does not ignore top-down activities and trends.54 Because regional history does not exist in isolation of other disciplinary activities in regions, regional historians also have a challenging obligation to associate with experts from other disciplines in related and unrelated sciences. In the early years of Contree, this multidisciplinary association was acknowledged: The vast majority of the articles were written by professional historians; contributions by geographers, archaeologists, cultural historians, economists, museologists, educationists, amateur historians and other dilettanti have also been published. Up to this stage and time, to the best of my knowledge very little has been published historiographically and methodologically on the progress and status of regional history in South Africa,55 and debates on how to methodologically address local histories, or how to progress to regional histories were, and still are, non-existent.

52 See for example B Bozzolli (ed.), Town and countryside in the Transvaal (Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1983). 53 CM Bakkes, “Editorial”, Contree, 1, January 1977, p. 2. 54 Also compare Bakkes’ view with the contribution of ES van Eeden, “Using a transdisciplinary approach for environmental crisis research in History”, The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 6(1), July 2010, pp. 191-208; ES van Eeden, “Land Reform in South Africa: Questions and politics with regard to land claims as officially proposed: A case study of the farm Deelkraal IQ142, North West Province”, South African Historical Journal, 57, May 2007. 55 FA van Jaarsveld also confirms this statement in FA van Jaarsveld, “South Africa as industrial society”, Historia 34(1), May 1989, p. 98.

• 13 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

A first observation as an acknowledgement of bottom-up trends in regional histories was made by Dr Callie Eloff, former researcher at the regional division of the HSRC. He has categorised several publications produced between the late 1970s and 1990 as related to “history from below” (for example, the Wits History Workshop contributions with Belinda Bozzoli as editor, and the contributions of Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore, William Beinart and Colin Bundy as well as the publications of Wilmot James and Mary Simons). Oddly enough, he never did the same historiographical exercise with the on- going activities and research associations then by the regional division of the HSRC.56 The first meaningful and critical comment on regional studies in the country came from Christopher Saunders in 1990 while he was reviewing the publication under the editorial guidance of Wilmot James and Mary Simons, titled “The angry divide”, and covering local and regional histories of the Western Cape. Apart from stating, like Van Jaarsveld, that the country was lacking substantial contributions in regional history when compared to smaller states internationally (he was referring to urban, rural and particular areas), Saunders also criticised the intentions of Revisionist historians in the 1970s for focusing on the social consequences of the Witwatersrand and its gold-mining industry, and not because of any concern for writing a regional history. Saunders states:57 For all their brilliance, Charles van Onselen’s Studies in the social economic history on the Witwatersrand were also limited in range, as ‘Studies’ implies, and did not address issues of regionalism. The same is true of the papers in the three volumes in the Wits History Workshop series, despite the claim made by Belinda Bozolli, after she pointed out the focus of the second workshop had moved from the townships on the Rand to ‘town and countryside’ … Bozzoli’s reminder of the importance of the specific regional dimensions of, say, capital accumulation, resistance or culture, was a useful one but it was not followed up … Saunders applauds, for example, the contributions of AH Brookes, C de B Webb, A Duminy and B Guest on their versions of the history of Natal, and

56 CC Eloff, “‘History from below’: ‘n Oorsig”, Suid-Afrikaanse Historiese Joernaal, 25(1), 1991, pp. 50-51. 57 C Saunders, “What of regional history? Towards a history of the Western Cape”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990, pp. 131-140. Saunders refers to the study of C van Onselen, Studies in the social and economic history of the Witwatersrand, 1886-1914, Vol I, New Babylon; and Vol II, New Nineveh (published in 1982). Also see other reviews on the C van Onselen publications by L Vail, African economic history, 13, 1984, pp. 194-195 and R Gray, “The industrialisation of South Africa: A review article”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 29(1), January 1987, p. 402.

• 14 Historiographical and methodological reflections

criticises the other provinces of the time for falling short in this regard.58 Furthermore, by the 1990s Contree as a journal for South African urban and regional history had been criticised by Saunders for being “parochial and narrow in focus”:59 The Division for regional History at the Human Sciences Research Council has divided the country into as many as twenty-eight regional [areas], but Contree has not significantly furthered the study of the history of those regions as such. The Division of Regional History at the HSRC in fact advanced regional research in, for example, the Northern Cape and the Free State60 with a limited capacity of researchers. They also intellectually supported research elsewhere61 before finally stopping after just more than a decade of formally pioneering such research. Inevitably, they had to pass on the journal Contree, which they had started for urban and regional history, to the former Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg (UJ). The historians of UJ, and and the University of the North-West (from 2004 known as part of the the North-West University or NWU),62 were willing to take on this additional editorial task. Therefore the furthering of regional studies (the critique by Saunders) actually became a “task” that Contree (later New Contree under the editorial leadership of UJ and then NWU) should have broadened and have inspired.

58 C Saunders, “What of regional history?...”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990, p. 133. Saunders was in a position to efficiently criticise regional histories done in the Western Cape because of his experience with research done in the region. See T Strauss and C Saunders, Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula post 1806: A working bibliography (Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, 1989), pp. 141. 59 C Saunders, “What of regional history?…”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990, p. 134. 60 Whilst CC Eloff and A Oberholster have produced a few scientific articles, and have produced histories on parts of the Free State, it was researcher Piet Snyman who was more active in publishing regional research in the Northern Cape. See PHR Snyman, “Ontstaan en groei van Postmasburg”, Contree, 13, 1983, pp. 4-26; PHR Snyman, “Daniëlskuil – Die tronk mite”, Contree, 17, 1985, pp. 21-24; PHR Snyman, “Die Langeberg- Rebellie en die totstandkoming van Olifantshoek”, Contree, 19, 1986, pp. 16-26; PHR Snyman, “Die rol van sendelinge, die owerheid en ekonomiese faktore in die ontstaan van Kuruman, 1886-1913”, Contree, 22, 1987, pp. 5-14. 61 To the author’s knowledge both Drs CC Eloff and PHR Snyman were involved in co-guiding postgraduate students from various universities at the time. 62 The Northwest University Campus at Mafikeng/Mahikeng from 2004 became part of the newly formed University of the North-West, which includes the Potchefstroom Campus and the Vaal Triangle Campus (known as the PU vir CHO under the pre-2004 dispensation).

• 15 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

A local flavour in historical journals From Contree to New Contree Despite the fact that the origin of the name Contree is not mentioned or explained in the first edition of the journal, its meaning probably relates to the Latin word Contrée, and which could in French refer to either land, region or country. It could be said that the “scientific” phase of Contree started when historians at UJ took responsibility for it in 1992. At this stage neither the HSRC’s Division for Regional History nor UJ were very explicit in their welcoming and farewell editorials on how they tried to run or would have liked to proceed with the journal’s acclaimed urban and regional focus.63 After some years, they did emphasise in the editorial policy that Contree was intended to provide an “outlet for the products of urban or regionally oriented research”. They also added: “As such it covers a wide field or research and accommodates a variety of disciplines”.64 Responsibility for the journal in the meantime passed in 1996 to NWU’s Mafikeng Campus, which was when its name change to New Contree. This was very much connected to South Africa’s new dispensation65 and new history, and an apparent need to expand the celebrated definition of “Contree” to include a wider audience. It was accomplished by accepting deliberations on broader themes of national importance and by supporting scientific contributions in the crossing of disciplinary boundaries through sections on “voices” in the journal (such as a South African voice, a local and regional voice, an educational voice, a woman’s voice, an environmental voice, etc.). This approach catered for the full meaning of Contree (namely land, region and country). Gradually the micro voices of “local and regional” historians in New Contree became fewer and fewer as the other voices, not necessarily related to a particular local area or region, started dominating the content of editions.66

63 See CC Eloff, “Contree – the end of an era …1”, Contree, 30, October 1991, p. 40; HJ van Aswegen, Contree, 31, April 1992, p.4; “Editorial”, Contree, 38, December 1995. p. 3. 64 Anon., “Editorial Policy”, Contree, 35, June 1994, p. 3. 65 See J Bottomley and T Gouws, “The new history, the new South Africa, the New Contree”, New Contree, 39, August 1996, pp. 4-9, which probably also ties in with Bill Nasson’s thinking in “New history for the new South Africa”, which served as a review for the work of John Pampallis, titled Foundations of the new South Africa (MML, Cape Town, 1991), South African Historical Journal, 26(1), 1992. 66 At this stage Prof Christopher Saunders of the University of Cape Town, which criticised Contree for being narrow in focus, formed part of the Editorial Division, and probably endorsed the new editorial approach. See New Contree, 39, August 1996, p.2.

• 16 Historiographical and methodological reflections

When NWU’s Vaal Triangle Campus officially took responsibility for New Contree in 2007, the newly nominated editorial committee recommended that the broad and disciplinary integrative name of New Contree should be further clarified with a subtitle, namely: “New Contree. A journal of Historical and Human Sciences for South Africa”. It is indeed true that this consideration, and previous decisions to change the original name of the journal, have slowly paved the way for scientific discourse to move away from just being very local or perhaps focused on broader regional history, or with an explicit historical focus or as a journal being produced only by historians. No history journal in South Africa vigorously promotes historical dialogue that is multi-disciplinary or interdisciplinary, and New Contree of the time aimed (and currently still aims) to fill this space. With the addition to its name, the journal unobtrusively acknowledged regional and local history research and furthermore acted in support of the methodologies associated with this kind of research. Despite Saunders’ criticism at the time (as mentioned in the previous Section) that Contree in the HSRC years was parochial in focus, he appears not to have been against parochialism as an inevitable methodological requirement for eventually progressing towards representative or broader regional studies.67 This way of thinking about regional historical studies is not disputed but fully endorsed.

Other historical journals with a local or regional focus South African historians have approximately 15 history-related journals68 which welcome their research, although many other journals also accept historical research papers if their vision and guidelines are respected. In what way they all endorse research related to local areas and broader regions is not yet clear. The frequency of research related to a local area or to a broader region has been calculated in a random way by browsing through four South African history journals that are historically based and also based on the understanding of the concepts of local and/or regional as outlined in this discussion. They are by no means “complete sets” of a local or a broader regional-related history. Mostly an aspect of an area is discussed.69 The journals explored that were

67 Compare C Saunders, “What of regional history?...”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990, p. 138. 68 JS Bergh, “Historiese verenigings en tydskrifte in Suid-Afrika: Verlede, hede en toekoms”, Historia, 38(2), November 1993, p. 45 mentions 13 already in 1993, but since this statistics must have slightly changed. 69 Some place names that appear in the articles may have changed after 1994.

• 17 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

published in the period 1990–201170 are the South African Historical Journal (SAHJ); Historia; New Contree; and the South African Journal for Cultural History (abbreviated in this discussion as the SAJC). They are listed in random order.71 Table 1: Number of broad regional and/or local history articles by province published in four of South Africa’s history journals, 1990-2011

JOURNAL Eastern Free Gauteng KwaZulu- Limpopo Mpumalanga Northern North Western Cape State Natal Cape West Cape

(New) 5 3 6 4 1 0 2 2 5 Contree Historia 0 0 4 1 1 2 0 0 0 SAHJ 3 4 4 6 0 0 0 2 4 SAJC 7 11 11 4 3 6 0 4 16 TOTAL 15 18 25 15 5 8 2 8 25

(New) Contree contribution: 23.14% Historia contribution: 0.36.61% SAHJ contribution: 19% SAJC contribution: 51.23% Table 1 shows that a very limited number of articles have been published on the local histories of some provinces. It is very clear that results of local research from Gauteng and the Western Cape have so far been disseminated well through these journals, followed by the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. Publication of research on North West province and Mpumalanga is below average, with Limpopo and the Northern Cape representing only between one and four per cent of the total publications.72 The number of regional-focused articles published in these journals also differs in percentage and scope. A more extensive study may reveal editorial preferences for specific so-called schools of thought. It is further obvious from Table 1 that the SAJC has accepted many regional and/or local research contributions for publication. Although the journal’s focus is predominantly the cultural history residing in buildings, monuments, dwellings and other infrastructural developments, place names, clothing and myths, the journal succeeded (even before 1990) in providing space for many fields of local-related histories. As far as the other three journals are concerned, the published local and/or regional contributions can mostly be categorised

70 Before 1977 (the founding date of the journal Contree) most historical journals occasionally published research that was labelled narrow – such as local and/or from a broader regional angle. 71 The articles listed in each of the provinces are not given in any specific order. See a broader list in “Exploring local histories in the knowledge, use and appreciation of heritage and history in History curricula”, Yesterday & Today, 5, 2010, pp. 23-50. 72 It maybe speculated that the limited academic representation of research institutions on tertiary level in these provinces contribute to the poorly perceived research output.

• 18 Historiographical and methodological reflections into the following divisions or themes (in no particular order): Slavery; tribal history; town history/development; health history; poverty; economic history; oral history; political history; municipal/local government history; concentration camps; rural areas and farming communities; local personalities in township development and political activities; local missionary histories; development of buildings; street names; social and recreational histories; local environment histories; local gender histories; local company/ institutional/corporate and society histories; local military involvement in national wars; place name histories; educational histories; settlement histories; communication histories; family histories; clothing; language history (cultural); urbanisation. Many reasons could probably be put forward as to why some provinces do not receive enough attention from historians and some historical journals, which should receive consideration by researchers as suggested by Freund.73 To progress towards a broad collective and representative regional history, the existing and future micro or narrow local contributions must be thematic and trend inclusive. It is not possible to produce such regional histories74 owing to the poverty of representative research and lack of sufficient research publications that cover many themes, fields and perhaps angles of historical thought.

Approach to “narrow”-focused historical research in South Africa Considering that local, “narrow”-focused studies only started gaining momentum in South Africa from the late 1960s, followed by activities and thoughts on how it should be done and what should be done in the next decade (the 1990s when the critique by Saunders was published), it was perhaps then much too early to critically assess the status of regional history in the country. Political instability and newer (although locally-related) research trends such as industrial, social, economic and environmental histories from an ordinary person’s perspective, contributed towards a move away from the “narrow” to an all-inclusive local history. Perhaps a lack of awareness of the

73 B Freund, “Urban history in South Africa”, South African Historical Journal, 52(1), 2005, pp. 30-31. 74 P de Klerk in 2009 suggested that a regional approach may provide a fuller and more nuanced perspective on regions than is currently the case in, for example, the Western Cape rural areas and the Karoo. See P de Klerk, Streeksgeskiedskrywing en koloniale verhoudinge: Die Wes-Kaapse platteland en die Karoo”, New Contree, 58, November 2009, pp. 1-35.

• 19 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) possibilities of its future value in a broader collective regional study could be a reason). Also a lack of guidance in the methodology or methodologies of conducting such an all-inclusive, “narrow-directed” local history study may have led to the production of many histories of towns, cities and districts that do not necessarily contribute to the understanding of the national and broader trends. Such histories may even be labelled as trivial and of limited value, and only of interest to the locals of a specific area.75 Several research initiatives have been rated as pioneering urban histories in Cape Town, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, according to the list of published books referenced as examples by Freund.76 However, they mostly complement the contributions of historians at historically English universities or situated at universities in other countries. An historiographical review of, for example, local and broader regional contributions by historians at historically Afrikaans universities are almost absent from the sparse published historiographical debates on local or regional histories.77 Contributions to local histories by Afrikaans and language groups other than English still require critical exposure and assessment to fully value their focus and impact from the 1970s to the present. Whereas aspects such as race, class and gender in regional and local history studies mostly “captured” the attention of historians from the 1970s to the 1990s at the Universities of Cape Town, the Witwatersrand (the History Workshop activities included), Natal and Rhodes, several studies by, for example, the Universities of the Free State, Pretoria, Stellenbosch and North-West University focused on recording the entire development of towns, cities or regions according to a theme or a set of themes.78

75 See for example C Saunders, “What of regional history?...”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990 and the perspectives on rural history by C Bundy, The rise and fall of the South African peasantry (London, Heinemann, 1979; 2nd ed., Cape Town, David Philip, 1988), pp. 276. 76 B Freund, “Urban history in South Africa”, South African Historical Journal, 52(1), 2005, pp. 22-24, 26. 77 Freund tries to pay tribute to a sparse few local/regional history and literature contributions in the early years in as far as they contribute towards the visibility of the Afrikaner in the development of urban areas. See B Freund, “Urban history in South Africa”, South African Historical Journal, 52(1), 2005, pp. 29-30. 78 See for example MS Appelgryn, Johannesburg: ontstaan en eerste bestuursreëlings, 1886-1899 (Pretoria, UNISA, 1984), pp. 152.; H Bornman, Carolina, 1886-1986 (Stadsraad, Carolina, 1986), pp. 72; L Changuion, Pietersburg: Die eerste eeu, 1886-1986 (Pretoria, Stadsraad van Pietersburg, 1986), pp.306; Anon., “Warrenton, 1884-1984” (Warrenton, Stadsraad, 1985), pp. 1-16. It could be a worthwhile exercise to record and analyse the regional/local history publications and postgraduate studies from all the provinces in South Africa to determine the contributions and shortcomings.

• 20 Historiographical and methodological reflections

Apart from the 1990 discussion by Christopher Saunders79 and much later by Pieter de Klerk80 in 2009 on what regional historical studies could and should be, the focus by Bill Freund, on the other hand, has been urban history. He acknowledges the categorising of urban history in South Africa as an initiative from the 1970s and that it is “perhaps locale”. He also stresses the reality that very specific research interests/phenomena draw people to study a specific theme in a specific place:81 Personally I have a particular interest in economic phenomena … this is really what has drawn me to urban history … The ‘specificity of place’ is very significant in my work, by contrast with economic historians who believe simply in the application of universalising macro- and micro-economic propositions to the data of the past … Freund also made some suggestions as to where to take history in a post- apartheid dispensation from its rural82 and urban83 research contexts (see below in the discussion on methodology). De Klerk in turn argues that the 17 studies in some Western Cape areas and the Karoo, which he has explored, have many shortcomings. He suggests that there is a strong need for more research in the field of regional history with a focus on the colonial relations between the different races. Trends in the growth and change of communities as an offering in regional research have often been suggested: a proposal which has been embraced.84 Also in a broader context, a few researchers have explored the value of regional and/or local history in, for example, global,85 educational86 and environmental87 contexts. Furthermore, it should be noted that the South African Historical Society intends to have a regional angle (geographically defined) for its conference discussions in 2013.88

79 C Saunders, “What of regional history?...”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990, pp. 131-140. 80 P de Klerk, “Streeksgeskiedskrywing en koloniale verhoudinge: Die Wes-Kaapse platteland en die Karoo”, New Contree, 58, 2009, pp. 1-37. 81 B Freund, “Urban history in South Africa”, South African Historical Journal, 52(1), 2005, pp. 19-31. 82 B Freund, “Rural struggles and transformations”, South African Historical Journal, 19 (1), 1987, pp. 167-173. 83 B Freund, “Urban history in South Africa”, South African Historical Journal, 52(1), 2005, pp. 19-31. 84 Compare HPR Finberg and VHT Skipp, Local history. Objective and pursuit (David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1967), pp. 1-5, 10; B Freund, “Rural struggles and transformations”, South African Historical Journal, 19 (1), 1987, p. 170; C Abbott, “United States regional history as an instructional field: The practice of college and university history departments”, The Western Historical Quarterly, 21(2), May, 1990, p. 200. 85 A van der Vlies, “’Local’, ‘global’ reading and the demands of the “canon: The case of Alan Paton’s ‘Cry the beloved country’”, South African historical Journal, 55(1), 2006, pp. 20-32. 86 H Ludlow, Using local history to apprentice undergraduate students into the practices of the historian, South African historical Journal, 57(1), 2007, pp. 201-219. 87 Compare ES van Eeden, “Using a transdisciplinary approach for environmental crisis research in History”, The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 6(1), July 2010, pp. 191-208. 88 The South African Historical Society theme for the 2013 conference, is titled: All for one? One for all?: Leveraging national interests with regional visions in Southern Africa.

• 21 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

To conclude this section, Freund’s remark made several years ago that urban and other micro-historical studies should be revised in the context of a post- apartheid South Africa is still valid (see the following section on methodology). The critique by Saunders of the need for more substantial and representative regional historical studies is also valid. To be able to carry out regional-level studies of quality and inclusivity, the possibilities must be explored of narrow- focused local research according to themes, trends and phenomena, as well as integrative participatory research through multidisciplinary efforts in themes requiring more expertise than that which only regional and/or local historians can offer. Community-inclusive regional research studies (including the founding, development, change and current status in many fields and phenomena) will be meaningful to a wider audience than only the research community or local community.89

Methodological thinking in regional history research for modern-day practice The local impact of some trends abroad Concerning discussions and contributions on the historiography and methodology of regional and/or local history in South Africa (whether urban or rural), a few published contributions by historians were identified. Many historians regard the social and cultural study of PJ van der Merwe in 1937 on Namaqualand as a deep investigation of local history.90 It could be accepted that the work of the French Annales School in those years probably had an influence on his motivation to do this kind of research.91 As mentioned earlier, the first practitioners who formally carried out local history research in the United Kingdom,92 specifically at the University College of Leicester (HPR Finberg and VHT Skipp and later WG Hoskins), made the

89 Compare the debate among University of the Western Cape history scholars in their particular region. See “Doing history differently”, 2006 (Available at: http;//www.uwc.ac.za/index.php/module=cms&action=showfu lltext&id=gen20srv23N…, as accessed in January 2012), pp. 1-4. 90 Van der Merwe’s contribution is also mentioned as a pioneering contribution when dealing with local environmental history research. See B Freund, “Urban history in South Africa”, South African Historical Journal, 52(1), 2005, p. 20; P Steyn and A Wessels, “The roots of contemporary governmental and non-governmental environmental activities in South Africa, 1654-1972”, New Contree 45, 1999, pp. 77-80. 91 PJ van der Merwe, Die noordwaartse beweging van die Boere voor die Groot Trek 1770-1842… 92 Compare, for example, K Tiller, Review of local history since 1945”, The Local Historian, 36(1), February 2006, pp. 64-66; E Lord, “Review article: What is regional history?”, The Local Historian, 39(1), February, 2009, pp. 69-72; L Munby, D Huw Owen and J Scannel, Local history since 1945: England, Wales and Ireland (London, Socialist History Society, 2005).

• 22 Historiographical and methodological reflections following remark about these older histories (which also could apply to many local history contributions in South Africa):93 The reasons why so many of the older local histories fail to satisfy us are now clear. The writers were content to heap up all the facts they could discover, without order, art or methodology, and with no criterion for distinguishing the trivial from the significant… Old-style or traditional local history was exemplified by dull, parochial chronicles featuring an elitist conservative approach. Explicitly concerning the old-style local history methodology, Sheeran and Sheeran94 further add:

Methodologically, they [Finberg and Hoskins on old-style local history] objected to the antiquarian, fact-collecting tradition, the lack of order and method, and the overdependence on documentary sources. Philosophically, they criticized the lack of a ‘central unifying theme’ which would serve to distinguish local history as discipline… Probably as a contribution towards distinguishing local history as a discipline, a basic research methodology framework for local history was developed by Victor Skipp.95 This framework (and adapted versions of it) has been followed by some postgraduate scholars in South Africa (See Figure 1):

Figure 1: An research methodology model for local history proposed by Victor Skipp in 1981

According to this model, the local history researcher has to follow a narrative and descriptive approach that should include a strict analytical methodology, not forgetting to be comparative as well. The Skipp model suggests that the historical development of all fields locally, namely the political, the economical,

93 HPR Finberg and VHT Skipp, Local history. Objective and pursuit , p. 19; WG Hoskins, Local history in England (London, Longman, 1958). 94 G Sheeran and Y Sheeran, “Discourses in local history”, Rethinking History, 2(1), 1998, p. 67. 95 VHT Skipp, “Local history: A new definition and its implications”, Local Historian, 14, 1981, pp. 325-391.

• 23 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) the cultural etc., could be equally studied in one research project. The variety of fields could also be studied separately and independently.96 Skipp did not provide any extensive description or suggestion(s) of how to approach each of the locally identified fields of research if it is researched and discussed as a separate entity. Neither is it clear from Finberg’s suggestion regarding the “origin, growth, decline and fall” of the local area as to what could or should be critically assessed (and how) in each field, theme or phenomenon of a local area or region. This framework as a methodology, which was also indirectly acknowledged by the HSRC’s regional section in the 1970s and 1980s, was not regarded as a practise that would necessarily serve as a means to progress towards developing an analytical regional history.97 Because research in local and regional histories was a developing field in its infant stages in the 1970s and 1980s, some historians in South Africa followed their own intuition as far as the methodology was concerned, while others preferred to engage with specific local themes that also served a purpose during the Apartheid years in South Africa. It is an unfounded impression that historians at Afrikaans universities in the pioneering years of local/regional history research were following a research methodology that deliberately concentrated on elitist or top-down research on regions and townships in a way “typical” of Afrikaner nationalist historians. Because the leadership of most municipalities was still predominantly white at the time (and often requested, and sometimes even financially supported such research), it is to be expected that the recording of an area’s history and township development would feature a white-centric, top-down history of development. The way local history research developed internationally was no different. Pioneering publications of a local area or region’s development may have a tendency first to feature the activities or presence of the elite or dominant leadership, unless a very specific theme is the focus of the research methodology.98 To address a specific theme in a local history, as suggested in the Skipp methodological framework in Figure 1, the outline in Figure 2 could serve as a guideline:99

96 VHT Skipp, “Local history: A new definition”, The Local Historian, 14(6), 1981, p. 329. By 2011 this Journal was still having a strong visibility in the UK. See local.historyonline (available at: www.local.history.co.uk). 97 Impressions based on a study of the model and use of the model itself by the author. 98 From the author’s own experience of regional/local history research in South Africa, and based on knowledge from the previous section and the historiography of South Africa. See for example J Carruthers, Sandton, the making of a town (Randburg, Celt Books, 1993), pp. 80. 99 Suggestions by the author based on many years of practising regional/local history.

• 24 Historiographical and methodological reflections

Figure 2: Suggestions for a research framework in a theme-specific discourse on regional/ local histories

Within the “history from below” research approach100 to a regional/local theme or phenomenon, the development and status of, for example, race, gender, class, capitalism, racism, poverty, industry’s impact on the environment, etc., featured much more than studies101 in which the methodological ideas of Finberg and Skipp were accommodated.102 It may therefore be speculated that historians at the historically Afrikaans universities from the late 1970s to the 1980s and 1990s focused more on recording all knowledge (thus the historical development in all the thematic fields in local history research as outlined, for example, in the Skipp model shown in Figure 1),103 especially regarding white communities, than the historians and/or human and social scientists at historically English universities (of whom some followed a “history from below” research approach). In the “history from below” methodology, some researchers concentrated on tracing or identifying trends in local areas regarding the everyday experiences

100 See the discussion of CC Eloff, “‘History from below’: ‘n Oorsig”, Suid-Afrikaanse Historiese Joernaal, 25(1), 1991, pp. 38-60. 101 Compare FA van Jaarsveld, “Demokratisering in die geskiedwetenskap: Van ‘n elitegeskiedenis van bo tot ‘n alledaagse geskiedenis van onderaf”, Historia, 32(1), 1987, p. 42; C Eloff, “‘History from below’: ‘n Oorsig”, Suid-Afrikaanse Historiese Joernaal, 25(1), 1991, p. 39. 102 For example, in the Johannesburg area where the Wits History Workshop operated and supported a “History from Below” methodology, it has to be noted that several English and Afrikaans histories (in the Skipp fashion) had already been recorded as serving at least as a contextual basis for applying a more focused but extensive research methodology in thematic recordings of histories of ordinary people. See for example J Shorten, The Johannesburg saga (Johannesburg, City Council, 1970), pp. 1159; ELP Stals, Afrikaners in die Goudstad (Pretoria, Haum Opvoedkundige Uitgevery, 1978). 103 See for example ES van Eeden, Carletonville van pionierstreek tot goudspens (Knowledge Tec, Pretoria, 1995); PF van der Schyff (red.) en ES van Eeden, Bothaville en sy mense (RGN Drukkers, Pretoria, 1994); WGH en S Vivier, Hooyvlakte. Die verhaal van Beaufort Wes: 1818-1968 (Nasionale Boekhandel, Kaapstad, 1969), pp. 230.

• 25 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) of local people104 in very specific themes or phenomena as mentioned earlier.105 In this regard the History Workshop of the University of the Witwatersrand claims to have started doing research which in the seventies and eighties focussed more on the status, position and economic (as well as political) struggles of voiceless black people in white regulated mining areas and industries in the Johannesburg area. Eloff and others observed that the “history from below” practitioners were more specific in their way of doing research in an area on ordinary people, namely the “nameless, the oppressed, the victims of historical structures and processes, the neglected, the forgotten, the poor, the dispossessed, the marginalised, the unemployed and those who slipped through the net of history.” Others were more specific in explicitly referring to Africans in all these instances.106 Oral history recordings of ordinary people in such communities (as a people’s history) were a dominant aspect of the research methodology followed, which was not always regarded as the foremost way of doing research on local history. Their subjectivity, simplicity and politicising of the past were said to feature too predominantly in “history from below”.107 In addition to these observations, one could add that the predominant emphasis on a thematic phenomenon (as in “history from below”) did not necessarily serve a broader framework of contributing to or progressing towards regional/local history (as for example the framework suggested in Figure 2). Aside from the negative aspects, there were also positive aspects of the “history from below” methodology. Callie Eloff of the former Regional Research Division of the HSRC made the following positive remarks (freely translated into English):108 With regard to methodological ‘innovation’, the ‘history from below’ approach has been influential: previously neglected dimensions of the

104 In the discussion by C Eloff, “‘History from below’: ‘n Oorsig”,Suid-Afrikaanse Historiese Joernaal, 25(1), 1991, pp. 38-60 reference to ordinary and “small people” and writing on their “everyday life” is made. 105 C Saunders, “What of regional history? Towards a history of the Western Cape”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990, pp. 131-140. 106 C Eloff, “‘History from below’: ‘n Oorsig”, Suid-Afrikaanse Historiese Joernaal, 25(1), 1991, pp. 40-41; B Bozzoli (ed.), Labour, townships and protest: Studies in the social history of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1979), pp.342; C Saunders, “Towards understanding South Africa’s past: Reflections on recent developments in history writing in English”, South Africa International, 19(2), 1988, p. 67; L Callinicos, A people’s history of South Africa, vol 2: Working life (Belville, University of the Western Cape, 1987), p. 7. 107 L Callinicos, “Popularising history in a changing South Africa”, South African Historical Journal, 25(1), 1991, pp. 22-37; CC Eloff, “‘History from below’: ‘n Oorsig”, Suid-Afrikaanse Historiese Joernaal, 25(1), 1991; C Saunders, “What of regional history? Towards a history of the Western Cape”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990, pp. 131-140. 108 CC Eloff, “‘History from below’: ‘n Oorsig”, Suid-Afrikaanse Historiese Joernaal, 25(1), 1991, pp. 54-55.

• 26 Historiographical and methodological reflections

historical science came into their own. For example, the collection and use of oral information, participatory activities to provide a ‘customary colour’ to history, supporting multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, focusing on a total all-inclusive approach towards the past… Within this scope of recording and discussing possible research methodologies in regional histories in South Africa, it is of value to know that Eloff’s research methodology of “history from below” per se also totally fit the methodological shoe in regional history research, as it never would have been or should have been done otherwise. Perhaps the most important aspects of Eloff’s discussion as a regional historian is that he supported some aspects of the methodological approach in the “history from below” perspective, and advised in those early years that it should be ensured that this kind of history departs from a solid methodological basis. In essence then, Eloff’s view also means that he saw in “history from below” some traces of the methodology in regional history that should be embraced rather than avoided.109 There is a conceptual variety of a “history from below” research methodology. One perspective that explains more about a possible research focus as part of the methodological approach is offered by the German historian Alf Lüdtke:110 At the center… are the lives and the sufferings of those who are frequently labelled, suggestively but imprecisely, as the ‘small people’… It involves their work and non-work…, housing and homeless, clothing and nakedness, eating and hunger, love and hate. Beyond this, certain thematic emphases have emerged, such as the history of work, of gender relations, of the family, and especially of popular cultures. Thus attention is no longer focused on the deeds (and misdeeds) and pageantry of the great, the masters of church and state. Although the “everyday experiences” of “ordinary” people according to the many varieties of the “history from below” approach cannot be regarded as the ultimate perspective and ideal methodological framework for doing local history studies, it could and certainly should be considered as complementary to local history studies in which the “ordinary people” concept is also acknowledged but is supposed to be approached from the top down as well as from the bottom up. The contribution of a “history from below” approach according to the definition of e.g. Alf Lüdtke (see above) which provides the conceptual opportunity of being racially and culturally all-inclusive, should be

109 CC Eloff, “‘History from below’: ‘n Oorsig”, Suid-Afrikaanse Historiese Joernaal, 25(1), 1991, pp. 54-60. 110 In the 1970s and 1980s some German historians were active supporters of a “history from below” approach. See the quote on Lüdtke by G Eley, “Labour, history and social history”, Alltagsgeschichte…”, Journal of Modern History, 61 (2), 1989, p. 322 as in C Eloff, “‘History from below’: ‘n Oorsig”, Suid-Afrikaanse Historiese Joernaal, 25(1), 1991, p. 40.

• 27 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) valued as part of a methodologically structured regional/local history research procedure. In such a process research progresses towards a representative inclusivity to contribute, ensuring a holistic view of a regional/local theme and its broader relatedness and/or differences.

Progressing towards a regional/local history research methodology framework When the HSRC started a division for urban and regional studies in 1977, no specific methodological guidelines for research practices in regional/local history were provided on white and black, although their opinions sometimes surfaced when responding to the research trends of the time. This is in part evident from the historiographical outline as given previously, and also features in the local history research methodology applications discussed in the previous Section as outcomes of international exposure. With some effort it may be possible to identify a select group of South African historians studying regional/local history and to pin down their rationale for applying specific methodological approaches. The contribution of Peter Delius on rural history, titled A lion amongst the cattle, reviewed by Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi, serves as an illustration:111 The author strives to recover the lives and agency of ordinary people, but not at the expense of the discussion of the overpowering structural forces inhibiting the choices open to rural communities. But, while societies in the reserves have been fundamentally reconfigured by the intersecting forces of racism and capitalism, their struggles have in turn helped to reshape the particular nature of both rural and urban society. Delius is concerned with the interplay between the dynamics of local level society and wider processes of change … Using a combination of archival and oral sources … Any study of a region’s history would be poor if it were conducted without including interviews of the local inhabitants (ordinary people) and the leadership (the “top down” people), and consulting the local archival sources available. If the interviews are not properly used within a broader contextual setting – with acknowledged standard and/or recognised secondary sources to confirm and expand on regional/local trends – the historiographical value of

111 SP Lekgoathi, “Delius’s a lion amongst the cattle. An accessible history of rural society”, South African Historical Journal, 37(1), 1997, pp. 214-217. To cover the Delius methodology of rural history which he conducted, Lekgoathi also mentions that Delius in later studies also undertook a gender analysis.

• 28 Historiographical and methodological reflections regional/local histories will be dubious.112 In fact, in modern-day idiom, such a representative history as referred to earlier even requires a further consideration before it can be reflected accordingly: its interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary (thus integrative) possibilities demand that an additional angle in its methodological considerations be considered as progressing towards an inclusive research approach in regional/local history.113 Not that pondering on the various disciplinary angles to local history research is new, (and because most disciplines in any case deal with local communities in some way). Finberg in 1952 already reminded those dealing with local history research that local historians interrogate many other disciplinary fields.114 Freund in 2005 stated that a new approach to research in urban areas should be considered, as the old way (prior to 1994 and in the heyday of “history from below”) was no longer sensible:115 Probably the obvious point at which to start is to take up the present problems of the South African city and the discourses relating to those problems in policy circles. The decline of the city centre, the relationship of the private sector to the public sector, the arguments in favour of urban densification, the city and the changing nature of global capitalism, urban environmental issues: these are all important touchstones which could cause us to go back to the drawing boards and rediscover historical problems and themes. Obviously race would not disappear nor would apartheid, but they would be differently configured … Policy issues might also point us in the direction of situating South African urban history within a comparative context … many American universities offer multi-disciplinary and intellectually

112 Compare ES van Eeden, “Exploring local histories in the use and appreciation of Heritage and History in history curricula”, Yesterday&Today, 5, Oct. 2010, pp. 23-50; ES van Eeden, “Whose environment? Whose nature? – a trans-disciplinary discussion on some inhumane actions in the destruction and construction in nature – case study, the Merafong municipal region”, South Africa: International conference on human kind and the intersection of nature and culture, The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 2, November 2006, pp. 409-430. 113 ES van Eeden, “Considering environmental history within the transdisciplinary methodology as research focus for today and tomorrow, Interdisciplinary Science Review, 36(4), December 2011, pp. 314-329; ES van Eeden, “A practical exploration of the feasibility of Integrative Multidisciplinary research from a broad ecohealth perspective in South Africa”, The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 7(2), December 2011; ES van Eeden, “Using a transdisciplinary approach for environmental crisis research in History”, The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 6(1), July 2010, pp. 191-208. 114 HPR Finberg, “The local historian and his theme”, (inaugural lecture at the University College of Leicester, 6 November 1952), in HPR Finberg and VHT Skipp, Local history: Objective and pursuit, pp. 10-13. 115 B Freund, “Urban history in South Africa”, South African Historical Journal, 52(1), 2005, p. 27. Freund also endorses more research associations with Africa.

• 29 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

committed programmes in Urban Studies, something entirely lacking in South Africa … The views and suggestions by Freund could certainly be digested within the broader regional/local history too. The aspect of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, mentioned earlier by Eloff and also in this context by Freund, should not be overlooked from a recent-day perspective. Given the present environmental complexities of each human-defined local area and/or geographic region, it has actually become a requirement for disciplines to put their research strength into understanding and analysing the state and requirements of a local area. From this integrative effort the regional/local historian could record or be part of the recording of an all-inclusive local history (an area, district or region), more broadly defined as regional history.116 It is not possible for one individual to provide true meaning to a regional historical study because of the wide thematic field that must be covered to produce all-inclusive research of a richer value. To further carry out “good” regional history research then (thus Saunders), requires that an area must have some geographical unity, often (but not necessarily) brought under a single political framework for a considerable period of time. By the early 1990s Saunders was of the opinion that historians had not attempted “to transcend discrete studies limited to relatively small periods or areas”, but that some studies appeared to at least have a regional dimension.117 If Saunders is understood correctly, he indirectly challenges historians to invest more in the micro approach of doing research on areas but with a definite vision or focus to eventually capture a collection of research outcomes related to a region in a major regional study. This suggestion is endorsed. In South Africa we have reached the stage in regional/local historical research where we can rise to the challenge of this suggestion and opportunity in at least the regions (and their districts) of some provinces that already possesses a rich history.118 To stimulate further debate in this direction, ideas for an extended research framework for regional/local history are provided

116 Compare this possibility with some thoughts abroad, such as that of SH Armitage, “From the inside out: Rewriting regional history”, Frontiers – A Journal of Women’s Studies, 22, 2001, pp. 1-2. 117 C Saunders, “What of regional history?...”, South African Historical Journal, 22(1), 1990, p. 135. 118 ES van Eeden, Carletonville van pionierstreek tot goudspens (Knowledge Tec, Pretoria, 1995) could be regarded as an example of progressing towards the broader local dimension by reflecting on its impact on South Africa. Yet this region’s incompleteness in some phenomena and trends requires some serious revisiting and integrative multidisciplinary input before any reference to being an all-inclusive regional study can be made.

• 30 Historiographical and methodological reflections in Figure 3, and a thematic example is given in Figures 4 for integrative multidisciplinary research locally: Figure 3: An extended research framework (departing from the original Skipp model) for progressing from micro/narrow varieties of regional/local history research to a more collective regional understanding of space and place

Fields of study Themes of study Considerations in Outcomes of Research studies studies for the methodology Regional history; - Settlement patterns; region Local history; - Local governance & - Growth and change - Recording - Rural management patterns; Analysing growth knowledge systems; - Urban - Urbanisation; - Indigenous knowledge and change - Family - Social structures and systems; - Philosophical; - Community patterns; Recording the - Archaeological; - People - Political trends; - Race (all-inclusive and/or specific); physical experience - Place - Demographic - Social; - Space patterns; Reflecting the - Area - Infrastructural - Class (all-inclusive - Multidisciplinary; - Heritage features; and/or specific); psychological - Perspectives from - Development - Industrialisation; experience of people the bottom up and - Economic trends; - Gender (all-inclusive (e.g. sense of space and/or specific); top down - Agricultural patterns; & place) - Ecohealth patterns; - Human well-being; - Identity; Practising the - Education - Relations (e.g. integrative development; colonial); multidisciplinary - Communication experience towards patterns; - Poverty; - Heritage and tourism all-inclusive development; - Environmental knowledge - Spiritual practices; destruction and/or - Law, order and remediation; Gaining regional, military impacts national and global - Land - Regionalisation; insights - Conservation… - Globalisation… Awareness of differences and similarities

The collective part will only be able to feature to its full extent in collective regional/local studies produced by historians and other experts in academia and related professional institutions. Theoretical considerations and meth- odological development, including their refinement/renewal, will be possible if regional/local studies in history depart from existing theoretical approaches in the discipline of History and within its wider academic connections.

• 31 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Figure 4: An example of approaching an integrative multidisciplinary theme in regional/local history

economic

Human well-being social

Ecohealth patterns Environmental destructions & destructors cultural

industrial pollution

The quest for proper training to accommodate new research trends has been repeatedly pursued. In 2004, Katz et al. remarked:119 As historians become increasingly spatial in their analysis, area studies theorists and programs may be helpful partners, while history departments can offer area studies programs, many of which have historical foundations, [as] historical training for their students. And, like history, many area studies programs are moving toward the humanistic disciplines. In integrative multidisciplinary studies, one should always embrace one’s academic roots and accommodate their research tools in, for example, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research environments. Ignorance of disciplinary roots will lead nowhere.120

Conclusion The main aims of this discussion were to historiographically inform and methodologically deliberate on regional/local histories from international, South African and regional/local perspectives. An endless debate on how to

119 See Katz in the publication of The Committee on Graduate Education of the American Historical Association (compilers: T Bender, PM Katz, C Palmer), The education of historians for the Twenty-first Century, pp. 1-222; JE de Steiguer, The origins of modern environmental thought University( of Arizona Press: Tucson USA, 2006), p. 202. 120 S Pyne, “Environmental history without historians”, Environmental history, 10(1), January, 2005, pp. 72-74; P Sabin, “The ultimate environmental dilemma: Making a place for historians in the climate change and energy debates”, Environmental history, 15(1), 2010, pp. 76-93; ES van Eeden, “Considering environmental history within the transdisciplinary methodology as research focus for today and tomorrow, Interdisciplinary Science Review, 36(4), December 2011, pp. 314-329.

• 32 Historiographical and methodological reflections define regional/local history was not the major focus. It was rather decided to accept its vague outline and produce an understanding of what kind of research could be regarded as inclusive of regional/local history. The intention was not to stir up other debates, but rather to provide a digestible framework as a point of departure for understanding, debating and doing regional/local history research, especially in South Africa. In South Africa current historical debates on regional/local histories are very limited. The publication of all-inclusive regional/local studies is equally limited. The few published studies do not always feature integrative and inclusive research as a means to progress towards a broader understanding of regions and/or local areas. A lack of theory or failure to consider the theoretical connections in regional/local history in South Africa and worldwide is another serious shortcoming. In commemorating the 35th year of the existence of the journal Contree/New Contree, this and other shortcomings in regional/local history research in South Africa were identified yet again. Pioneers in local history in the UK by 1998 were arguing the shortcomings and positive features of local history:121 A philosophical base for local history, which would fulfil our desire to engage in “real” history might, it could be argued, be found in the new realism which has emerged in both the sciences and social sciences…

… at a popular level, the subject is one of the largest growth areas of historical endeavour … it is perhaps this very popularity and groundswell of success that has led to the lack of critical and unproblematized approach to the subject… Part of the reason for the shortcomings could be that historians at tertiary institutions mostly operate as solitary subject groups, further strengthened by the locked-in approach to regional/local foci. The only opportunities for debate are at specific conferences and tertiary seminars (which not everyone can attend due to time and place constraints). No national regional/local history discourse (except for the local research activities of the Wits History Workshop group) is in place to enhance research on specific local/regional histories (theory and methodology). The regional/local value of doing integrative multidisciplinary studies in a particular area should also be considered. This could be done perhaps with the view to further strengthening methodologies in regional history studies and to ambitiously embrace possibilities for

121 G Sheeran and Y Sheeran, “Discourses in local history”, Rethinking History, 2(1), 1998, pp. 82-83. In South Africa local history as a “discipline” does not feature on its own. This is not supported by the author.

• 33 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) engaging in varieties of integrative research from bottom-up and top-down perspectives. This may be the only way to progress towards inclusive regional histories as contributions to understanding regions. Theory and methodology will be the connections that bind regional/local historians to research and discussions, and may provide insight to a wider area and audience. It could be a worthwhile exercise to record and analyse the regional/local history publications and postgraduate studies from all the provinces in South Africa to determine their contributions and shortcomings. Debates on local history are necessary to avoid the comfort area of not been exposed to a process of self-examination. In South Africa this lack of debate in essence started and ended with Saunders in 1990, although Freund and De Klerk contributed to some debate in 2005 and 2011 respectively on some very selective shortcomings of regional/local history studies at the time. Historians and historical journals in South Africa should revue their thinking on regional/ local histories. Involvement in a popular journal reflecting micro and macro local environments should also be contemplated.

• 34 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

Business, State and Society - doing business apartheid style: The case of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

Anton Ehlers Department of History Stellenbosch University [email protected]

Abstract

This article uses the Pep Stores Peninsula Ltd case study (1973-1974) as a window on State-Business relationships during apartheid and to highlight the dynamics and outcomes generated by the combination of state controlled ideologically driven race based economic empowerment in tandem with corporate market driven initiatives. In the process it also sheds light on the role of Business during apartheid and the way they negotiated the apartheid context – in this case with specific reference to Coloured economic development and empowerment. The case study also underscores the viewpoint that the roots of black economic empowerment – despite the differences in context, aims and scale - in South Africa stretches back further than the much publicized post-1990 version that currently dominates State – Business relationships and debates.

Keywords: Black Economic Empowerment; Coloureds; Pep Stores; Coloured Development Corporation; Group Areas Act; Trade License; Renier van Rooyen; Apartheid; Pep Stores Peninsula; Business; Coloured Politics; Business-State Relationships.

Introduction The economic empowerment of previously disadvantaged black1 people and the accompanying attempts at establishing black entrepreneurship and a black middle class is currently a hotly debated topic in South Africa. Although current popular perception associates black economic empowerment with post-1990 South Africa the 1980 studies by R Southall and the work of recent scholars that draw on his work demonstrate that the current process is rooted

1 For the purpose of this article the term black is used generically and include Africans, Coloureds and Indians.

• 35 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) in historical antecedents that stretch back much further.2 In a historical analysis of black economic empowerment Peires came to the conclusion that by 1948, pre-colonial indigenous traditional black economic empowerment had been destroyed. This was effected through the combined onslaught of the mineral revolution and its migrant labour system in tandem with the accompanying segregation legislation such as the Natives’ Land Act of 1913 and the Urban Areas Act of 1923.3 Although highly critiqueal of the “corruption and cronyism” of the “homelands” system created after 1948 under apartheid. Peires is of the opinion that it did make available resources and created opportunities for black empowerment of a certain kind.4 According to Southall the objective of this kind of empowerment was “to create a collaborative petty-bourgeoisie within each of the homelands”.5 A characteristic of this version of black economic empowerment was the establishment of state controlled corporations (such as the Xhosa Development Corporation)6 for each homeland. In the original brief by the Tomlinson Commission these corporations had to promote African entrepreneurship by supplying the necessary capital and business assistance to potential small industry owners and traders.7 Apartheid also catered on a similar basis for the economic empowerment of other racial groups (Coloureds and Indians) with the difference that their economic empowerment was not contained in a homeland but exercised in their respective group areas as demarcated by the Group Areas Act.8 The Coloured

2 R Southall, “African capitalism in contemporary South Africa”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 7(1), October 1980; R Southall, South Africa’s Transkei. The political economy of an ‘independent’ Bantustan (London, Heinemann, 1982); G Marcus et al, (eds.) Visions of Black Economic Empowerment, Section 2, Historical Antecedents (Auckland Park, Jacana Media, 2007). See the contributions by E Mafuna, J Peires, D Innes & S Maseko in the above publication. 3 J Peires, “Economic empowerment in the Eastern Cape”, G Marcus et al, (eds.) Visions of Black Economic Empowerment, p. 45. 4 J Peires, “Economic Empowerment…”, G Marcus et al, (eds.) Visions of Black Economic Empowerment, p. 46. 5 R Southall, “African capitalism…”, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 7, no. 1, October 1980, p. 40. 6 By 1975, 692 loans to the value of R 6 518 700 to African businessmen were approved by the Corporation. R Southall, South Africa’s Transkei…, p. 190. 7 R Southall, South Africa’s Transkei…, pp. 44-45. 8 Based on his experience with the Coloured Development Corporation and the Xhosa Development Corporation Renier van Rooyen is of the opinion that “these corporations were total apartheid politically motivated and were managed by Broederbonders and other politically connected people – not appointed on the strength of their abilities or expertise but rather their political support. Those were easy real cosy comfortable jobs with big salaries, cars, houses, status and other perks.” With regard to their operational functioning he commented “that behind the façade of seemingly praiseworthy ideals there were many obstacles, confusion and sometimes deliberate indecisiveness.” Interview, A Ehlers (Historian, History Department, Stellenbosch University)/R van Rooyen (CEO, Pep Stores), 28 August 2008.

• 36 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

Development Corporation (CDC) was for example specifically founded to stimulate economic participation and development among Coloureds within their specific group areas. The Corporation financed and supported Coloured businesses and industries to achieve this aim. Apart from the CDC the broader framework of separate Coloured economic development was regulated by the Group Areas Act. The Act defined a Coloured company as 51% shareholding of the business being in Coloured hands. Some white businessmen seized this opportunity to access Coloured group areas as markets by establishing companies with a 51% Coloured shareholding to trade in these areas. Pep Stores Limited, a clothing retail company founded in 1965 and serving the bottom end of the market was probably one of the earliest and most well publicized examples in this regard. After initial correspondence and deliberations with the CDC in 1973 the company founded Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Limited to access the Coloured group areas as potential market for their business. This initiative foregrounded the problems and pitfalls of Coloured economic empowerment on an apartheid basis. The aim of this article is to use the Pep Peninsula case study as a window on State-Business relationships during apartheid. It attemps to highlight the dynamics and outcomes generated by the combination of state controlled ideologically driven race based economic empowerment in tandem with corporate market driven initiatives. In the process it also sheds light on the role of Business during apartheid and the way they negotiated the apartheid context - in this case with specific reference to Coloured economic development and empowerment. The case study also underscores the viewpoint that the roots of black economic empowerment – despite the differences in context, aims and scale - in South Africa stretches back further than the much publicized post-1990 version.

The statutory framework for Coloured economic empowerment by c.1972 As with the statutory imposed political separate development of Coloureds which culminated in the Coloured Representative Council (CRC) in 19699 the economic separate development of the Coloured group was also dictated through statutory measures. Act no 4 of 1962 made provision for the

9 JJN Cloete, Sentrale, provinsiale en munisipale instellings van Suid-Afrika (Pretoria, Van Schaik, 1977), pp. 201- 204. The CRC was the vehicle created by the apartheid government for the political representation of Coloureds on a national level.

• 37 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) establishment of the CDC with a share capital of R500 000 and the state being the only shareholder. The aim of the Corporation was the economic development of Coloureds in industry, trade and finance within their designated group areas.10 The Corporation was managed by a board of directors appointed by the State President. The main focus of the Corporation was therefore the establishment of Coloured industrial, commercial and financial companies by providing the financial, administrative and logistical support needed for such ventures. By the beginning of 1974 the CDC had already invested R20 million in the development of industry and commerce and was in the process of financing several new projects.11 The act defined a Coloured company as any association of persons in which all the shares were held by Coloureds or Coloureds and the Corporation.12 This definition differed from the one prescribed by the Group Areas Act No 36 of 1966 with regard to companies that were allowed to operate in Coloured group areas. This act used the 51/49% principle for their definition of “controlling interest” in a company. A “disqualified company” (a company that was not allowed to trade in a certain group area) was described as a company in which the controlling interest was in the hands of a “disqualified person”. A “disqualified person” was a person that was not a member of the group for which the group area in which the company operated was specified. The right to do business in a certain group area was therefore determined by the status of the individual or company as being either “qualified” or “disqualified” in terms of the stipulations of the Group Areas Act.13 Although CDC legislation did not make provision for mixed shareholding for CDC initiatives, the Group Areas Act through its definitions did accept the principle. Though it was not spelt out in so many words, Act no 4 of 1962 formulated the powers of the Corporation broad enough for the CDC to take on the role of gatekeeper against any illegal competition for Coloured businesses in Coloured group areas if it so wished.14 Apart from the Companies Act the provincial control of the business activities of individuals or companies were regulated through provincial ordinances. In the Cape Province the Registration of Businesses Ordinance,

10 Republic of South Africa, Act no. 4 of 1962, Coloured Development Corporation Act, 1962. 11 Anon., “We will all work together in future – CDC official”, Cape Herald, 2 February 1974, p. 1; Anon., “CDC injects R13-m into new projects”, Cape Herald (Business and Motoring), 9 March 1974, p. B1. 12 Republic of South Africa, Act no. 4 of 1962, Coloured Development Corporation Act, 1962. 13 Republic of South Africa, Act no. 36 of 1966, Group Areas Act, 1966. 14 Republic of South Africa, Act no. 4 of 1962, Coloured Development Corporation Act, 1962.

• 38 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

1953 stipulated that anybody wishing to carry on a business had to register with the local authority in whose area of jurisdiction the business wanted to operate. The local authority had to issue a certificate of registration to successful applicants that licensed the individual or company to carry on its business in that area.15 To accommodate the development of local government in group areas the Registration and Licensing of Businesses Amendment Ordinance, 1972 further stipulated that if the business was situated within an area for which a management committee had been established, the “views” and “recommendations” of the committee concerned had to be obtained. In practice this meant that management committees (the local authorities in Coloured and Indian/Asian group areas) had no decision making power on who could do business in their group area. It could only comment/advise or make representations to the local authority (white municipality or city council) in this regard.16 On article the web of statutory regulations tightened the control over economic activities in group areas. In practice the division of functions in this whole process among a number of statutory bodies without clear lines of communication or hierarchy of authority tended to have the opposite effect. This resulted in a game of passing the buck when problem cases arose. A request by the Kensington Management Committee to the Cape Town City Council (CTCC) for more information on a specific company so that they could determine the legality of the status of the company to trade in their area and make a recommendation to the CTCC served as a case in point. The CTCC issued the certificate of registration that entitled the business to a trading license. The Council did not however consider it their duty to investigate the company to establish whether it was eligible for a license in terms of the Group Areas Act. They therefore referred the Management Committee (MC) to the Department of Community Development. The Department adhered to the legislative requirements governing the issuing of trading licenses in group areas and was prepared to act when a premises was occupied by a “disqualified” person without the necessary permits having been obtained. They felt however that they could only become involved once an application for a trading license in a specific building was referred to them. The Department therefore referred the MC to the CDC. Although the CDC

15 Republic of South Africa, Ordinance No. 15 of 1953 (Registration of Businesses Ordinance, 1953, Sections 3 and 4). 16 Republic of South Africa, Ordinance No. 19 of 1972 (Registration and Licensing of Businesses Amendment Ordinance, 1972, Section 5).

• 39 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) could probably claim a gate-keeping role in this regard they tended to only become involved when the interests of one of their own projects were at stake. The original intention of the Kensington MC to advise that the development plans of the company in question be prevented if it proved to be a “disqualified” company was eventually frustrated. Due to a lack of information they decided to adjourn the matter until the proposed development was completed17 - in which case any action would probably be too late. The experience of a local authority like the CTCC further testified to the difficulties and practical realities of administering the system of the licensing of businesses within an apartheid context. In response to an enquiry by the Athlone and District MC with regard to businesses trading prior to a certificate of registration having been obtained, the licensing division of the Council indicated that although they were in favour of prosecution in such cases their experiences with the processes and approach of the Courts has made this an option of last resort. In cases where the Council did prosecute the Courts displayed leniency by adjourning the hearings to enable the businesses concerned to fulfil the requirements and obtain the licences. Although the Council could apply to the Supreme Court for an interdict to immediately close down such businesses it was an expensive option and also one that would flood the Supreme Court with applications due to the widespread practice of trading prior to licencing. Because the Council was of the opinion that the Supreme Court would probably display the same leniency as the lower courts: 18 … the procedure is to accept applications and call for all necessary reports. Applicants are advised that trading prior to their obtaining the certificate of registration and licenses is illegal. All applicants are given between three weeks and one month to put their business premises in order and on their not complying within a given period legal proceedings are instituted. The letter also illustrates that the focus of the CTCC when it came to the requirements for licensing was on “non-political” matters such as the health risk of the business premises and the criminal record of the applicants. In this

17 Cape Archives Depot (CAD), Cape Town, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/2/1/2 Kensington Management Committee Minutes, January 1971 – December 1975, Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the Kensington Management Committee, 22 May 1974, p. 4 and 25 September 1974, p. 2; CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/1/1/3 Athlone and District Management Committee Minutes, March 1974 – December 1976, Minutes of In-Committee Proceedings of the District Management Committee, 17 September 1975, p. 1. 18 CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/1/1/3 Athlone and District Management Committee, Minutes, March 1974 – December 1976, Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the Athlone and District Management Committee, 15 October 1975, p. 3 (Annexure 6: Letter, The Acting Secretary Athlone and District Management Committee – M Goodrick for Trading Licensing Officer, 3 October 1975).

• 40 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited regard they differed from the MCs whose primary focus was on the “qualified” or “disqualified” status of the applicants according to the Group Areas Act.

The implementation of separate economic development for Coloured people: “qualified” or “disqualified”? The issuing of trading licences: Management Committees (MCs) vs. the CTCC The local MCs in the Coloured group areas in the Cape Peninsula became the battle ground of Coloured economic empowerment on a statutory regulated apartheid basis. From their inception, Coloured MCs were at loggerheads with the apartheid government about the Committees lack of real decision making power and what they perceived as their “rubber stamp” status. One of the areas the MCs identified was the issuing of trade licenses. They requested to have the final say with regard to the issuing of trade licenses in their areas of jurisdiction. The CTCC was however not prepared to cede their final say on the issuing of licenses to the MCs.19 Apart from their lack of real decision making power with regard to trade licenses the manner in which the CTCC implemented the consultative process was also a source of great irritation to MCs and indicative of the lack of esteem and status of the Committees. MCs complained continuously about the lack of information on the license applications they had to consider – manifesting their rubber stamp status.20 They were also upset by the fact that the legislation with regard to “disqualified” traders in group areas was not applied properly. In reaction to objections from businessmen to the “influx of White businesses” in Athlone, the Athlone and District MC discussed the issue in November 1973. EM Essop, complained about the large number of “disqualified” traders that were still operating under permits in the MC area and enquired when such persons will be required to vacate their premises. He also drew attention to the fact that not a single application by a white businessman for renewal of his trade license had been referred to the MC thus

19 CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk, Cape Town. 1/1/1/160, City of Cape Town. Proceedings of Council for the Mayoral Year March 1974 to August 1974, Vol. 132C, Ordinary Council Meeting, 28 March 1974, pp. 2331-2332. 20 CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/1/1/2 Athlone and District Management Committee Minutes, January 1968-January 1974, Minutes of the Inaugural meeting of the Athlone and District Management Committee, 13 February 1973, p. 6.

• 41 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) far. Referring to the 51-49% stipulation in the Group Areas Act Essop called for the relevant legislation to be amended and described it as:21 …the biggest fraud perpetrated by the Government. This is not the Government’s policy of separate development. We don’t open in White areas. We won’t get permission from the Department of Community Development. But suddenly we find White businesses opening in Athlone. There is obviously a big loophole in the 51-49 percent set-up. It’s one big farce…killing the economic growth of the Coloured businessman. Essop was also supported on the issue by other members of the MC such as F Peters while some members were also disappointed about the lack of reaction from the CRC on the issue. The MC unanimously accepted a resolution calling on the Government to investigate the question of “disqualified” persons trading in the area under the jurisdiction of the Committee.22 This resulted in a memorandum in February 1974 addressed to the CTCC in which the Committee stated its grievances with regard to “disqualified” traders operating in its area of jurisdiction. In reaction to this memorandum the CTCC Town Clerk requested all Coloured MCs under its jurisdiction to provide the Council with specific cases in this regard.23 A differentiated reaction from the MCs to the CTCC request demonstrated that the issue of “disqualified” traders was not such a pressing issue in all Coloured group areas. Party political affiliations and economic interests played a role in the responses of MCs and it’s individual members to the issue. Dispite the imbiguous reaction the rejection of the presence and activities of “disqualified” traders was widespread.24 The Athlone MC was particularly concerned about the slow economic development of the Coloured people

21 Anon., “Trading set-up is farcical – Babs Essop”, Cape Herald, 2 March 1974, p. 4. 22 CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/1/1/2 Athlone and District Management Committee Minutes, January 1968-January 1974, Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the Athlone and District Management Committee, 28 November 1973, p. 9; Anon., “Trading set-up is farcical – Babs Essop”, Cape Herald, 2 March 1974, p. 4. 23 CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/2/1/2 Kensington Management Committee Minutes, January 1971 – December 1975, Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the Kensington Management Committee, 24 April 1974, p. 2; CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/3/1/2 Wittebome/Wynberg Management Committee Minutes, January 1972 – July 1976, Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the Wittebome/Wynberg Management Committee, 20 March 1974, p. 2. 24 CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/3/1/2 Wittebome/Wynberg Management Committee Minutes, January 1972 – July 1976, Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the Wittebome/Wynberg Management Committee, 20 March 1974, p. 2; Debates and proceedings of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, First Council, Fourth Session 1972, Vol. 19, 29-30 August 1972, p. 1163; CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/2/1/2 Kensington Management Committee Minutes, January 1971 – December 1975, Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the Kensington Management Committee, 24 April 1974, p. 2.

• 42 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited and what they considered to be the manner in which the economic growth of the Coloured people was being stifled.25 In the Athlone and District MC Federal Party member (Babs Essop)26 and Labour Party member (F Peters)27 were unanimous on the issue despite the policy differences of their respective parties on national level. The complaints by MCs about the way they were treated in the whole licensing process and also their critique of the 51/49% principle can partly be explained by the different view held by the CTCC on Coloured economic development. The view held by the CTCC was clearly spelt out in their recommendations on Coloured entrepreneurship to the Erica Theron Commission28 in March 1974. Although the CTCC was well aware of the resentment in the Coloured community towards “disqualified” groups trading in their areas or Coloured people being used as fronts for “disqualified” capital they were convinced that based on the level of their expertise Coloured entrepreneurs required to be financially assisted until viable developments were established. They therefore found it advisable that white and/or Asiatic entrepreneurs be allowed to invest in Coloured areas specifically where Coloured expertise does not exist in particular activities such as financial and industrial concerns. These investments however had to strike a balance:29 … between the capital-availability, know-how and business sophistication of the Coloureds vis-à-vis their White counterparts to ensure that they do not suffer undue competition in their areas.

Coloured reaction to the Pep Stores Peninsula trade licence application In the beginning of May 1974 the issue of “disqualified” persons and businesses operating in Coloured group areas reached a climax that was initiated by the Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd application for a trading

25 CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk of Cape Town. 1/4/18/1/1/3 Athlone and District Management Committee Minutes, March 1974 – December 1976, Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the Athlone and District Management Committee, 14 March 1974, p. 5. 26 Debates and proceedings of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, First Council, Fourth Session 1972, Vol. 19, 29-30 August 1972, p. 1129. 27 Anon., “Storm about to burst over Peters’s call on businesses”, Sunday Times Extra, 12 May 1974, np. 28 The Erica Theron Commission was appointed by the State President in March 1973 to investigate the progress made by the Coloured population since 1960 on social, economic and political level as well as local government level and sport and culture. The commission also had to report on any factors inhibiting Coloured development. E Theron & JB du Toit, Kortbegrip van die Theron-verslag (Kaapstad, Tafelberg, 1977), p. 1. 29 CAD, 3/CT Archives of the Town Clerk, Cape Town, 1/1/1/160, City of Cape Town. Proceedings of Council for the Mayoral Year March 1974 to August 1974, Vol. 132C, Special Council Meeting, 8 March 1974, p. 275.

• 43 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) license to do business in Athlone on the basis of the 51/49% principle. The CTCC received the application in February 1974. After having processed the application they referred it to the Athlone and District MC for comment.30 The Committee seized the opportunity to foreground the simmering dissatisfaction that surrounded the issue in the Coloured community. The Committee unanimously accepted a resolution opposing the application as a typical example of white businessmen using Coloured persons as “fronts” to get access to Coloured group areas on the strength of the “fraudulent” but legal 51/49% principle. They also accepted a resolution introduced by Fred Peters, national secretary of the Labour Party and member of the Committee, requesting the Government to prevent “disqualified” people from owning businesses in Coloured group areas.31 The ambiguous nature of the responses from the Coloured community to the issue of doing business on a racially segregated basis was underlined by the response Peters received from his fellow Labour Party members. Young people in the party saw the resolution as “a complete contradiction of the Labour Party’s stated anti-apartheid policy” and a call for people to be excluded from operating business in certain areas because of their skin colour. Younger critiques disagreed with the view taken by some of the party’s “old guard”, namely that the resolution should be seen as “pro-Black” and not as pro- apartheid. To the younger critiques the resolution was nothing but “naked racialism”. Voices from the Indian community also sharply critiqueized the Peters-resolution and did not accept assurances by Peters that his apartheid resolution was aimed at white and not at Indian businessmen.32 The ambiguity on the issue also resonated in the Port Elizabeth Coloured MC with JP Damons of the Federal Party critiqueizing Asiatic and Chinese people trading in Coloured areas with FL Erasmus, a fellow committee member, calling Damons “a lone cry in the wilderness” and Dr A Dhoodat of the Indian MC rejecting the Damons critique and blaming the situation on the Governments Group Areas Act.33

30 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Bylae O: Application for registration certificate for Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd.), 15 February 1974, np. 31 Anon., “Trade clause called ‘fraud’”, Sunday Times Extra, 12 May 1974, np; Anon., “Storm about to burst over Peters’s call on businesses”, Sunday Times Extra, 12 May 1974, np. 32 Anon., “Storm about to burst over Peters’s call on businesses”, Sunday Times Extra, 12 May 1974, np. 33 Anon., “Committee man wants traders out”, Cape Herald, 4 May 1974, p. 1.

• 44 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

In this cauldron of general discontent, surrounding Coloured economic empowerment, Pep Stores Limited embarked on an initiative to utilise the 51-49% trade clause in the Group Areas Act to access Coloured group areas.

Pep Stores Limited: From Upington to Pep Peninsula - a historical review Pep Stores was founded in September 196534 in Upington, South Africa, by Renier van Rooyen as a retail clothing company servicing the bottom end of the market. In the bottom end of the market the company’s initial focus was on the Coloured community, of whom a large segment formed part of the bottom end market.35 The potential of Cape Town as a port for cheap imports and the extensive Cape Coloured market prompted Van Rooyen’s move to Cape Town in March 1966 and the decision to establish the “head office/ storage facility” of the company in Albert Road, Woodstock.36

Image 1: Pep Stores “head office/storage facility” in Albert Road, Woodstock, 1966

Source: Pep Nuus, Jaargang 1, no. 1, November 1973, p. 5. In the late 1960s Pep Stores entered a period of unprecedented growth. Pep branches increased from 3 in 1966 to 18 in 196837 to 164 by 1971 with a

34 Pep Hoofkantoorargief, Parow (PH) File: Pepkor Beperk. Akte van oprigting en statute voor September 1986 (Memorandum and articles of association of Pep Stores (Proprietary) Limited – “A” Memorandum of association of Pep Stores (Proprietary) Limited, pp. 1, 5); PH, File: Pepkor Beperk. Akte van oprigting en statute voor September 1986 (Memorandum and articles of association of Pep Stores (Proprietary) Limited, certificate of incorporation, 14 September 1965. 35 PH, Pep Stores Minute Book, 14 October 1965-28 February 1979 (First general meeting, 14 October 1965, p. 1). 36 PH, Anon., “Die ontstaan en groei van Pep Stores”, 1 (company brochure); Anon., “Pep (op pad beurs toe) mik na R30 miljoen”, Tegniek, Mei 1972, (no page). 37 PH, Anon., “Die ontstaan en groei van Pep Stores”, p. 4 (company brochure).

• 45 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) projected turnover of R6 000 000 for the 1970 financial year.38 In March 1970 a decision was taken to change the format of the company from a private to a public company.39 The Company’s ever-growing need for capital to finance its rapid expansion led to the enlarging of Pep’s authorised capital and a share issue in preparation for a listing application on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).40 In June 1972 Pep was listed on the JSE.41

The Pep Stores market focus and the Group Areas Act Concern about the possible influence of the government policy of separate development on Pep Stores activities surfaced for the first time during a board meeting in June 1968. In a discussion that focused on an evaluation and possible revue of company policy with regard to its sales policy and target market, Hantie Mouton, a director of the Company, raised the issue of separate development and its possible effects on the company and posed the question whether they should not plan accordingly. The ensuing discussion on the company’s market focus was dominated by arguments based on racial categories with the choice between Coloured customers (dominating the cheap market and representing the current market focus of the company) and white customers (dominating the dearer market and representing the ideal – in the OK Bazaars tradition -to be aspired for). Although there was evidence that white prejudice towards Pep products were slowly being eroded and that it manifested in more whites buying at Pep there was general consensus that the Pep focus should be on the cheap market; that the cheap market for Pep consisted mainly of the Coloured group and that they would stick to that market focus for the foreseeable future – despite the possible impact of the policy of separate development on company activities. In this regard Van Rooyen was of the opinion that it was necessary to continuously monitor the situation and keep them informed of developments but that they need not fear because the company possessed the necessary organisational and intellectual skills to adapt to the situation in the long term.42 The outcome

38 Anon., “Putting pep into discount stores”, Cape Times, 26 April 1969, np. 39 PH, Pep Stores Minute Book, 14 October 1965 - 28 February 1979, Extraordinary general meeting of shareholders, 21 March 1970, p. 3. 40 PH, Pep Stores Minute Book, 14 October 1965 - 28 February 1979, Board meeting, 4 June 1971, p. 3; Extraordinary meeting of shareholders, 4 June 1971, pp. 2-3. 41 PH, Pep Stores Minute Book, 14 October 1965 - 28 February 1979, Board meeting, 25 February 1972, p. 4. 42 PH, Pep Stores Minute Book, 14 October 1965 - 28 February1979, Board meetings, 17 April 1967, p. 1; 22 August 1967, p. 2; 20 June 1968, pp. 2-4.

• 46 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited of this board meeting heralded the beginning of the incubation period that would eventually give birth to Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd. in 1974.

Negotiating the Group Areas Act: the context of the Pep Peninsula concept The initial focus of Pep Stores expansion was on the Western Cape with its concentrated Coloured population in the Cape Peninsula surrounding Cape Town. By the early 1970s the Group Areas Act started to impact on the extraordinary growth of Pep Stores during its initial years. While expansion possibilities in certain white areas reached saturation point, the Group Areas Act created large concentrations of potential Coloured customers that were made difficult to access due to the web of apartheid role players and regulations that had to be negotiated. In its search for solutions to access this potential market the Board started to entertain the idea of establishing companies with a 51% Coloured shareholding on a “franchise” basis in the Coloured group areas.43 Apart from making business sense for Pep Stores the choice of this strategic direction must be understood and evaluated against the background of a number of other factors.

The growing black retail consumer market On an economic level there was a definite realization in the early 1970s among South African businessmen involved in retailing of the vast potential of the black consumer market. In 1971 the combined income of African workers in South Africa was estimated to break through the R1 000-million barrier. It was further estimated that the urbanized African population (33% of the total African population) contributed nearly 63% of the overall African household income and that this sector was largely responsible for the expansion of the markets in “tinned food, liquor, clothing and household goods.” Market research indicated that many African families spend nearly half of their income on these products. The realization of the potential of the estimated 17 million strong black or lower-in-come-market convinced more and more retailers to turn their focus in that direction. The fact that many black people did their main shopping in downtown stores catering for all races was an indication that this market sector was still under-serviced with

43 PH, Pep Stores Minute Book, 14 October 1965 - 28 February 1979, Board meeting, 25 August 1972, p. 4.

• 47 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) relatively few retailers that specialized in this sector. The African population of Johannesburg was a case in point as they utilized the approximately 1500 trading stores in their group areas for essential products only while spending the bulk of their income at downtown retail stores such as OK Bazaars, Woolworths and Checkers. There was realization among retail groups of the potential of this market but also of its specific needs, peculiarities and challenges. The Sunday Times came to the conclusion that:44 One thing is certain: the non-White will no longer tolerate the ‘Bantu image’ when shopping and any store succumbing to prejudices of White shoppers will no longer enjoy non-White custom. The same sentiments were echoed by Lofty Adams, a CRC member and public relations consultant, with regard to the Coloured consumer. Adams estimated the annual spending power of the Coloured people in the Cape Peninsula at “nearly R200 million” with projections that they would out- spend white consumers by the end of the century because of their population growth. Adams also warned businesses that there was a growing resentment among Coloured consumers towards marketing strategies and advertisements that showed colour prejudice and that businesses persisting with this approach stand to lose millions.45

Renier van Rooyen and social entrepreneurship The second factor that informed the Pep Stores initiative was closely related to the personal convictions and entrepreneurial history of the Pep Stores managing director, Renier van Rooyen and the way in which this manifested in the Pep Stores business philosophy. The success of his early business ventures before the establishment of Pep Stores was to a large extent made possible through the customer support that he received from the Coloured community of the North Western Cape and more specifically Upington and surrounding Gordonia region. This cemented a relationship with the generally poor Coloured group that was rooted in his own childhood relationships with Coloured individuals and his personal experiences of poverty.46 It manifested in a genuine sympathy for the plight of the poor and also informed the motives for his business ventures and philosophy. In 1971 he donated R10

44 Anon., “Non-White market has the potential”, Sunday Times, 29 August 1971, (no page). 45 Anon., “Wake up to Coloured consumer Whites are warned”, Argus, 18 May 1974, (no page). 46 Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 23 June 2005.

• 48 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

000 to the Carlton van Heerden High School for Coloured children in Upington (a donation that he repeated in 197247) with the purpose of setting up a study fund that could supply bursaries to matric pupils to further their studies in disciplines such as theology, commerce, engineering and social work. The donation was intended as a mark of appreciation for the large contribution the Coloured community made to the success of his business ventures. At the handing-over of the donation Van Rooyen was lauded for his continuous efforts to improve the relationship between the Coloured and white communities of Gordonia.48 Van Rooyen’s continued social support of the Coloured community culminated in December 1974 in a personal donation of R500 000 for the formation of a trust fund for Coloured welfare.49 Image 2: Ex-pupils of the Carlton van Heerden High School in Upington that studied with bursaries from the Van Rooyen study fund and graduated with BA degrees at the University of the Western Cape, in March 1974. From left to right: P Leukes, J van Wyk (former headmaster of the school), V Witbooi, F van Wyk, E Smith en M van Wyk

Source: Die Gemsbok, 12 April 1974.

Van Rooyen’s approach towards race relations and his efforts in seeking racial harmony on a local and regional level also manifested on a national level as Pep Stores established itself as a major player in the clothing retail business in South Africa in the early 1970s. As an Afrikaner businessman, Van Rooyen was not afraid to challenge the Afrikaner and white business establishment with regard to apartheid practices in the business world. Addressing an Afrikaanse Sakekamer (Chamber of Commerce) luncheon in Cape Town in June 1972 he identified the major challenges facing young businessmen

47 Anon., “Renier van Rooyen-fonds styg”, Die Gemsbok, 28 Julie 1972, (no page). 48 Anon., “Hy sê dankie met R10 000”, Die Vaderland, 30 Julie 1971, gp.; Die Gemsbok, 30 Julie.1971, (no page). 49 Anon., “Why this man gave R500 000”, Sunday Times, 22 December 1974, (no page).

• 49 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) in South Africa at the time. The improvement of human relations and the eventual elimination of racial discrimination topped his list. Instead of “small Afrikaans laagers to hide behind” he propagated “the development towards a South African citizenship”.50 As a second challenge he propagated the increased development of black people. Discrimination had to be wiped out and opportunities created for black people. He pleaded for a unified South African market instead of a market compartmentalized by legislation, rules and regulations. In striving for this ideal:51 The businessman must take the lead and show that he is not afraid to grant to the other man what he grants to himself. The person who can compete most affectively on the labour market must have the opportunity to act and work without any restrictions…Give them (non-Whites) the opportunities and remove the things which are so offensive and hateful. He warned his audience that if this path was not followed they might find themselves stuck before long with only the small white market to service.52

Selling the Pep Peninsula concept to the CDC Against this background Pep Stores approached the CDC in July 1973 to inform them about their plans to do business in Coloured group areas. Pep Stores accepted the 51/49% partnership principle and also confirmed their trust in the Coloured population group and their commitment to assist in the development of the Coloured community into a strong “capitalist section” of society. They further committed themselves to the establishment of a company with a wide distribution of shareholding, the reservation of up to 20% of the shares for Coloured employees, and at least 90% of the employees consisting of Coloureds. Pep Stores envisaged a company with an initial capital of between R300 000 – R400 000 consisting of fully paid–up shares of 10 cents each, 3% net profit on turnover and a minimum of 15% pre-tax profit on capital invested. Pep Stores also declared it willing to offer a share of the capital of the proposed company to the CDC or a company in which they had an interest.53 The response of the CDC was overwhelmingly positive and MJ Pentz, the general manager, described the Pep Stores proposal

50 Anon., “Jong sakemanne gemaan oor nie-blankes”, Die Burger, 28 Junie 1972, (no page). 51 Anon., “Challenges for businessmen”, Argus, 28 June 1972, (no page). 52 Anon., “Jong sakemanne gemaan oor nie-blankes”, Die Burger, 28 Junie 1972, gp; Anon., “Challenges for businessmen”, Argus, 28 June 1972, (no page). 53 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Bylae D: Letter, R van Rooyen – MJ Pentz, 1 August 1973, pp. 1-2).

• 50 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited with its elements of Coloured ownership, management and profit sharing as “praiseworthy”. He assured them of the legality of their proposal and invited them to further discussions as soon as they could put forward more definite proposals.54

Establishing the Pep Peninsula structure On the strength of these assurances Pep Stores pushed ahead with its plans and registered a company under the name of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd on 12 October 1973.55 The registered capital of the company was R4 000 divided into 4 000 shares of R1 each. Of the registered capital seven shares were issued to the seven directors of the company. Of the seven directors three were white (R van Rooyen, BR Weyers, WJ Delport representing Pep Stores Ltd) and four were Coloured (Basil Lloyd Williams, George Jacobus Petersen, Charles David Swanson, Gert Gideon Cornelissen56). This meant that Pep Stores Limited (representing a white group) held 42.85% of the issued capital and the Coloured shareholders 57.15%.57 At a general meeting of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd on 22 January 1974 the capital structure of the company was discussed and a decision taken (sanctioned by Pep Stores Ltd58) to restructure it to ensure continuous Coloured control. It was decided to sub-divide the existing share capital of the company consisting of 4000 ordinary shares of R1 each into 8000 “A” ordinary shares of 50 cents each. A further resolution increased the authorized capital from R4 000 to R500 000 by the creation of an additional 502000 “A” ordinary shares of 50 cents each and 490000 “B” ordinary shares of 50 cents each. It was further resolved that both “A” and “B” ordinary shares shall carry one vote per share and that “A” ordinary shares may only be issued and transferred to members of the Coloured group resident in the Republic of South Africa, and that “B”

54 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Bylae AA: Letter, MJ Pentz – R van Rooyen, 30 August 1973). 55 Pepkor Archives, Parow (PA), Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984, Minutes of meeting of signatories of the memorandum of association of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Limited, 16 November 1973, p. 1. 56 PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984, Minutes of meeting of directors of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd, 14 December 1973, p. 5. 57 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Bylae E: WJ Delport – E Dreyer, 11 Februarie 1974, pp. 1-2; Bylae F: WJ Delport – MJ Pentz, 30 April 1974, pp. 1-2). 58 PH, Resolutions of the board of directors of Pep Stores Ltd, 24 March 1973 – 27 August 1976 (Resolutions, 22 January 1974, p. 22).

• 51 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) ordinary shares may only be issued to members of the white group resident in the Republic of South Africa. These proposed changes in the capital structure of the company were registered by the Registrar of Companies on 26 March 1974.59 The company also pushed ahead with its preparation of a prospectus through which Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd was to be transformed into a public company and its shares issued to the public.60 At a Pep Stores Ltd board meeting in March 1974 the managing director, Renier van Rooyen, reported on the progress that were made with regard to the company’s partnership with the Coloured community. He confirmed that Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd planned to open its first branch in Athlone in April followed by an estimated nine more branches opening in Coloured group areas during the course of the 1974/1975 financial year. Although the Board endorsed this plan of action it was decided not to focus unnecessary publicity on the initiative before the business did not run smoothly. The Chairman also reminded the Board to always keep in mind that Pep Stores Ltd was only a minority shareholder.61 This reminder indicated a sensitivity not to create the impression that Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd was a mere puppet in the hands of Pep Stores Ltd but that despite the obvious expected financial benefits for Pep Stores it also was a genuine and sincere initiative to contribute to the economic development of the Coloured community. Image 3: A Pep Stores branch in 1974

Source: PH, Parow, photo collection.

59 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Bylaes G en H: Special resolutions, 11 February 1974, np.); PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984, Minutes of general meeting of shareholders of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd, 22 January 1974, pp. 8-9. 60 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Bylae E: Letter, E Dreyer – WJ Delport, 11 February 1974, p. 1). 61 PH, Pep Stores Minute Book, 14 October 1965 - 28 February 1979, Board meeting, 29 March 1974, (no page).

• 52 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

In February 1974 Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd applied for a trading license at the CTCC to open a branch in the Trade Union House Building in Church Street, Athlone. On the recommendation of the Department of Community Development the license to trade in clothing and soft goods, shoes, crockery and linen was approved by the Council on 24 April. Pep Stores Peninsula opened its first branch on 26 April 1974. Available evidence suggests that the proven Pep Stores template was slavishly followed and duplicated in the Athlone store. The store with an all Coloured staff (from the manager, Joseph Meyer, to the window dresser) was supplied with approximately R10 000 worth of stock by Pep Stores on normal credit terms. The fliers used to advertise the opening of the store were done under the Pep Stores banner, logo and Pep tagline of “Always Cheaper! Always Better!” With regard to cash registers, price display tickets, displays and goods offered and manner of merchandising the Pep model was followed to a tee. The lack of any writing on doors or windows or on any documentation indicating the store as a branch of Pep Stores Peninsula further strengthened the impression that it was just another Pep store – an impression shared by the CDC.62

Image 4: Preparations for the opening of the Pep Stores Peninsula branch in Elsiesriver

Source: Pep Nuus, No. 9, Desember 1974, p. 2.

62 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Affidavit by MJ Pentz with supporting documentation), 20 May 1974, p. 7; Bylae O, Application for trading license, 15 February 1974; Bylae K, Affidavit by JA Greyling, 20 May 1974, pp. 1-2; Bylae F, Letter, WJ Delport – MJ Pentz, 30 April 1974, p. 2; Bylae M, Flier: Reuse uitverkoping Vrydag 26 April Kerkstraat, Athlone); Anon., “Pep launches company for Coloureds”, Argus, 18 May 1974, (no page).

• 53 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Confronting the State: Pep Stores, the CDC and the battle for Pep Peninsula legality The CDC motives for intervention in the Pep Peninsula case This impression in tandem with the absence of any Pep Stores notice to the CDC of the Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd store opening in Athlone or concrete proof that they were implementing the capital restructuring resolutions decided on in January 197463 moved the CDC to investigate the legality of their trading activities in a Coloured group area. Although their investigation was motivated by their statutory mandate to act against any illegal competition for Coloured commercial interests in Coloured group areas they also had a more direct material interest in this specific case. The trading activities of Pep Peninsula (Pty) Ltd were in direct competition with an existing CDC initiative, Superama Limited, “…the holy cow of the Coloured Development Corporation”.64 Superama Limited was a retail supermarket and subsidiary of the CDC that was founded in 1968. It traded in three Coloured group areas (Athlone, Tiervlei, Grassy Park) in the Cape Peninsula in merchandise such as groceries, clothing, linen and crockery. The combined sales area of the three branches was nearly 2 500m². With its shares being held by 190 Coloured shareholders and the CDC the company was considered a Coloured company according to article 1 of Act 4 of 1962. The Company’s net after tax profit for the 1973/74 financial year amounted to R33 907. The relevance of Superama in this case was that they largely traded in the same merchandise as Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd and that the Superama premises in Cornhill Street Athlone were only 300 meters away from the Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd premises in Church Street.65 The CDC initiated their investigation by enquiring from the Department of Community Development whether Pep Stores needed a permit by

63 Although the CDC was not aware of it the directors of Pep Peninsula decided at a meeting on 26 April 1974 that the Coloured shareholders/directors had to indicate for how many shares they were going to apply as soon as possible where after the company would push ahead to pass the necessary resolution to transform Pep Peninsula into a public company so that a prospectus could be issued and the Coloured community be invited to apply for shares in the company. PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984, Minutes of meeting of directors of Pep Peninsula (Pty) Limited, 26 April 1974, pp. 12-13. 64 Republic of South Africa, Debates and proceedings of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, first council, fourth session 1972, Vol. 19 (JS Gericke Library, Stellenbosch, 29-30 August 1972), p. 1126. 65 Anon., “Superama (Advertisement)”, Cape Herald, 19 January 1974, p. 4; Anon., “Superama makes R40 000 profit”, Cape Herald (Business and motoring), 9 March 1974, p. B1; Anon., “Superama 6th birthday celebration (Advertisement)”, Cape Herald, 27 April 1974, p. 15; CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Affidavit by MJ Pentz with supporting documentation, 20 May 1974), p. 3.

• 54 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited virtue of the Group Areas Act for their trading activities in Athlone. After a telephonic enquiry on 29 April 1974 WJ Delport, the secretary of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd, updated the CDC on the progress that the company was making with the implementation of its plans for a new capital structure for the company and the transformation from a private to public company. The request by the Coloured directors whether they could be allowed to take up shares in the company before the issuing of the new prospectus and the outstanding information with regard to their specific share requirements was indicated by Delport as the main stumbling block in the execution of the January decisions. In a conversation with MJ Pentz, General Manager of the CDC, Delport admitted that the company’s actions were in contravention of the stipulations of the Group Areas Act. He also admitted that Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd was financed by Pep Stores Ltd by supplying them with stock on credit.66 He again confirmed that they were waiting for the Coloured directors of the company to confirm how many shares they would take up.67 He also confirmed that GJ Petersen, one of the Coloured directors of the company resigned and that they were in discussion in an attempt to secure another Coloured director. He confirmed that Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd was planning to open 25 branches in Coloured areas by December 1974. By then they would be able to comply with all legal requirements and that a prospectus would then be issued.68 Although the facts in the Delport letter confirmed that the Pep initiative was technically illegal at that point in time the spirit of the letter made it clear that their intentions were pure and that they planned to fully comply with the law as soon as their practical problems were solved. This was confirmed by the explanation by Van Rooyen of the motives and rationale behind the methodology followed in the initiative:69

66 A decision on the initial financing of the company was taken as early as 22 January 1974 during a meeting of the directors of Pep Peninsula. It was decided that until such time as the company acquires it own funds shareholders (Pep Stores Ltd) would grant short term loans at 1% above prime to Pep Peninsula to finance its projects. PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984, p. 7. 67 To enable the Coloured directors to buy shares Van Rooyen offered them interest free loans ranging from R10 000 - R30 000, with no strings attached or demands of guarantees. Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 28 August 2008. 68 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Affidavit by MJ Pentz with supporting documentation, 20 May 1974, pp. 3, 5; Bylae N, Letter, JAJ van Rensburg – Die Streeksverteenwoordiger, Departement van Gemeenskapsbou, 26 April 1974, gp.; Bylae F, Letter, WJ Delport – MJ Pentz, 30 April 1974, pp. 1-2); GJ Peterson resigned as director on 27 February. At the meeting of directors of Pep Peninsula on 26 April it was decided to appoint Ds JG Smith in his place. PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984, p. 11. 69 Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 28 August 2008.

• 55 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

The need to support the Coloured Community was a very real one and I personally saw no problem to commit myself, Pep Stores Limited, our skills and resources to this ideal. The company could possibly make some money in the process. It was, however, risky to take money from investors to support an untested recipe. My point of view was to test the water first before we could approach investors. It was the poor people that had to supply the funds for 51%...even Coloured school teachers and policeman was poorly paid. My reasoning was to prove the success before we could confidently take shareholders on board – even if I personally and Pep lost money. The administrative and bureaucratic nonsense,… did not allow the simple honest approach for me to make funds available to Coloured people to start the idea – even if I would have lost money. Some of the Pep directors did not share the idea, but I just ignored this. The CDC suspicion that Pep Peninsula was operating illegally was further strengthened through a conversation Eugene Dreyer, assistant general manager of the CDC, had with BL Williams one of the Coloured directors of Pep Peninsula. Williams confirmed that the Coloured directors of the company each only paid up R1 in share capital. That GG Cornelissen, a Coloured director of Pep Peninsula planned to take up 20000 shares but that Pep Stores Limited would probably have to finance him to pay for the shares. He confirmed that Pep Peninsula was planning to issue a prospectus. He also confirmed that the Athlone branch was being stocked by Pep Stores Ltd and was doing well. The CDC was further influenced by the information supplied by the Pep Stores Ltd directors report for the financial year ending 28 February 1974. According to this report the Pep Stores Ltd financial interest in Pep Stores Peninsula amounted to R5 589 consisting of R3 share capital and R5 586 loan capital. The final nail was the opposition of the Athlone and District MC to the application for a trade license from Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd70 and the public reaction it evoked in the Coloured community.71 The CDC investigation led them to conclude that Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd was a “disqualified” company according to the stipulations of the Group Areas Act and that they were therefore illegally occupying and using the Church Street premises in Athlone. The CDC and its subsidiary Superama Limited therefore filed a motion at the Supreme Court in Cape Town in an attempt to

70 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Affidavit by MJ Pentz with supporting documentation, 20 May 1974, pp. 5, 6-8; Bylae I: Affidavit E Dreyer, 20 May 1974, pp. 1-2; Bylae J: Affidavit HF van Wyk, 20 May 1974 and Pep Stores directors report, 23 April 1974, pp. 6-9). 71 Anon., “Trade clause called ‘fraud’”, Sunday Times Extra, 12 May 1974, np.; Anon., “Committee man wants traders out”, Cape Herald, 4 May 1974, p.1; Anon., “Storm about to burst over Peter’s call on businesses”, Sunday Times Extra, 12 May 1974, np.

• 56 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited stop Pep Stores from trading in Athlone. They saw the issue as a case of public interest which demanded immediate attention for a number of reasons. Firstly it was harmful to the interests of Coloured businesses (like Superama) that legally traded in the area. It would also endanger the trust that is necessary for the proper execution of the Corporations functions. Thirdly the Corporation argued that if Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd was not stopped immediately it would encourage the Company to continue with its illegal actions and might also encourage other moneyed white businesses to follow suit.72 On 22 May 1974, acting Justice W Vos ruled that the CDC/Superama application for an interdict be placed on the court roll as a matter of urgency and that application would be heard in about a month to give the respondent time to prepare argumentation why the business should not be closed down.73

Pep Stores Limited reaction to CDC intervention: Outrage, threats, compliance On the 18 May 1974, two days before the CDC lodged their request for an interdict against Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd, Van Rooyen announced to the press that Pep Stores had launched a new company that would operate in Coloured group areas and in which a group of Coloured businessmen held a 51% interest. Pep’s partners in the company were described as four wealthy businessmen.74 As far as the first branch of the company was concerned, Van Rooyen indicated that although there was room for improvement they were satisfied with the results of the Pep Peninsula experiment. Van Rooyen also indicated that branch managers would be invited to participate in an employees’ share option scheme to enable them to “grow with the company!” The aim of the initiative was to give Coloured people “the opportunity to acquire business training, and rise to any post.” He gave the assurance that

72 CAD, CSC 2/6/1/2644. File M616/74. Kleurling Ontwikkelings Koörp Bpk and Superama Bpk versus Pep Stores (Peninsula) Edms Bpk (Affidavit by MJ Pentz with supporting documentation, 20 May 1974, pp. 5-7; Bylae B: Extract from the minutes of the board of directors of the CDC Ltd held at Cape Town, 15 May 1974, np.; Bylae C: Extract from the minutes of the board of directors of Superama Ltd held at Cape Town, 16 May 1974, np. 73 Anon., “Court rules on Athlone company”, Argus, 23 May 1974; Anon., “Aansoek uitgestel. Verbied saak in Athlone – K.O.K.”, Die Burger, 23 Mei 1974, p. 3. 74 Mr. Basil Williams of Stellenbosch, Mr. Charles Swanson of Bellville East, Mr G Cornellisen of Kuils River and Rev JG Smith of Upington. Although not even remotely comparable as far as the ownership of capital and political and community influence are concerned Pep Peninsula had its own ‘fab four’. R Southall, “Ten Propositions about Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa”, Review of African Political Economy, 111(34), March 2007, pp. 74-75.

• 57 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Pep Stores retailing resources and experience would be at the disposal of Pep Peninsula to realise these goals.75 The interdict was a setback for the Pep Peninsula initiative and came as a complete surprise to Van Rooyen who read about the interdict to close the Athlone shop in a newsarticle while flying back from Hong Kong after a buying trip to the Far East. Due to his busy Pep Stores schedule, Van Rooyen had delegated the Pep Peninsula negotiations with the CDC to senior management officials. Danie Thiart and Gert van Rooyen made the initial contact with the CDC and then involved Willem Delport, the Pep Stores company secretary and managing director designate of Pep Peninsula. Van Rooyen, who described Delport as “a brilliant intelligent man but a bit of a cowboy”, trusted him as senior executive to keep the initiative on track in his absence. Reading the news left Van Rooyen:76 … shocked and furious, also because my own management did not inform me of the development and complications. Van Rooyen was very annoyed at the CDC action because he was aware of many other instances where businessmen used front companies to trade in Coloured areas and in this way illegally circumvented the stipulations of the Group Areas Act – without any protest or action from the CDC. During a stormy meeting with JM Pentz – “he sat there, the typical chief government official, with all the power of the state behind him” - of the CDC during which Van Rooyen threatened to expose the double standards of the Government and the CDC an agreement between the CDC and Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd was eventually reached. The CDC case was based on the fact that the Company accepted loan capital from a white company in excess of 50% of the paid-up capital of the company. They also objected to the fact that Pep Stores controlled the company through the money lent to the Coloured directors to buy Pep Peninsula (Pty) Ltd shares. As Van Rooyen lent this money to the directors in his personal capacity the CDC demanded that the money be paid back to Van Rooyen. He could then invest the money at Stellenbosch District Bank who would then supply loans to the directors at normal interest rates.77

75 Anon., “Pep launches company for Coloureds”, Argus, 18 May 1974, (no page). 76 Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 28 August 2008. 77 Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 23 June 2005; PH, Pep Stores minute book, 14 October 1965 – 28 February 1979, board meeting, 27 May 1974, np. At a board meeting of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd on 17 June 1974 Van Rooyen affirmed that he in his personal capacity made loans available to Coloured shareholders to buy shares in the company and that he planned on doing more of the same. The sole purpose of the loans was to make it possible for members of the Coloured community to buy shares in the company.

• 58 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

The agreement between Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd and the CDC contained the following detail:78 The total amount owned to Pep Stores Ltd by Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd. would be repaid. Shares would be issued to shareholders so that the total issued fully paid up shares amounted to R70 750. Of these members of the Coloured community would hold shares with a nominal value of R36 082.50 and Pep Stores Ltd shares with a nominal value of R 34 667.50. Any further share issue to current shareholders must uphold the 51/49% stipulation of the Group Areas Act. A prospectus would be issued as soon as possible to give the Coloured community the opportunity to take up shares in the company. The statute and articles of association of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd would be changed to ensure a majority of Coloured directors on the Board. The Board of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd would not lose its autonomy but maintain the right to trade according to its own discretion.79 In its agreement the CDC reconfirmed its policy with regard to Coloured economic empowerment as follows:80 The corporation is not in principle opposed to the use of White capital or know-how to accelerate the development of Coloured areas, provided this takes place within the framework of existing legislation, and provided it is to the benefit of the Coloureds. The corporation is in fact conscious of the advantages of participation by Whites, but wishes to guard against the establishment in the Coloured areas of mixed companies, the effective control and benefits of which are controlled by people of other races to the detriment of the Coloured trader. In the months that followed the terms of the agreement with the CDC were gradually implemented as Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd. worked towards the final goal of publishing a prospectus and transforming into a public company. At a meeting of directors of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd held on 17 June 1974, 72012 shares were allocated to the Coloured directors81 and 69188 to Pep Stores Limited. The Board also voted in favour of a change in the statute of the company that would ensure that the Coloured group would

78 According to Van Rooyen the terms of the agreement were not forced onto Pep as they were in line with the principles, plans and intentions under which Pep Stores originally started the initiative. In the implementation of the initiative Pep Stores made some mistakes which led to some “technical” irregularities which gave the CDC reason to initiate interdict proceedings. Van Rooyen is of the opinion that the CDC soon realized that they over reacted and that the agreement with Pep Stores Peninsula was nothing more than a “face saving” exercise. Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 28 August 2008. 79 Anon., “K.O.K. skik met winkelgroep”, Die Burger, 21 Junie 1974, p. 15.; Anon., “Corporation, Pep Stores settle their differences”, Argus, 21 June 1974, np.; Anon., “Pep Stores se winkel sal oop bly” Rapport, 23 Junie 1974, gp. 80 Anon., “Corporation, Pep Stores settle their differences”, Argus, 21 June 1974, np. 81 BL Williams (9 996 shares), JG Smith (6 069 shares), GG Cornelissen (39 933 shares), CD Swanson (16 014 shares).

• 59 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) always have a majority of one on the board of the company, a decision also confirmed by Pep Stores on their annual meeting of the same date.82 On the 23 September 1974, the Pep Stores Board decided to take up 49 ordinary “B” shares for every 51 ordinary “A” shares that Pep Stores Peninsula Ltd issued to the public. The company also decided to assist Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd with technical know-how as well as with management matters, brands, mass merchandizing and production, the purchase and control of stock, hiring of outlets, advertising and marketing and general administration. These services would be provided to the company at a rate of 8.33% of Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Limited turnover.83 On 29 August 1974, the Registrar of Companies registered a resolution that changed the status of the company from a private to a public company. Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd changed to Pep Stores Peninsula Limited.

Pep Stores Peninsula: From “disqualified” to “qualified” On 9 October 1974 the Registrar of Companies registered the long awaited prospectus of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited. The prospectus offered 437835 ordinary “A” shares of 50 cents each at 50 cents per share. Pep Stores committed itself to take up 49 ordinary “B” shares, also at 50 cents each, for every 51 “A” shares subscribed for. The authorized share capital of the company was R500 000 consisting of 510 000 “A” shares – which may only be issued to Coloured people – and 490000 “B” shares - which may only be issued to whites. The prospectus stipulated that the ratio of “A” shares in issue to “B” shares must always be 51 to 49. Resolutions taken earlier by Pep Stores and Pep Peninsula regarding the majority of directors that must be Coloured and the Pep Stores undertaking to provide Pep Peninsula with technical and administrative knowledge and services in return for and administration fee of 8.33% of Pep Peninsula’s turnover was also taken up in the prospectus. At the time of the issue the four Coloured shareholders held 72 165 “A” shares and Pep Stores Limited 69 335 “B” shares. JC Louw acted as the general manager of the company.84

82 PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 Mei 1984, Meeting of directors, 17 June 1974, p. 18; PH, Minute book of Pep Stores board resolutions, 24 March 1973 – 27 August 1976, Resolution by Pep Stores board, 17 June 1974, p. 49. 83 PH, Minute book of Pep Stores board resolutions, 24 March 1973 – 27 August 1976, Resolution by Pep Stores board, 23 September 1974, p. 69. 84 Anon., “Prospectus of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited”, Weekend Argus, 19 October 1974, p. 4.

• 60 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

Image 5: Hantie Mouton addressing prospective shareholders of Pep Stores Peninsula in Upington.

Source: Die Gemsbok, 29 November 1974. During the subscription period from 18 October to 30 November85 a recruitment and publicity campaign was launched to introduce the Coloured community to the share offer. JC Louw the general manager and the Coloured directors of Pep Stores Peninsula Ltd as well as Pep Stores Ltd directors were used to propagate the offer among the Coloured community.86 Apart from the Cape Peninsula the original Pep Stores hinterland like the North Western Cape and Kimberley areas were also targeted. Jan Louw successfully canvassed investors in the Calvinia region while Hantie Mouton was dispatched to the North Western Cape. In a series of meetings in Keimoes, Kakamas, Marydale, Prieska, Kenhardt and Upington Mouton, with the assistance of Van Rooyens friend (and director of Pep Peninsula) the reverend JG Smith of Upington, canvassed the Coloured population to invest in the new company. In Upington Mouton organized a dinner in the brand new Extention Inn Hotel,87 which was

85 PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984, Meeting of directors, 23 September 1974, p. 22; Anon., “Prospectus of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited”, Weekend Argus, 19 October 1974, p. 4. 86 Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 23 June 2005; Interview, A Ehlers/H Mouton (Pep Stores, Director), 9 November 2004. 87 Ironically this hotel, built exclusively for Coloureds, was a joint project of the CDC and Coloured investors. The building plans for the hotel was designed by a Coloured architect from Cape Town, it was built by a Coloured building contractor from Keimoes and the shareholders were Coloureds. The only “false” note in this otherwise perfect example of apartheid was the manager of the hotel, R Naidoo, an Indian.

• 61 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) attended by 84 members of the Coloured community.88 The Pep Stores success story and phenomenal growth was used as a drawing card for potential investors in Pep Stores Peninsula Limited. Mouton related the evening as follows:89 … the hall was full of Coloureds. I was the only white person. And then I told them: this company (Pep Stores) did so well, go and look outside and you will see a big Mercedes Benz 350SE, I bought it with profit that I made, so you are free to do the same. The next day I went to the hotel and people streamed to me to buy shares. From the available evidence it is clear that the Coloured middle class was strongly represented among the prospective buyers of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited shares. A photo report of the Upington meeting in the local newsarticle revealed a strong presence from the educational (three school principals, one vice principal and five teachers) and business (five businessmen among others a building contractor, owner of a bus service, hairdresser, café owner) sectors.90

Image 6: Prospective Pep Stores Peninsula shareholders gathered in the Extention Inn Hotel in Upington, 21 November 1974

Source: Die Gemsbok, 29 November 1974.

88 Anon., “Maatskappy gestig met beherende Kleurling aandele”, Die Gemsbok, 29 November 1974, p. 3; Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 28 August 2008. 89 Interview, A Ehlers/H Mouton, 9 November 2004. 90 Anon., “Maatskappy gestig met beherende Kleurling aandele”, Die Gemsbok, 29 November 1974, pp. 2, 3, 20; Van Rooyen cautions that it must be remembered that the potential Coloured middle class shareholders were not necessarily well off. Coloured teachers received meagre salaries and that even some of the businessmen referred to were known to him as plodders. Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 28 August 2008.

• 62 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited

By 30 November 306 000 shares were taken up by 800 Coloured shareholders at an average of 383 shares per shareholder for an investment of R153 000 from the Coloured community.91 Added to the investment of the Coloured directors it brought the total Coloured investment in Pep Stores Peninsula Limited to 378 165 “A” shares worth R189 082.50. Adding to this total the 49% contribution of Pep Stores (363 335 “B” shares worth R181 667.50) brought the working capital of the company to R370 750. This working capital was earmarked for setting up new shops. By the end of 1974 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited had extended its branch network to six - two in Elsiesriver and one each in Athlone, Port Elizabeth (Korsten), Pretoria (Eersterus) and Grassy Park – with a further six to eight branches planned for 1975.92 Pep Stores Peninsula Ltd had finally materialised.

Image 7 & 8: Customers at the opening of the second Pep Stores Peninsula branch in Elsiesriver

Source: Pep Nuus, No. 9, Desember 1974, p. 2

91 Pep Nuus, no.10, Februarie 1975, p. 15; Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 23 June 2005; Anon., “R150 000 offer to set up shops” Natal Witness, 9 December 1974, np; Anon., “Coloureds Buy R150 000 Pep Store Shares”, Argus, 7 December 1974, np; Van Rooyen is of the opinion that there was a broad base of shareholders which could only afford between 100 - 500 shares or even less. In this regard he commented: “Although I did not know them personally I (illegally) donated between 50 - 200 shares each – and in some cases even more - to all my farm workers whose names I knew…and also 1500 shares to our domestic worker.” Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 28 August 2008. 92 Pep Nuus, no. 10, Februarie 1975, p. 15. As there were still some outstanding issues with regard to proof of the Coloured identity of some of the applicants for shares as late as the end of May 1975 the final figures of the share issue was probably closer to that provided by JJ Fouché as at 4 November 1975: Total number of shareholders were 837 of which 834 were holders of A-shares. The issued capital amounted to R370 500 of which R188 955 were from A-shares. That brought the average Coloured shareholding to R227 (453 shares). PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984.

• 63 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Source: Pep Nuus, No. 10, Februarie 1975, p. 15.

By February 1980 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited had 14 branches.93 The repealing of the Group Areas Act in June 199194 made the further existence of the company unnecessary. A decision was taken in 1991 to reincorporate the company into the mother company. Pep Limited acquired the total issued share capital in Pep Stores Peninsula Limited. Shares for which “A” shareholders, all members of the Coloured community, paid 50 cents per share when Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd was established in 1973 were exchanged on a one- for-one basis for Pep Limited shares. As an alternative members could opt for cash payment of R35 per share, the price at which Pep Limited shares were then trading on the JSE. This represented for the 871 “A” (Coloured) shareholders a profit growth of 7 000% over a period of 18 years.95

Conclusion The Pep Stores Peninsula Ltd case study highlighted the complicated dynamics created by ideologically driven state intervention in the economic sphere and demonstrated how such intervention impacted on and distorted market forces. Pep Stores Peninsula Ltd was subject to and had to operate within the rules and parameters determined by a specific ideological framework - Apartheid or Separate Development. This ideological “corset” with its prominence of race as defining criteria in tandem with a percentage numbers game and the administrative gatekeepers responsible for its implementation restricted the realization of the full economic potential of the Pep Peninsula initiative on

93 Pep Stores Limited annual report, 1980 (Chairman’s report, 1 May 1980, p. 6). 94 JP Brits, Concise dictionary of historical and political terms, p. 102. 95 Pep Limited annual report, 1992, Chairman’s report, p. 7.

• 64 Pep Stores Peninsula Limited various levels. The CDC administrative red tape in tandem with the legalistic approach to its role of gatekeeper of the interests of Coloured economic development sapped entrepreneurial and administrative energy that could have been more productively spent. This constant battle with the CDC to convince them of the good intentions and the economic advantages of Pep Peninsula Limited for the Coloured community among others manifested in Pep Peninsula board decisions such as the October 1975 deputation to the CDC to give them first hand in-sight in the aims and objectives of the company. The purpose was also to convince them of the value of giving Pep Peninsula access to shopping centres which the CDC controlled as their presence would draw customers that would also benefit smaller businesses.96 As part of the apartheid state machinery, the CDC had the potential to become an instrument of coercion and cronyism by rewarding supporters of separate or apartheid economic development. The Corporation was not above falling prey to such practices as evidence suggests that the Coloured Federal Party, its “members, sympathizers (and) fellow passengers”97 were rewarded by the CDC in the form of generous support for loan applications for business projects – earning the Party the reputation of “feathering its own nest and dipping into the cookie jar”.98 Against the background of the above pitfalls many of the good intended by Pep Stores were inhibited or shelved for fear of CDC critique, legal action, coercion or co-option.99 On another level the ideologically prescribed equity structure of Pep Peninsula into A and B shares prevented the company from unlocking more value for its shareholders and to steer a more independent course by way of a listing on the JSE. The equity structure and the fact that Pep Peninsula was managed by another company (Pep Stores) made it impossible to comply with JSE regulations for a listing.100

96 PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984, Meeting of directors, 16 October 1975, p. 36. 97 Republic of South Africa, Debates and proceedings of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, first council, fourth session 1972, Vol. 19 (JS Gericke Library, Stellenbosch, 29-30 August 1972), p. 1129. 98 Republic of South Africa, Debates and proceedings of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, first council, fourth session 1972, Vol. 19 (JS Gericke Library, Stellenbosch, 29-30 August 1972), p. 1137. 99 Interview, A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 28 August 2008. 100 PA, Minute book of Pep Stores Peninsula Limited, 16 November 1973 – 24 May 1984, Meeting of directors, 25 October 1989, pp.184-185 and 14 February 1990, p. 193. The issue was discussed for the first time at a meeting of directors on 18 March 1982 after CH Wiese raised it as an option in response to a question raised by BL Williams on how shareholders can further profit from the progress of the company. With the imminent repealing of the Population Registration Act and the Group Areas Act on the cards in the late eighties and early nineties listing again became one of the options for transforming the company.

• 65 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

The ideological approach of the State towards apartheid/separate economic development also evoked a variety of reactions and extreme opinions that impacted negatively on the Pep Stores Peninsula initiative as it became the target of ideological differences in Coloured politics. As already indicated the Pep Stores Peninsula initiative was rejected from a broad spectrum of Coloured political platforms – although for totally different ideological reasons - despite the potential economic benefits it could hold for the Coloured community. In the process it also stimulated racial tension. Coloured pitted against Coloured, Coloured pitted against white, Coloured pitted against Indian and Chinese, creating categories of “qualified” and “disqualified” or “conformist” or “non- conformist” traders which remind one of the recent spate of xenophobic attacks on Somali, Zimbabwean and other kwerekwere traders in townships and former Coloured Group Areas.101 The Pep Peninsula initiative also spawned its share of irony and paradox. The promoters of the Pep Stores Peninsula initiative, Pep Stores, was an Afrikaner company and Renier van Rooyen, the chairman, an Afrikaner of the North Western Cape – in other words, all from the stable of the group generally credited for sustaining apartheid. Although highly critiqueal of the governments’ separate development economics, Van Rooyen was prepared to utilize the opportunities created by the Group Areas Act trade clause to promote his business. At the same time, his efforts to contribute to the development of the Coloured people included social investments and a willingness to lend the Coloured directors money, in his personal capacity, at no interest to buy shares.102 On the counts of sincerity, commitment, methodology and outcomes Van Rooyen and Pep Stores committed themselves in 1974 to practices and standards that were pioneering and truly exceptional for its time in terms of black economic empowerment. Despite the ambiguities of the initiative – working with the apartheid state and at the same time undermining and critiqueizing its ideological approach to business - one is inclined to agree with the 1974 evaluation by Lofty Adams, CRC member and public relations consultant, when he described it as “…one of the finest integrated participation schemes ever made available”.103

101 Anon., “Twee dood, 40 beseer in xenofobie-aanvalle”, Die Burger, 13 Mei 2008, gp.; Anon. “Rassehaat vlam op. Xenofobie dreig nou in Wes-Kaap. Somaliërs is bang”, Die Burger, 19 Mei 2008, gp. 102 Interview A Ehlers/R van Rooyen, 23 June 2005. 103 PH, Press release: “Lofty” Adams re Pep Stores Peninsula (Pty) Ltd., 1974 (Lofty Adams was a member of the Coloured Representative Council).

• 66 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

HS (Lennie) Gouws* Johannes D Froneman Potchefstroomkampus Noordwes-Universiteit [email protected]

Abstract

The British-born newspaperman CV Bate founded thePotchefstroom Herald in 1908. He remained owner for 49 years during which time he established not only the paper but himself as a journalist of some repute. As a news medium Bate’s Potchefstroom Herald covered all the major international and national events, without neglecting the community news of an ever-changing Potchefstroom.

He was also a crafty businessman and compassionate member of a community that did not always share his pro-British political views. More important was his strong support for reconciliation between the Afrikaans- and English-speaking South Africans. In support of this ideal, he established an Afrikaans paper, the Westelike Stem. While Bate’s sentiments left its marks on his reporting, his integrity was above reproach and he notably gave due prominence to the victory of the National Party in 1948 and the new prime minister’s visit to Potchefstroom.

Subsequent to Bate’s retirement, his papers fell into the hands of Afrikaners who eventually transformed the Potchefstroom Herald into a predominantly Afrikaans publication. But when the Potchefstroom Herald celebrated its centenary, the paper had perhaps become what Bate always intended: a non-ideological paper that tried to serve the whole community of Potchefstroom. ThePotchefstroom Herald thus remains a monument to one man’s tenacity and spirit.

Keywords: Potchefstroom Herald; CV Bate; Redakteur; Joernalis; Eienaar; Koerant; Nuusagenda; Britse ryk; Sakeman; Stadsraadslid; Gemeenskapsmens; Versoening tussen Afrikaans- en Engelssprekendes.

* Hierdie artikel is gegrond op Lennie Gouws se MA-verhandeling, Die Potchefstroom Herald: 1908-2008 – ‘n mediahistoriese studie.

• 67 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Inleiding In die vroeë koerantgeskiedenis van Suid-Afrika was daar talle pioniers wat wesenlik tot die groei van hierdie bedryf bygedra het.1 CV Bate, soos hy dwarsdeur sy loopbaan bekend was, kan as een hiervan beskou word. Hy het die Potchefstroom Herald (voortaan net Herald) in 1908 gestig2 en die koerant tot 1957 besit. Bate het ook binne persgeledere aansien geniet. Hy was ’n stigterslid van die Persunie en was ’n lewenslange ere-visepresident van die Persunie.3 Met die viering van die Herald se eeufees in 2008, is hy nogmaals geëer as ’n baanbreker wat ’n besondere bydrae tot die gemeenskapspers van Suid-Afrika gemaak het. Nie alleen was Bate ’n deeglike joernalis nie, maar hy het hom ook as sakeman onderskei. Benewens die Herald het hy in 1915 De Westelike Stem gestig, ’n feit waarop hy dikwels geroem het.4 Dit is aanvanklik in Nederlands uitgegee, maar later is Afrikaans gebruik. Van Desember 1936 het hy ook die New Klerksdorp Record uitgegee en dié koerant, saam met De Westelike Stem, tot in 1955 besit.5 Sy naam is dus nie net aan die Herald verbind nie, hoewel dit sy groot monu- ment is. Die blad is vandag een van Media24 se sterkste gemeenskapskoerante en het oor die meer as ’n eeu van sy bestaan ’n besondere plek in Potchefstroom verwerf en is die blad verskeie kere bekroon.6 In hierdie artikel word die lewe en werk van Charles Veale Bate in oënskou geneem deur eerstens te let op sy vroeë lewensloop, sy huwelik en gesin, daarna sy werk as joernalis en laastens sy bydrae tot die Potchefstroomse gemeenskap as sakeman en gemeenskapsmens. Die historiese navorsingsmetodologie is gevolg, maar spesifiek is ook gebruik gemaak van ‘n kwalitatiewe inhoudsanalise van Bate se werk as joernalis.

1 Vergelyk W de Kock, ’n Wyse van spreke (Saayman & Weber, Kaapstad, 1983); D Richard, Moedswillig die uwe (Perskor, Johannesburg, 1985); TEG, Cutten, A history of the press in South Africa: Being an abridged version of a thesis accepted for the M.A. Degree (Cape Town, National Union of South African Students, 1935). 2 Volgens EL Buys, “Die kommersiële drukkers- en uitgewersbedryf in Potchefstroom (1857-1902)”, South African Journal of Cultural History, 4(2), April 1990, pp. 88-95, het daar reeds ‘n Potchefstroom Herald in die negentiende eeu bestaan. Die blad is egter in 1899 in die Potchefstroom Budget opgeneem en het geen verbintenis met CV Bate se Potchefstroom Herald gehad nie. 3 Potchefstroom News, 14 July 1961; E Jenkins, “‘CeeVee Bee’ – Appreciation”, Potchefstroom Herald, 5 July 1957. 4 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences: Thirty-six years of newspaper work in the Transvaal 1902-38 (Potchefstroom Herald, Potchefstroom, 1938), p. 28. 5 De Westelike Stem, 12 Augustus 1915; CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 38. 6 Potchefstroom Herald, 21 September 2001, 27 September 2002, 6 Oktober 2006.

• 68 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

Foto 1: CV (Charles Veale) Bate het in sy professionele hoedanigheid as koerantman verkies om net sy voorletters te gebruik.

Bron: Potchefstroom Herald

Agtergrond en lewensloop van CV Bate Bate het min oor sy private lewe geskryf en inligting oor sy lewe vóór Potchefstroom is karig. Ons weet wel dat hy op 1 Augustus 1877 in die dorpie Bodmin in Cornwall, Engeland, gebore is.7 Bate het sy joernalistieke opleiding in die weste van Engeland (West Country) gehad, die enigste aanduiding wat hy self gee oor waar hy vandaan gekom het.8 Tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog was hy ’n lid van die Rand Rifles9, ’n eenheid wat op 18 Desember 1900 gestig is en bestaan het uit drie afdelings: ’n berede groep, fietsryers en infanterie. Alle Britse onderdane, sogenaamde “uitlanders”,10 wat toe in die Witwatersrand en omgewing was, is verplig om by die eenheid aan te sluit. Dié verpligte lidmaatskap is in Junie 1902 afgeskaf.11 Die eenheid is aangewend om die industriële infrastruktuur van die Witwatersrand te verdedig, maar “the Rand Rifles did not have the opportunity to excel as a fighting force”.12

7 Potchefstroom Municipal Archive, Potchefstroom Museum, Potchefstroom. Burial register 1903 -1956, p. 41 (available at: http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=tmTCWPSJeCipEWkTTT6jWA&scan=1, as accessed on 18 Mei 2011). 8 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 5. 9 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 3. 10 Vergelyk H Giliomee, “’n Nuwe Britse Stuwing”, H Giliomee & B Mbenga, Nuwe geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika (Kaapstad, Tafelberg, 2007), p. 196. 11 S Monick, A bugle calls: The story of the Witwatersrand Rifles and its predecessors (Witwatersrand Rifles Regimental Council, Germiston, 1989), p. 30. 12 S Monick, A bugle calls, p. 32; J Stirling, The colonials in South Africa: 1899-1902 (Polstead, Suffolk, 1990), p. 270.

• 69 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Dit is nie bekend by watter van die drie afdelings Bate betrokke was nie, maar uit bogaande, asook die gebrek aan enige verwysing deur hom na enige betrokkenheid by gevegte, kan afgelei word dat hy waarskynlik nie sy lesers van later oor die geweerloop ontmoet het nie. Wanneer en waarom Bate na Suid-Afrika gekom het, is onbekend, want die Rand Rifles het bestaan uit “uitlanders” wat in elk geval in Suid-Afrika was en nie noodwendig as soldate hierheen gekom het nie. Bate skryf self oor die tyd wat hy in Johannesburg was:13 Before the Boer War closed I was given an appointment in Johannesburg by Major O’Meara, then Military Commissioner; but after an association with the Milner “Kindergarten” and the famous nominated Town Council of Johannesburg... I was instinctively impelled to get back to my own profession of journalism and newspaper work generally. Hoewel hy geen soldaat van formaat was nie, was Bate ingebed in die Britse imperiale kultuur van sy tyd. Sy Britsheid sou metterwyl neerslag vind in sy joernalistiek. Bate en sy eerste vrou vrou, Elizabeth Jane,14 het ‘n veertienmaande oue baba, Charles Frank Bate, in Julie 1906 aan die dood afgestaan.15 ‘n Tweede seun, William Kendall (Ken), is in 1908 gebore en was van 1932 tot 1955 ’n direkteur van die maatskappy wat die Herald besit het.16 Bate se enigste dogter was Lorna Munro.17 In 1990 haal Bate se familie vir laas die Herald se nuuskolomme toe ’n klein beriggie aankondig dat Lorna Munro op 77-jarige ouderdom in Pretoria oorlede is.18 Volgens die berig het sy ook by die Herald gewerk en “vir haar ’n naam gemaak in die koerantwese”. Vier jaar ná Bate finaal afgetree het en ’n maand voor sy 84ste verjaardag, is hy op 11 Julie 1961 in sy huis in Lombardstraat, Potchefstroom, oorlede. Hy is uit die Metodistekerk deur eerwaarde Daniel Jones begrawe, wat sy vakansie in Natal onderbreek het om die roudiens te kom lei.19 Dit kan geïnterpreteer word as ‘n aanduiding van die hoë agting wat Bate in sy gemeenskap geniet het.

13 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 3. 14 Potchefstroom Municipality, Burial register 1903 -1956, p. 34. 15 Potchefstroom Municipality, Burial register 1903 -1956, p. 27. 16 Potchefstroom Herald, 9 September 1957. 17 Potchefstroom Herald, 14 Julie 1961. 18 Potchefstroom Herald, 28 September 1990. 19 Potchefstroom Herald, 14 Julie 1961.

• 70 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

Foto 2 (Koerantkantoor): Die eerste kantoor van die Potchefstroom Herald het gestaan waar die Calderbank-gebou tans in Walter Sisulu-rylaan staan

Bron: Potchefstroom Herald

CV Bate as joernalis en stigter van die Potchefstroom Herald Voor Bate in 1902 na Potchefstroom gekom het, het talle koerante op die dorp verskyn. Die eerste was De Staats Courant, wat op 25 September 1857 deur Cornelius M Moll en sy seun Cornelius Petrus Moll uitgegee is. Twee jaar later word die drukpers in 1859 deur die regering gekoop nadat die koerant se “benadering nie in die Regering se smaak geval het nie”.20 In 1861 kom JP Borrius, ’n gebore Amsterdammer, na Potchefstroom en tree in diens by ene Jeppe en Moll. Die volgende jaar word hy as staatsdrukker aangestel. Een van sy take was om ’n koerant uit te gee, wat in Junie 1862 as De Emigrant verskyn. Dié koerant is in 1863 gestaak. Na ander pogings om ’n koerant uit te gee, verskyn Borrius se nuwe koerant, die Transvaal Argus, die eerste keer op 8 Mei 1866. Die oudste voorbeelde van geskrewe Afrikaans in Transvaal het hierin verskyn.21

20 WJ de V Prinsloo, Potchefstroom 150: Grepe uit die geskiedenis van Potchefstroom by geleentheid van die viering van die 150e bestaansjaar van die dorp in 1988 (Feeskomitee, Potchefstroom, 1988), p. 73. 21 G Jenkins, A century of history: The story of Potchefstroom (AA Balkema, Cape Town, 1971[1939]), p. 46.

• 71 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Die Potchefstroom Budget word in 1880 gestig deur die firma Guest and Rose. Die koerant is nie tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog uitgegee nie en ná die oorlog het die toenmalige eienaar, HM Slade, vir Bate aangestel om publikasie te hervat.22 Ook ander koerante het voor en na die stigting van die Herald op Potchefstroom gekom en gegaan.23 In hierdie milieu het Bate hom in Oktober 1902 in Potchefstroom kom vestig.24 Enkele maande ná sy verpligte lidmaatskap van die Rand Rifles, het Bate op Potchefstroom aangekom “... looking for a newspaper world to conquer”.25 Hierdie pioniersgees het Bate nooit regtig verloor nie. Nadat die ervare joernalis Ernest Jenkins hom in 1925 by die Herald aangesluit het en dit nie vir Bate meer noodsaaklik was om na die daaglikse bestuur van die koerant om te sien nie, besoek hy in 1926 vir ’n paar maande die pas ontdekte diamantvelde in en om Lichtenburg. Daaroor berig hy breedvoerig in die Herald en doen ook aan genl.Jan Smuts – toe in opposisie – verslag oor die haglike omstandighede daar.26 Die 35-jarige Bate is deur GM Slade teen £25 per maand aangestel om die Potchefstroom Budget uit te gee.27 Omstandighede was primitief. Die koerantkantoor was geleë in ’n swak beligte, swak geventileerde sink- en houtgebou. Bate beskryf homself as ’n “jack of all work... editor, reporter, advertisement canvasser, printing orderman, and in charge of the office”. Hy is bygestaan deur ’n “journeyman of the ancient school” (vakman) en ’n paar swakgeskoolde setters wat plaaslik gewerf is.28 Ná ’n paar maande by die Potchefstroom Budget en verskeie terugslae, het Bate die aanbod van Woolf Carlis aanvaar om die besturende direkteur van ’n nuwe koerant, The Western Transvaal Times, te word. Hoewel die koerant met groot fanfare bekendgestel is, was dit nie suksesvol nie en het dit daartoe gelei dat Bate die mede-verweerder in ’n hooggeregshofsaak geword het en £3000 aan Carlis moes terugbetaal. “I did not even posses 3000 shillings!” skryf hy later.29 Hy het hierna teruggekeer na die Potchefstroom Budget en het kort

22 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 5. 23 Potchefstroom Herald, “Spesiale Feesuitgawe, Potchefstroom 1938 -1963”, 8 November 1963, p. 55. 24 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 4. 25 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 5. 26 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 27; T Macdonald, Transvaal Story (Cape Town, Howard Timmins, 1961), p. 183; Potchefstroom Herald, 11 Junie 1926. 27 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 4; WJ de V Prinsloo, p. 75; Potchefstroom Herald, 6 Mei 1955. 28 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 5. 29 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 8.

• 72 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald daarna die naam na die Western Chronicle verander.30 Nadat The Potchefstroom News, “one of numerous opposing journalistic ventures which failed over a period of years”,31 sluit, het Bate die drukpers “half cash down” gekoop en onderneem om die res af te betaal.32 Daardeur het Bate ’n belangrike mylpaal bereik in sy strewe om ’n staanplek in die koerantwêreld te kry.33 Die besluit om die drukpers te koop, neem Bate ten spyte van sy eie mislukkings en teen die agtergrond van die talle koerante wat nie op Potchefstroom ’n bestaan kon maak nie. Dit was, soos hy dit later beskryf, “a grim business starting a newspaper... and many were the predictions of failure ahead”.34

Foto 3 (Voorblad van eerste Potchefstroom Herald): CV Bate se Potchefstroom Herald het op 1 Mei 1908 die eerste keer verskyn

Bron: Lennie Gouws

30 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 10. 31 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 9. 32 Potchefstroom Herald, 28 Junie 1957. 33 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p 5. “I was full of youthful enthusiasm, and came to Potchefstroom looking for a newspaper world to conquer.” 34 Potchefstroom Herald, 6 Mei 1955.

• 73 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Die eerste uitgawe van die Herald het op 1 Mei 1908 verskyn. Dit het aanvanklik weekliks verskyn, het 3 pennies per eksemplaar gekos en was gerig op die blanke Engelssprekende publiek van Potchefstroom, insluitende die groot Britse garnisoen op die dorp. Dit is daarom slegs in Engels uitgegee.35 Bate het sy beleid in die eerste Herald só geformuleer:36 The Herald will be primarily a Potchefstroom newspaper, aiming at giving a reliable and impartial service of local news and offering such comment as it may humbly deem to be for the common weal. While reserving the right to criticise as freely as occasion may demand, we hope to maintain a strictly independent attitude, and to treat public affairs, whether parochial or colonial, without undue bias and from a non-party point of view. Hy het pertinent in sy eerste beleidsverklaring gesê dat die Herald nie ’n party-orgaan gaan wees nie en dat hy nuus nie buitensporig partydig (“without undue bias”) sal aanbied nie, ’n stelling wat ruimte laat vir ’n subjektiewe interpretasie van wat “buitensporig partydig” is. Veel later erken hy dat hy inderdaad as “uitgesproke” beskou is:37 The Herald’s advocacy and outspokenness were not always appreciated. I was looked upon in certain quarters as something of a firebrand, and was freely dubbed a “jingo” in politics. I was, I suppose, in the somewhat militant stage as a journalist, dreaming of reforms and believing that agitation and publicity could effect much. Hierdie selferkende uitgesprokenheid kom in allerlei berigte na vore, soos in die bespreking van die Herald se nuusagenda hieronder sal blyk. Maar hy is allereers met heel praktiese sake gekonfronteer. Om bloot die koerant op straat te kry, het groot inspanning geverg. In dié opsig was die gebrek aan elektriese krag Bate se belangrikste probleem. Gevolglik moes twee arbeiders (“struggling and perspiring over the wheel that turned the heavy machine”) die drukpers bedien.38 Bate het reeds toe hy nog die Potchefstroom Budget uitgegee het, ’n gemis aan die beskikbaarheid van elektrisiteit ervaar. Dit was die voorwaarde vir ’n groeiende pers.39 Hoewel daar reeds in 1903 ’n elektriese “installasie” op Potchefstroom was, het dit met heelwat kragonderbrekings gepaard gegaan. In 1906 het die

35 WJ de V Prinsloo, Potchefstroom 150, 1988, p. 93. 36 Potchefstroom Herald, 1 Mei 1908. 37 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 13. 38 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 9. 39 Vergelyk D Crowley & P Heyer, 1991, Communication in history – technology, culture, society (New York, Longman, 1991), p. 161.

• 74 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald stadsraad die voorsiening van elektrisiteit oorgeneem, maar daar is eers in 1912 ’n meer betroubare kragopwekker in gebruik geneem.40 Dit het Bate waarskynlik net so geboei as “die elektronika in die twintigste eeu van die koerantbedryf besit sou neem”.41 Bate het ook gesukkel om die blad te vestig. Die vyf uitgawes wat in die eerste maand van die Herald se bestaan verskyn het, het ’n totale inkomste van net £47 ingebring, wat Bate laat opmerk het: “It was many months of struggling before revenue reached respectable proportions.”42 Op 12 Maart 1909, toe die nuutgeboude stadsaal van Potchefstroom amptelik geopen is, verskyn ’n suksesvolle spesiale uitgawe waarin Bate se deeglikheid as joernalis ten toon gestel is.43 Foto’s van burgemeester Goetz en sy vrou, genl. Jan Smuts, die bouaannemer, die nuwe stadsaal en die raad in sitting in die raadsaal vergesel die artikel. Al was daar nie eens vir die pers ’n tafel om op te skryf nie, berig Bate in die daaropvolgende Herald van 19 Maart 1909 breedvoerig oor die inwyding van die gebou. Dit sluit lang aanhalings uit die openingstoespraak van Smuts in. Dié meer formalistiese joernalistiek is metterwyl aangevul deur misdaad- en hofverslaggewing wat nie uit plek sou wees in vandag se Herald nie. ’n Grusame moord op Oujaarsnag 1912 noop Bate om op 3 Januarie 1913 ’n spesiale uitgawe hieroor die lig te laat sien. Die uitgawe demonstreer Bate se deeglikheid as joernalis en sy bemeestering van Engels:44 There have been many tragedies on South African farms, but none more ghastly than this one, in which a woman, in cold-blooded and evidently premeditated fashion butchered her sleeping husband. The head was, it is said, almost severed from the trunk by means of a hatchet – a heavy instrument with an iron handle – and then perforated the body with the sharp end of an iron crow-bar. Benewens ’n feitlik woordelikse verslag van die hofverrigtinge is daar ook berigte oor onderhoude wat die Herald gevoer het; een met ’n oom van die oorledene en een met ’n vriend van die gesin. By gebrek aan foto’s is die berigte deurspek met beskrywings van die haglike voorkoms van die beskuldigde en omstandighede tydens die hofverrigtinge.

40 WJ de V Prinsloo, Potchefstroom 150, p. 53. 41 W de Kock, ’n Wyse van spreke, p. 117. 42 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 10. 43 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 14. 44 Potchefstroom Herald, 13 Januarie 1919.

• 75 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

CV Bate as nuushekwagter Die nuusagenda van Bate se Herald is die beste aanduider van Bate se eie denke en hoe hy sy rol as hekwagter en meningsvormer vervul het. Die temas wat sy koerant se voorblaaie oorheers het, word hier uitgelig aan die hand van Gouws se ontleding van die hoofberigte van ‘n jaar uit elke dekade van 1908 tot 1998, asook ander groot nuusgebeure.45

Dood van CF Beyers Nadat die koerant homself gevestig het en begin groei het, het Bate dit gewaag om sy verklaarde onpartydigheid tersyde te stel en openlik die Unie- regering te ondersteun. Dit het veral met die aanloop tot en die verloop van die Eerste Wêreldoorlog duidelik na vore gekom – in die besonder met sy beriggewing oor die dood van die toenmalige aanvoerder van die Uniemagte, kmdt.-genl. CF Beyers. In die aanloop tot Beyers se dood, het die Herald sy lesers goed op hoogte gehou van die verloop van die Rebellie. Terwyl Beyers en ’n groep rebelle deur regeringsmagte agtervolg is, het hy op 8 Desember 1914 in die Vaalrivier verdrink. Hy wou van die Vrystaatkant, waar die Makwassiespruit in die Vaalrivier vloei, die rivier kruis. In die Herald se berigte oor Beyers, is daar telkemale bloot na hom verwys as ”Beyers”, terwyl hy in die spesifieke berig oor sy dood in dieHerald van 8 Desember 1914 beskryf is as “the rebel leader Beyers”. Sy rang, of die hoflike aanspreekvorm “Mr.” is opvallend uitgelaat, hoewel dit in daardie tyd gewoonlik gebruik is. Dit, terwyl hy elders beskryf is as “een van die mees uitmuntende leiers van die Boeremagte in die Suid-Afrikaanse Oorlog”46 en kort tevore nog kommandant-generaal van die Uniemagte was. Sou die Herald Beyers se saak simpatiek gesind gewees het (of bloot neutraal daarteenoor gestaan het), het hulle waarskynlik sy hoogste titel gebruik. Die beriggewing oor Beyers se dood in die Herald was dus, in die hitte van die oomblik, nie so onpartydig as wat Bate hom in die blad se eerste uitgawe ten doel gestel het om te doen nie.

45 HS Gouws, “Die Potchefstroom Herald: 1908-2008 – ‘n mediahistoriese studie”, pp. 31, 67-87. Die studie gee dus insig in die nuus waaraan Bate prominensie gegee het en hoe hy dit gehanteer het. Daardeur is ‘n beeld gevorm van Bate die joernalis. 46 JP Brits, SB Spies & A Grundlingh, “‘n Nuwe Suid-Afrika in wording”, H Giliomee & B Mbenga, Nuwe geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika (Kaapstad, Tafelberg, 2007), p. 238.

• 76 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

Bate het per geluk van Beyers se verdrinking gehoor, en benewens die beriggewing in die Herald, het hy die nuus per telefoon aan The Star in Johannesburg oorgedra.47 Jenkins noem hierdie berig een van die groot prestasies van Bate se lewe en bestempel dit as ’n “world scoop”.48 In 1915 het Bate De Westelike Stem gestig wat aanvanklik in Nederlands en later in Afrikaans die res van die blanke bevolking van die dorp en distrik sou bedien. Die blad was bedoel om ’n Afrikaanse mondstuk vir die regering op Potchefstroom te wees.49 Bate het die doel van die blad so verwoord: “To its credit Die Westelike Stem was, I believe, the first Afrikaans newspaper to advocate the policy of party fusion and consequent lessening of political extremism and bitterness”.50 In die praktyk het die blad dus die Suid- Afrikaanse Party van generaals Louis Botha en Jan Smuts ondersteun.51

Politieke sentimente lok teenstand uit Uit die Herald se dekking van groot nuusgebeure soos die dood in Augustus 1919 van die eerste minister, Louis Botha, is dit nogmaals duidelik dat Bate nie heeltemal so onpartydig was as wat hy gesê het hy gaan wees nie. Sy beriggewing hieroor weerspieël by uitstek sy toegeneentheid jeens dié premier van Suid-Afrika. Só het die doodsberig begin: “Potchefstroom reeled under a great shock on Thursday morning when it became known that General Botha had passed away”.52 Die tipiese gebruik van die era om multidekopskrifte te gebruik om die belangrikheid van ’n berig te beklemtoon, is hier deur die Herald nagevolg.53 Berigte oor Botha se dood is oor vier kolomme versprei met multidekopskrifte bo twee van hulle. Aan die bokant van elkeen van hierdie kolomme verskyn die woorde “Death of Genl. Botha” in opvallende dik, swart letters. Die multidekopskrifte lui: “Nation’s Great Loss”, “News at P’stroom”54, “South

47 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 24. 48 Potchefstroom News, 21 Julie 1961. 49 FSJ Ackerman, “Potchefstroom: Bakermat van die pers in die noorde 1838-1973”, BA -skripsie, (PU vir CHO, 1973), p. 43. 50 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 29. 51 SP van der Walt, “Drukkery” (Potchefstroom Herald, 80 Jubileumuitgawe, 3 Mei 1988), p. 60. 52 Potchefstroom Herald, 29 Augustus 1919. 53 A Smith, The newspaper: An international history (Thames & Hudson, Londen, 1979), p. 154. Die belangrikste rede waarom hierdie multidekopskrifte gebruik is, is omdat daar toe nie groter letters beskikbaar was nie en hierdie opskrifte dus ’n manier was om aandag te trek. 54 Die afkorting P’stroom is dikwels gebruik wanneer daar nie plek in ’n enkelkolom vir die woord “Potchefstroom” was nie.

• 77 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Africa’s great loss”, “A notable career” en “Special memoir”. Jare later sou Bate as volg oor Botha skryf: “General Louis Botha, nature’s gentleman that he was, was graciousness itself even in the midst of harassing discussions. Conversation with him is still a happy memory”.55 Die Nasionaalgesinde studente van die Literariese Departement en Teologiese Skool (wat later die Potchefstroomse Universiteitskollege geword het), se politieke sentimente het reëlreg van dié van Bate verskil. Die Herald het die dosente en studente van die Teologiese Skool se doen en late dan ook “met groot venyn gekritiseer”.56 Vandaar ’n studenteraadsbesluit waarin die Senaat in 1915 “beleefd maar dringend” versoek is om intekening op die Herald te staak “als zynde benede de waardigheid van die leeskamer”.57

Eerste Wêreldoorlog en Groot Griep Twee temas geniet hoofsaaklik aandag in 1918: die Eerste Wêreldoorlog58 en die Groot Griepepidemie.59 Agt Herald-hoofberigte dié jaar is aan sake rakende die oorlog afgestaan. Die laaste hoofberig oor die oorlog het op 12 Julie 1918 verskyn en handel oor werkverskaffing aan terugkerende soldate. Oor die griepepidemie skryf die Herald by herhaling, insluitende vyf agtereenvolgende hoofberigte.60 Talle doodsberigte, berigte oor die oorsprong van die epidemie en wenke vir die versorging van siekes word ook gepubliseer. Bate se uitlating in sy hoofartikel op 26 Oktober 1918 (en soos ook later verduidelik word) dui daarop dat hy ‘n hart vir noodlydendes gehad het. Hy het daarom ’n aktivistiese rol vir die media gesien. Hy skryf dat “only in times of a crisis like the one through which the country is passing (die griepepidemie), that public attention is focused on the problem of the poor”. In dié geval, slaan sy aktivisme op “agitation ... started in the press”, dus die agendastellingsfunksie van die media.

55 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 26. 56 PF van der Schyff, Wonderdaad...! Die PUK tot 1951: Wording, vestiging en selfstandigheid (Potchefstroom, Potchefstroomse Universiteit vir Christelike Hoër Onderwys, 2003), p. 140. 57 PF van der Schyff, Wonderdaad...!, p. 140. 58 SB Spies, SB & A Grundlingh. “’n Nuwe Suid-Afrika in wording”, H Giliomee & B Mbenga, Nuwe geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika (Kaapstad, Tafelberg, 2007), pp. 237-242. 59 Wêreldwyd eis die Groot Griep, ook genoem die Spaanse Griep, miljoene lewens en in Suid-Afrika sterf nagenoeg 250 000 tot 350 000 mense daaraan. Kyk JP Brits, SB Spies, SB & A Grundlingh. “’n Nuwe Suid- Afrika in wording”, pp. 242. 60 Herald, 11 Oktober 1918; 18 Oktober 1918; 25 Oktober 1918; 1 November 1918; 8 November 1918.

• 78 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

Besoek van Prins van Wallis Die aanbieding van beriggewing oor die besoek van die Prins van Wallis in 1925 aan Potchefstroom kan ook as voorbeeld dien van Bate en sy kollega Ernest Jenkins, wat vroeër daardie jaar by die Herald aangesluit het,61 se pro- Britse en koloniale sentimente. Benewens ’n ryklik geïllustreerde uitgawe om saam te val met die prins se besoek, doen die Herald volledig oor sy besoek aan Suid-Afrika verslag.62 Hoewel die prins eers in Junie 1925 op Potchefstroom verwag is, begin die Herald reeds op 20 Februarie oor sy besoek aan Potchefstroom berig. Op 28 April 1925 blyk dié redakteur van die Herald se opwinding oor sy besoek uit hierdie woorde in die hoofartikel: “... that ere the next issue of this paper appears, the Prince would have set foot on South African soil.”63 Op 29 Mei verskyn ’n roetekaart van die prins se besoek aan Potchefstroom en teen 9 Junie het die stadsraad na allerlei vroeëre oorwegings uiteindelik besluit dat kinders in Alexandrapark (waar die Kenneth McArthur- ovaal en Olënpark vandag is) sou byeenkom om die prins te ontmoet. Was die Herald se meer as deeglike verslaggewing oor die besoek van die Prins van Wallis een van die sprekende voorbeelde van die uitgewer en subredakteur se imperialistiese sentimente? Moontlik wel, maar dit moet gesien word binne die konteks dat die prins oral, ook in Afrikanergeledere, met groot hartlikheid ontvang is.64 Suid-Afrika was immers, ondanks uniewording in 1910, nog volledig deel van die Britse ryk – of so het veral Engelssprekende blankes (soos Bate) dit beskou. Teen 1928 oorheers munisipale en ander plaaslike sake, asook misdaad, ongelukke en berigte oor hofsake Bate se Herald. Maatskaplike sake, soos die haglike omstandighede van mynwerkers en by delwerye en die onthulling van die nuwe Suid-Afrikaanse vlag, is egter die onderwerp van ses hoofberigte, wat aandui dat die Herald steeds meer as net eng Potchefstroomse nuus gedek het. Hoewel daar heelparty berigte deur die jaar oor die Engelse koning verskyn, is hierdie tema net een keer dié jaar die onderwerp van ’n hoofberig.65

61 Potchefstroom Herald, 8 Januarie 1959. 62 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 32. 63 Potchefstroom Herald, 28 April 1925. 64 JD Froneman, “Die kommunikasie van Afrikanernasionalisme deur Stellenbosse studente, 1902-48” (Ongepubliseerde PhD-tesis, Potchefstroomse Universiteit vr Christeilike Hoër Onderwys, Potchefstroom, 1995), p. 153. 65 Potchefstroom Herald, 30 November 1928.

• 79 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Simboliese Trek van 1938 Teen 1938 oorheers plaaslike nuus die Herald. By verre die meerderheid hoofberigte (28 uit 52 uitgawes) het plaaslike en munisipale sake as onderwerp. Dit is ook verstaanbaar in die lig van die dorp se viering van sy eeufees. Maar die Potchefstroom Herald dek ook die eeufeesherdenking van die Groot Trek66 volledig. Volgens die Herald van 11 November 1938 het sowat 10 000 mense die twee ossewaens (wat deel was van die simboliese trek) op Potchefstroom verwelkom, waar hulle vir vier dae sou oorstaan voordat na Pretoria vertrek is.67 Die Herald het in die daaropvolgende uitgawes twee foto’s geplaas wat van The Starbekom is oor die aankoms van die waens in onderskeidelik Krugersdorp en Johannesburg.68 Op 15 Desember 1938 is ’n foto van ’n skaalmodel van die Voortrekkermonument gepubliseer, waarvan die hoeksteen die volgende dag gelê sou word. Dat Bate hierdie dekking aan die simboliese ossewatrek gegee het, is ’n aanduiding van hoeveel impak dit landwyd gehad het.69 Ander Engelstalige koerante het eweneens ruim dekking aan die gebeurtenis gegee. Tog lei ons hieruit af dat Bate ruim genoeg gedink het om ’n suiwer Afrikanerherdenking nie te minag nie. Hoewel die Herald sedert sy ontstaan nasionale en internasionale nuus gedra het, was hierdie nuus nooit die hoofnuusberigte nie. Die implikasies van die gedoemde vredesverdrag wat die Britse eerste minister Neville Chamberlain met Adolf Hitler gesluit het, noop Bate egter om dié nuus as hoofberig te plaas.70 Daarna het talle berigte oor die aanloop tot en verloop van die Tweede Wêreldoorlog gevolg. Dit was duidelik dat die Herald die Britse oorlogspoging heelhartig ondersteun het. So het die Herald instemmend oor dié uitspraak van Sir Winston Churchill berig:71 No one living in England to-day is free from anxiety of the future from day to day, except that we are one and all determined to see it through, even to our last man and standing brick wall. We are up to our necks in getting ready and ready we are.

66 H Giliomee, “’n Herrysende Afrikanernasionalisme”, H Giliomee & B Mbenga, Nuwe geskiedenis van Suid- Afrika (Kaapstad, Tafelberg, 2007), pp. 288-291. 67 Potchefstroom Herald, 11 November 1938. 68 Potchefstroom Herald, 18 November 1938; 25 November 1938. 69 Vergelyk J Froneman & P Muller, “Kan die osse weer seëvier?”, Insig, Junie 1988. 70 Potchefstroom Herald, 30 September 1938. 71 Potchefstroom Herald, 21 Julie 1939.

• 80 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

Bate steun oorlogspoging ’n Volbladadvertensie van die regering het op 20 Oktober 1939 verskyn om lesers aan te moedig om by te dra tot die Union Unity Fund wat die oorlogspoging ondersteun het. Gegee die sterk opposisie wat die regering se oorlogspoging onder Afrikaners gekry het, met name ook op Potchefstroom,72 is die verduideliking wat Bates se koerant oor die herkoms van die Swastika plaas betekenisvol:73 Hitler chose the swastika because the Nazi creed is based on race – the superior Aryan. Secondly, among some ancient peoples the swastika signifies a death which was the beginning of a new and better life. Hence to the Nazis the swastika signifies the rebirth or reawakening of Germany. It seems risky, if you are superstitious, to use a death symbol like that. It might turn out as sinister as the skull and crossbones of the buccaneers. Uiteindelik, op 12 Mei 1945, vier die Herald saam met ’n groot deel van die wêreld die einde van die oorlog in Europa: “The war in Europe is over.” Vir die Duitsgesinde (of bloot anti-Britsgesinde) Afrikaners kon die Herald van die oorlogsjare geen “eie” koerant verteenwoordig het nie. Daarvoor het die oorlog ’n te duidelike breuklyn meegebring – ook tussen Afrikaners.74 Maar Bate se Herald het ’n belangrike stem op Potchefstroom verteenwoordig en hy het genoeg steun van lesers en adverteerders gehad om die moeilike oorlogsjare te oorleef. Potchefstroom is in daardie stadium ook nog in die Parlement deur ’n lid van die regerende Verenigde Party verteenwoordig. ’n Politieke ommeswaai sou wel later kom.

Bate gee dekking aan nuwe regering Op die vooraand van die 1948-verkiesing het die Herald besef dat die party wat hy ondersteun met sy rug teen die muur veg en Bate het sy gewig openlik by die regering ingegooi. Die hoofartikel van 21 Mei 1948 lui onder meer:75 Wednesday next will become one of the most vital days in South Africa’s history, for then will be decided who is to rule the Union in the critical years ahead. We all have … to exercise wisely the great privilege of the franchise and to vote for peace, progress and prosperity of the country. The choice is easy –

72 Vergelyk PF Van der Schyff, Wonderdaad...!, pp. 494-526. 73 Potchefstroom Herald, 10 November 1939. 74 BJ Liebenberg, “Van die Statuut van Westminister tot die Republiek van Suid-Afrika”, CFJ Muller, 500 jaar Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis (Academica, Pretoria, 1973), pp. 384,385. 75 Potchefstroom Herald, 21 Mei 1948.

• 81 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Smuts or Malan. It lies between harmonious relationships or the perpetuation of racism. In dieselfde hoofartikel het die redakteur gepoog om dr. DF Malan, leier van die Nasionale Party en die koalisie wat later die meerderheid in die verkiesing sou kry, só in diskrediet te bring: “It was when the Empire was fighting for its very existence that Dr. Malan and his Nazi-minded party wanted contact with the arch-fiend, Hitler.” Maar die gety het gedraai en Smuts verloor die verkiesing teen Malan. ’n Multidekopskrif van drie reëls bokant die berig oor die verkiesingsuitslae dui aan hoe belangrik die redakteur van die Herald hierdie nuus beskou. Die blad het ook as volg berig:76 The Nationalist-Afrikaner Parties has been returned with a small majority thanks largely to a political landslide on the “Platteland” in which the Western Transvaal shared. No UP candidate was returned in this territory and the three seats held by the U.P., Potchefstroom, Losberg and Ventersdorp were captured by the opposition. Tog het die Herald sy professionaliteit behou deur ná die verkiesing aan die regerende party regmatige nuusdekking te gee. Die blad berig dat die nuwe eerste minister, dr. DF Malan, ’n skare ondersteuners op die Potchefstroom- stasie toegespreek het toe die trein waarmee hy op pad na Pretoria was, hier aangedoen het.77 Die hoofartikel van die uitgawe is egter getiteld “The nobility of Smuts”. Lesersbriewe en ’n berig met aanhalings oor die verkiesing uit verskeie Suid-Afrikaanse nuusblaaie, onder meer Die Vaderland, Cape Argus, Transvaler, Sunday Times, en Natal Witness verskyn ook in hierdie uitgawe. ’n Foto van die nuwe kabinet word in die Potchefstroom Herald gepubliseer78 asook ’n onderhoud met die nuwe NP-parlementslid vir Potchefstroom, dr. Jan Steyn.79 Daarmee het Bate getoon dat hy ten spyte van sy sterk standpunte allereers ’n koerantman was wat sy breë leserspubliek wou dien. So het die Herald teruggekeer na ’n meer onpartydige benadering tot die politiek en het die blad feitelik verslag gedoen oor die bedrywighede van die nuwe regering. Sou dit ’n geval wees dat Bate sy politieke blus verloor het? Of het kommersiële oorwegings hom genoop om nie vyande te maak met omstrede politieke joernalistiek nie?

76 Potchefstroom Herald, 28 Mei 1948. 77 Potchefstroom Herald, 4 Junie 1948. 78 Potchefstroom Herald, 18 Junie 1948. 79 Potchefstroom Herald, 22 Oktober 1948.

• 82 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

Bate herwin sy politieke stem Dit lyk of Bate tog metterwyl sy stem herwin het. So het hy gedurende 1956 etlike foto’s gepubliseer waarin die vreedsame protes van die vroue van die anti-regeringsgesinde Black Sash uitgebeeld is. En in sy rubriek CeeVeeBee het Bate die vroue as “courageous women” beskryf.80 In dieselfde jaar is die Tomlinson-verslag oor swart tuislande gepubliseer. Bate se politieke instink het hom nie in die steek gelaat nie en hy plaas ’n voorbladfoto van die voorsitter van die kommissie, prof FR Tomlinson, en die 16 volumes van dié belangrike verslag.81 Bate het in sy rubriek as volg kritiek gelewer op dr. HF Verwoerd, toe minister van naturellesake:82 In this column last week a suggestion was made that Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, Minister of Native Affairs, may become an embarrassment to the Government in which he is resumed to be second in power only to the Prime Minister himself. His contemplated Bantu Empire (?) has raised storms in several directions and he will probably be made to realise that the Nazi technique will never meet with the approval of freedom-loving South Africans. Ondanks die dekking wat Bate soms aan internasionale en nasionale sake gegee het, was sy primêre belangstelling altyd plaaslike sake. Die Herald het onder Bate se leiding hom deur die jare vir menige sake beywer, soos die totstandkoming van Potchefstroom se eerste hospitaal in 1914. Bate roep dit só in herinnering:83 Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the first funds for a local Hospital were collected through the medium of The Herald. Neither the Town Council nor the Provincial Government would make the first move, and a consistent agitation was maintained. I think a sum of £700 or £800 was raised in this way. Vroeër, in 1938, het die Herald se hantering van ’n winkelgroep se aansoek om ’n handelslisensie ’n aanduiding gegee dat die koerant nie net ’n naprater van die stadsraad was nie. Met die herdenking van die 30ste bestaansjaar van die Herald, skryf die redakteur in ’n hoofartikel:84 ...we can proudly lay claim to the fact on occasions we have been able to exert influence on public opinion in what we believed to be the right direction. Our critics have been not a few, but even they will, we trust, admit that there has

80 Potchefstroom Herald, 24 Februarie 1956. 81 Potchefstroom Herald, 6 April 1956. 82 Potchefstroom Herald, 2 November 1956. 83 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, pp. 15-16. 84 Potchefstroom Herald, 13 Mei 1938.

• 83 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

been honesty and purpose not alone in the Heralds editorial views but in the manner in which news has been presented to the public. Die redakteur het daarna spesiaal melding gemaak van die polemiek wat daardie jaar in die Herald afgespeel het toe Ackermans ’n winkel op Potchefstroom wou open. Ten spyte daarvan dat hulle reeds besig was om die perseel in te rig, wou die stadsraad nie ’n handelslisensie aan hulle toestaan nie. Die Herald was vierkant agter die kettingwinkelgroep en het nie net met berigte nie, maar ook met die plasing van advertensies van Ackermans die saak van die winkel bevorder. Uiteindelik het die stadsraad die lisensie toegestaan. Dit laat natuurlik die vraag hoe groot die rol van die advertensies was – ook die belofte van toekomstige advertensies. Bate was toe nie meer ’n stadraadslid nie en kon sy koerant se belange sonder voorbehoud bevorder. Het eie belang of die algemene voorspoed van die dorp die deurslag gegee?

Die Potchefstroom Herald se filosofie verander Bate het homself beslis nie beskou as bloot ’n gemeenskapsjoernalis wat sy leserspubliek in Potchefstroom bedien het nie. Hy was in 1938 reeds dertig jaar lank ’n korrespondent vir Reuters85 en ’n briefhoof en advertensiepamflet van 1949 dui aan dat die koerant toe ook ’n adres in Londen gehad het.86 Bate het dus groot belang geheg aan sy buitelandse verbintenisse en dit gebruik om, in die tydperk voor stedelike dagblaaie geredelik beskikbaar was, ook sy lesers se bron van die belangrikste internasionale nuus te wees. Uit die voorafgaande is dit duidelik dat Bate en sy geesgenoot Jenkins se politieke en ander opvattings in talle berigte sterk deurgeskemer het. Deur aan bepaalde gebeure prominensie te gee en met bepaalde opskrifte aan te bied, die keuse van bepaalde woorde en beskrywings (en die weglating van ander), was bewuste en onbewuste agendastelling en raming wat lesers soms (en soms nie) beïnvloed het.87 In die mate wat hulle nie die diepste oortuigings van hul lesers geweld aangedoen het nie, het hulle waarskynlik vormende invloed gehad, maar die werklike effek daarvan kan nie by nabaat gepeil word nie. Uiteindelik was hulle joernaliste wat die gebeure en menings van hul tyd in die lig tot hul beskikking getrou probeer weergee het.

85 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 25. 86 Potchefstroom Herald, Advertensiebrosjure, 1949. 87 HS Gouws, “Die Potchefstroom Herald: 1908-2008 – ‘n mediahistoriese studie,” pp. 65-88 vir ’n volledige bespreking van die Potchefstroom Herald se nuusagenda tydens die Bate-era (1908-1957).

• 84 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

Dat die Herald onder hulle oorleef het, is die beste bewys dat hulle ten minste in pas was met ’n deel van Potchefstroom se koerantlesers en adverteerders. Maar dat die blad se beleid spoedig na hul weggaan sou verander88, is eweneens ’n bewys van die invloed wat redakteurs en uitgewers op die karakter van ’n koerant kan hê. Toe die driemanskap van SJ du Plessis, AF Kolbe en HB van der Walt die blad in 1959 oorneem (na ’n kort, onsuksesvolle tyd onder die eienaars wat die blad by Bate gekoop het), het die blad spoedig heelwat meer Afrikaanse berigte bevat.89 Later het die blad oorwegend Afrikaans geword, maar steeds met Engelse berigte. Na 1980, toe die blad onder die Nasionale Pers se beheer gekom het, het die Herald polities eerder die Nasionale Party bevoordeel, maar die blad het sedertdien ’n gematigde neutraliteit gehandhaaf waar partypolitiek vermy word en die stadsraad gekritiseer gegrond op bewese foute en mistastings en nie soseer op ideologiese standpunte nie.90 Hierdie benadering verskil nie soseer van die Herald onder Bate nie, hoewel die gebruik van Afrikaans, tipografiese vernuwing en ’n groter klem op die emosionele91 belangrike verskille verteenwoordig. Toe die Herald in 2008 sy eeufees gevier het, het die Herald dus, in bepaalde sin, geword wat Bate seker altyd wou gehad het die blad moet wees. Bate was, soos vroeër vermeld, ook die medestigter en eienaar van die Westelike Stem, van 1915 tot 1955, toe hy dit verkoop het. Dit is betekenisvol dat die jare lange redakteur van die koerant, Jan Thompson, aanvanklik as uitvoerende redakteur behou is, maar spoedig deur Gert Pienaar (latere professor in Perswetenskap) vervang is.92 Die blad se naam verander ook gou na Die Weste, met die volgende genotuleerde verduideliking: “Daarmee word teruggekeer tot die Christelik-nasionale tradisie”, waarskynlik ’n verwysing na Het Weste, die Afrikanernasionalistiese blad van Hendrik de Graaf wat in 1904 op Potchefstroom gestig is en vandag nog voortleef as die Volksblad van Bloemfontein.93

88 HS Gouws, “Die Potchefstroom Herald: 1908-2008 – ’n mediahistoriese studie”, p. 125. 89 Onderhoud, HB van der Walt/Lennie Gouws, 2008. 90 HS Gouws, “Die Potchefstroom Herald: 1908-2008 – ’n mediahistoriese studie”, p. 225. 91 JD Froneman, “Op pad na populistiese sensasiejoernalistiek in die gemeenskapspers?” Ongepubliseerde referaat gelewer op 28 September 2010 by die jaarkongres van die Suid-Afrikaanse Kommunikasievereniging, Johannesburg. 92 SP van der Walt, “Drukkery” (Potchefstroom Herald 80-Jubileumuitgawe, 3 Mei 1988), p. 60. 93 L Barnard & J-A Stemmet, ’n Lewe van sy eie – Die biografie van Volksblad (Tafelberg, Kaapstad, 2004), pp. 15- 25.

• 85 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Die Westelike Stem onder eienaarskap van Bate en redakteurskap van onder andere Jan Thompson het duidelik ’n ander politieke filosofie gehad.94 Hoewel in hierdie artikel nie op die nuusagenda en -aanbieding van die Westelike Stem ingegaan word nie, kan in die lig van voorafgaande aanvaar word dat dit nie veel afgewyk het van die Herald s’n nie. Daarom was die inhoud van die Westelike Stem nie vir die nasionalistiese nuwe eienaars aanvaarbaar nie. Die politieke klimaat het egter die afgelope twee dekades merkbaar verander. Waar ’n groot foto van die destydse eerste minister, John Vorster, in 1978 op die voorblad van ’n 70-jarige feesbylae verskyn het, herinner die blad se beriggewing in die stormagtige negentigerjare baie aan die wyse waarop die Potchefstroom Herald tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog, dus in Bate se tyd, verslag gedoen het.95 En omstreeks 2003 verklaar die huidige redakteur dat “die Potchefstroom Herald nie ’n mondstuk van enige politieke party of drukgroep van een of ander aard is nie”.96 Teen die tyd dat die Potchefstroom Herald sy eeufees in 2008 gevier het, was die blad versigtig apolities, in pas met ’n moedermaatskappy (Naspers) wat lank reeds sy politieke motiewe afgeskud het.97

Bate as sakeman en gemeenskapsmens Rondom 1912 het die Potchefstroom Herald dermate gegroei dat Bate besluit het om benewens die Vrydaguitgawe, ook ’n Dinsdaguitgawe te begin uitgee. Die eerste hiervan het op 3 Desember 1912 verskyn.98 Teen 1932 het die Herald so gegroei dat Bate besluit om ’n maatskappy te stig wat die belange van sy koerante en drukkersbedryf sou beheer. Hy en sy seun, Ken Bate, was die direkteure van die maatskappy.99 Dieselfde tyd (Desember 1936) wat die staking van die Herald op Dinsdae aangekondig word, word bekend gemaak dat Bate die New Klerksdorp Record van 5 Desember sal uitgee.100 Bate het nie net gekoop en verkoop nie, maar ook met innovasies vorendag gekom wat sy tyd ver vooruit was.

94 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 29. 95 HS Gouws, “Die Potchefstroom Herald: 1908-2008 – ’n mediahistoriese studie”, p. 226. 96 HS Gouws, “Die Potchefstroom Herald: 1908-2008 – ’n mediahistoriese studie”, p. 252. 97 HS Gouws, “Die Potchefstroom Herald: 1908-2008 – ’n mediahistoriese studie”, p. 225. Die mede-eienaar van die Potchefstroom Herald, Caxton, is bekend vir sy apolitiese gemeenskapskoerante. Baie van hulle het nie eens ’n formele redaksionele hoofartikel nie. 98 Potchefstroom Herald, 3 Desember 1912. 99 Potchefstroom Herald, 1 April 1932. 100 Potchefstroom Herald, 27 November 1936.

• 86 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

In 1938 het die Herald ’n leserskapstudie, of “census”, onderneem, soos dit beskryf is in die opskrif van die berig wat daaroor handel.101 Die doel daarvan was hoofsaaklik om ’n beter diens aan die Herald se adverteerders te lewer. Poskaarte met vrae is aan al die intekenare van die koerant gestuur om lesers se persoonlike belangstellings en nuusvoorkeure te bepaal. Bate as sakeman het terdeë besef dat ’n koerant geen toekoms het as die advertensie-inkomste nie gesond is nie. In sy jonger jare was hy nie ongeneë om self advertensies te werf nie: “I set out gaily to canvas the town for advertisements and met with substantial success and also not a few rebuffs”.102 Sy lojaliteit teenoor sy adverteerders blyk oner meer uit sy hantering van die papiertekort tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog. Vanaf 29 Mei 1942 is al die redaksionele kolomme in ’n kleiner lettertipe as gewoonlik gedruk. Opvallend is daar nie aan die grootte van die lettertipe van advertensies verander nie.103 Die Herald het vir die eerste 47 jaar van sy bestaan ’n voorblad gehad met net advertensies daarop. Lank nadat ander koerante reeds hiervan afgesien het en nuus op die voorblad begin plaas het, het die Herald met die gebruik volgehou.104 Tog pas die blad op 5 Augustus 1955 aan en word aan lesers en adverteerders verduidelik dat die nuutjie in ooreenstemming met moderne praktyk is en dat die res van die koerant feitlik dieselfde bly.105 Benewens die advertensies weerskante van die mashoof, is drie vertoonadvertensies onderaan die bladsy behou. Die klem kon dus nou sterker op nuus val. Bate se sukses as sakeman word daarin bevestig dat hy vir bykans ’n halwe eeu die Herald besit het. Min is egter bekend oor die finansiële aspekte van die blad in dié tyd en sy persoonlike welvaart. In vergelyking met die advertensie- inkomste van £47 in die eerste maand van die Herald se bestaan, skryf Bate in 1938 in sy herinneringe oor die Herald se finansies:106 An interesting feature is that as compared with the few pounds weekly in 1908 we now (1938) distribute approximately £600 per month in wages and salaries – some contribution at any rate to the commercial prosperity of the town, being probably the largest individual local wage bill.

101 Potchefstroom Herald, 1 April 1938. 102 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 6. 103 Potchefstroom Herald, 20 Februarie 1920, 29 Mei 1942. 104 Die eerste koerant in Suid-Afrika wat begin het om nuus op die voorblad te plaas, was Die Burger in 1932. H Steytler, “Rugby en renperde”; JP Scannell, Keeromstraat 30: Gedenkbundel vir die vyftigste verjaardag van Die Burger (Kaapstad, Nasionale Boekhandel Bpk, 1965), p. 131. 105 Potchefstroom Herald, 5 Augustus 1955. 106 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 34.

• 87 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Tien jaar later, in ’n berig oor radio-uitsendings oor Potchefstroom, is die Herald beskryf as een van die grootste werkverskaffers op die dorp.107 Bate se rol as sakeman kan dus nie onderskat word nie. In die London Journal of South Africa is hy byvoorbeeld beskryf as die “Napoleon of the Country Press in South Africa, who had built his journalistic empire in the Western Transvaal”.108 Van die primitiewe eerste koerantkantoor van die Potchefstroom Herald wat in die gebou van ’n ou algemene handelaar gehuisves is,109 het die koerant en drukkery verhuis na ’n groter kantoorruimte in 1927. ’n Foto van dié gebou toon dat die Herald ook ’n agent was van die Union Castle Shipping Line110 waaruit Bate se veelsydigheid as sakeman blyk. In 1939 koop Bate ’n erf in Olën Yard, tans Olënlaan, waar ’n doelmatige gebou spesiaal vir die koerant en drukkery opgerig word.111 Sy drukkery het veel meer as net die drie koerante in sy besit gedruk. Om ander drukwerk te bekom, het hy ook die Herald as advertensiemedium gebruik en talle vulleradvertensie, sommige selfs ’n halfbladgrootte, is dikwels gepubliseer. Jenkins, jare lange kollega en werknemer van Bate, het hom in 1957 met reg so beskryf: “He combined most unusually, the qualities of businessman and journalist”.112 Bate was nie net by sy koerante betrokke nie. Hy was direkteur van die Potchefstroom Board of Executors en Potchefstroomse voorsitter van die Jongeliedevereniging (YMCA).113 Daarbenewens was hy tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog lid van die South African War Work Council, waarvoor hy met die Protea-toekennings deur Koning George VI vereer is.114 Bate het ook ‘n hart vir die swart bevolking gehad, soos blyk uit ‘n skenking wat hy gemaak het vir ‘n ete vir swart bejaardes.115

107 Potchefstroom Herald, 30 Julie 1948. 108 The Potchefstroom News, 21 July 1961. 109 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 35. 110 HS Gouws, “Die Potchefstroom Herald: 1908-2008 – ’n mediahistoriese studie”, p. 48. 111 Potchefstroom Herald, 10 November 1939. 112 Potchefstroom Herald, 5 Julie 1957. 113 E Jenkins, “‘CeeVee Bee’ – Appreciation”, Potchefstroom Herald, 5 July 1957. 114 E Jenkins, Potchefstroom Herald, 5 Julie 1957; SA Millitary History (available at: http://samilitaryhistory.org/6/ c06febne.html, as accessed on 10 November 2008). 115 Potchefstroom Herald, 14 Julie 1961.

• 88 CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

In 1934 het Bate homself beskikbaar gestel vir die stadsraad.116 In die daaropvolgende uitgawes van die Herald het hy ruim gebruik gemaak van dié (vir hom) gratis advertensiemedium, waaronder talle vulleradvertensies. In die advertensie met sy beleidsverklaring, het hy die volgende gesê: “Thinks he is the right man for Ward III – and the voters know it. Believes that advertising pays!” Dié reklame het vrugte afgewerp en hy is in 1935 met ’n rekordmeerderheid tot stadsraadslid verkies en dien ook in 1937 as onderburgemeester. Hieroor sê hy:117 “The fact that I was accorded a record majority in the Ward III election was taken as a much-appreciated tribute to the part The Herald had played as a medium of advocacy and opinion for many years”. Bate dien egter net tot 1937 as raadslid. Het die klaarblyklike botsing van belange sy tol geëis? Of het Bate se sin vir wat reg was die deurslag gegee? Ongelukkig is geen definitiewe antwoorde hierop beskikbaar nie. Maar hy kon nou weer sy werk as joernalis voluit doen.

Samevatting Hoewel mense soos Bate, aldus sy kollega en vriend Jenkins, nie aftree nie omdat hulle “far to energetic” is118, het Bate nooit so ver gekom om op sy aanvanklike herinneringe (wat in 1938 verskyn het) uit te brei nie. Hy het later blind geword en in die berig oor sy begrafnis is eerw. Jones, wat die begrafnisdiens gelei het, as volg aangehaal:119 It was a tragedy… that in the closing years of his life Mr. Bate had been unable to see to read the newspapers and was thus unable to keep abreast of national and other events. CV Bate het egter ’n lang en vrugbare loopbaan gehad wat van toewyding aan die joernalistieke beroep én sy eie politieke ideale getuig het. Hy was ’n voorstander van versoening tussen Britsgesinde Engelssprekendes en Afrikaners en opponent van post-1948-apartheidsdenke, maar ruim genoeg van hart om die opmars van Afrikanernasionalisme in sy koerant te dek. Hy was gemeenskapsmens met ’n hart vir minder bevoorregtes van alle rasse, maar ook ‘n vernuftige sakeman wat ondanks bepaalde mislukkings die

116 Potchefstroom Herald, 25 Oktober 1934. 117 CV Bate, An editor’s reminiscences, p. 36. 118 Potchefstroom Herald, 5 Julie 1957. 119 E Jenkins, Potchefstroom News, 21 July 1961, p. 4.

• 89 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Potchefstroom Herald vir 49 jaar uitgebou het en daardeur ’n blad nagelaat het wat tot vandag as vooraanstaande blad in Potchefstroom bestaan. Bate se Herald was in vele opsigte ’n refleksie van sy eie denke, maar ook van sy tye – wat gestrek het van net na die Anglo-Boereoorlog/Suid-Afrikaanse Oorlog van 1899-1902 tot kort duskant republiekwording in 1961. Daarom kan daar seker leemtes in Bate se denke en dié van sy belangrikste koerant, die Potchefstroom Herald, uitgewys word. So is die swart bevolking van Potchefstroom feitlik onsigbaar in sy koerant, soos wat dit ook in ander koerante die geval was wat op ‘n blanke gehoor toegespits was. Van Bate se voorgenome neutraliteit het in sy joernalistiek nie veel gekom nie; hy het immers ‘n sterk politieke standpunt gehad wat sy lewe gerig het. Maar juis omdat hy ‘n standpunt gehad het, was sy Potchefstroom Herald meer as ‘n advertensiepamflet. Dat hy self blind was vir die feit dat hy geen neutrale joernalistiek bedryf het nie, is geen rede tot kritiek nie. Hy het uiteindelik ’n besondere joernalistieke bydrae tot die koerantwese gelewer en verdien daarom ’n ereplek in die geskiedenis van die Suid-Afrikaanse mediageskiedenis.

• 90 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries

“Thinking your journal unimportant”: A feminist literary analysis of selected excerpts from Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries

Jessica Murray University of South Africa Department of English Studies [email protected]

Abstract

This article offers a feminist literary analysis of selected excerpts from the diaries that Lady Anne Barnard wrote during her stay at the Cape Colony from 1797 until 1802. Lady Anne was, by all accounts, an extremely productive writer and correspondent who left behind a wealth of material at the time of her death on 6 May 1825. The article argues that diaries can provide valuable insights about gendered constructions at different historical moments and about how individual women navigated such gendered structures in their daily lives. The textual specificities of diaries require that researchers adjust our reading strategies to meet the demands of these texts. Lady Anne emerges as a complex subject who is both subversive and constrained in her negotiations with gendered constructions of “proper” female roles and behaviour. Even as she challenges these constructions, she also appears to have internalized them, at least partly.

Keywords: Lady Anne Barnard; Diaries; Gender; Cult of true womanhood; Domesticity; Feminist literary criticism.

Introduction

Once more, once more, thou creature of omissions, always intending right, always forgetting, thinking your journal unimportant and what you have to say not worth paper pen and ink, yet always regretting afterwards that you did so…(Barnard, 1799).1 The above epigraph is taken from the diaries that Lady Anne Barnard (see image 1) wrote during her stay at the Cape Colony from 1797 until 1802. These lines signal many of the concerns that will be addressed in this

1 A Barnard, Diary entry, 1 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle and the vineyard: Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, 2006), p. 25.

• 91 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) article, including the gendered dynamics that come into play when women write diaries as well as the ways in which these dynamics shape the reading strategies scholars employ in their engagements with such texts. Lady Anne’s description of her writerly self as a “creature of omissions” immediately alerts us that we should pay as much attention to the words that did not find their way onto the pages of these diaries as to the lines that were actually written and preserved for posterity. The suggestion that she was “always forgetting” what should have been included in her diary further reminds us of the extent to which diaries, as daily reflections on a life, are always already compromised by the vagaries of memory. The diffidence that is implied by the notion that her experiences are not important enough to warrant written expression makes it all the more important that scholars should pay careful attention to the gaps and silences in the text when we read diary entries. This article will contend that Lady Anne’s apparent reticence is a product of her gendered subject position and, in order to explore the complicated dimensions of local histories that are locked up in her diary entries, I have utilised the analytical tools of feminist literary analysis. Image 1: Lady Anne Barnard

Source: Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_Anne_Andrew_Barnard.jpg Before proceeding with the analysis, some explanation about Lady Anne’s textual legacy is in order. Lady Anne was, by all accounts, an extremely productive writer and correspondent who left behind a wealth of material at

• 92 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries the time of her death in 1825.2 In her edited collection of the diaries Lady Anne wrote at the Cape in 1799 and 1800, Lenta divides the surviving texts into categories of letters, memoirs, the Cape journals, the Cape diaries, the sea journal (written by Lady Anne on the passage home from the Cape in 1802) and The Lays of the Lindsays(Lindsay was Lady Anne’s maiden name and this latter text was a collection of poetry by Lady Anne and her two sisters, the Ladies Margaret and Elizabeth).3 All references to Lady Anne’s diaries in this article will be to this edited collection by Lenta, entitled Paradise, the castle and the vineyard: Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries, which was first published in 2006. This edition contains shortened and unrevised versions of the complete diaries that were published in 1999 as The Cape diaries of Lady Anne Barnard, 1799-1800 under the editorship of Lenta and Le Cordeur.4 Lenta’s useful division of the material in itself requires some terminological clarification, especially since the feminist theories on women’s life writing that will be employed in the rest of the article tend to use the terms “diary” and “journal” interchangeably.5 Bunkers justifies this terminological choice by explaining that few texts “can clearly be labeled a diary or a journal” since they often exhibit features of diaries as well as journals. The former is characterised by, for instance, short descriptions and daily accounts of events while the latter tends to include extensive, self-reflexive entries, narratives and interpretations.6 While this is indeed an accurate description of Lady Anne’s diaries, Lenta’s distinction remains significant since the journals and the diaries were subjected to different levels of revision and external involvement. These editorial interventions reflect the different imagined audiences that Lady Anne likely had in mind when she wrote. According to Lenta, Lady Anne herself

2 AM Lewin Robinson (ed.), The letters of Lady Anne Barnard to Henry Dundas from the Cape and elsewhere, 1793- 1803, together with her journal of a tour into the interior and certain other letters (Cape Town, AA Balkema, 1973), p. 3; K McKenzie, “Social mobilities at the Cape of Good Hope: Lady Anne Barnard, Samuel Hudson, and the opportunities of Empire, c. 1797-1824”; T Ballantyne & A Burton (eds.), Moving subjects: Gender, mobility, and intimacy in an age of global empire (Illinois, University of Illinois Press, 2009), pp. 274-295. 3 M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle and the vineyard: Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries, pp. 10-16. Lenta has done some of the most authoritative work on Lady Anne’s writings in South African academe. See, for example, M Lenta, “All the lighter parts: Lady Anne Barnard’s letters from Cape Town”, ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 22(2), 1991, pp. 57-71; M Lenta, “The shape of a woman’s life: Lady Anne Barnard’s Memoir”, Literator, 14 (2), 1993, pp. 101-115; M Lenta, “Degrees of freedom: Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries”, English in Africa, 19(2), 1992, pp. 55-68. 4 M Lenta & B Le Cordeur (eds.), The Cape diaries of Lady Anne Barnard 1799-1800, Vol. 1(Cape Town, Van Riebeeck Society, 1999). 5 GR Davis, “Women’s frontier diaries: Writing for good reason”, Women’s Studies: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal, 4(1), 1987, pp. 5-14; M Culley, “‘I look at me’: Self as subject in the diaries of American women”, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 17(3/4), 1989, pp. 15-22; SL Bunkers, “Diaries: Public and private records of women’s lives”, Legacy, 7(2), 1990, pp. 17-26. 6 SL Bunkers, “Diaries: Public and private records...”, Legacy, 7(2), 1990, p. 24.

• 93 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) revised her journals and they were also “recopied by secretaries”. In addition, she uses pseudonyms when referring to people in her life. In her diaries, on the other hand, Lady Anne “felt no obligation to use assumed names, or to be reticent about people, or to conceal her own opinions and emotions”.7 This, however, does not imply that “the diaries represent a ‘real’ Lady Anne, who is obscured behind the social persona of the narrator of the revised journals”.8 On the contrary, the diarist, “even as he or she purports to inscribe an actual emotion or experience in the diary’s pages, in effect constructs that of which he or she writes”.9

Brief description of Lady Anne Barnard’s background and historical context Lady Anne Barnard (nee Lindsay) was born in Fife, Scotland, in 1750 as part of the aristocratic, yet impoverished, Lindsay family of Balcarres. The paucity of Lady Anne’s dowry severely limited her marriage prospects. Despite familial, social and financial pressures to marry a partner who could provide economic security at the first possible opportunity, however, Lady Anne refused a number of proposals. Yet, Lenta notes that it was only through marriage that Lady Anne would have been able to “play the role in society for which her birth and abilities qualified her”.10 Although changes were afoot, Lady Anne’s was a society that was still very much organized according to rigid gender divisions. The groundbreaking feminist text, A vindication of the rights of woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, was published in 1792.11 While understandings about women and their place in society were thus open to increasing challenge and were being reconceptualised during Lady Anne’s lifetime, it would take some time for these ideas to percolate to women’s daily lived realities. For Lady Anne, a suitable marriage still presented her with the best option for a socially fulfilling future. One of Lady Anne’s suitors was Henry Dundas, who was the British Minister for War and the Colonies. After this courtship

7 M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 15. 8 M Lenta & B Le Cordeur (eds.), The Cape diaries...,p. xxxiv; D Driver, “A literary appraisal”, AM Lewin Robinson, M Lenta et.al, (eds.), The Cape journals of Lady Anne Barnard, 1797-1798(Cape Town, Van Riebeeck Society, 1994), pp. 1-13. 9 R Steinitz, “Writing diaries, reading diaries: The mechanics of memory”, The Communication Review,2(1), 1997, p. 55. 10 M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 7. 11 M Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the rights of woman (London, J Johnson, 1792).

• 94 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries came to naught, Lady Anne accepted an offer from Andrew Barnard and married him in 1793. He was twelve years younger than the then forty-two year old Lady Anne.12 He had also “been invalided out of the army” and was experiencing financial difficulties.13 Lady Anne promptly intervened on her new husband’s behalf and used her connection with Henry Dundas to secure the position of Secretary to the Cape for Andrew Barnard. After being founded and governed by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) since 1652, the Colony was ruled by British forces from 1795, aside from a “short recession to the Dutch Batavian Republic from 1803 to 1806”.14 It was as part of the British settlement that Lady Anne and her husband travelled to the Cape. According to Lenta, “most ladies stayed at home during their husbands’ service abroad” but Lady Anne made the somewhat unusual decision to accompany Andrew Barnard to the Cape. During her tenure at the Cape, Lady Anne had “no official position, but much social experience”.15 In her diaries, she reflects extensively on her day to day experiences and she also comments most astutely on the actions and attitudes of the colonial officials with whom she is in regular contact because of her position as the wife of the Colonial secretary. A close reading of her daily experiences and interactions can be as revealing about the gender relations at the Cape as her descriptions of the colonial officials. Her diaries add a great deal to our understanding of the ways in which an obviously intelligent and very articulate woman negotiated gendered constructions at the Southern tip of Africa during the turn of the eighteenth century.

Gender and women’s diaries Rather than reading diaries as some direct reflection of the real, readers must keep in mind that such texts, like any other “written representation[,] is always constructed, partial, mediated, even, to an extent, fictional”.16 Yet, this does not detract from the valuable insights that diaries can provide about gendered constructions at different historical moments and about how individual women negotiated such gendered structures in their daily lives. The

12 M Lenta, “Degrees of freedom...”, English in Africa, 19(2), 1992, pp. 55-68. 13 M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 8. 14 R Ross, Status and respectability in the Cape colony, 1750-1870: A tragedy of manners (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 7. For a synopsis of the social and political situation at the Cape during Lady Anne’s stay, see M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, pp. 2-5. 15 M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 11. 16 R Steinitz, “Writing diaries, reading diaries…”, The Communication Review,2(1), 1997, p. 55.

• 95 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) textual specificities of diaries require that we adjust our reading strategies to meet the demands of these texts. To this end, Hampsten offers the following suggestions:17 ... private writings of women ask of us, if we wish to read them knowingly, a special inventive patience. We must interpret what is not written as well as what is, and, rather than dismiss repetitions, value them especially. “Nothing happened” asks that we wonder what, in the context of a particular woman’s stream of days, she means by something happening. Diary writing as a genre has gained increasing popularity amongst scholars over the last few decades. The number of women who kept diaries has made this an especially attractive area of research for feminist academics who are interested in uncovering the often hidden histories of women and in heeding their all too frequently muted voices. Diary studies form part of the burgeoning interest in the larger corpus of women’s life writing which accompanied the second wave of feminism and the increasing academic respectability of feminist theory and Gender Studies.18 Rich19 goes so far as to describe diaries as “that profoundly female, and feminist genre”. Although men certainly write diaries as well, Hogan20 rightly contends that, for various reasons, diary writing has emerged as a favoured mode of autobiography for large numbers of women and the last century has witnessed what she terms the “historical ‘feminization’ of the diary”. Even as the next section of this article explores the extent to which diaries have become feminized, I am sensitive to Ledwon’s21 salutary caution that “we must be wary of essentialism when it comes to making generalized statements about women and diary-keeping, for there will always be exceptions”. This warning is echoed by Hogan,22 who notes that the insistence on “some kind of ‘feminine essence’” runs the risk of erasing “differences among a large and various body of women’s texts – differences of class, race, historical period, intentions and motivations”. When considering the gendered nature of the diary as a literary form, it is useful to keep in mind that this is a matter of culture rather than biology. Ledwon23

17 E Hampsten, “Read this only to yourself”: The private writings of Midwestern women, 1880-1910 (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1982), p. 4. 18 SL Bunkers & CA Huff (eds.), Inscribing the daily: Critical essays on women’s diaries (Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1996), p. 2. 19 A Rich, On lies, secrets, and silence (New York, Norton, 1979), p. 217. 20 R Hogan, “Engendered autobiographies: The diary as a feminine form”,Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism, 14(2), 1991, p. 96. 21 L Ledwon, “Diaries and hearsay: Gender, selfhood, and the trustworthiness of narrative structure”, Temple Law Review, 73, 2000, p. 1210. 22 R Hogan, “Engendered autobiographies...”, Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism,14(2), 1991, p. 100. 23 L Ledwon, “Diaries and hearsay...”, Law Review, 73, 2000, p. 1195.

• 96 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries formulates this question as follows: “Is there something about the form and structure of a diary that is encoded with the cultural sign of the ‘feminine’”? Some feminist theorists argue that the diaries tend to be regarded as “women’s traditional literature” simply because they were often the only type of writing women were able to engage in.24 Regardless of its origin, there is a strong association between diaries and women in the popular imagination and this conceptual link has implications for the ways in which readers engage with diaries. Feminist literary scholars generally agree that “the diary as a form has been marginalized in large part because it is perceived as feminine”. As a result, diaries are regarded as tainted with the stereotypical gendered characteristics that are assigned to women, namely emotion, frivolity, inconsistency, interruption, triviality and a lack of rigour and form.25 Prior to the feminist reclamation of diaries, all these associations disqualified diaries from the realm of “proper” literature. The mere fact that diaries were often “composed by that ‘inferior’ sex, women” was sufficient to have them “excluded from the literary canon”.26 Hogan27 phrases this slightly differently, but the gendered dimensions remain clear when she notes that “[w]omen write letters [or diaries] – personal, intimate, in relation; men write books – universal, public, in general circulation”. Gannett explains these gendered dynamics as follows:28 As the diary or personal journal became increasingly affiliated with the rigidly demarcated women’s sphere of the nineteenth century, it probably suffered a loss of prestige, which may well have hastened the departure of men from the ranks of its practitioners and contributed to the pejoration of the term diary. According to Ledwon,29 patriarchal culture tends to dismiss both the diary form and women’s lives as “emotional, fragmentary, interrupted, modest, not to be taken seriously, private, restricted, daily, trivial, formless, concerned with self, as endless as their [women’s] tasks”. By means of a close reading of Lady Anne’s diaries, I will show that such misogynist assumptions about diaries are not only inaccurate but that they also cause one to lose out on the immense value of diaries as not just a private documentation of a life, but as a shared

24 C Huff, “‘That profoundly female, and feminist genre’: The diary as feminist practice”,Women’s Studies Quarterly, 17(3/4), 1989, pp. 9-10. 25 L Ledwon, “Diaries and hearsay...”, Law Review, 73, 2000, p. 1195. 26 C Huff, “‘That profoundly female...”, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 17(3/4), 1989, p. 10. 27 R Hogan, “Engendered autobiographies...”, Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism,14(2), 1991, p. 96. 28 C Gannett, Gender and the journal: Diaries and academic discourse (Albany, State University of New York, 1992), p. 141. 29 L Ledwon, “Diaries and hearsay...”, Law Review, 73, 2000, p. 1196.

• 97 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) or communal record of social, public events.30 Lady Anne’s diaries support Steinitz’s contention that diaries have the potential to “offer their readers not only the self made textual, but also history, a broader cultural experience, made personal”. The richness of Lady Anne’s diaries can best be appreciated by reading them as “elastic, inclusive texts, which mix chronicle, historical record, reflection, feelings, descriptions of nature, travel, work accomplished, and portraiture of character rather haphazardly together”.31

An analysis of selected excerpts from Lady Anne’s diaries Representing race and class in travel diaries A further salient dimension of Lady Anne’s diaries is the fact that they can be classified as travel diaries. This specific sub-genre of diaries allows readers to gain insights into the nature and processes of “British exploration and imperialism”.32 Particularly revealing is Lady Anne’s descriptions of slaves. In her diary entry dated 1 January 1799, she explains that new years’ day was “the only day in the course of it [the year] when slaves are free” and when they “have liberty to leave the master’s house” for a few hours. It is clear both that Lady Anne has comprehensively othered the Cape’s slave population and that she connects this othering with her gendered class position. She describes how her husband, to whom she variously refers as “Mr Barnard” and “Mr B”, dropped a pocket book containing a “large packet of letters” she had written. She assumes that the slaves, on this day of “liberty,” would have picked up the letters but she doubts whether “any of that society will be able to read them – or if they could, drinking, dancing, etc they will think much better fun than reading what an English Ladyship says to her friends”.33 In her research on the travel diaries of women who emigrated to the American West in the nineteenth century, Davis contends that such diaries performed a mediating function “between the author’s self-perception as a Victorian lady and her feared loss of that identity in the wild”. While Lady Anne is obviously located in a different temporal and geographical space, this diary entry does suggest that her status as a British woman of a certain class, and the extent to which this differentiates her from the slaves

30 R Steinitz, “Writing diaries, reading diaries…”, The Communication Review,2(1), 1997, p. 44. 31 R Hogan, “Engendered autobiographies...”, Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism,14(2), 1991, p. 100. 32 R Steinitz, “Writing diaries, reading diaries…”, The Communication Review,2(1), 1997, p. 50. 33 A Barnard, Diary entry on 1 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 26.

• 98 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries she mentions, constitutes an important part of her identity. By the nineteenth century, keeping a diary, “especially travel logs or records of special events, was a well-accepted sign of gentility”.34 Culley35 similarly notes the association between diary keeping and gentility. In fact, diary writing was regarded as among a “‘lady’s’ accomplishments”. This brief entry contains a number of additional references to the Barnards’ upper class status and their cumulative effect is to suggest both an awareness of class and the ways in which Lady Anne’s negotiations with class are racialised as well as gendered. Lady Anne, for instance, notes that Mr B was sorrier about the “loss of [her] letters than for his money”36 and she refers to the players in her narrative as “master” and “housekeeper”. All these terms are heavily loaded with very particular class connotations. Culley correctly contends that the “basic requirements of literacy and a modicum of leisure are the strongest determinants of who did and did not keep journals” and diary authorship is thus necessarily shaped in terms of class, race and gender. Lady Anne’s description of the slaves who may have picked up her letters suggests that they likely lacked basic literacy skills and their single day of “liberty” clearly signals an almost complete absence of leisure time. The mere fact that Lady Anne kept a diary thus distinguishes her from most of her fellow residents at the Cape and she emphasises the extent of her difference in her writing.

Diaries and domesticity While this diary entry provides insight into how members of a colonising nation constructed racialised others, the entry dated two days later, on 3 January 1799, apparently deals with matters that are much more mundane. Here Lady Anne provides a detailed description of a morning she spent “settling [her] henhouse”.37 She continues to describe her preparations for a dinner party that was scheduled for that same evening and she includes extensive lists of both the guests and the planned “bill of fare”. The seeming ordinariness of this diary entry does not, however, mean that scholars should gloss over it. On the contrary, Hacking38 contends that diaries can grant the attentive researcher access to aspects of subjects which are secreted in the “little dramas,

34 GR Davis, “Women’s frontier diaries...”, Women’s Studies: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal, 4(1), 1987, p. 7. 35 M Culley, “‘I look at me’...”, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 17(3/4), 1989, p. 16. 36 A Barnard, Diary entry, 1 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 26. 37 A Barnard, Diary entry, 3 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 27. 38 I Hacking, “The archaeology of Foucault”, DC Hoy (ed.), Foucault: A critical reader (Cambridge, Basil Blackwell, 1991), p. 28.

• 99 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) unimportant events, unpromising places”. Similarly, Tamboukou39 encourages researchers to pay “attention to unimportant details”. A “henhouse” certainly seems like an “unpromising place” for a researcher who is trying to access the variegated gendered texture of a woman’s life as the eighteenth century made way for the nineteenth century. Neither does a dinner menu of “roast mutton” and “stewed vegetables” appear to constitute important details. Hogan40 argues that diary writing is based on a method “of inclusion, not exclusion” since “the diary often treats ‘small details’ at the same length as ‘big’ events”. She goes on to explain: Diaries are not so inclusive because they contain everything from a given day, as they are inclusive in the sense that they do not privilege ‘amazing’ over ‘ordinary’ events, in terms of scope, space, or selection [emphasis in original]. For the feminist researcher, the inclusion of these details can indeed reveal a great deal about gendered structures and pressures as well as the complex ways in which Lady Anne variously internalises and resists these pressures. What, for instance, can we learn from Lady Anne’s comment that she “[w]as also obliged to bestow much of [her] morning in the kitchen”? [emphasis added].41 Why should she “be sorry to give a bad one [dinner]” to the sixteen guests she was expecting? Why does she deem it necessary to enumerate all the different dishes that she will be serving to her guests? Readers should immediately be alerted to the gendered implications of all these questions by the fact that such entries are highly unlikely to feature in a man’s journals. The domesticity that is implied in the activity of hosting a large dinner party was one of the central characteristics of “true womanhood”. This particular gender ideology had gained such currency by the nineteenth century that scholars coined the phrase, the “cult of true womanhood”.42 The sense of obligation with which Lady Anne went about displaying her domestic prowess is understandable when one keeps in mind that “a woman judged herself and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society” according to her ability to conform to this idealized “true woman”.43

39 M Tamboukou, “Writing feminist genealogies”, Journal of Gender Studies, 12(1), 2003, p. 8. 40 R Hogan, “Engendered autobiographies...”, Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism,14(2), 1991, p. 103. 41 A Barnard, Diary entry, 3 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 27. 42 B Welter, “The cult of true womanhood: 1820-1860”, American Quarterly, 18 (2), 1966, pp. 151-174. 43 B Welter, “The cult of true womanhood…”, American Quarterly, 18 (2), 1966, p. 152.

• 100 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries

Along with domesticity, Welter identifies three other “cardinal virtues” that determined this cult of true womanhood, namely “piety, purity [and] submissiveness”. In Lady Anne’s written negotiations with this ideal on her diary pages, readers catch glimpses of the ways in which “[r]eal women often felt they did not live up to the ideal of True Womanhood: some of them blamed themselves, some challenged the standard, some tried to keep the virtues and enlarge the scope of womanhood”.44 It is from “this mixture of challenge and acceptance, of change and continuity” that the most interesting insights can emerge. Women’s tendency to doubt whether they lived up to the domestic ideal is, for instance, suggested by Lady Anne’s description of her dinner as merely “very tolerable”.45 In contemporary parlance, this would be described as damnation by faint praise. In this phrase, Lady Anne seems to be expressing some doubt in the value of her domestic accomplishments. Furthermore, her reticence may be a product of the pressures on women to be meek, mild and wary of being overly confident. This apparent self-censorship in a diary entry is in itself significant, since it invites comment on a common misconception about diary writing, namely that it is a fundamentally secretive and solitary enterprise. In fact, the notion that a diary is some “‘secret’ record of an inner life” is a distinctly modern development.46 In her own research on the writing and reading of women’s diaries, Steinitz47 demonstrates that “our cultural conception of the diary as a private and secret space … is actually inaccurate, both historically and today”. Diaries often “served a number of semi-public purposes” and “[w]omen diarists in particular wrote as family and community historians”.48 The potential reader of a diary thus inevitably becomes an “audience hovering at the edge of the page”.49 This imagined audience results in “self-policing and self-scrutiny” which in itself “has a gendered element”.50 Ledwon explains that women are more likely than men to “feel compelled to ‘watch’ themselves, given women’s historical objectification”. Ledwon bases her argument on John Berger’s still influential text, Ways of seeing, in which he explains the gendered dimension of the gaze as follows:51

44 B Welter, “The cult of true womanhood…”, American Quarterly, 18 (2), 1966, p. 174. 45 A Barnard, Diary entry, 3 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 29. 46 M Culley, “‘I look at me’...”, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 17(3/4), 1989, p. 16. 47 R Steinitz, “Writing diaries, reading diaries…”, The Communication Review,2(1), 1997, p. 47. 48 M Culley, “‘I look at me’...”, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 17(3/4), 1989, p. 16. 49 LZ Bloom, “‘I write for myself and others’: Private diaries as public documents”, SL Bunkers and CA Huff (eds.), Inscribing the daily: Critical essays on women’s diaries (Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1996), p. 23. 50 L Ledwon, “Diaries and hearsay...”, Law Review, 73, 2000, p. 1201. 51 J Berger, Ways of seeing (London, Viking Press, 1977), p. 46.

• 101 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across the room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. To “walking” and “weeping” one can add “writing”. When Lady Anne enumerates the dishes she will be serving at dinner and then dismisses her efforts as merely “tolerable” she is thus performing her gendered role for the benefit of her imagined readers or audience. In terms of the gendered expectations as prescribed by the cult of true womanhood, she is meeting these expectations both by being a paragon of domestic accomplishments and by being too humble to assert the value of her efforts.

Understanding and resisting gendered expectations In her reading of American women’s frontier diaries, Davis52 describes women “who had fully internalized the prescriptions of genteel behavior in a society enamored of the Cult of Domesticity.” Although Lady Anne’s diary entries do suggest that she internalized gendered prescriptions to some extent, she certainly did not fully internalize them. In fact, the very same diary entry contains both subtle and scathingly explicit challenges to the cult of true womanhood. She notes that the dinner “cost [her] too much trouble”53 but it is her description of one of her dinner guests, Mrs Baumgart, which is particularly revealing. Mrs Baumgart clearly embodies true womanhood. She is, according to Lady Anne’s description, the epitome of the “Angel in the House”. This latter phrase has its origin in the poem by Coventry Patmore, entitled “The Angel in the House”. Patmore54 encapsulates the ideal woman in lines that include the following: “The gentle wife, who decks his board/ And makes his day to have no night,/ Whose wishes wait upon her Lord,/ Who finds her own in his delight”. According to Hartnell,55 “[t]he poem heralded a change of direction in representation of the domestic sphere, especially in terms of creating a pivotal role for the wife/ homemaker.” Mrs Baumgart tells Lady Anne “that she is in the kitchen all the morning and makes the puddings

52 GR Davis, “Women’s frontier diaries...”, Women’s Studies: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal, 4(1), 1987, p. 8. 53 A Barnard, Diary entry, 3 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 29. 54 C Patmore, The angel in the house(Boston, Ticknor and Fields, 1856), p. 94. 55 E Hartnell, “‘Nothing but sweet and womanly’: A hagiography of Patmore’s Angel”, Victorian Poetry, 34 (4), 1996, p. 473.

• 102 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries and pies with her own fair hands”.56 In this seemingly mundane description of a domestic routine, the attentive reader glimpses “the intersection of class and gender ideologies in a Victorian icon – the ‘Angel in the House’”.57 By using the adjective “fair” to describe Mrs Baumgart’s hands, Lady Anne is invoking a number of loaded connotations. Firstly, “fair hands” suggest that the skin is light-coloured. The owner of light-coloured hands would, by implication, be middle to upper class as she would not have skin that has been exposed to the elements whilst undertaking manual labour. The other relevant meaning attached to “fair” in this context is being beautiful or pleasing to the eye. References to beauty, light skin colour, class and women’s work in the domestic sphere also interweave in Lady Anne’s description of her “cousin Anne” in the same diary entry. She asks herself what her cousin would have done in her “situation”, which refers to her catering for sixteen dinner guests and she comes to the following conclusion: “She would look very well and dress very well and lay her white marble arms across and starve herself, her husband and his friends, in the most properest manner, preserving all dignity and decency in her last moments”.58 This description casts Anne as the “delicate creature” that Welter59 identifies as an example of a woman’s adherence to the prescriptions of true womanhood. Like Mrs Baumgart’s “fair hands”, Anne’s “white marble arms” imply a middle class existence in which women are highly prized for “look[ing] very well and dress[ing] very well”. However, the tone with which Lady Anne describes both these women suggests that she resists these gendered expectations of middle-class women’s proper roles. She is most explicit in her rejection of Mrs Baumgart’s domestic self-abnegation when she states that making all one’s own “puddings and pies” is something “[t]hat does very well when a woman cannot employ herself better”. This seems to be a wholesale rejection of the idea that a woman’s highest calling is her work in the domestic sphere of the home and her comment invites readers to speculate about what she would consider a better way to “employ herself”. If Mrs Baumgart’s culinary industry is dismissed, Lady Anne is quite damning in her sarcastic depiction of her cousin Anne as a completely helpless being whose only contribution lies in looking pretty and dressing as befits her class status. Amid the sarcasm, Lady Anne’s words do suggest the harm that could potentially result from women playing up to the gendered stereotype that

56 A Barnard, Diary entry, 3 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 29. 57 E Langland, “Nobody’s angels: Domestic ideology and middle-class women in the Victorian novel”, PMLA, 107(2), 1992, p. 290. 58 A Barnard, Diary entry, 3 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 29. 59 B Welter, “The cult of true womanhood…”, American Quarterly, 18 (2), 1966, p. 162.

• 103 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) regards them as “more vulnerable, more infirm, more mortal than man”.60 She is too frail and feeble even to feed herself and would apparently starve rather than doing any actual domestic work. The contempt in Lady Anne’s portrayal of her cousin is unmistakable. Lest the reader think that this rejection of female frailty is absolute or straightforward, Lady Anne’s diary entry of 31 January 1799 offers some explanation of why she is forced to be more useful than her cousin and she also expresses some hesitation about taking on domestic tasks that should, according to middle-class ideology, be the province of servants. According to Langland,61 women were in charge of “running the middle-class household, which by definition included at least one servant”. Lady Anne is clearly used to a great deal more domestic help as she notes that she is doing “without cook … without housekeeper, lady’s maid, butter-dairy maid”.62 The exception to this is “two black slaves” but Lady Anne notes that they “understand nothing, above the roast and boil, that [she does not] teach them”. As a result, she has “much of all this to do [her]self”. This becomes a repeated motif in the diaries and she often mentions it with a tone that manages to combine complaint and a sense of stoical suffering. On 9 February 1799, for instance, she declares: “With my own hands (for lack of a better housemaid) had I with milk white linen decorated the couch”.63 She makes it clear that she is depriving herself of domestic help for the sake of her husband’s financial situation and she is uncertain about whether this is the right way to serve her husband’s needs when she reflects: “I am not sure if I am right in making myself so very great a slave to saving the money of my dear Secretary [her husband, Andrew Barnard, was the Secretary of the Cape Colony]”.64 There is no doubt that his needs are paramount. Lady Anne notes that “there is trouble and some fatigue to [her]” because she does not have servants and she describes the result as follows:65 The leisure for all the little elegancies or singularities which by drawing or describing I could fix on my paper and on my memory for the amusement of others are lost. In this apparent reference to diary writing she also undermines the idea that diaries are secretive texts since she laments that the opportunity to cater to

60 RW Emerson, “Woman”, Complete writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York, William H Wise and Co.,1875), p. 1180. 61 E Langland, “Nobody’s angels...”, PMLA, 107(2), 1992, p. 291. 62 A Barnard, Diary entry, 31 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 37. 63 A Barnard, Diary entry, 9 February 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 42. 64 A Barnard, Diary entry, 31 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 37. 65 B Welter, “The cult of true womanhood…”, American Quarterly, 18 (2), 1966, p. 163.

• 104 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries

“the amusement of others” is lost because she does not have sufficient leisure time to “fix” her experiences on paper. Her main concern in this diary entry is whether she is adequately meeting her husband’s needs, yet she is also very aware that, in her attempts to do so, she is paying a price. She weighs up the costs and benefits thus: “nor am I sure that what I save him [in money] is equal to what I lose to myself [time and the space this provides for writing]”. The suggestion is that, regardless of the personal price she is paying, her husband’s comfort must come first. As a woman, she was, first and foremost, “expected to dispense comfort and cheer”. Her role as a wife trumps her aspirations as a writerly subject as she seems aware that a “wife who submerged her own talents to work for her husband was extolled as an example of a true woman”.66 It is with some sense of pride that she reports that “Mr B seems quite happy and delighted to see his table well furnished, his dinner good and well served, and although I cook part of it and put it down myself, I am rewarded by his sweet words”.67 Lady Anne seemingly finds herself in the situation that Welter68 describes in her exploration of the cult of true womanhood: “The woman who had servants today, might tomorrow, because of a depression or panic, be forced to do her own work. If that happened she knew how to act, for she was to be the same cheerful consoler of her husband in their cottage as in their mansion.” The earlier description of her cousin Anne’s anticipated ineptitude reveals her suspicion that she would stumble at this obstacle. Lady Anne, however, rises to the challenge and ensures her husband’s domestic happiness and delight despite reduced financial resources.

Responding to a crisis along gendered lines For a woman to conform to the gendered expectations that were prevalent during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, she needed to be in a relationship in which the husband was “properly masterful [and] she properly domestic”.69 The masterly role that the husband must fulfill in this gendered performance of domestic bliss, is one that Lady Anne obviously understood. Both her understanding of and subtle resistance to this masculine mastery is revealed in her diary entry of 28 June 1799, in which she describes

66 B Welter, “The cult of true womanhood…”, American Quarterly, 18 (2), 1966, p. 160. 67 A Barnard, Diary entry, 31 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 37. 68 B Welter, “The cult of true womanhood…”, American Quarterly, 18 (2), 1966, p. 168. 69 B Welter, “The cult of true womanhood…”, American Quarterly, 18 (2), 1966, p. 167.

• 105 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) a rather frightening evening when a rain storm “continued more and more violent” to such a extent that Lady Anne reflects: “Water has now let us see its powers and terrified us in its turn”.70 The diary details conversations between Andrew Barnard, Lady Anne, her cousin Anne and Colonel Crawfurd71 about how best to respond to this crisis and a careful reading exposes the gendered assumptions that underlie this interaction. Lady Anne ensures that she casts Andrew Barnard in the role of the masterful protector by referring to him as “my hardy husband”.72 Colonel Crawfurd similarly divides the response to the danger along gendered lines as he recommend that they “send off the ladies” and that he and Mr Barnard “will stay and see what good can be done”. Mr Barnard, however, insists that an “escape to the town” makes little sense since, as they “are higher in it”, the “town must be less safe than the Castle”. Lady Anne is of a different opinion and, in this moment of fear, she assertively articulates her contrary opinion: “I was clear for going off”. Lady Anne and her cousin are mostly ignored and their fears and suggestions are treated with patronizing dismissal. In fact, Lady Anne angrily notes that she overheard a discussion about the magnitude of the danger when Colonel Crawfurd “pulled Mr B out of the room, for to the ladies he foolishly said that there was no danger and begged us not to discompose ourselves” [italics in original].73 Mr Barnard responds to her suggestions by saying “Good God, how idly you talk, my dear life and soul”. In this context, a synonym for “idly” would be “frivolously”, which means that Mr Barnard comprehensively dismisses the value of his wife’s “talk” even as he seemingly elevates her position as his very “life and soul”. In Mary Wollstonecraft’s A vindication of the rights of woman,74 she critiques the notion that frivolity is an attractive attribute in a woman which should be encouraged. Contemporary feminists would balk at seeing a woman’s opinion trivialized as frivolous in the diary entry, since this amounts to patriarchal silencing of the female voice. More remarkable, though, is the fact that Lady

70 A Barnard, Diary entry, 28 June 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle… , p. 93. 71 The younger Anne Barnard married a Lieutenant Colonel James Catlin Crawfurd of the 91st regiment on 14 February 1799. See AM Lewin Robinson (ed.), The letters of Lady Anne Barnard…, p. 183. In her diary entry of 8 February 1799, Lady Anne mentions “the other Anne Barnard” and she notes that “[t]omorrow will probably see her Mrs Crawfurd”. A Barnard, Diary entry on 8 February 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 41. The discrepancies in the spelling of the surname can be traced back to the fact that Lenta standardised spelling in her abridged edition of the diaries. For an explanation of her editorial intervention in this regard, see M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. xi. For more on the specificities of Lady Anne’s spelling, see M Lenta & B Le Cordeur (eds.), The Cape diaries..., pp. xii- xiii. 72 A Barnard, Diary entry, 28 June 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 94. 73 A Barnard, Diary entry, 28 June 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 95. 74 M Wollstonecraft, A vindication of the rights of women (London, J Johnson, 1792).

• 106 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries

Anne questions her husband’s comment, located as she is on the cusp of the nineteenth century. While the diary entry starts with Lady Anne focusing on her husband’s robust resilience, as implied by the adjective “hardy”, her description now changes to one that is much less complimentary:75 Mr B I settled in my own mind as much too foolhardy, very manly for being so, but someone says ‘the best part of valour is discretion’ and I thought him more valiant than discreet. Lockridge notes the assumption that women are associated with the “credulous and the corruptible, the frivolous and the fleshy self”.76 In a gendered system that functions on the basis of binary oppositions, men would then be linked to all that is shrewd, resolute, serious and rational. In this diary entry, however, Lady Anne’s descriptions of her husband suggest a subversion of the conventional gendered dichotomies which valorize masculine associations while denigrating feminine ones. She explicitly couples being “foolhardy” with being “manly” and, in this context, the lack of discretion she attributes to her husband implies a lack of good judgment, which is typically seen as a female trait. She insists on being given full information about the crisis rather than being “protected” from alarming facts and she points out the faulty logic of the men’s impulse to shield her. Rather than “saving [her] from alarm”, their patronizing obfuscation succeeds only in “throwing [her] into the greatest [alarm] by denying facts which [she] had already heard”.77 She cogently reflects that she is “very fond of hearing a little truth in matters which regard life and death and all matters, and am much more afraid of what is not told me than of what is”. She is here suggesting that knowledge is empowering rather than distressing to her as a women. In doing so, Lady Anne offers an explicit and lucidly articulated challenge to the common eighteenth century notion that “women’s intellectual capabilities were inferior to men’s” and that they possessed lesser reserves of “natural reason”.78 Yet, the diary entry also illustrates that a woman paid a price for resisting established gendered structures. Lady Anne does “not think the noble Colonel has forgiven [her] interrupting” his response to the crisis and he tells her “how disagreeable and intrusive [she] had been”.79 In her reflections on this

75 A Barnard, Diary entry, 28 June 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle… , p. 96. 76 KA Lockridge, On the sources of patriarchal rage: The commonplace books of William Byrd and Thomas Jefferson and the gendering of power in the eighteenth century (New York, New York University Press, 1992), p. 44. 77 A Barnard, Diary entry, 28 June 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 96. 78 L Schiebinger, “Skeletons in the closet: The first illustrations of the female skeleton in eighteenth-century anatomy”, Representations, 14, 1986, p. 43. 79 A Barnard, Diary entry, 29 June 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle… , p. 99.

• 107 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) judgment, the reader notices the complexity and constrained nature of Lady Anne’s negotiations with gendered constructions of “proper” female roles and behaviour. Even as she challenges these constructions, she also appears to have internalized them, at least partly. She seems to feel it necessary to justify her behaviour and suggests that “a matter of life and death is not to be put on the same footing of duels or other quarrels and secrets amongst men, where a woman has no business to be curious”. This line suggests that she “knows her place” as a gendered subject, but she pleads for an exception to be made in such an extreme situation where she feared for her safety and she concludes that she “had a very good right to get all the truth of the matter that was within [her] reach”.80

Conclusion Over the course of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the increasingly rigid demarcation between the public and private spheres had an ever greater impact of the ways in which men and women were able to live their lives.81 Culley notes that those facets of culture that were “associated with the private” realm, such as diary writing, “became the domain of women”. The rich analytical possibilities offered by diary scholarship can partly be traced to the fact that they engage in an “almost a priori troubling of private/ public boundaries by including all aspects of ‘a life’”.82 In addition to explicit descriptions of political affairs, Lady Anne’s diaries contain reflections on her private experiences and thoughts, which in themselves reveal a great deal about the gendered structures of the public realm. Colonel Crawfurd asserts that, as a woman, she opens herself up to severe disapprobation for “wish[ing] to consult on a matter of public emergency with her husband” [emphasis added].83 She is seen to be transgressing gender boundaries by concerning herself with matters beyond the private sphere of the home. Even as Lady Anne insists that she “had a very good right” to do so, she justifies her actions by arguing that she was indeed acting in proper accordance with the gendered public/private division. She explains this by noting that “when there is public danger to the whole, there is enough of private danger to the

80 A Barnard, Diary entry, 28 June 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle…, p. 96. 81 M Culley, “‘I look at me’...”, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 17(3/4), 1989, pp. 15-22. 82 L Stanley & H Dampier, “Simulacrum diaries: Time, the ‘moment of writing’, and the diaries of Johanna Brandt-Van Warmelo”, Life Writing, 3(2), 2006, p. 27. 83 A Barnard, Diary entry, 29 June 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle… , p. 99.

• 108 Lady Anne Barnard’s Cape diaries individual” to warrant a woman venturing into the public domain. Feminist theorists have long argued that “the personal is political” and this rejection of a strict separation between the personal/ private and political/ public domains has informed my reading of Lady Anne’s diaries. A close gendered reading suggests that this journal was anything but “unimportant” and that it was certainly “worth paper pen and ink”.84

84 A Barnard, Diary entry, 1 January 1799, M Lenta (ed.), Paradise, the castle… , p. 25.

• 109 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

• 110 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”

George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”, 1848-1859

Helen Ludlow University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg [email protected]

Abstract

This article explores a young Scottish teacher’s attempt to implement the ambitious plans for government education in Graaff-Reinet in the mid 19th century. Designed for the whole population, the New System (or Established System) represents a moment in the racialised history of South Africa when there was an imagination of an inclusive, though very British, education system. The focus of the article is on the identity of an able, well-qualified teacher attempting to fulfil his charge in Graaff- Reinet, a town of growing affluence and regional importance. While Bremner, as government teacher, proves to be a catalyst for local efforts to improve the quality of education, this is largely a sad story of frustration and failure. Entrenched racial attitudes, class aspirations, and the failure of the state adequately to resource the New System combine to undermine his ambitious efforts and challenge his personal worldview. So too does the teacher’s fiery defence, particularly in his public writing, both of his project and the status and reputation which he believed to be his due.

Keywords: Graaff-Reinet; 19th century Cape Colony; Government education; Teacher identity; Race; Class; Respectability; George Bremner.

Introduction It is appropriate to start the discussion with a quote from George Bremner: So perfectly satisfied am I in my own mind, that a Free School, conducted by only one Teacher, in which an Education equal if not superior to any that can be obtained elsewhere, and which is expected to render such education to all alike without distinction of class, color or race, is so incompatible with the general tastes & habits, and repugnant to the genius of the people of this country, that I look upon the success of a School under such conditions to be a priori a demonstrable impossibility. (George Bremner to Superintendent- General of Education (SGE)Langham Dale, 10 December 1859).1

1 In Cape Archives, Roeland Street, Cape Town (hereafter CA): Superintendent-General of Education (hereafter SGE)1/4, Letters received by the Superintendent-General of Education, 1851-1859, from Humansdorp, Uitenhage, Port Elizabeth, Bathurst, Grahamstown, Cradock, Graaff-Reinet, Colesberg & c.

• 111 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

This case study charts the career of a young Scottish teacher attempting to implement an ambitious new system of state education at Graaff-Reinet between 1848 and 1859, the defining years of his career. As a local history, it shows the way in which Graaff-Reinet shaped the teacher and his enterprise in interesting ways. While it is largely a story of alienation and failure, the study also points to the way in which Bremner as government teacher acted as a catalyst for more ambitious schemes of education in the town. In the opening quotation, Bremner captures the essence of the system of free government schools set up by the Cape colonial government in 1839. He also sets out his views, after eighteen years in the system, as to why it was failing. Established in the wake of slave emancipation, the New System (or Established System) was one of the earliest ventures by a British government in financing state schooling. The Cape’s twenty-one government schools were free for all races and classes at the elementary level. Of these, seventeen were “first-class” schools, where well qualified teachers were also to offer the “higher branches” in the classics and mathematics to secondary pupils.2 The central issue in this case study is a battle between Bremner and the Graaff-Reinet élite over the nature and control of “superior” schooling in the town. Bremner’s is clearly not a tale of quiet discouragement. The very fact of a government inquiry being set up to investigate the first-class school at Graaff-Reinet in April 1858 indicates his capacity to disturb.3 His identity was bound up with the government system. He embraced its original vision. In its implementation, however, the frailties of the New System frustrated and undermined him and he saw the school’s failure as lying beyond his control. But Bremner used words as weapons in his attempt to contest his powerlessness. His most vivid writing appeared in his newspaper, and the following analysis of the New System on 18 August 1858 is a good example of Bremner in full flow:4 SOME eighteen or twenty years ago, the Government of this Colony introduced a scheme of public education into South Africa, which promised much for the future benefit of the country. The scheme was drafted by Sir John Herschel, one of the first men of the day; and in liberality and catholicity of range, it was perhaps as much ahead of existing systems, whether in Europe or

2 G.24-’63, Cape of Good Hope (hereafter CGH). Report of a Commission of Inquiry, in accordance with addresses of the legislative Council and House of Assembly, to inquire into the government educational System of the Colony (hereafter Report of Watermeyer Commission), Government Minute, 23 May 1839, Appendix V, p. 498. 3 A7SC-1858, CGH, Report of the Select Committee Appointed for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting upon the present condition of the First-Class School at Graaff-Reinet. May, 1858. 4 Anon., “The Karroo College”, The Midland Province Banner,Graaff-Reinet, 18 August 1858.

• 112 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”

elsewhere, as its author takes precedence of mankind generally. South Africa received the scheme with open arms, and cordially welcomed the introduction of the highly-educated gentlemen who were invited from Europe to carry it out. Sir John, however, left the Colony before the scheme was in working order, and, unfortunately, when the Schoolmasters arrived, the master-mind was gone. The arrangements and detail of the system were accordingly left to be carried out by Colonial bunglers, who either could not, or would not understand the principles of that liberal system of general education that the master-mind of Europe, untrammelled by sectarian influences and unfettered by party bias, had elaborated from its own rich and varied resources. A giant, verily, was born to South Africa; but his infancy and pupilage being intrusted to dwarfish nurses and pigmy guardians, his physical development was restrained and crushed in his infancy, his intellectual vigor and energy were cramped and paralysed. The consequence is, that he has waxed old before his time and gone down into a premature grave, leaving behind him a wretched lot of helpless, rickety children to do battle against the combined array of that ignorance, folly, presumption, and prejudice which, while it killed the parent, still offers a miserable asylum for the orphan children. This narrative provides a metaphor for both the New System and Bremner himself – “crushed”, “restrained”, “cramped”, “paralysed”, “helpless”, “rickety”, “orphaned”. He was abandoned by the visionary author of the New System, Sir John Herschel;5 left to the devices of incompetent administrators; and faced with obstructive townspeople who did not value the liberal and universal discourse he claimed to represent. The Cape Colony’s first Superintendent General of Education (SGE), James Rose Innes, was for Bremner chief among the “dwarfish nurses” and “pigmy guardians”, but seems never to have taken offence at his teacher’s angry complaints. The leaders of the Graaff-Reinet community were, however, offended by him, and “such a state of feeling” developed between them and Bremner that small issues became unbridgeable chasms.6 The identity of a “superior” British educator, that of an increasingly affluent white small town élite in a multiracial setting, and the incapacity of the colonial state to manage its educational project efficiently, are all central to this tale of woe.

5 The first teachers of the New System regarded Herschel as its chief architect, although Colonial Secretary John Bell and editor John Fairbairn had combined with him in its design. Herschel returned to Britain in 1838. WT Ferguson and RFM Immelman, comps., Sir John Herschel and education at the Cape, 1834-1840 (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 25-27; “‘Memorandum, or Suggestions, of Mr John Fairbairn for the Advancement of Education at the Cape, 19 February, 1838’”, EG Malherbe, Education in South Africa I, 1652-1922 (Cape Town & Johannesburg, Juta, 1925), pp. 86-87. 6 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committe on Graaff Reinet School..., “Report”, pp. iv-vi.

• 113 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Graaff-Reinet and the Graaff-Reinet Government School A graduate of Aberdeen University, George Bremner was twenty-one years old when recruited by Innes in 1841 to be a first-class teacher at the Cape.7 In 1848 he was promoted from Paarl to Graaff-Reinet Government School, by which time he was married to a Simon’s Town resident, Johanna Wikboom, and father of two infant sons.8 Graaff-Reinet is located about 700 kilometres to the north-east of Cape Town and about 300 kilometres north-west of its closest port, Port Elizabeth. Encircled by the Sundays River, it was an oasis in the semi-desert Karoo. To the north lay the Sneeuwberge whose foothills supplied good grazing for cattle.9 Trekboer expansion and settlement throughout the eighteenth century had resulted in the breakdown of pastoralist Khoikhoi communities, these becoming a dispossessed “coloured” labouring population of continuing importance in the history of Graaff-Reinet. Graaff-Reinet was established by the ruling VOC in 1786 as the magisterial centre of a new district; this in an attempt to regulate the conflict between boers and certain Xhosa chiefdoms, essentially over access to grazing rights. The construction of the drostdy (magistracy) and Dutch Reformed church in the late eighteenth century represented twin centres of authority, legal and moral, in this community. The departure of a substantial number of Dutch-speaking farmers from the district on the “Great Trek” of the 1830s created a space for farmers and townsmen of British origin to take their place. By the 1840s the frontier had shifted firmly eastward as a result of British military intervention, and Graaff- Reinet itself was positioned more tranquilly in what many considered a “midland” district. Graaff-Reinet’s situation as an interior junction connecting all main roads between the interior and the coast aided her commercial expansion. Bremner’s arrival at Graaff-Reinet coincided with probably the most prosperous period of its history. Saul Dubow’s analysis of the economy of this rural town and district points to the emergence of progressive commercial wool and mohair farming by the mid-nineteenth century.10 The establishment of

7 CA:CO 499, JR Innes to Col Sec Bell, 13 March 1841. 8 E Bull, “Rattray and Black: Two Scottish schoolmasters”, Familia XXVII, 3 (1990), p. 60; CA:CO 574, G Bremner to JR Innes, 6 January 1848; CA:CO 775, L Dale to Acting Col Sec, 10 August 1861. 9 A de V Minnaar, Graaff-Reinet, 1786-1986 (Pretoria, HSRC, 1987), p. 1. 10 S Dubow, “Land, labour and merchant capital in the pre-Industrial rural economy of the Cape; The Experience of the Graaff-Reinet District, 1852-1872” (BA Honours research report, University of Cape Town, 1981).

• 114 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling” banks and of branches of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth merchant houses in Graaff-Reinet with attendant credit facilities drew wool farmers into extensive marketing and credit networks. Coinciding with an upturn in the world wool market and the introduction of merino sheep well-suited to the Karoo, the 1840s and 1850s were a period of affluence for many in the town and district of Graaff-Reinet. In 1848, with a population of 2 500, the new Municipal Board of Commissioners in Graaff-Reinet could count on 200 households to pay rates.11 From the mid-1850s the English population of the town increased significantly12 and by 1865 it was the third largest town in the Colony.13 Despite this, Graaff-Reinet appears to have been groping her way to civic dignity and respectability in the mid-nineteenth century. Municipal services were poor, voting for councillors half-hearted and participation in national politics, languid. The town was described in 1854 in its main newspaper as “a Slow Village” where the Dutch Reformed minister [Revd Andrew Murray sen] “exercis[ed] undisputed sway amongst his devoted and reverential parishioners”.14 Murray, responsible for a far-flung parish, may be seen to represent a well-established, sober and literate Christian respectability. To succeed in Graaff-Reinet, Bremner was to discover, was to take careful account of Murray and his congregants. At the same time the growth in commercial activity and wealth brought with it new distinctions of class (and by association, colour). The demand for land in Graaff-Reinet, as its prosperity grew, resulted in subdivision of the town’s urban smallholdings and the increasing impoverishment of the original Dutch-speaking proprietors. The town came to reflect the class divide, with the poorly educated urban agriculturalists living in the west of the town, and the richer German- and English-speaking residents in the east. It was the latter who participated in municipal politics, contaminated by a fair amount of “irregularity”. The period of this case study coincides with the granting of new representative institutions in local and central government. Thus it was that the Graaff-

11 A de V Minnaar, Graaff-Reinet…,p. 13. 12 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, W Long to Select Committee, 20 May 1858, p. 40. 13 H Fransen, Old towns and villages of the Cape: A survey of the origin and development of towns, villages and hamlets of the Cape of Good Hope (Jeppestown, Jonathan Ball, 2006), p. 27. 14 CG Henning, Graaff-Reinet: A cultural history 1786-1886 (Cape Town, TV Bulpin, 1975), p. 36; A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graafaf-Reinet School, W Long to Select Committee, 20 May 1858.

• 115 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Reinet élite was able to acquire access to forms and levels of political influence not possible in the autocratic VOC and early British administrations. Dutch- and English-speaking leaders would be united in their concern to have access to institutions of education that reflected their growing affluence and status. This was particularly important as Graaff-Reinet fought for recognition as a significant political centre, attempting to counter the dominance of the other eastern centres, Graham’s Town and Port Elizabeth, in the new colonial parliament.15 It is not easy to open up, to any extent, the state of race relations in Graaff- Reinet and the wider district prior to Bremner’s arrival, but there are clues that all was not well. Wayne Dooling has demonstrated the strain placed on master-servant relations in the immediate post-emancipation era.16 He shows that the withholding of their labour by former slaves in the western districts was paralleled in the eastern districts by a withholding of labour by Khoisan servants after Ordinance 50 was passed in 1828. He indicates that there was also a greater physical mobility of workers, squatting on crown land and breaking of contracts by labourers of colour; something that Dubow sees as a feature of the Graaff-Reinet district as late as 1857.17 While in Cape Town itself mission schools catering for the “poorer classes” invariably served both white and coloured children, it seems that Graaff- Reinet’s poorer Dutch-speaking white residents attended Mr Luckhoff’s church-funded school. The coloured community was offered a separate DRC mission school from 1819 and a LMS mission school from the late 1840s.18 It was said of Bremner’s predecessor, the Revd Thomas Jones Paterson, that his failure to win success for the government school was linked to his “concern” for the coloured people.19 In 1858, while considering the history of the government school in the town, Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) Mr S Probart commented: “At Graaff-Reinet there is considerable prejudice against allowing the children to mix with each other.”20

15 A de V Minnaar, Graaff-Reinet…,pp. 14, 40. 16 W Dooling, Slavery, emancipation and colonial rule in South Africa (Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg, UKZN Press, 2007), pp. 116-120. 17 S Dubow, “Land, labour and merchant capital…”, p. 34. 18 A de V Minnaar, Graaff-Reinet…,pp. 111-112. 19 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School, W Long to Select Committee, 20 May 1858, p. 31. 20 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School, SA Probart to Select Committee, 7 May 1858, p. 31.

• 116 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”

Image 1: Parsonage Street, Graaff-Reinet. The Drostdy stands at the crossroads, the LMS chapel at the centre of the picture. The school was probably located on the opposite of side the LMS chapel

Source: Photograph taken by EH Ludlow, December 2008. According to Minnaar, the Dutch Reformed church council built the first school in Graaff-Reinet in 1798 on a site in Parsonage Street where the library stands today. This building was probably taken over by the government and used, initially, as a free English-medium monitorial school (1822-1828);21 subsequently by the first-class government school.22 Bremner was the third government teacher at Graaff-Reinet under the New System, his predecessors recruited, like Bremner, in Scotland to staff the government schools.23 Paterson left in 1846 to become a missionary for the LMS and in April 1848, Bremner was sent to revive the teacherless school in Parsonage Street.

The teacher: “A man of abilities and acquirements” Before continuing with this tale of the loss of zeal and failure, it is important

21 A de V Minnaar, Graaff-Reinet ...,p. 99. 22 While the government rented most of its school buildings, no such payments for the Graaff-Reinet schoolroom are ever recorded in the CA:CO correspondence. See, for example, CA:CO 518, JR Innes, 6 October 1843; CA:CO 540, JR Innes to Col Sec, 7 April 1845. 23 A1SC-1857, CGH, Report of the Select Committee Appointed to Consider the Subject of Education, p. 6; A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School, p. 31.

• 117 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) to note that not only did Bremner regard himself as “a highly educated gentleman from Europe”, but that he was generally recognized to be an able teacher. Innes stated: “I know not a more efficient teacher than Mr Bremner.” He was “a well-educated and talented man” to whom the “boys” were extremely attached.24 Even those with whom Bremner was to clash noted that he was clever and accomplished, while sometime school commissioner, Church of England clergyman Revd William Long, was impressed by the performance both of Bremner’s pupils and the teacher himself:25 He is a kind-hearted man, and has a very interesting mode of teaching, - peculiarly so. I have listened with great attention to his lessons on physical science. He has a remarkably easy way of teaching the children. Bremner described the “object” of his “mode of instruction” as being “to develope the intellect of the youth under experiment.”26 The success of his methods is evident in the October 1858 report on a quarterly examination of the Government School in the town’s main newspaper, the Graaff-Reinet Herald:27 SCHOOL EXAMINATION. – An inspection of the Graaff-Reinet Government School by the Divisional Council took place on Wednesday, the 30th ultimo. The Divisional Council was represented by only one of its members, Mr JF Ziervogel, and the Secretary, Mr Ford, - Mr Berrangé unfortunately being indisposed, Mr Cloete away at Cape Town, and the state of the weather preventing the attendance of the other members. There were only sixteen boys present, though the number on the roll is 43, and the average attendance is 21. The public probably knew nothing at all of the examination, as the only visitors were ourselves and two friends. The exercises commenced by all the boys reading in turn from Chambers’s Introduction to the Sciences. The reading did credit to the ability of the teacher, and from the manner in which it was performed, it was evident that the boys understood the subject. To make assurance doubly sure, however, the teacher, Mr Geo Bremner, questioned them upon what they had read, and also upon what they had learned of physical science. The intelligent replies, and ready illustrations given by the boys, were interesting, and showed a greater amount of proficiency than could reasonably have been expected – considering the desultory manner in which the school is carried on. Two scholars, more advanced than the remainder of the

24 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School, JR Innes to Select Committee, 27 April 1858, pp. 3, 11, 12. 25 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School, W Long to Select Committee, 20 May 1858, pp. 34-35. 26 A1SC-1857, CGH, Appendix to the Report of the Select Committee appointed to consider the subject of education, G Bremner, “Graaff-Reinet School”, p. 9. 27 The article was reproduced verbatim in the first edition of Bremner’s The Midland Province Banner,7 October 1858.

• 118 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”

sixteen, were then examined in trigonometry, algebra (quadratic equations), and Latin. A class consisting of eleven boys then went through some exercises in English grammar, which were very well done. The usual dry and repulsive style of this study was entirely done away with by the ingenuity and skill of the teacher; and the conjugation of verbs and declension of pronouns, as well as the application of strong adjectives, backed by powerful adverbs, was amusingly and cleverly performed. It is to be regretted that the parents of the pupils did not attend. We know not whose business it is to invite them to the examination by the Government School, when inspected by the Divisional Council; but it would much promote the education of their children, if the parents showed a proper interest in the matter, to say nothing of the healthy stimulus and encouragement afforded to the schoolmaster himself by their presence. – Graaff-Reinet Herald. The skill and humour evident in the teacher’s performance obviously delighted this observer, probably the editor of the newspaper. At the same time the report touches on several problems with a long history: small numbers of pupils actually at school, a poor turn-out of examiners, a school carried on in a “desultory manner” and the absence of any parents to admire and encourage the teacher’s efforts. As Long, a lone sympathetic voice, commented, there was much at Graaff-Reinet to “discourage, dishearten, and to disgust” the government schoolteacher. “But,” concluded Mr Watermeyer at the 1858 inquiry into the school, “whatever talents he may be possessed of, he is a most injudicious man...”28 The way in which Bremner negotiated his role and relationship with the Graaff-Reinet community can be discerned in two key periods. The first was between 1850 and 1852, when Bremner was faced with what he considered to be a defining crisis in his school. The second key period was one of heightened protestation by the teacher between 1856 and 1858. This included his foray into journalism and culminated in the Inquiry into his school in May 1858. 1859 marked the lowest point of his career – three pupils left in the school, a reputation of having failed, and the recommendation that he be transferred elsewhere.

The first crisis: 1850-1852 On moving to Graaff-Reinet, Bremner inherited a school that had been

28 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School,W Long to Select Committee, 20 May 1858, pp. 12, 30.

• 119 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) without a teacher for almost a year.29 “[W]hen I opened School here ... only 19 children, six of whom members of one family – paupers – presented themselves for enrolment – of this number only one could read or write,” he later reported. But there was clearly a willingness to give Bremner’s school a chance and from 1848 numbers grew rapidly, reaching a climactic 150 in 1849. They remained high in 1850, but in December of that year Bremner signalled a crisis in the government school. Respectable inhabitants were beginning to remove their children in significant numbers and if urgent remedies were not applied, the damage to the government school might become irreparable.

The challenge of all grades and large pupil numbers in one classroom The challenges for one teacher of managing five year-olds to fifteen year-olds in all stages of progress - from “ABC” upwards to the higher departments of mathematics, Latin and French - were immense. The social mix at the Graaff-Reinet School was another challenge. Here the free government school received boys from all levels of society and the teacher felt that “social and conventional distinctions [could] not well be respected within the wall of a public school-room”. In dividing pupils into classes and affording status to them, “disregard [was] necessarily shewn to wealth and social position of parents”.30 [The author’s emphasis.] For the first three years, Bremner coped with the burgeoning numbers with the assistance of a former pupil from Paarl.31 It was the decision of his assistant to leave teaching to become a land surveyor that plunged the school into crisis. No replacement could be found, the low stipend being a major obstacle.32 SGE Innes’s seeming inability to overcome this and other problems would fuel Bremner’s frustration. Not only was there a large number of boys of all classes and ages to teach without adequate assistance, but the schoolroom itself was a liability. In 1850, at the time of his impassioned request for a new assistant teacher, Bremner also wrote that if the school were allowed to remain in its existing condition,

29 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School, JF Ziervogel to Select Committee, 7 May 1858; W Long to Select Committee, 20 May 1858, pp. 15, 32. 30 CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to JR Innes, 13 December 1850. 31 G.16-‘57, CGH, Report on public education for the year 1855, and the first half of 1856, JR Innes, p. xix; A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School, W Long to Select Committee, 20 May 1858, p. 33. 32 G.16-’57, Report on Public Education…, JR Innes, p. xix.

• 120 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”

“every respectable parent would eventually feel himself compelled to withdraw his children”.33 The schoolroom was a gabled, whitewashed, thatched building34 which stood in one of the more prestigious streets in Graaff-Reinet (at the head of which was the drostdy and the foot, the Revd Murray’s parsonage). But sporadic and limited attention had been paid to keeping it in a state of functionality let alone of respectability. Bremner recognized the problematic pedagogic discourse represented by his schoolroom but was unable, for many years, to harness resources to make significant improvements. By 1858 the schoolroom would be described as “cheerless” but in good order,35 but between 1845 and 1852 it seems to have been in a particularly poor condition. Revd Long was familiar with the schoolroom and considered its “very bad state of repair” to be one of the causes of the “dimunition” of Bremner’s numbers:36

When I first went[to Graaff-Reinet in 1845], I used the school for morning service; an adjoining room was the only “necessary” provided for the children, and the smell was so disagreeable that I was obliged to leave the place ... There was also a very large hole in the thatch which, to the best of my knowledge, remained for a long time after Mr Bremner was there ... I think if Mr Bremner had had a proper school provided for him, a properly divided school-room, and competent assistance, there would have been a better state of things ... He has told me himself that he was obliged to mend the windows at his own expense; and I am not sure that he did not have the school cleaned at his own expense. Practical considerations aside, the 1850 crisis was thus also marked by a failure of the government to present a commanding public face to the Graaff- Reinet community; one that supported its claim to be the site of a superior education. At the end of his career, Bremner reflected on school buildings:37 I am of opinion that had there been suitable school-buildings, properly furnished, and suitably and efficiently assisted from the commencement, the scheme introduced in 1839 might have commanded the education of the towns and villages, and supplied teachers for the country for a long period; but it was bungled at the very outset. The schools never realized the prestige formed of them. They had no air of respectability about them, and accordingly

33 CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to JR Innes, 13 December 1850. 34 CA:CO 540, Tender of Mr Edwd Punchon in Innes to Col Sec, 15 August, 1845. 35 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School, SA Probart to Select Committee, 7 May 1858, p. 29. 36 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee into Graaff-Reinet School , W Long to Select Committee, 20 May 1858, p. 32. 37 G.24–’63, Report of Watermeyer Commission, G Bremner, “‘Teachers’ Answers” , p. 8.

• 121 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

soon fell into public disrepute... As it was, Bremner rearranged his classes, cut down on the subjects offered, and soldiered on alone. Two consequences of his rearrangements can be inferred from his later writings on the problems he faced. The large numbers in the school hindered pupils from making the kind of progress their parents expected. At the same time, with the school being free and there being no way to enforce attendance, erratic attendance disrupted learning.38 On top of that, what disturbed some of the higher standing members of the community was that their children were being outperformed by those of the lower classes. Bremner wrote that:39 … in my experience it has more than once happened that the cleverest boy has been the son of a humble artisan. This was a clear invasion of the vested rights of respectability, and, therefore not to be borne. The leading pupils are accordingly summarily withdrawn; and the rest either spontaneously, or from a desire to “follow my leader,” or from some other extraneous cause, disappear also... In his discussion of markers of status within respectable society, Robert Ross includes a number which appear to apply to those in Graaff-Reinet wanting to distance themselves from residents of lower status; even those with a common Christian religion and Dutch language.40 Pride and prestige – or “the vested rights of respectability”- required a “gentrified landscape”. School buildings not only needed to proclaim their value through their external appearance, but allow for moral training and regularity through their layout. The undifferentiated cramming together of boys of all ages and classes in the stinking shambles of the government schoolroom would create an unacceptable literal physical proximity. Bremner’s distress over the failure to receive much needed assistance was linked to his recognition that his school needed to be exceptionally good if he was to retain all classes of pupils. This moment of failure was seen by him as pivotal and referred to as such repeatedly over the years.41 From 1850 onwards he experienced the loss of the families described by MLA William Southey as

38 Letter to Editor, Graaff-Reinet Herald, 10 October 1857. 39 G.24–‘63, Report of Watermeyer Commission, G Bremner, “‘Teachers’ Answers”, 3 December 1862, p. 9. 40 R Ross, Status and respectability in the Cape Colony, 1700-1879: A tragedy of manners (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999) pp. 80, 88. 41 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, G Bremner, letter quoted by JR Innes, p. 3; A1SC-1857, Appendix to Report of Select Committee on Public Education, “The memorial of George Bremner, … Master of the Government school of Graaff-Reinet”, 25 March 1857, pp. 28-29.

• 122 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling” liking “to keep their children a little select”.42 The teacher and the School Commission: Resisting “local espionage” For Bremner, SGE Innes’s failure, not only to provide assistance, but to be seen to be trying to assist, was deeply demoralising. Adding to his discouragement, was a destructive quarrel in 1851 with the school commission which had, since 1842, comprised the Civil Commissioner (CC), the District Clergyman, Revd Andrew Murray, and its secretary, Anthony Berrangé.43 This body had the duty to inspect and report on the government school every quarter, but no direct authority over the teacher. A troubled relationship between teacher and commissioners was linked to conflicting views of status, authority and respect. In September 1851, for example, Bremner refused, in an irritated and officious manner, a request to delay by a few days the quarterly examination of the school when both commissioners would be out of town. His response was: Under these circumstances, I fear the examination, like its predecessors for the last Eighteen Months and more, will have to take place in the absence of the School Commission. Berrangé reported this exchange to Innes, concluding: We have therefore to express our regret that Mr Bremner has again thought proper not to meet the wishes of the school commission, in consequence it was impossible to attend the examination. He also observed that the commission’s non-attendance of examinations in the past eighteen months “did not arise with them”.44 It appears to have been from this point that the school commission “refused to act, and ceased to act as such.”45 What is the meaning of this impasse? On his 1852 tour of inspection to Graaff-Reinet, Innes attempted to patch up the relationship between the school commission and Bremner which he represented as a “misunderstanding that had for some time existed”.46 The actual content of his advice to both

42 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, W Southey to Select Committee, 7 May 1858, p. 23. 43 CA:CO 510, JR Innes to [Acting Col Sec] Craig, 24 March 1842, gives original nominees. 44 CA:SGE 1/4, Sec of Graaff-Reinet School Commission to JR Innes, 10 October 1851, with enclosures, A Berrangé to G Bremner, and G Bremner to A Berrangé, 23 September 1851. 45 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, JF Ziervogel to Select Committee, 7 May 1858, p. 15. 46 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, JR Innes, “Report on the case of the Government teacher at Graaff-Reinet”, 11 November 1857, pp. 48-51.

• 123 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) parties47 is not recorded, but Innes later observed:48 I ought also to state that Mr Bremner, as well as others of the first-class teachers, whom I selected in 1840, belonged formerly to the parochial school establishment of Scotland, where the nature, extent, and character of the supervision differs widely from that which obtains in the school establishment of this colony. I have impressed on the minds of those gentlemen the duty which devolves both on them and me to respect all constituted authority with which we may be called upon to co-operate, or required to obey, so long as we retain the offices we hold. Still, a feeling of repugnance does exist, in more instance than one, which accounts for in some degree, though it does not justify, the proceedings upon which I have been called to report. There is an indication here that Innes, while not condoning the hot- temperedness of his fellow Scot, understood the attempted assertion of the teacher’s independence; he was a capable and autonomous individual who chafed at the attempts of those whom he did not particularly respect to supervise or regulate him. Detached from the local élite who were abandoning his school, and lacking direct accountability, Bremner declined to pay much attention to them. For their part, the school commission was understood to represent the most “respectable” inhabitants and would have felt itself able to voice their interests and concerns. For all that they lacked the power of direct intervention, the school commission and leading citizens generally were shapers of opinion and mobilizers of resources. If he lost their favour, Bremner’s position was deeply compromised.

The Superintendent General and the community, June 1852 The visit of Innes in 1852 is important because it provided a moment when things could have turned out differently. Bremner was, for the moment, silent, in the background. It was a point at which the local élite could have been rallied to the cause of government education and its lofty intentions. Instead the visit would prove influential in confirming their decision to abandon the government school. Subsequent developments indicate that the Graaff-Reinet leaders were mindful of the advantages of the kind of schooling that the New

47 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, JF Ziervogel to Select Committee, 7 May 1858, p. 18. 48 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, JR Innes, “‘Report on case of Government teacher at Graaff-Reinet,’” p. 51.

• 124 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”

System offered but not in the form that we have seen it to be taking. It appears that certain “of the most respectable inhabitants of the town” had written a letter of complaint about “the unsatisfactory state of the school”. A number of parents sought a meeting with Innes, as they thought his visit “a good opportunity of inquiring whether anything could be done to mend the state of the school”.49 Revisiting the 1852 meeting in the midst of an even hotter controversy in 1858, JF Ziervogel was at times uncertain of details, but his evidence is helpful in trying to understand the increasingly heightened “state of feeling” between Bremner and the residents of Graaff-Reinet. Present were those most concerned about the school, at the same time practically all the men who held the highest civic positions in town and district in the 1850s – mayor, Chairman of the later Divisional Council, four sometime Members of Parliament and the two leading clergymen.50 These gentlemen were highly critical of Innes himself, and the meeting ended with the assertion that he had “grossly neglected his duty to the Graaff-Reinet School”: It is in a very miserable state, and it appears to be admitted that the teacher does not take any great interest in it; and now, knowing all this, it is for the parents to know whether this is a state of things that ought to be allowed to continue. At the meeting, “Dr Innes gave us a long lecture ... in which there was as usual a good deal about Sir John Herschel but nothing to any very good purpose ...”. Innes informed the meeting that he could only act if specific charges against the teacher were submitted to him in writing. As no written complaint was ever delivered to him, Innes took the matter no further than to inform “the teacher personally of what had taken place”. While Innes’s actions in 1852 appear to have been intended to calm the situation, his visionary lecturing and principled stand did little to save the government school. It amounted to a lack of practical support for Bremner and at the same time, as far as the parents were concerned, was seen as evidence of lack of authority over him.

49 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, has details of this meeting, JF Ziervogel to Select Committee, 7 May 1858, pp. 16-18; A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, JR Innes’s “Report on case of Government teacher at Graaff-Reinet,” p. 50. 50 In 1854, JF Ziervogel and TNG Muller were elected as Members of the Legislative Assembly. After one session Muller was replaced by CH Grisbrook. Ziervogel was “the one constant”, representing Graaff-Reinet for many years in distant Cape Town; A de V Minnaar, Graaff-Reinet…, p. 41.

• 125 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Despite the absence of written grievances, serious charges were made at the meeting. These amounted to Bremner losing interest in the school, being frequently absent during school hours, and “that the children did not make the progress which [the parents] thought they could make, and ought to make, and that the school had fallen off in consequence”.51 In a separate interview in 1858, Revd Long was again more sympathetic towards the teacher, while observing that he thought the mix of class and age in one school a mistake. “People are fickle; and generally think their own children exceedingly clever; so that the fault is thrown entirely on the teacher, if they do not succeed and become good scholars.” Asked about the alleged absence of the master, he said he heard it remarked long after Bremner had first come that he was habitually half an hour late in the morning – but not habitually absent.52 So the rumours and voiced but unwritten charges generally constructed Bremner as an obstructive and neglectful teacher. At the same time the failure or inability of the SGE to intervene effectively to assist the teacher may in large part have been because of limited financial and administrative resources at his disposal. This indicates that the system of state schooling was already, after ten years, showing itself to be faulty; evidence of the failure in governmental regularity that was to pervade the system under the Innes superintendence.

Competition for the First-Class Government School June 1852 appears to have marked a parting of the ways between the Graaff- Reinet élite and government schooling. It was an indictment of the first- class government school that it should be replaced by a fee-paying school which intended to replicate its role, although for the wealthier residents alone. It seems that the advantage of being able to “have some voice in the management of the school, and exercise a kind of control over the teacher himself”53 outweighed the financial cost. The result was the establishment of a private grammar school, towards which the founding trustees each subscribed £5. Its role was neatly described as providing “a superior school for a district

51 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, JF Ziervogel to Select Committee, 7 May 1858, pp. 16-18; 20. 52 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, W Long to Select Committee, 20 May 1858, p. 38. 53 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, SA Probart to Select Committee, 7 May 1858, p. 29.

• 126 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling” of wealth... and daily growing mercantile importance.” 54 Revd Andrew Murray was a leading figure in establishing the new school55 and Bremner later maintained that it had “the powerful influence and support of the Dutch Reformed Church” and came to be “patronized by the local Members of Parliament” and several Divisional Council members.56 For all its support, the Grammar School seems only ever to have had about 36-40 pupils. It was also financially unsustainable, closing as the financial hardships of the 1860s set in.57 For Bremner, though, it was a bitter symbol of his school’s failure.58

1853-1856: Lull before the storm: The schoolmaster turns his spare moments to account

No town has made greater progress during the last ten years than Graaff- Reinet ... From an island village it has sprung up to a great commercial centre and exercises an influence on the surrounding districts, second to that of no town in the Colony. (EP Herald, 1854).59 The fact that Bremner taught in Graaff-Reinet at a time of growing affluence made it difficult for him to attract and retain pupil-teachers and assistants. They had more financially rewarding options, while the inadequacy of the government teachers’ salaries led to the “necessity for the schoolmaster to turn his every spare moment to account, in order to earn a livelihood.”60 Reluctantly or not, Bremner seems to have gained some influence in local affairs and turned this to his own benefit. He appears to have become aligned

54 CA:CO 695, JJ Meintjes to Col Sec, 27 June 1857, and attached “Memorial of inhabitants of the town and division of Graaff-Reinet”, 3 January 1857. 55 CA:CO 695, He signed the “Memorial” and was in correspondence with the government about the Grammar School, see separate notes, JC 14/1/58 with “Memorial of Inhabitants of Graaff-Reinet, 3 January 1857”. 56 The Midland Province Banner,28 April 1858. 57 A de V Minnaar, Graaff-Reinet…, p. 101. There were many short-lived educational enterprises in Graaff-Reinet, but the Grammar School was symbolically important. Its demise saw a brief revival of the government school until it closed in 1862. 58 It is probable that Bremner was initially offered the position of grammar school teacher. A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, JR Innes to Select Committee, 7 April 1858, p. 11. This suggests that the managers felt him to be worth employing if under their authority. His refusal may well have been a combination of pique, commitment to inclusive public schooling and recognition that there was greater financial security in remaining in government employ. A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff- Reinet School, JR Innes to Select Committee, 7 April 1858, p. 11. 59 S Dubow, “Land, labour and merchant capital…”, p. 15. 60 A1SC-1857, Appendix to the Report of the Select Committee on the Subject of Education, G Bremner, “Graaff-Reinet School”, p. 9.

• 127 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) with the wealthier commercial farmers as provisional secretary to the Graaff- Reinet Flockmaster Association.61 He was more especially linked with the German-Jewish merchants of the town and district, as distinct from the older Dutch families. This is evident in a number of roles, probably earning him honoraria, where his facility with words made him a natural choice - as secretary, spokesman and editor. In 1853 Bremner was secretary to the campaign committee backing William Fleming, a Cape Town merchant in the Stockentröm camp, as representative of the district on the new Parliament’s Legislative Council.62 He also became secretary to the board of the newly established South African Central Bank in January 1854 which was well capitalised but marked by “unsound business principles”. The directors of the bank - JL Leeb, M Lilienfeld, MH Benjamin and the Chairman, SE Wimble, among them - financed The Midland Province Banner, a short-lived rival the Graaff-Reinet Herald63 which Bremner edited between 1857 and 1860. The few items of correspondence on file between Bremner and the government between 1852 and 1856 relate to returns and repairs.64 This may reflect a teacher “getting on with things” – at the same time the SGE was ill and communication with his teachers suffered as a result. He also requested [unreasonably] extended leave to take his ill wife on the long journey by “mule wagon” to Simon’s Town while the schoolroom was being repaired. The tone of the single piece of correspondence for 1855 is classic Bremner, and includes his presumption [not accepted by Innes] that he could defend departing before having obtained authorisation for the trip:65 As the saving of time is a saving of considerable expense to me at the present moment, having to forage my cattle, feed my boys, and pay them wages besides, I shall presume on your extending my leave of absence and start for Cape Town on Friday next ... Trusting that if I must needs have an official rap over the knuckles for my imprudence, I shall have fortitude enough to take

61 A1SC-1857, Appendix to the Report of the Select Committee ..., G Bremner, “Graaff-Reinet School”, p. 43; S Dubow, ‘Land, labour and merchant capital…’ . 62 Graaff-Reinet Herald, 1 August 1853, National Archives, Kew, London, CO 53/43, (available at: http:// genealogieworld.net.settlers.herald.html, accessed 21 March 2009). Minnaar observes that local political animosities were papered over in an attempt to win for Graaff-Reinet better representation in Parliament. Graham’s Town, it was felt, was given a disproportionate amount of Eastern Province representation. A de V Minnaar, Graaff-Reinet…,p. 41. 63 CG Henning, Graaff-Reinet…,pp. 47, 71. 64 CA:CO 637, JR Innes to Acting Col Sec, 6 May 1854; G Bremner to JR Innes, 15 June, 1854, 4 October 1854; CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to JR Innes’s clerk, 24 November 1854. 65 CA:CO 656, G Bremner to JR Innes, 7 July 1855.

• 128 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”

it like a Trojan, and that I shall have undergone the infliction in your own drawing room within three weeks from this date… That Bremner was the owner of cattle and employer of “boys” adds to his repertoire of extra-pedagogical economic activities. So, too, does his taking in of boarders from time to time. It probably also provides some explanation for a late commencement of his teaching day.

1857-1858: A new crisis for the Graaff-Reinet First-Class School The context of the next crisis involving the government teacher was the changing nature of both central and local accountability. The new colonial parliament held its first session in 1854 and by 1855 had begun to review the state of education in the Colony through a number of select committees.66 In 1857 the focus turned directly on the government schools as John Fairbairn chaired a review of these based on the reports or “Returns sent to the Superintendent-General of Education, from all the First-class Teachers for the year 1856”.67 Then, because of the inclusion among these returns of George Bremner’s injudicious 1856 report, a further select committee was called upon in April 1858 specifically to investigate the Graaff-Reinet first-class school.68 A member of the above 1857 select committee was JF Ziervogel, the longest serving MLA for Graaff-Reinet and, as a member of the Graaff- Reinet Divisional Council, a member, too, of the reformed Graaff-Reinet school commission from its commencement in 1855.69 He was also called to give evidence at the 1858 enquiry. All of this unnerved George Bremner in whose imagination Ziervogel became the embodiment of a local conspiracy against his school. Revd Andrew Murray, the other bastion of Graaff-Reinet society, came a close second.70 Certainly both were powerful men in Graaff- Reinet, exercising a patriarchal authority in the community notwithstanding the increasing trappings of mercantile success and representative democracy.71

66 EG Malherbe, Education in South Africa I: 1652-1922 (Cape Town & Johannesburg, Juta, 1925), pp. 92-93. 67 A1SC-1857, Report of the Select Committee Appointed to Consider the Subject of Education, June 1857; Appendix, November 1857. 68 A7SC-1858, Report of the Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School. 69 CA:CO 656, JR Innes to Col Sec, 14 June 1855. 70 H Murray, “The Andrew Murray family register” (S.I:s.n.,1931), p. 13. These two powerful families were related by marriage, with John Murray, eldest son of Andrew Murray senior married to Maria Anna Ziervogel. 71 C Henning, Graaff-Reinet…,p. 36; A de V Minnaar, Graaff-Reinet…,pp. 39-41.

• 129 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

The teacher’s state of mind With the establishment of the Divisional Council in 1855, the government school came under the somewhat erratic surveillance of a popularly elected local authority. The new school commission was formed from Divisional Council members in the place of SGE nominees, and generally their level of education was lower than that of the clergy, who no longer served, except in an interim role in the transition period. From its inception, the Graaff- Reinet Divisional Council played at best a cautious role with regard to the government school,72 adding to Bremner’s sense of isolation. There were to be many occasions when Bremner would carry out his examinations with few or no Divisional Council members present.73 However strained or otherwise the relations between the new Divisional Council and Bremner might have been in 1855, a new chain of events involving them, the SGE and Parliament was to “widen the breach” irrevocably by 1856. The year 1856 also saw a resurgence of the frustrations felt so strongly by Bremner in the early 1850s, despite a good performance by the 35 boys examined before the visiting SGE and “several members of the [new] Divisional Council and other inhabitants” on 8 February.74 Bremner was angry at the inability of government to pay successive assistants finally appointed by Innes, and by their consequent departure.75 This was compounded by the disrespect he felt evident from Murray who was assisting at the September 1856 examination.76 It appears that Bremner had only one pupil engaged in the higher branches and led him through a virtuoso performance but “hurried over” the other classes so that Murray “could not say what the boys knew, or did not know”.77 Bremner, who did not have access to Murray’s report on the examination, became obsessed with the idea of it being very damaging to his reputation.78 Although it is unclear when Bremner’s own controversial 1856 Report on the Government School at Graaff-Reinet was received by Innes, the issues identified in it relate to the matters described above. This

72 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, JF Ziervogel to Select Committee, 20 May 1858, p. 44. 73 For example, CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to JR Innes’s clerk, 7 November 1857. 74 G.16–‘57, Report on Public Education for 1855 and First Half of 1856, JR Innes’s full report on the Graaff- Reinet Government School, pp. xviii-xix. 75 CA:CO 676, JR Innes to Col Sec, 23 April 1856; CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to JR Innes, 30 October 1856, 10 January 1857; CA:CO 695, JR Innes to Col Sec, 29 September 1857. 76 A1SC-1857, Appendix to Report of Select Committee on Education, G Bremner to JR Innes, 30 October 185; G Bremner, “Graaff-Reinet School”, p. 8. 77 A7SC -1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, cited by JF Ziervogel, 7 May 1858, p. 22. 78 CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to JR Innes, 30 October 1856.

• 130 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling” report, intended for the SGE’s eyes only, would accidentally be placed before Parliament uncensored and this would put the cat among the pigeons.

The SGE’s state of health Innes’s growing incapacity to manage all the affairs that fell to him, due to ill health and overwork, was the context in which Bremner’s angry report became an “event”. At that very time, Innes was attempting to resign his position as SGE. He had suffered repeated episodes of exposure to the sun on his tours of inspection, and by December 1856 felt incapable mentally and physically of carrying on the exhausting duties of SGE.79 Innes’s resignation was refused by a severely disapproving Colonial Secretary, Rawson W Rawson.80 Instead Rawson demanded that he immediately submit to the Parliamentary Education Committee the “annual returns for 1856, which had been received from the first-class teachers of the establishment”. This he did on 27 April 1857 without having them copied or checking their contents, being preoccupied with the final compilation of a late report on all schools in the Colony for the previous year. When the select committee met, it would find among its papers both this return, and a memorial [petition], dated 28 April 1857, submitted by Bremner to Parliament just as it convened.

The offending report The allegations in Bremner’s 1856 report that outraged the residents of Graaff-Reinet were those that disrespected their “intellectual culture” and their commitment to education, and hinted at a conspiracy amongst their leaders to crush the government school. He asserted that nine-tenths of the town’s residents had a limited “intellectual culture”, satisfied by reading only the Bible and the Zuid Afrikaan. They valued education very little beyond getting a “smattering of English, a very partial acquaintance with figures, and a ready faculty in handling a pen”:81

79 CA:CO 695, JR Innes to Col Sec, 19 March 1857. 80 WL Nell, “James Rose Innes as Educationist at the Cape, 1822-1859” (DEd thesis, University of Stellenbosch, 1973), pp. 296-298; 396, 446. 81 A1SC–1857, Appendix to Report of Select Committee on Education, G Bremner, “Graaff-Reinet School”, pp. 8-10.

• 131 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

We are practical people, and set no value on education beyond its practicality. Not educated ourselves, we cannot, for the life of us, see the use of paying for books, to bother our children’s heads with, - geometry and algebra, and such like nonsense. Even our parson asks our schoolmaster, at the public examinations, amidst the approving smiles of the few spectators, ‘What is the use of teaching such things?’...

Here, as in most other colonial towns, the people are clamorous for education ... Their representatives head a crusade against the Government Schools, and are disposed ... to crush the local school, by sending their sons to a Government school some hundreds of miles off...

To cloak all this manouevering, they (I mean those who really value education) are particularly zealous in getting up proprietary elementary schools, which the public assist in paying for... A second theme was the need for the government to come forward and play the role in diffusing “a higher grade of education” that only it was capable of playing. As they stood, the schools were fast becoming “pauper schools”. They needed to become “locally respectable” and that would require a “liberal” investment in good buildings, equipment, staffing and salaries. Bremner would have been unaware that his Report would come before Parliament; not so the memorial. It restated, in more moderate tones, many of the problems mentioned in the Report, and the same remedies – but added one new suggestion. This was conciliatory and recognised for the first time that working with the community instead of against it might make a difference to the success of the government school. As in his later newspaper articles, he emphasised the value of well-qualified teachers, arguing that their salaries should be guaranteed by government and adequate to enable them:82 … to maintain themselves in that position and rank in society to which their superior education and the highly responsible character of their office clearly gives them a claim...

The teacher uses his journalistic skills to fight his cause By the time, three months after its first submission, that the attention of the Governor had been drawn to the outrageous content of the Bremner

82 He republished this memorial verbatim as “The Teacher’s Petition” in The Midland Province Banner, 31 March 1858.

• 132 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling”

Report,83 it had been sent to the Government Printer. This was so that it could be included in an Appendix to the Report of the Select Committee on Education for 1857 to be placed before parliament. By this indirect means, it came to the attention of MLA Ziervogel, and through him a copy reached the Graaff- Reinet Divisional Council. Offended by its content, the Divisional Council “resolved to request the Government to institute an inquiry into the truths of the statements and charges contained in the report”.84 In the meantime Bremner had commenced a new phase of his public life. In October 1857, the first edition of a weekly newspaper edited by Bremner, The Midland Province Banner,rolled off the presses. While the intention of the newspaper’s directors was to give publicity to their business interests, it provided a public platform for Bremner as editor to make pronouncements on a range of political and educational issues. In the very first edition he republished the Graaff-Reinet Herald’s report on his most recent examination (reported above. See p. 8-9) and in November wrote scathingly of the high expectations but low value placed by the colonial government “on the character and accomplishments” of a first-class teacher who was “a graduate of an European university”.85 In January 1858, he linked Rawson with the contemptuous neglect of the government teachers as well as rallying opposition to “the general diffusion of an extensive and liberal education”. He also argued that the answer to Parliament’s quest for good education was to have a teacher of quality in every town – by implication, men such as himself:86 It is perfect nonsense to say that the youth of Africa, or of any other country, can be instructed by systems, or taught by Government schemes of education. They can only be taught by teachers. But teachers who are worthy of the name, and qualified to undertake and carry out such an important trust, are not to be conjured up from the vasty deeps of a wish to have them ... They seem not to be indigenous to South Africa, nor ought they to be culled from the ranks of those who have proved themselves, in other countries, unfit for every other enterprise or profession. ... The Banner was a compromised public platform as Bremner attempted to keep his editorial identity concealed. He was, however, rapidly unmasked by the opposition Graaff-Reinet Heraldand instructed by the Colonial Secretary

83 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, RW Rawson to JR Innes, 25 July 1857, p. 45. 84 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, A Berrangé CC to Col Sec, 19 November 1857, p. 46. 85 Anon., “Government Patronage of Education,” The Midland Province Banner, 18 November 1857. 86 The Midland Province Banner,8 January 1858.

• 133 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) he must give up this position if he wished to remain a government teacher.87 It appears as if Bremner initially ignored this warning. As late as August 1858, articles appeared in the Banner which were manifestly written by him. Throughout this time Bremner had continued to teach and in April 1858 had about 30 boys in his school, six in the higher branches.88 How Bremner learnt of the inquiry is not revealed, and he was not invited to appear before the select committee which sat in Cape Town. Its advent precipitated a shift in the focus of his writing, however, and he became involved in an intense campaign to defend his reputation and career. On the one hand he wrote agitated letters to the SGE warning of Ziervogel’s intentions to undermine him.89 On the other he fought through the pages of The Midland Province Banner. Here, too, he continued to warn of conspiracy against the government schools by a faction represented in Parliament (Ziervogel clearly the head of this). From April through to August 1858, the focus of his articles was the latest educational project of the Graaff-Reinet élite, a Graaff-Reinet College on the model of Cape Town’s South African College. This he quickly decried, associating its location in a desiccated landscape with an intellectual desert and dubbing it the “Karroo College”. Bremner viewed the establishment of a Graaff-Reinet College as the beginning of the end for a first-class government school. He also saw the petition in favour of the college led by CC Berrangé and seconded by Revd Andrew. Murray as an attempt to influence the sitting Parliamentary Select Committee against him:

The easy, off-hand way in which[the Petition] treats the Government School is not very complimentary to its Teacher. The present Government School, says the Petition, “does not meet the requirements of the locality”. In what ways it may be asked? Is the Teacher not up in classics, or is he unable to come up to the Karroo standard of mathematics? Or is it not, rather, that our members of Parliament require some little local agitation, to strengthen their hands in the manly onslaught they are at present engaged in, with the Government Teacher? Bremner questioned the genuine commitment to education of the “projectors of the scheme”. He patronised the colonists generally as not being “the best judges of ... the manner in which their children ought to be educated” and

87 A7SC–1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, JR Innes to RW Rawson, 11 November 1857, p. 51; A7SC–1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, RW Rawson to JR Innes, 20 November 1857, p. 52. He referred to a Government Notice of 15 December 1852, framed by Acting Col Sec Richard Southey as forbidding civil servants to write on “political subjects in any newspaper”. 88 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School , “Report”, p. iii. 89 For example, CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to JR Innes, 6 March 1858 and 17 April 1858.

• 134 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling” claimed that it was “the most monstrous absurdity to imagine that such an institution could flourish” where there was a lack of elementary schools and the standard reached “in nine cases out of ten, is partial mastery of the three ‘R’s”. “Depend upon it the Karroo College is a veritable joke ...”90 He also implied further impropriety of leading citizens in proposing their own properties be rented to the new institution. It is little wonder that the combined impact of his public and professional writing was the permanent alienation of Bremner and the Graaff-Reinet leaders.

The Select Committee inquires and reports on the First-class School, 185891 The Select Committee sought to understand why “the usefulness of this school to the inhabitants [had] been constantly diminishing during the last six years or more”. By 1858, it noted, there were a mere six pupils in the higher branches. This took them back to the beginning of Bremner’s career in Graaff-Reinet, and their evidence has already been used in this article to flesh out those years. There is, in fact, very little to add to what has already been shown to be the state of feeling between the residents and Bremner. The 1856 Report, with its “extremely inconsiderate language”, had simply “widened the breach previously existing”. The question then was, was the decline of the school the teacher’s fault? The conclusion was that it was not. Bremner emerged from the inquiry as a man of admirable achievement. It was circumstances that had contrived to fan the embers of small “personal” and “political” differences into larger flames than warranted. The Select Committee also judged Bremner to have been wrong about the residents’ lack of commitment to education. The real problem had been faults in the education system, more specifically the lack of local supervision. This meant that there was no capacity to deal with small issues before they escalated, and no-one to provide the necessary warm interest in the school. The committee felt that there were no major charges concerning Bremner’s

90 Anon., “The Educational Petition”, The Midland Province Banner,28 April 1858; Anon., “The Karroo College”, The Midland Province Banner, 18 August 1858. 91 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School. Members of the Select Committee were P Bosman (chairman), Attorney-General W Porter, J Fairbairn, Mr Watermeyer, Mr Loedolff. Called to testify between 22 April and 20 May were JR Innes, Revd W Long, and MPs for Graaff-Reinet, JF Ziervogel, W Southey and SA Probart, pp. iii, vii-viii.

• 135 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) running of his school, and certainly none impugning his character. The “state of feeling’” between him and the community was, however, so great that they recommended he be transferred to another post. The Committee concluded that annual government spending of £330 on a government school was no longer justified. There were sufficient “gratuitous” mission and other schools capable of delivering the level of elementary schooling that the Government School had provided. It should instead be incorporated as the preparatory section of the new College; the government role limited to a lesser amount of aid and perhaps some bursaries for poorer children of merit.92

George Bremner moves on Despite the sympathetic verdict of the Select Committee and the recommendation that Bremner be transferred to another position, he was left in limbo until the end of 1859. By September 1859, Bremner was left with three pupils, his two sons and a coloured boy.93 Finally it was agreed that Bremner should move to Swellendam where the first-class teacher had died of a stroke, and the replacement teacher was not up to standard.94 Bremner was reluctant to accept the transfer, suspecting (correctly as it turned out) that in Swellendam, too, the respectable residents would not support government schools in their present condition. He finally departed having been assured that he would be given an assistant teacher and necessary apparatus.95

Conclusion The Graaff-Reinet Government School was closed on Bremner’s departure but, as he had predicted in the Banner, there were delays in getting the Graaff- Reinet College off the ground. Until it was, the school was reopened for a

92 A7SC-1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School,“Report” of the Select Committee, 31 May 1858, pp. iii-vi. 93 KW Smith, From frontier to midlands: A history of the Graaff-Reinet District, 1786-1910 (Grahamstown, Rhodes University Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1976), p. 72. 94 CA:CO 767, L Dale to Col Sec, 27 January 1860. 95 CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to L Dale, 10 December 1859.

• 136 George Bremner, Graaff-Reinet and “A State of Feeling” period under a newly graduated recruit from Glasgow.96 To Bremner’s name, he himself stated, was attached “the reputation of having failed in Graaff-Reinet”.97 Yet amidst the conceit and contempt, Bremner had identified some important realities. The first was that the “Herschel Scheme of Education” had the capacity to disturb existing social relationships and in so doing to upset those who had the power in society:98 Add ... the inevitable disturbance in the social equilibrium which the general diffusion of knowledge would bring in its wake, and one can easily imagine how the local magnates that are, and generally the “powers that be”, should have set their face against the system of universal education propounded by Sir John Herschel, and which, if thoroughly carried out, would long ere now have compelled many of them to withdraw to that hazy obscurity in which they were born... As Mr Watermeyer of the Select Committee on the Graaff-Reinet School discerned when attempting to account for the failure of the government teacher and school:99

I think you [Revd Long] have described two evils as existing at Graaff- Reinet school, quite independently of the individual who had charge of it. – the mixture of ages and colors in the school, and the want of local supervision. Differently stated, while many Graaff-Reinet residents may not have valued an education above that needed for church membership, those who did wanted it to be “somewhat select” and under their control. The disruptive potential of an inclusive popular education at the hands of a liberal but / and condescending intellectual was not to be contemplated. Bremner also correctly discerned that in moving towards relinquishing education of the poor to missions and supporting the establishment of private, though state aided, higher institutions of learning, the state was giving up on “the education of the people generally”.100

96 CA:CO 767, L Dale to Col Sec, 19 March 1860. 97 CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to L Dale, 10 December 1859. 98 “The Karroo College”, The Midland Province Banner, 18 August 1858. 99 A7SC–1858, Report of Select Committee on Graaff-Reinet School, Chairman Watermeyer interviewing W Long, 20 May 1858, A7SC–1858, Report of Select Committee…, p. 39. 100 CA:SGE 1/4, G Bremner to Secretary to the Divisional Council, 8 April 1859. JR Innes was author of a “Memorial on the proposed establishment of a ‘Collegiate Institution’ at Graaff-Reinet”, dated 1 August 1858 (in CA:CO 720). In this he notes that it is at the instruction of His Excellency [Sir George Grey] that he makes his suggestions as to how such an institution could function. There is a likelihood that Governor Grey was on his own educational mission, rather than using his influence to promote the existing government schools. He endowed the Grey Institution in Port Elizabeth, where there was already a government school, and considered doing the same at Caledon (CA: 3/CAL/5, CC Caledon to Municipal Commissioners, 21 October 1857.)

• 137 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

As regards Bremner’s personal contribution to raising an awareness of the advantages of the type of education he represented, two small items of evidence are telling. In the early 1860s, the Watermeyer Commission was charged with deciding whether the New System of education should continue at all. Revd Andrew Murray senior made a terse and brief response to its enquiries, and despite his disaffection with the Graaff-Reinet Government School, did affirm that in colonial towns, “the qualifications [of a teacher] should be the same as the first-class teachers have hitherto possessed.”101 The most famous alumnus of Bremner’s school was probably the controversial and idealistic Revd TF Burgers, president of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) from 1872-1877. Schooled in English in Graaff-Reinet by the Scot, he later invited Bremner to come and teach in the Transvaal. This was as part of his plans to modernize the ZAR through a reformed, secular education system.102 Unable to accept the invitation because of poor health, Bremner was perhaps gratified to have received this measure of recognition from the lad to whom he had given a grounding in the classics and mathematics.

101 G.24 –’63, Report of Watermeyer Commission, “Answer from Rev A Murray senior”, p. 49. 102 TF Burgers was born in 1834 on a farm in the Graaff-Reinet District. He left to study theology in Utrecht in 1853, so could have spent up to five years under Bremner. Dictionary of South African biography I (Pretoria, NCSR, 1968), p. 133; E Bull, “Rattray and Black”, Familia XXVII, 3 (1990), p. 60.

• 138 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels

“It would be well now to wind up this rebel business sharp”: The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels

Johan Wassermann History Education University of KwaZulu-Natal [email protected]

Abstract

Any post-war society is characterised by complex relationships. Natal society after the conclusion of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) was no different. In this article the post-war relations between the Natal rebels and the Natal and Imperial governments are examined with specific emphasis on how the rebels were managed. The Natal government initially foregrounded its autonomy and insisted on legally managing the rebels accordingly. However, the agreements reached during the peace negotiations forced the Imperial government to put pressure on the Natal government to adopt a more pragmatic approach. With the adoption of this approach, the Imperial government withdrew from the process and left it to the Natal government to further manage the rebels. This was done by systematically releasing some convicted rebels for managerial rather than conciliatory reasons. What the Natal government, however, could not achieve was to convince the rebels still on free-footing in the former Boer republics to hand themselves over to be tried for high treason. In the end the Natal government had to, so as to ensure the managerial workings of the colony, capitulate and grant full amnesty to all rebels.

Keywords: Natal Rebels; Anglo-Boer War; Colony of Natal; Natal Afrikaners; Reconciliation; Reconstruction; Imperial Government; Natal Government; Royal Commission of Enquiry.

Introduction A common issue facing any post-conflict society is how to ensure a lasting peace. This process is not without difficulty, considering the array of fraught relationships that exist in such societies. The southern African society in the aftermath of the Anglo-Boer War or South African War (1899–1902) was no different. In this article the focus is on how the political relationship between the Natal rebels, both convicted and suspected, and the Natal colonial and

• 139 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) imperial authorities, was steered into calmer waters.1 The specific aim is to come to some understanding of how, in the immediate post-war period, the Natal rebels were managed. This involves a close examination of the planning and direction of affairs of both the Natal and British governments at the time.

Managing the convicted imprisoned Natal rebels in the immediate post- war period One of the most pressing issues facing the Natal government was how to deal with the rebels who had been convicted of high treason in terms of Act 14 of 1900, by either the Special Court or the Special Magistrate under the rules of the Special Court.2 With peace talks in the air, requests were coming in from convicted rebels to be transferred to prisons closer to their homes. The response from Prime Minister AH (Albert) Hime, on 13 May 1902, was unequivocal and firm: “In all cases refuse these requests without bringing them before me, unless there is something very special which needs consideration.”3 Peace was no sooner declared when Gert van Rooyen challenged this position. He asked Frederick (FR) Moor, a cabinet minister who represented a constituency made up almost exclusively of Natal Afrikaners, to investigate the possible removal of 43 rebel prisoners from Eshowe, Zululand, to Pietermaritzburg. Moor rallied to the support of his Afrikaner voters and using his political clout managed to secure their transfer to the Pietermaritzburg Prison. However, this decision was promptly thwarted on logistical and principled grounds by the chief commissioner of police who argued that there was insufficient space in the Pietermaritzburg Prison. More importantly, the commissioner felt that this would be taking too soft a line towards the rebel prisoners, tantamount to “giving in” to them. After all, he argued, similar requests had been turned down in the past. Moor reacted strongly. He contended that since hostilities had ended, “the political prisoners should be treated as fairly as possible and those who apply to be removed from Eshowe

1 A similar process unfolded in the Cape Colony after the war had ended. Unlike the estimated 800 rebels the Natal authorities had to deal with in the Cape the number was 15 433. HA Shearing, “The Cape rebel of the South African War, 1899-1902” (PhD, US, 2004), pp. 249-269. 2 Pietermaritzburg Archival Repository (PAR), Natal Colonial Publications (NCP), 6/1/1/53, Natal Government Gazette, 31 July 1900, containing Act 14 of 1900; NCP, 5/3/8: Colony of Natal Acts, Parliament of the Colony of Natal, 4th session, second Colonial Parliament, 1900, Act 14 of 1900. The Special Court was set up specifically to try alleged Natal rebels. 3 PAR, Minister of Justice and Public Works (MJPW), Vol. 94, Correspondence regarding the removal of rebel prisoners from Eshowe Prison, 13 May 1902 - 23 July 1902.

• 140 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels to the Pietermaritzburg Prison or any other gaol in the Natal Province should have their application granted where room is available”. Moor’s conciliatory point of view, supported by the foremost Natal humanitarian of the time, Harriette Colenso,4 won the day and the Natal government decided that the application of each prisoner who wished to be transferred from Eshowe should be reviewed on merit.5 Consequently, a small number of rebel prisoners were successful in their bid to be transferred to prisons in either Pietermaritzburg or Ladysmith. However, the applications of those who asked to be sent to prisons in smaller towns met with less success. In the case of AC Vermaak, CS Botha and PJ Meyer they were refused a transfer to the Greytown Prison because of a lack of accommodation.6 Likewise, the applications of CP Cronjé and JJ de Jager to be re-located to Dundee were turned down, because in the context of the racial policies of the time, all the white prisoners in Northern Natal were held in the Ladysmith Prison. Since only Africans were incarcerated in Dundee it would have meant that a separate cell be set aside for the rebels and a white warden appointed for one or two prisoners.7 The least favourable response was reserved for JJ Dekker who was serving a seven-year sentence for actively fighting on the side of the republics. All three applications on his behalf to be transferred to Pietermaritzburg were rejected. The reasons offered ranged from an overcrowded Pietermaritzburg Prison to the fact that the Public Works Department needed prisoners who were sentenced to hard labour to work on specific projects in progress at the time. Since Dekker did not fit this category he could not be transferred.8 Nonetheless, this was the exception to the rule and for the most part the Natal government was, within means, fairly conciliatory in transferring convicted rebels to prisons closer to their homes.

4 PAR, Colenso collection A 204, Vol. 39: Letter CW Havemann/Harriette Colenso, 28 August 1902; Letter GT Plowman (Secretary)/Harriette Colenso, 3 September 1902. 5 PAR, MJPW, Vol. 94, Correspondence regarding the removal of rebel prisoners from Eshowe Prison, 13 May 1902 - 23 July 1902. 6 PAR, Colenso collection A 204, Vol. 74: Letter Harriette Colenso/Sir, 29 September 1902; PAR, Colenso collection A 204, Vol. 39: Letter GT Plowman (Secretary)/Harriette Colenso, 7 July 1902. 7 PAR, MJPW, Vol. 96: Application CP Cronjé to be transferred to Dundee Prison, 20 August 1902 - 8 September 1902. 8 PAR, MJPW, Vol. 97: Applications on behalf of JJ Dekker to be transferred to Pietermaritzburg Prison, 18 August 1902 - 4 November 1902.

• 141 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

In the post-war period the Natal government also had to manage a handful of rebels who had already served their sentences, but still felt aggrieved and wished to challenge their convictions in various ways. PJ Meyer, for example, requested copies of the depositions made against him because he wanted to clear his name,9 while HA Potgieter appealed to have the case against him reopened because he felt that he had been convicted on false evidence.10 These requests met with little success. The case of PJ Cromhout was an exception. He was sentenced to a £50 fine or a three-month prison sentence, but because he had served 20 days before paying the fine, he managed to secure a refund of £10.17.4.11

Challenging the initial post-war position of the Natal government towards suspected rebels on free footing The Natal government was far sterner in its attitude towards suspected rebels who were still on free footing. The point of departure had always been that Natal Afrikaners guilty of high treason should be punished by a court of law. This inflexible stance, which failed to give objective consideration to the circumstances which led to rebellion, was one of the reasons for the failure of earlier peace negotiations on 28 February 1901, between the commanders of the Boer and British forces – General Louis Botha and Lord Horatio Kitchener respectively. While Kitchener was prepared to give the Cape and Natal rebels amnesty,12 the Natal authorities had found a powerful ally in the doctrinaire high commissioner, Lord Alfred Milner, who for his own reasons of social engineering, wanted to see the rebels punished “according to the laws of the Colony”.13 Just over a year after the failed peace negotiations, in May 1902, with peace talks between Britain and the Boer Republics in the air, the issue of how to treat suspected rebels still on free footing as well as the convicted rebels in prison, was raised again. The governor of Natal, HE McCallum, recommended that

9 PAR, Attorney-General’s Office (AGO), Vol. I/8/89: Letter Griffin and Muller/Attorney-General, 9 April 1903. 10 PAR, AGO, Vol. I/8/89: Correspondence HA Potgieter/Attorney-General, 16 May 1903 - 14 November 1903. 11 PAR, AGO, Vol. I/8/85: Correspondence, fine of £50 imposed on PJ Cromhout, 17 September 1902 - 30 November 1902. 12 T Pakenham, Die Boereoorlog (Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, 1979), pp. 508–512. 13 LS Amery (ed)., The Times history of the war in South Africa, 1899–1902, Vol. IV (Samson Low, Marston & Co, London, 1900–1909), p. 554; SB Spies, Methods of barbarism? Roberts and Kitchener and civilians in the Boer Republics, January 1900 - May 1902, (Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, 1977), p. 209; C Saunders & N Southey, A dictionary of South African history, (David Philip, Cape Town, 1998), p. 113.

• 142 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels suspected rebels still free should receive a prison sentence not exceeding two years and disenfranchisement for life.14 The Natal authorities, however, dug in their heels and rejected McCallum’s suggestion.15 To the Natal government the issue of managerial autonomy was paramount; it was determined to adhere to the position adopted in February 1901,16 that suspected Natal Afrikaner rebels still on free footing would neither be pardoned nor receive a predetermined sentence, but would “have to take their chance under ordinary law”.17 The peace negotiations between Britain and the Boer Republics took place against this hard-line position adopted by the Natal government. The outcome was the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging on 31 May 1902, which brought the Anglo-Boer War to an end. The Natal government proved to be a minor role player and hardly featured in the peace negotiations. As a result, a certain amount of confusion reigned on the plight of both the suspected and convicted Natal rebels. Matters were further complicated when, within days of peace being signed, the Natal authorities received a telegram from Lord Kitchener which read:18 I would personally consider it a great favour if your Ministers would grant clemency to Natal rebels who were forced to join the enemy when the Boers occupied Natal, when they had no adequate protection, on the same line as the Cape are according to their rebels, viz: - disenfranchisement for life. This telegram, which characterised the Natal rebels as victims was the result of informal discussions held during the peace negotiations, because the issue of the rebels had been avoided and no reference at all was made to it in the actual terms of the peace agreement. Kitchener’s request was rejected out of hand by the Natal government and it was left to Governor McCallum to inform High Commissioner Milner; the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain; and Lord Kitchener, that the Natal government believed that any form of clemency would be unjust to those already convicted. Furthermore, the Natal government was determined that they wanted to treat “rebellion as rebellion”.19

14 Public Record Office (PRO), Colonial Office (CO), Vol. 179/223: Confidential despatch HE McCallum (Governor)/AH Hime (Prime Minister), 1 May 1902. 15 PRO, CO, Vol. 179/223: Confidential despatch HE McCallum (Governor)/A Milner (High Commissioner), 3 May 1902. 16 PRO, CO, Vol. 179/223: Extract Natal minister’s minute, 2 May 1902. 17 T Pakenham, Die Boereoorlog, p. 563. 18 T Pakenham, Die Boereoorlog, pp. 581–592. 19 PAR, Government House (GH), Vol. 1304 & 497: Confidential despatch HE McCallum (Governor)/Lord H Kitchener, 5 June 1902; PRO, CO, Vol. 179/223: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 7 June 1902.

• 143 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

This stance was duly thrown into some disarray when General Schalk Burger, the former acting president of the Transvaal, explained in early June 1902, while visiting the Natal concentration camps and the Umbilo Prisoner-of- War (POW) Camp, that if suspected Natal rebels on free footing returned to the colony they would be punished in accordance with the ordinary laws.20 Burger’s carefully crafted speech, endorsed by the British Army and repeated verbatim at each site, was supported by Governor HE McCallum, who on 17 June 1902 clarified that: “It has been arranged that Natal rebels who are surrendering will not be proceeded against unless they re-enter Natal.”21 The Natal government was taken aback by these statements and claimed that it had not been informed that suspected rebels could reside in the former republics without fear of prosecution. Asked for an explanation, Milner in his response concurred with Burger and McCallum, saying: “I do not think it would be impolitic to endeavour to bring down into the Colony of Natal rebels who have surrendered without it [outside Natal].” However, if they did so it would be at their own risk.22 Although no formal pledge was given in this regard at the May 1902 peace negotiations it was clear that Kitchener’s proposal, as expressed in his letter of 7 March 1901 to Louis Botha (that suspected rebels would not be forced to return to their respective colonies – the Cape and Natal), was still in place. The outcome of all this was deep uncertainty in the ranks of the Natal authorities about the position of the suspected rebels still on free footing in the two republics. Indeed, the attorney-general, who had to oversee the prosecution of rebels; the magistrates who had to try them; and the police who had to arrest them; were all unsure of the official position of their government. The Natal government at least had the sympathy of Alfred Milner who deemed that its position on the treatment of these rebels was sound and correct. However, Milner was more pragmatic than principled and in terms of the bigger picture he thought it was in the best interest of all to yield to a point to which the Boer leaders attached considerable importance, namely an acceptable post-war settlement for Natal and Cape rebels. He therefore felt: “It would be well now to wind up this rebel business sharp.” To convince

20 PAR, CO, Vol. 179/223: Speech by General SW Burger at Howick Concentration Camp, 5 June 1902. 21 PAR, GH, Vol. 545: Enquiry GOC, Natal regarding Natal rebels in the Vryheid and Utrecht districts, 13 June 1902 - 25 June 1902. 22 PAR, AGO, Vol. I/8/85: Request by attorney-general that his department be informed of the official policy regarding rebels, 23 June 1902 - 30 June 1902; PAR, Prime Minister’s Office (PM), Vol. 92: Letter M Matthews, (Magistrate, Dundee)/FR Moor, 24 July 1902.

• 144 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels the Natal government that the issue at stake was an Imperial and southern African issue, and not merely a Natal one, for the Cape Colony faced similar challenges on a much larger scale,23 became the duty of Governor McCallum.24 At this stage it was thus clear, to Milner and McCallum at least, that the Natal government was not approaching the rebel issue with sufficient zeal or in the required direction; they needed judicious external encouragement to elicit the expected response. McCallum’s task in achieving this was, on the face of it, made somewhat easier by the fact that Hime was on holiday in Britain and that the acting prime minister was FR Moor. Like Milner, McCallum wanted the slate wiped clean in terms of the rebels; they should not be “allowed to live on our borders in daily communication with their friends in the Colony and, exiled from their homes, be an ever present sore prejudicial to the re- establishment of peace, good order and unity”. The suspected rebels outside the jurisdiction of the Colony of Natal were thus clearly deemed troublesome pockets of unresolved legal conflict;25 the matter had to be addressed to ensure the workability of the post-war state. McCallum’s task was not an easy one. The Natal government was adamant that it wanted to retain the right to punish its own subjects. It felt its autonomy was at stake and that Imperial and southern African concerns therefore paled in significance. Through Attorney-General GA De R Labistour, who before assuming his position had acted as the defence council for many Natal rebels, it was made clear that the intention was to proceed against every suspected rebel who returned to Natal in precisely the same way and along the same lines as those who had already been tried.26 Ironically, the Natal government not only received stout support for this stance from the English colonists, but also reputedly from the Natal Afrikaners in the Dundee district. According to the local magistrate:27 The whisper which is going round of pardon to all these men who have hung out to the end of the war, is causing great dissatisfaction amongst the English,

23 The difference of scale between the Cape Colony and Natal is borne out by the fact that in the Cape Colony 3 422 rebels surrendered after the war had ended while in Natal only one did so. T Shearing & D Shearing, The rebel record, South African War 1899-1902, Cape Commando Series - A-H (Blitsdruk, George, 2011), pp. vii-viii. 24 PRO, CO, Vol. 179/223: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 26 July 1902. 25 The Cape Colony faced a similar challenged and it is estimated that between 700 and 800 Cape rebels resided under similar judicial conditions in the former republics. T Shearing & D Shearing, The rebel record. South African War 1899-1902, Cape Commando Series - A-H, pp. vii-viii. 26 PAR, GH, Vol. 1304: Memorandum regarding Natal rebels GA De R Labistour (Attorney-General), 29 June 1902. 27 PAR, PM, Vol. 92: Letter M Matthews (Magistrate, Dundee)/FR Moor (Acting Prime Minister), 24 July 1902.

• 145 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Dutch, and natives. The Boers who have been punished and allowed to return to their farms, and the relations of those who are still in the Maritzburg Gaol, denounce the very suggestion of forgiveness of those who held out to the end, as a terrible injustice … They say that the imprisonment which they had suffered cannot now be undone, but that they will use every effort in their power to secure the return of the fine imposed on them by the Special Court. Such sentiments provide an indication that those Natal rebels who had been punished before for treasonable activities had not hardened themselves and wanted war related issues to be resolved as soon as possible. Attitudes like this did not deter the tenacious McCallum and in an attempt to bring the Natal government around to the imperial point of view he had numerous discussions with Moor on the procedure which should be adopted. In the course of these talks the Natal government agreed that it wanted to secure good order as soon as possible and remove all evidence of the rebellion which had torn the colony apart. In adopting this point of departure the government inadvertently realised that it would have to make certain compromises and that the issue of bringing suspected rebels to court was intertwined with an undertaking given to the Boer delegates at Vereeniging that rank-and-file rebels who were in prison, should be released as an act of royal clemency. This in turn, according to McCallum, would become the leverage for persuading suspected rebels outside Natal, trusting that the same clemency would be extended to them, to come in and stand trial. Under pressure, on 2 July 1902, the Natal government eventually caved in and agreed in principle that Governor McCallum could remit the unexpired periods of all convicted rebels’ sentences to two years and under. However, it felt that clemency should not be exercised in more serious cases and that nothing should be done to prejudice the position of ringleaders and rebels still at large. Having made a serious compromise on the stance adopted previously, the government was hoping for some support in bringing the suspected rebels who were in the former republics to trial. Accordingly, General Louis Botha was invited to discussions with McCallum and Moor but Botha was not prepared to commit himself to persuading the suspected rebels to surrender unless amnesty was offered. He was on the verge of leaving for Europe and had other urgent issues at hand; the initiative of the Natal government to use him as mediator to bring in the suspected rebels still at large, thus failed to bear fruit.28

28 PRO, CO, Vol. 179/223: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 26 July 1902.

• 146 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels

In the meantime, Joseph Chamberlain was worried that Governor McCallum was bullying the Natal government into supporting clemency for rebels,29 and had to be assured by Milner that the proposed policy, which was “a good way out of a awkward situation”, was based on support by the Natal government. Milner therefore posed the critical question to Chamberlain: “Do you approve this policy?”30 Chamberlain was not quite ready to support the proposed policy on clemency, mainly because of the problems the Royal Commission of Enquiry, appointed by the Imperial government to investigate sentences passed under martial law, was facing in Natal.31 The root of the problem was the action taken by the Natal government after peace had been concluded. It had passed Act 22 of 1902 and Act 35 of 1902, both of which confirmed all sentences passed by military courts, and indemnified the governor and the military with regard to acts committed under martial law.32 In passing these laws, and remitting the sentences of seven Natal Afrikaners convicted of high treason by court martial, the Natal government had seriously undermined the commission and this angered London.33 In fact, the indemnity laws passed meant that the commission could only review sentences handed down after 10 June 1902, in other words sentences not covered by the laws and passed after the war had ended. The Royal Commission of Enquiry thus found itself in a predicament because it was impossible to revise sentences which had already been confirmed by the Natal parliament.34 Chamberlain must have felt rattled that his autonomy over a very small colony was slipping away. The matter was only resolved after lengthy correspondence between McCallum and Chamberlain and when the Natal authorities relented to pressure from London and allowed the Royal Commission of Enquiry to sit in

29 PAR, GH, Vol. 497: Telegram J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies)/A Milner (High Commissioner), 28 July 1902. 30 PAR, GH, Vol. 497: Telegram A Milner (High Commissioner)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 29 July 1902. 31 In the Cape Colony the Royal Commission had much more success and commuted the life sentences of hundreds of Cape rebels sentenced to life imprisonment to two years for those under 21 years of age and three years for those older. T Shearing & D Shearing, The rebel record. South African War 1899-1902, Cape Commando Series - A-H, pp. vii-viii. 32 PRO, CO, Vol. 179/223: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 13 June 1902. 33 PAR, GH, Vol. 1302: Memorandum HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 16 August 1902; PAR, GH, Vol. 474: Correspondence relative to rebel prisoners tried by court martial, 26 June 1902 - 29 September 1902. 34 PAR, GH, Vol. 1304: Confidential despatch GA De R Labistour (Attorney-General)/AH Hime (Prime Minister), 23 July 1902.

• 147 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Pietermaritzburg on 30 September 1902.35 What soon became clear was that Natal’s right to autonomy in managing the convicted rebels was contingent on the realisation of a requirement made by the Empire, namely to allow the Royal Commission of Enquiry to conduct its work in the colony. Only once this permission had been granted did Chamberlain, on 2 August 1902, agree to the proposed policy of clemency whereby Governor McCallum could, under Royal Instructions and Letters Patent, on the advice and under recommendation of the ministers, pardon rebels convicted by courts other than military courts. Having achieved its objectives the imperial authorities from then on stepped back to allow the process of post-war reconstruction to unfold under the management of the Natal government.

Extending clemency to imprisoned rebels and attempts to draw in those on free footing McCallum wasted no time in having the cases of rebels still in prison investigated by the attorney-general. As a result, in September 1902, symbolically chosen to coincide with the coronation festivities leading to the installation of Edward VII, 35 rebels, all rank-and-file members whose sentences did not exceed two years, had their remaining time remitted. Fines were, however, not waived and neither was the clemency extended to Natal Afrikaners convicted of theft and sentenced to hard labour. Freeing the convicted rebels in question did not constitute a free pardon and, under the Charter of 15 July 1856, they still remained disenfranchised. On the basis of this decision General Cheere Emmett, the brother-in-law of Louis Botha, and a resident of the Vryheid district where most of the suspected Natal rebels who were still on free footing resided, undertook to recommend that they go en bloc to stand trial, trusting that clemency would be extended to them as well.36 To the Natal and Imperial governments this was a significant gesture in dealing in a reconciliatory manner with the divisive legacy of the war. At

35 PAR, GH, Vol. 1680: Submission President, Royal Commission on Martial Law sentences, 30 September 1902; PAR, GH, Vol. 474: Correspondence relative to rebel prisoners tried by court martial, 26 June 1902 - 29 September 1902. 36 PAR, PM, Vol. 92: Correspondence relative to the consideration of sentences passed on rebels, 26 July 1902 - 2 September 1902; PAR, GH, Vol. 1302: Memorandum HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 16 August 1902.

• 148 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels the same time it was also a positive answer to some of the requests they had received from family members and English neighbours for the release of rebels from prison. However, requests falling outside the agreed upon parameters were rejected.37 Shortly afterwards, in an additional act of reconciliation and a further attempt to reach closure on the rebel matter, the Natal government ordered an investigation into the cases of the remaining imprisoned rebels. This was to be undertaken by Magistrate W Broome, a former member of the Special Court.38 In his recommendation Broome created two categories. The first comprised rebel leaders, those who had played an active part in the war, or participated in looting and stealing. In his view they should not be granted mercy. This meant that rebels like LJ de Jager, GF Kemp, CS Botha, and JJ Dekker, who had been sentenced to five, four, ten and seven years respectively, had to serve their full sentences. The second category consisted of rank-and- file members who Broome recommended should be released on completion of 18 months or two years of their sentences, or after having paid their fines.39 Based on these recommendations, one rebel was discharged, 13 had their sentences fully remitted, while 12 had part of their sentences remitted. However, the 12 so-called ringleaders remained the real cause for concern to the Natal government because several of them still had a number of years to serve. To force them to serve out their prison terms would not bring the desired closure since someone like CS Botha would then only be released in February 1912. In the view of the Natal authorities this was not conducive to reconciliation and closure on the one hand; and on the other it would discourage the “bittereinder” rebels still residing outside the borders of the colony from coming in to stand trial. Unsurprisingly then, Prime Minister Hime raised the idea of a general revision of sentences, while still, as he put it, remaining “practical, just and fair”.40

37 PAR, PM, Vol. 118: Letter GT Plowman (Secretary)/Mrs Kritzinger (jnr), no date; PAR, PM, Vol. 118: Petition brothers of JA van Rooyen for his release from prison, 9 June 1902; PAR, Magistrate Utrecht, (1/UTR), Vol. 3/3/1: Petition for release of DC Uys, 20 November 1902 - 15 December 1902; PAR, PM, Vol. 32: Application for release of PR Buys, 12 September 1902 - 20 September 1902; PAR, PM, Vol. 32: Application for release of AC Vermaak, 2 September 1902; PAR, PM, Vol. 31: Application Mrs JM Robbertse (jnr) for the release of her husband, 22 August 1902 - 25 August 1902; PAR, PM, Vol. 30: Application TB Tweedie for release of CF Marais, 15 July 1902 - 17 July 1902. 38 PAR, AGO, Vol. I/7/44: Minute paper, A De R Labistour (Attorney-General)/W Broome (Magistrate), 27 August 1902. 39 PAR, AGO, Vol. I/7/44: Memorandum W Broome (Magistrate) on cases of certain rebels convicted by the Special Court, 1 September 1902. 40 PAR, AGO, Vol. I/7/44: Documentation regarding the remission of sentences of Natal rebels, 8 September 1902 - 9 September 1902; PAR, GH, Vol. 1302: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 23 October 1902.

• 149 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

In light of the conciliatory position adopted, and in the hope of drawing out the suspected rebels who were still living in the republics, Attorney-General Labistour proposed that those who could not secure bail should be released on their own recognizance, and that the maximum sentence imposed would be six months imprisonment and a fine of £20 which would, except for the fine and disenfranchisement, be remitted by the Natal government. Cases of theft, other crimes, and acting as leaders during the war were to be dealt with on merit. In a very pragmatic manner Labistour suggested: “Let one or two of these men surrender, plead guilty and see how they are treated.”41 Governor McCallum disagreed with this stick-and-carrot proposal. His biggest concern was that Labistour had given the undertaking that rebels once convicted, would have their prison sentences remitted. The governor, supported by the acting prime minister, wanted no guarantees given.42 As a result the magistrate for Vryheid, the former republican district harbouring the largest number of suspected rebels, was asked to inform those who wished to return to Natal that no assurance could be given and that they had to surrender unconditionally.43 This position, which invited the suspected rebels back not as bone fide members of society but as criminals fleeing justice, only served to undo any progress towards finding closure, because very few of the suspected rebels were willing to surrender unconditionally. The reason for this was straightforward – the rebels had endured a great deal during the war and lacked confidence in the Natal government’s idea of justice when it came to high treason. In a nutshell the suspected rebels residing outside Natal felt they had too much to lose by returning to the colony. The testing ground for the intentions of the Natal Government in dealing with suspected rebels was in its treatment of the Natal Afrikaners amongst the returning Boer POWs from India, Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka), St Helena and Bermuda.44 Frequently updated lists of suspected Natal Afrikaner rebels believed to be POWs were forwarded to all commanders of overseas POW camps with the request that when identified, they be immediately deported back to Natal.45 The suspected rebels would then be imprisoned in Durban

41 PAR, GH, Vol. 1304: Memorandum GA De R Labistour (Attorney-General)/Prime Minister, 30 August 1902. 42 PAR, GH, Vol. 1304: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/FR Moor (Acting Prime Minister), 4 September 1902; PAR, GH, Vol. 1304: Telegram GT Plowman (Secretary)/GA De R Labistour (Attorney-General), 8 September 1902. 43 PAR, GH, Vol. 1304: Telegram FR Moor (Acting Prime Minister)/Magistrate Vryheid, 10 September 1902. 44 PAR, HF Schoon collection, A 72: Diary entry, 27 September 1902, p. 144. 45 PAR, GH, Vol. 563: Minute paper with instructions to ship captains on how to deal with Natal rebels, 20 September 1902.

• 150 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels before being despatched to their home districts for trial.46 To ensure that none slipped the net, a premium was also placed on personal identification. So much so that a loyalist Natal Afrikaner, CR (Coenraad) Cronjé, and an English-speaking Natalian, Kirby, were employed on the dockside in Durban and in the Umbilo POW Camp to identify suspected rebels from amongst the returning POWs.47 Despite the measures taken it proved impossible to identify and apprehend all suspected Natal rebels among the throng of returning POWs. Six, for example, landed at Cape Town and were erroneously allowed to proceed to the former Orange Free State (the Orange River Colony after 31 May 1902). This meant that they could only be charged should they decide to return Natal.48 At the same time it proved difficult to distinguish between suspected Natal rebels and bona fide residents of the republics. For example, three burghers from Vryheid were initially arrested on suspicion of being Natal rebels.49 In the end, only seven of the forty-four Natal Afrikaners originally identified as suspected rebels were convicted of high treason. The sentences imposed were very light for the most part – a fine of £10–20 or several months’ imprisonment.50 What the sentences did reveal was the government’s intention on the one hand to show its autonomy by punishing its subjects while on the other displaying compassion by ensuring that the judgements imposed were merciful. But despite all the efforts and undertakings by the Natal government, the suspected rebels who were still on free footing in the former republics were unwilling to cross the border to throw themselves at the mercy of the courts – except for a single individual, JJ Potgieter of Estcourt. He returned to Natal and on 11 November 1902 was sentenced to five months in prison.51 For the

46 PAR, GH, Vol. 742: Telegram J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies)/High Commissioner A Milner, 28 June 1902. 47 PAR, GH, Vol. 563: Report Staff Office Prisoners Umbilo the detention of ST Potgieter, 1 December 1902 - 11 December 1902. 48 Free State Archive Repository (FAR), Colonial Office (CO), Vol. 143: Correspondence file dealing with Natal rebels allowed to proceed to Orange River Colony by mistake, 9 February 1903 - 17 March 1903. 49 PAR, GH, Vol. 563: Minute paper Staff Office Prisoners Umbilo three suspected Natal rebels sent to Vryheid, 12 - 21 August 1902. 50 PAR, GH, Vol. 563: Minute paper on the arrest of eight Natal rebels returning from Ceylon onboard the Templemore, 22 July 1902; PAR, GH, Vol. 742: Nominal role of Natal rebels compiled by Major SHM Conran, Bellary, India, 15 November 1902; PAR, GH, Vol. 563: Report on the arrival of rebels on board the Ionian from India, 15 - 18 November 1902; PAR; GH, Vol. 742: Report Lt-Col AC Vincent from Ceylon on MC van Niekerk, 11 December 1902; OE Prozesky private collection, Diary of JJA Prozesky: Diary entry, 27 August 1900, p. 164. 51 PAR, Natal Defence Records (NDR), Vol. 7/2: Anglo-Boer War rebel register, 1900-1902.

• 151 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) rest, their suspicion and the resentment they felt towards the Natal authorities, rooted in the experiences their kin had endured during the war-time rebel trials, ran way too deep. They feared the punishment that might be meted out by an unyielding government.52 Governor McCallum was forced to admit that the efforts to entice suspected rebels to return to stand trial had failed. From their side, possibly sensing that they held the upper hand, the suspected rebels were adamant that they wanted to come to some agreement with the Natal government. However, the authorities were not prepared to negotiate any deal at all, not even with destitute suspected rebels such as GPJG van Zyl, a bywoner of The Oaks, Newcastle, who was prepared to return to Natal to stand trial if provision was made to support his family.53 In an attempt to break the impasse, Attorney-General Labistour allowed a group of 21 suspected Natal rebels, including two Landmans, five Van Tonders, three Strydoms, and four Van Rooyens, to make enquiries via the Vryheid magistrate about the charges against them. The Natal Police indicated that the charges against these men were insignificant and that they would possibly each receive (as per a previous proposal by Labistour) a six-month prison sentence and a fine of £20.54 However, the Natal Police indicated via the magistrate that they were hoping to arrest Gideon Kok and GM de Waal who were suspected of participating, along with 50 other Natal rebels and members of the Swaziland Police under the Russian, Captain Pokrovsky, in the attack on the Wasbank Station in October 1900.55 The initiative by Labistour landed the Vryheid magistrate in hot water, since both Governor HE McCallum and Prime Minister AH Hime rejected the plan out of hand. The magistrate was reprimanded for conveying information on the charges against them to the rebels and was instructed not to bargain with them but merely to inform them that they should surrender and plead guilty.56

52 PAR, CO, Vol. 179/224: Correspondence regarding rebels returning to Natal to stand trial, 29 August 1902 - 11 September 1902; PAR, PM, Vol. 92: Correspondence regarding rebels returning to Natal to stand trial, 29 August 1902 - 11 September 1902. 53 PAR, PM, Vol. 30: Enquiry RH Beachcroft (Magistrate Utrecht) on support for families of Natal rebels who wanted to surrender, 2 July 1902 - 12 July 1902. 54 PAR, PM, Vol. 33: Correspondence regarding the charges against 21 rebels resident in the Vryheid district, 12 September 1902 - 17 December 1902. 55 PRO, CO, Vol. 179/214: Letter W Hely-Hutchinson (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 27 October 1900; A Davidson & I Filatova, The Russians and the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902, (Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, 1998), pp. 41 - 42. 56 PAR, PM, Vol. 33: Correspondence regarding the charges against 21 rebels resident in the Vryheid district, 12 September 1902 - 17 December 1902.

• 152 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels

At this stage the Natal authorities were becoming increasingly exasperated that they were making so little headway. McCallum commented: “I think we have gone too far already. These men must be told once and for all that they must stand their trial unconditionally and that if they do not do so they had better clear out of the new territories at once as they may be declared a portion of Natal by Letters any day now.”57 What McCallum was referring to was the geopolitical changes that were about to take place with the ceding of the Vryheid and Utrecht districts, as well as part of the Wakkerstroom district, to Natal.58

The impact of the geopolitical changes on suspected rebels still on free footing McCallum’s assessment of the situation was, however, based on the false premise that the incorporation into Natal of the Vryheid district, where many of the estimated 200–300 suspected rebels lived, would alter their legal status. This was not the case; the incorporation could not invalidate previous undertakings. Because this was not common knowledge among the suspected rebels, the impending geopolitical changes caused a degree of panic. Expecting that they might have to flee the area, the suspected rebels made an unsuccessful attempt to enlist the assistance of WH Tatham, a Natal politician and businessman, to negotiate a general pardon.59 With the incorporation of their safe haven into Natal now imminent, some of the suspected rebels decided to test the waters. The first to do so was nineteen-year-old Marthinus Koekemoer of Proviso B in Zululand, who re- entered Natal to stand trial. However, to the surprise of all concerned, not the least Koekemoer himself, he was not charged.60 This brought home a new reality to both the Natal government and the suspected rebels – due to the time that had elapsed, gathering reliable evidence was a real challenge. This was also the experience of ten Natal Afrikaners resident in the Orange River Colony, who admitted guilt of collaboration with the Boers and wanted to

57 PAR, GH, Vol. 1302: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 23 October 1902; PRO, Vol. CO, 179/224: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 23 October 1902. 58 EH Brookes & C de B Webb, A History of Natal, (University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, 1987), p. 211. 59 PAR, PM, Vol. 92: Enquiry by rebels in the Vryheid district about their status after annexation, 13 September 1902 - 30 September 1902. 60 PAR, PM, Vol. 33: Correspondence regarding the charges against 21 rebels resident in the Vryheid district, 12 September 1902 - 17 December 1902.

• 153 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) return to Natal to stand trial. However, it proved impossible for the Natal authorities to gather evidence of their treasonable activities because many of them shared the same names and surnames. Eventually only Johannes Pretorius of Cundycleugh was identified as a ringleader.61 The fact that most of those who returned had escaped conviction because of lack of evidence, plus the completion of the transfer in late December 1902 of the Utrecht and Vryheid districts to Natal, prompted a large number of suspected rebels to indicate their willingness to surrender to the Dundee magistrate.62 True to their word, 23 did so,63 and none were charged with high treason. These developments motivated Cheere Emmett to ask that a free pardon be extended to the remaining rebels who were still imprisoned – but he was politely informed that this was impossible at the time. An edited letter (not mailed to Emmett) provides significant insight on the matter:64

His Excellency the Governor [McCallum], however, states that if the citizens of Dutch extraction in Natal proper, and in the new territories about to be annexed to Natal, including the Ministers of the Reformed Church, do all in their power in the cause of union, he will be willing to reopen the question and consider another petition on the same subject in a year’s time from now. Although not a public document this letter provides an important indication of the thinking of the Natal government: that the plight of the rebels was directly related to the behaviour of their Afrikaner subjects in Natal. The issue of the rebels was an instrument that could be used to suppress dissent and ensure the smooth management of the local Afrikaners. Post-war reconciliation was therefore not a genuine intent but rather a means to ensure control of a restless section of the populace. McCallum’s frustration must have been palpable; by the end of 1902 an estimated 258 Natal rebels were still at large.65 Many of them had decided to

61 PAR, PM, Vol. 33: Petition HJ Potgieter and other rebels who wanted to return to Natal from Harrismith, 17 September 1902 - 24 October 1902. 62 PAR, AGO, Vol. I/8/87: Minute paper Natal rebels surrendering from Vryheid district, 18 December 1902 - 19 December 1902. 63 PAR, AGO, Vol. I/8/87: Correspondence regarding Natal rebels in the Vryheid district, 7 December 1902 - 23 December 1902. 64 PAR, PM, Vol. 35: Petition C Emmett (General) asking for a free pardon for Natal rebels, 22 December 1902 - 29 December 1902. 65 PAR, AGO, Vol. I/8/87: Correspondence regarding Natal rebels in the Vryheid district, 7 December 1902 - 23 December 1902.

• 154 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels settle permanently in the Vryheid district rather than return to Natal.66 These men, by their mere presence in what was now Natal, were to a certain extent holding the Natal authorities to ransom. Realising this, on 1 February 1903, in an attempt to reach closure on the rebel issue, the government re-focused its attention on the 20 convicted rebels who were still languishing in prison.

Winding-up the rebel business The plight of the 20 men, generally the most serious offenders, was again reviewed and the Natal government decided that a radical change in policy was required. The geopolitical changes in the region were partly responsible for this shift in attitude; the colony could hardly allow a prolonged situation in which rebels resided within their borders but remained immune to arrest. The change in policy was embodied by the passing of Proclamations 23 and 24 of 1903. Proclamation 24 dissolved Act 14 of 1900, which also meant the termination of the Special Court. Proclamation 23 in turn pardoned all rebels, both those imprisoned and those untried “in order to promote goodwill ... and to remove as far as possible the recollection of all the causes of enmity which existed during the late war”.67 As a result, all the imprisoned rebels except for TP Lezar, NP Jordaan, GP Kemp and RJ Vermaak, were released on 12 March 1903. The four men in question were not freed because they had not yet paid the fines imposed upon them.68 The refusal to release these four rebels meant that the slate was still not entirely clean, but help was at hand. The case of these prisoners was taken up by several people. Warden Hunter of the Eshowe Prison, with the permission of the governor of the prison, petitioned the prime minister for the release of Vermaak,69 while Dominee WP Rousseau of the Dutch Reformed Church in Pietermaritzburg appealed to the authorities for the release of all the rebels, pointing out that they were very poor, their families were destitute, and they were in no position to pay the fines. In the cases of Kemp and Jordaan this was confirmed by an English colonist from Dundee, a certain Williams, who

66 PAR, PM, Vol. 39: Application by Natal Afrikaners resident in the Vryheid district for economic assistance, 21 April 1903. 67 PAR, NCP, Vol. 6/1/1/57: The Natal Government Gazette, 12 March 1903. A similar amnesty was issued in the Cape Colony in 1903. T Shearing & D Shearing, The rebel record. South African War 1899-1902, Cape Commando Series - A-H, pp. vii-viii. 68 PAR, PM, Vol. 38: Warrant for the remission of sentences passed on certain rebels, 11 March 1903 - 13 March 1903. 69 PAR, PM, Vol. 38: Petition for release of RJ Vermaak, 20 March 1903 - 28 March 1903.

• 155 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) likewise asked that the rebels be pardoned. The Natal authorities refused to accept these requests at face value and launched their own investigation into the economic circumstances of the four men, eventually reaching the same conclusion.70 Despite the outspoken disapproval of Governor McCallum, the Natal government had no choice but to recommend the release of the four men. Although McCallum reluctantly agreed that Lezar and Vermaak could be released, since their fines were optional, he felt that the discharge of Jordaan and Kemp was, “a change of policy”,71 and complained to Chamberlain: “We have hitherto treated rebellion with dignity and firmness, and it is, to my mind, a pity that Ministers did not decide to continue to do so to the end.”72 The government defended its decision by insisting that this was not a change of policy; the four men simply could not pay the fines levied so it was felt “that it was inexpedient that the men should remain in goal for the periods of imprisonment which constituted the alternative of the fines imposed upon them”. McCallum was still not convinced. He grumbled that it was unjust to liberate the men without extracting payment of fines. However, he was prepared to sign the warrants of release for “political reasons”.73 It had become clear that the government had to put the lid on the controversy. They had no alternative; they had to get rid of “left over spoilers”, members of a previous era who might cripple the post-war workings of the state.74 The rebels still in prison symbolised such “leftovers”. The Natal government’s step, which brought the rebel saga to a close, was lauded by Louis Botha who felt it would mark a “new era in racial relations of South Africa”.75 In Utrecht, 166 men signed a petition expressing their appreciation of the government’s decision.76 Support for the pardon also

70 PAR, PM, Vol. 88: Correspondence regarding the release of Lezar, Vermaak, Jordaan and Kemp, 19 March 1903 - 16 March 1903. 71 PAR, GH, 1305: Correspondence regarding the release of the remaining imprisoned rebels, 6 April 1903 - 6 May 1903; PAR, PM, Vol. 38: Warrants authorising the release of four prisoners, 15 April 1903 - 21 April 1903; PAR, GH, Vol. 1302: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 16 April 1903. 72 VS Harris, “The reluctant rebels: The impact of the Second Anglo-Boer War upon the Klip River Dutch Community, with special reference to the Dutch community of Dundee” (BA Honours, UNP, 1982), p. 48. 73 PAR, GH, Vol. 1305: Correspondence regarding the release of the remaining imprisoned rebels, 6 April 1903 - 6 May 1903; PAR, PM, Vol. 38: Warrants authorising the release of four prisoners, 15 April 1903 - 21 April 1903; PAR, GH, Vol. 1302: Letter HE McCallum (Governor)/J Chamberlain (Secretary of State for the Colonies), 16 April 1903. 74 T Cowen & CJ Coyne, “Post-war reconstruction: Some insights from public choice and institutional economics”, Constitutional Political Economy, 16, 2005, pp. 31-48. 75 PAR, PM, Vol. 38: Telegram LJ Botha (General)/Colonial Secretary, 14 March 1903. 76 PAR, CSO, Vol. 1747: Petition by 166 inhabitants of the Utrecht district, 30 November 1903 - 10 December 1903.

• 156 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels came from the jingoistic Natal press. The Natal Witness expressed the hope that it would promote “unity and goodwill”,77 while the Dundee and District Advertiser described it as “the most important official document published in this colony since 1899 ...” It went on to express the hope that this would lead to reconciliation.78 Although the Natal government’s decision was indeed a positive step towards eradicating the legacy of the war, issues such as disenfranchisement for example, were still unresolved. The Natal government was only prepared to give free pardon to all convicted rebels in 1905. This request was supported by the secretary of state for the colonies and his suggestion was adopted that this be done on the king’s birthday in November.79 Proclamation No. 116 of 1905, issued on 8 November 1905, therefore removed all civil disabilities including disfranchisement, to which rebels were subjected.80 The rebel saga, at least in political terms, was now a closed book. The change of heart that prompted this process cannot be attributed entirely to post-war reconciliation on the part of the Natal government. The stirrings among certain sectors of the Zulu population, which culminated in the Bhambatha rebellion in 1906,81 no doubt also had a role in convincing the government in 1905 to close the book on its Afrikaner rebels so as to present a white unity front in response to an African threat. Although all convicted rebels were no doubt pleased with the political pardon, De Afrikaner managed to place it within the context of the mood that still prevailed among certain Natal Afrikaners:82 In some copies of our previous issue we announced the “free” pardon granted to Natal burghers who had been guilty of rebellion, or whatever one likes to call it, in connection with the Boer War. The temptation to traverse those convictions, the circumstances under which they were obtained is great but being desirous of letting the past rest we shall say nothing about the matter. We are sincerely grateful to His Majesty the King for the removal of an obstacle which has been in the way, for some years, of the good relationship

77 Natal Witness, 14 March 1903. 78 Dundee and District Advertiser, 19 March 1903. 79 PAR, PM, Vol. 53: Proposal by the Natal Government that persons convicted of high treason be pardoned, 14 April 1905 - 15 May 905; PAR, PM, Vol. 100: Telegrams regarding free pardon of Natal rebels, 14 October 1904 - 17 October 1905. 80 PAR, NCP, Vol. 6/1/1/61: Natal Government Gazette, 8 November 1905. The Cape Colony who did not face the same challenges as their Natal counterparts only reversed disfranchisement in 1906. HA Shearing, “The Cape rebel of the South African War, 1899-1902” (PhD, US, 2004), p. 265. 81 For a comprehensive overview of the Bhambatha rebellion, see S Marks, Reluctant rebellion: The 1906-1908 disturbances in Natal (Oxford, Clarendon Press: 1970), passim. 82 PAR, Colonial Secretaries Office (CSO), Vol. 1803: Translation from article in De Afrikaner, 13 November 1905.

• 157 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

between the white races in this part of his dominions. This gratitude may not, however, prevent us from declaring how much we regret the reference in the proclamation to fines which cannot be refunded and to compensation which cannot be made ... this is only half free. This statement by De Afrikaner rang true. While the Natal government was conciliatory in its political policy towards the rebels, nothing was done in terms of the Afrikaners’ most pressing post-war need – economic reconstruction – a sentiment shared by their fellow rebels in the Cape Colony.83 In terms of financial assistance to rebels, the Natal government stood by clause 10 of the Vereeniging Peace Treaty, namely that no rebel was entitled to aid. The extension of this stipulation to include all Natal Afrikaners and the granting of free pardon in 1905 merely served to underscore De Afrikaner’s point of view. The Natal Afrikaners simply had to fend for themselves as best they could under extremely difficult conditions. In the view of Harris, the lack of post-war financial aid and economic reconstruction hardened the essentially negative pre-war feelings Natal Afrikaners had towards their government.84

Conclusion In terms of the post-war relationship between Natal Afrikaners and their government, one of the most pressing issues both parties had to deal with was that of rebels – those who had been convicted as well as those who were still on free footing outside the colony. For the Natal government, which was not privy to the intricacies of the peace negotiations between Britain and the republics, the initial post-war management of all rebels was not based on clemency and reconciliation but on their right to deal with their subjects in an autonomous manner. This point of departure was challenged soon after peace was signed, when it became clear that the plight of all Natal rebels was intricately linked to the bigger imperial project of clemency and reconstruction in southern Africa, none more so than to the plight of the vastly superior number of rebels in the Cape Colony. The reaction of the Natal government was to dig in its heels and insist upon managing its rebellious subjects according to its own laws and procedures. It took concerted pressure from Governor McCallum, High Commissioner

83 HA Shearing, “The Cape rebel of the South African War, 1899-1902”, pp. 249-269. 84 VS Harris, “The reluctant rebels: The impact of the Second Anglo-Boer War upon the Klip River Dutch Community, with special reference to the Dutch community of Dundee”, p. 50.

• 158 The post-Anglo-Boer War management of the Natal rebels

Milner and Secretary of State for the Colonies Chamberlain, to prompt the reluctant Natal government to “wind-up this rebel business sharp”. The turning point came when the Royal Commission of Enquiry was forced on the Natal government in exchange for allowing them to pardon certain rebels still in colonial goals. Having achieved this objective, the imperial authorities stepped back, well knowing that the process initiated by the Natal government was now irreversibly geared towards some form of clemency and reconstruction. From then on, the Natal government on its own terms and at regular intervals pardoned the convicted rebels. It came to realise that it had little control over suspected rebels still residing on free footing in the former republics – a position that was not legally altered when the Vryheid and Utrecht districts reverted to Natal at the end of 1902. The untenable reality of having “untouchable” suspected rebels residing within its borders proved too much for the government to handle. It had to eat humble pie and admit that some of its Afrikaner subjects had managed to get away with high treason. In March 1903, in order to maintain a semblance of managerial control, it pardoned, under the guise of clemency and reconciliation, all Natal rebels in terms of Proclamations 23 and 24 of 1903. For both the Natal government and its rebel subjects, the war was finally over on 8 November 1905, when Proclamation No. 116 of 1905 restored full civil liberties to all Natalians convicted of high treason.

• 159 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

• 160 Book reviews

Send books for reviews to:

Prof Archie Dick Book Review Editor (New Contree) IT6-72 University of Pretoria Pretoria, 0002 Email: [email protected] Tel: 27 + 12 + 420 2264 Fax: 27 + 12 + 362 5181

Afrikaners in Angola 1928 – 1975 (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2009, 666 pp., map, photos, bibl., index. ISBN: 978-1-86919-340-9) Nicol Stassen

Ina Fourie Department of Information Science University of Pretoria [email protected]

Considering the limited availability of information on the life and circumstances of Afrikaners in Angola as well as other African countries, Afrikaners in Angola 1928 – 1975 offers a welcome addition to the historian’s research collection. There is no doubt about the need for this publication, for which Afrikaans seems an appropriate language. This, however, limits the readership to Afrikaans-speaking researchers, and may also exclude researchers interested in comparative studies with other white minority communities who stayed on in formerly-colonised African countries. Afrikaners in Angola 1928 – 1975 offers excellent descriptions and analyses of interviews and other data collected, making it valuable for contemporary comparisons.

161 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

It consists of 5 parts covering 17 chapters, preceded by a background sketch in which Stassen explains the rationale, aim and structure. Although the focus of the different parts is explained on pp. 25-26, Stassen addresses Parts 1-3 with no mention of parts 4 and 5. While the latter is briefer than earlier parts, I would expect the background to present the full scenario of what the reader can expect, as well as an explanation on how each part contributes to the overall aim of depicting the life of the Afrikaner community in Angola during the period 1928 to 1975. Preferably, the focus of each part should also be mentioned in the headings of the table of contents. The chapters in parts 1 and 2 report the role of the physical environment, namely geomorphology, climate, plant life, and animal life. Historical developments in Angola are important, and these are divided into seven periods with overlapping dates as well as some gaps in the periods covered, namely Portuguese occupation (1576-1839), slavery and forced labour (1486- 1961), colonisation of inland Angola (1839-1910), Angola and the Portuguese Republic (1910-1926), Angola and Estado Novo (1933-1961), the fight for freedom (1961-1975), and Angola immediately after the revolution (1974- 1975). Although the focus falls on the period 1928 to 1975, it would have been useful to explain, as part of the historical review, that some Afrikaners returned after 1975 (p. 397). Angola’s population is described variously in Chapter 3 as the native population, the white population, Germans, other whites, as well as protestant missionaries and teaching (instead of teachers). Although offering an interesting overview, the choice of these categories and how they relate to each other is not self- evident to the reader. The background to Part 3 is offered in Chapter 4, and explores the economy of Angola in terms of agriculture, animal husbandry, mining, and other industries. Against this background, the Afrikaners’ involvement and life in Angola are portrayed in nine chapters. The Dorslandtreks of 1874 to 1928 set the introduction in Chapter 5. In 1928, many trekkers left Angola, although some stayed on. The reasons for doing so, the number of those staying, those returning to Angola after 1928, those leaving Angola after 1928, their geographic distribution in Angola, and where they stayed are discussed in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 examines the economic situation of those Afrikaners who stayed on in Angola. For the period 1928 to 1958, their interest in independent farming, the agricultural situation, mixed farming, animal farming, hunting, plantations, mining, transportation, etc. are sketched. This chapter also

162 Book reviews addresses the scale of poverty, the reasons for poverty, efforts to address poverty, and the Afrikaner in wealthier circumstances. Chapters 8 to 13 each present a specific aspect of the life and circumstances of Afrikaners in Angola between 1928 and 1958. These include: material culture (i.e. housing, clothes, means of transport and food), spiritual culture (i.e. Afrikaans reading matter, radio broadcasts, the Afrikaans language, festivities and social gatherings and superstition), education, religious life, relationships with other communities, and social conditions. These chapters cover slightly more than one hundred pages. Since this is the essence of Afrikaner existence in Angola for this period, and because Stassen explains that there is not much information available elsewhere, greater depth in discussion and a wider range of aspects would have been useful. Other aspects (specifically depicted as sub-headings) that I think may add value include family life, attitude to law, legislation and government, political awareness, and health and medicine. The repatriation of Afrikaners in Angola is associated with the year 1958, and several causes are noted in Chapter 14. Most were repatriated to South West Africa, some moved to South Africa, and a few stayed behind in Angola. Although offering good descriptive value, this topic can be supplemented by a comparison with repatriation in other contexts – perhaps in a future study. The life of Afrikaners in Angola for the period 1958 to 1975 is portrayed briefly in Chapter 15 with references to the reasons for staying after 1958, new arrivals, numbers and distribution, economic circumstances, education, the Afrikaner’s spiritual world, work done by the church, and the fight for freedom from 1961 to 1975. The flight of the last Afrikaners from Angola in 1975, described in Chapter 16, covers only 8 pages. These chapters offer information not available elsewhere, and studies linking these findings with those in other contexts will enrich historical research on this topic. In chapter 17, Stassen sums up the value of the preceding chapters. Considering the limited amount of research on Afrikaners in Angola, and the limitations in access to resources on this topic, a fuller discussion would have added value. The three-page discussion, with very little reference to present day South African society could have been expanded with suggestions for further studies. References to Afrikaners staying in other African countries or comparison with other nationalities in previously colonised African countries would also have been interesting. As Stassen notes in the preface, no historian can expect to have the last say (p. 13), hence the need to point to further

163 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012) research, especially its value for South Africa today. Useful supporting information is captured in the five appendices. These include geographic names, Afrikaners staying after 1928, Afrikaner women married to Portuguese men by 1928 and staying behind in Angola, Afrikaner women living with Portuguese men by 1928 and staying behind in Angola, and Afrikaners living in Angola round about 1958. Notes on how the data was collected and reference to sources of information would have been useful. The detailed index succeeds in making the contents accessible, as does the extensive list of footnotes. In spite of the limitations pointed out in this review, Afrikaners in Angola 1928 – 1975 is a very important source of historical information on a little-known topic, written in an easily accessible and gripping style.

164 Guidelines

Guidelines for New Contree Book Reviewers

The New Contree Journal publishes reviews of significant books that are rel- evant to historians. Book reviews are written on invitation from the office of the review editor, but unsolicited reviews may also be considered. New Con- tree has an interdisciplinary outlook and welcomes suggestions of historically significant works written by scholars in other disciplines. The review should be submitted to the review editor within two months of receipt of the book. If this deadline cannot be met, a mutually agreeable alternative date can be negotiated. If it becomes impossible to review the book, it should be returned to the review editor. All reviews will be submitted to the members of the edi- torial board before acceptance for publication.

Content The review should summarize what is important in the book, and critique its substance. The reviewer should assess the extent to which the author achieves the stated aim of the book. It is important that the reviewer should engage the material instead of simply reporting the book’s contents. For this reason, the reviewer should try to avoid summations of book chapters or the separate contributions in an edited collection. Instead, the reviewer should assess the ways in which chapters and contributions are relevant to the overall context of the book. Reviews should be written in a style that is accessible to a wide and international audience.

Format The review should generally be between 800 and 1 200 words, and should include as little bibliographic data as possible. When necessary, use page ref- erences for quotations in the text of the review and provide complete biblio- graphic details of the source. The review should begin with a heading that includes all the bibliographic data. The elements of the heading should be arranged in the order presented in the following example:

165 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

The early mission in South Africa/Die vroeë sending in Suid-Afrika, 1799- 1819. By Karel Schoeman. Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2005, 272 pp., map, chronology, bibl., index. ISBN: 1-9198525-42-8. Do not indent the first line of the first paragraph, but indent the first line of all successive paragraphs. Use double spacing for the entire review. Add your name and institutional affiliation at the end of the review. Accuracy of content, grammar, spelling, and citations rests with the reviewer, and we en- courage you to check these before submission. Reviews may be transmitted electronically as a Word file attachment to an email to the review editor. If you have additional questions, please contact:

Archie Dick Book Review Editor, New Contree Email: [email protected] Tel: 27 + 12 + 420 2264 Fax: 27 + 12 + 362 5181

166 Guidelines

New Contree Template guidelines for writing an article

1. Font: Adobe Garamond Pro (throughout document) / Arial (if you don’t have the mentioned font). 2. Body text: 12pt’s 3. Author’s details - ONLY: Title, Campus & University Title: 10 pt., Regular font. Campus & University: 10pt., italics. (See pre- vious articles in published journals as example and a practical guideline). Example: Pieter van Rensburg, Vaal Triangle Campus, North-West Uni- versity

4. Abstract should fit on the first page (where the heading and author’s name appear). (In Microsoft Word about a half page - three quarter page). Theabstract body: Regular font, 10pt. Theheading of the Abstract: Bold & italics, 12pt. 5. The keywords should also fit on the first page just after the abstract. The word ‘Keywords:’ 10pt, bold & underline. Each word/part must start with a capital letter and end with a comma point (;). Example: Meters; People;… (A minimum of six key words is required). 6. Heading of article: 14pt, bold. 7. Main headings in Article: ‘Introduction’ – 12pt, bold. 8. Sub Headings in Article: ‘History…’ – 12pt, bold & italics. 9. Third level sub headings: History… 11pt, bold & underline. 10. Footnotes: 8pt, regular font, BUT note that the footnote numbers in the article text should be 12pt’s.

167 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

The initials of person’s names (in footnote text) should be typed with no full stops in between. Example: LC du Plessis and NOT L.C. du Plessis.

11. Body text: No names with punctuation in text. Example: “HL le Roux said” and NOT “H.L. le Roux said”.

12. Page number/s in the footnote text should be indicated as follows; Example: p.space23 – p. 23. / pp. 23-29. 13. Any lists in the body text should be 11pts and point indicated with bul- lets.

14. Quotes in body text must be used sparingly. If need be, it must be in- dent and in italics (10pts). Only quotes occupying less than one line in a paragraph can be utilized as part of a paragraph, but then with inverted commas and NOT in italics. Example: An owner close to the town stated that: “the pollution history of the river is a muddy business”. 15. Indents (in text): (must be in “double brackets”) “…and she” and NOT ‘…and she’.

16. Illustrations/Pictures, Photographs and Figures (all to be referred to as image): For authors knowing the ‘ropes’, send all pictures for an arti- cle in a jpeg, tiff or pdf format in a separate folder and just indicate where the pictures should be placed in the document’s body text by putting the heading (Image 1: …) in the body text. Remember to save and name pictures in the separate folder accordingly. Important note: All the im- ages should be of good quality (a minimum resolution of 200dpi is re- quired, if the image is not scanned). 17. Punctuation marks should be placed before footnote numbers in text. Example: the end.1 NOT …the end1. 18. Only one space between sentences.

19. Dates: All dates in footnotes should be written out in full. Example: 23 Desember 2010; NOT 23/12/2010. [For additional guidelines see the New Contree reference guidelines] 20. Set language in Microsoft Word as English (South Africa). Go to ‘Re- view’, ‘Set Language’ and select English (South Africa).

168 Footnotes

New Contree Reference guidelines for writing an article

FOOTNOTES Only the footnote method for references is accepted in articles for New Contree. Footnote references should appear at the bottom of each page. Footnotes should be numbered sequentially throughout the article and starting with 1. No other numerical system is allowed. Archival sources/ published works/authors referred to in the text should be cited in full in the first footnote of each new reference. Thereafter it can be reduced to a shorter footnote reference. Do not refer to the exact same source and page numbers in footnotes that follow each other. No exact repetition of a footnote reference on the same page is allowed. For example, if you refer to Y Krone’s source as in footnote 1 and then also in footnote 2, the page references must at least differ. They can’t reference the same pages. The use of the latin word “Ibid” is NOT allowed. Rather refer to the actual reference again (its shortened version) on the rest of a page(s) in the footnote section. In footnote references ONLY the first letter of most words in titles of books, articles, chapters, theses, dissertations and papers/manuscripts should be capi- talised. Only the first letter of the surname of authors should be capitalized, not the complete surname. No names of authors, in full, is allowed. The fol- lowing practical examples will help: Avoid punctuation between initials IN footnotes (and in the article text).

Examples of an article in a journal

GJJ Oosthuizen, “The South African Defence Force versus SWAPO and its allies: Opera- tion Askari, 1983-1984”, New Contree, 50, November 2005, pp. 3-10.

S Marks, “Khoisan resistance to the Dutch in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries”, Journal of African History, 3(1), 1972, p. 76.

1 New Contree, No. 64 (July 2012)

Example of a shortened version of an article in a journal

From:

P Erasmus, “The ‘lost’ South African tribe – rebirth of the Koranna in the Free State”, New Contree, 50, November 2005, p. 77.

To:

P Erasmus, “The ‘lost’ South African tribe…”, New Contree, 50, November 2005, p. 77.

[Please note: only the title of the article can be shortened]

Examples of a reference from a book

WF Lye & C Murray, Transformations on the Highveld: The Tswana and the Southern Sotho (Cape Town, David Phillip, 1980), pp. 7, 10.

JJ Buys, Die oorsprong en migrasiebewegings van die Koranna en hulle rol in die Transgariep tot 1870 (Universiteit van die Vrystaat, Bloemfontein, 1989), pp. 33-34.

[Please note the reference variety to page numbers used]

Example of a shortened version of a reference from a book

From:

JA Conforti (ed.), Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement: Calvinism, the Congre- gational Ministry, and reform in New England between the Great Awakenings (Washing- ton, Christian University Press, 1981), p. 23. To:

JA Conforti (ed.), Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement…, p. 23.

Example of a reference from a chapter in a book

S Brown, “Diplomacy by other means: SWAPO’s liberation war”, C Leys, JS Saul et.al, Namibia’s liberation struggle: The two-edged sword (London, Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 19-39.

Shortened version:

S Brown, “Diplomacy by other means…”, C Leys, JS Saul et.al, Namibia’s liberation strug- gle…, pp. 19-39.

2 Footnotes

Example of a reference from an unpublished dissertation/thesis

MJ Dhlamini, “The relationship between the African National Congress and the Pan Afri- canist Congress, 1959-1990” (Ph.D, NWU, 2006), pp. 4,8,11.

Examples of a reference from a newspaper

P Coetzee, “Voëlvlugblik ATKV 75 op ons blink geskiedenis”, Die Transvaler, 6 Januarie 2006, p. 8. or

Anon., “Difficulties in times of war”, Zululand Times, 19 July 1923.

Other forms of correspondence Interview(s)

Provide at least key details such as: Name of interviewee and profession; the interviewer and profession and date of interview

Example of interview reference:

K Rasool (Personal Collection), interview, K Kotzé (CEO, Goldfields, Johannes burg Head Office)/E Schutte (Researcher, NWU, School of Basic Science), 12 March 2006.

Example of shortened interview reference (after it has been used once in article):

K Rasool (Personal Collection), interview, K. Kotzé/E Schutte , 12 March 2006.

Example of an Electronic Mail - document or letter:

Personal email: W Pepler (Bigenafrica, Pretoria)/E van Eeden (Researcher), 22 October 2006.

E-mail forwarded: JWN Tempelhoff (NWU)/W Pepler (Bigenafrica, Pretoria), 8 September 2009.

3 New Contree, No. 64 (July 2012)

Archival references National archives (or any other archive):

National Archives (NA), Pretoria, Department of Education (DE), Vol.10, Refer ence 8/1/3/452: Letter, K Lewis (Director General) / P Dlamini (Teacher, Springs College), 12 June 1960. [Please note: After one reference to the National Archives or another Source Group, It can be abbreviated to e.g. NA or DE]

Internet references A source accessed on the Internet

A Dissel, “Tracking transformation in South African prisons”, Track Two, 11(2), April 2002 (available at http://ccrweb.ccr.uct.ac.za/two/11-2transformation.html, as accessed on 14 Jan. 2003), pp. 1-3. [If no author is mentioned, refer to Anon., when writing the reference as above]

A source from conference proceedings: First reference to the source:

D Dollar, “Asian century or multi-polar century?” (Paper, Global Development Network Annual Conference, Beijing, January 2007), p. 7.

B Sautmann, “The forest for the trees: Trade investment and the China-in-Afrika discourse” (Paper, Public Seminar: China in Africa: Race, relations and reflections, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg, 28 July 2007), p. 7. Shortened version:

D Dollar, “Asian century...” (Paper, GDN Conference, 2007), p. 7.

B Sautmann, “The forest for the trees: ...” (Paper, Public Seminar: China in Africa: ..., Uni- versity of Johannesburg [or UJ]), p. 7. [Note that ONLY the paper title is shortened]

GENERAL Submission requirements Articles submitted to the New Contree must be editorially revised and a submission

4 Footnotes

must be accompanied by a memorandum from a qualified language practitioner. No article will be peer reviewed without such a memorandum of approval.

Illustrations Photographs, sketches, tables, diagrams; graphics, maps etc should be numbered consecutively (Eg. Figure 1-4; Sketch 1-2; Diagram 1-3; Photo 1-6). The appropriate positioning of the illustration should be indicated in the text. Original copies should be clearly identified on the back. High quality scanned versions are always welcome. Authors, PLEASE obtain copyright and reproduction rights on photographs and other illustrations

Copyright on all material in New Contree rests within the Editorial Advisory Com- mittee of New Contree.

5 New Contree, No. 64 (July 2012)

6 Call for Papers/Versoek vir Referate

175 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

176 Call for Papers/Versoek vir Referate

Conferences, seminars, symposia and colloquia -History

177 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

The Faculty of Education, University of Stellenbosch is hosting the 26th South African Society for History Teaching

2012 Annual Conference at

Erinvale Estate Hotel & Spa, Somerset West on 4-5 October 2012

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Dr Dan Sleigh

Title: The founding of the Dutch colony at the Cape and its relevance for history teaching in schools today.

Biographical info

Daniel (Dan) Sleigh was born on the farm Geelbeksfontein on the West Coast on Novem- ber 3, 1938. He matriculated at Vredenburg High School and then joined the South African Navy. Until 1962, he studied at the Paarl Training College to become a Physical Education teacher, after which he taught in Namibia and Cape Town.

In 1996 he completed his BA Degree in History and English Literature at UNISA. He then completed a MA degree cum laude, followed by a Doctorate in History in 1987 at the University of Stellenbosch.

Dan Sleigh was Head of the Education Museum and then Provincial Co-ordinator of Con- servation Education, Western Cape Education Department, from which he retired in 1996. A former editor in the transcription department of the Cape Archives he specialised in the first Dutch colonial period. As editor of theTANAP project he transcribed the VOC archives into a data base. (TANAP: Towards a New Age of Partnership; a Dutch/Asian/South-African programme of cooperation). His magisterial PhD publication, VOC-buiteposte onder Kaapse beheer 1652-1795, HAUM, Pretoria, 1993, are being consulted by researchers as far as Aus- tralia, the Netherlands, Russia, the USA and Norway.

Apart from academic and public lectures, Dan Sleigh took part in radio talks and TV pro- grammes. Field of study: The Dutch Seaborne Empire (1602-1795)

178 Call for Papers/Versoek vir Referate

Dan Sleigh was editor and translator for Van Riebeeck Society series in 2003 and is editor of the Castle Military Museum series Cape Military history.

He made his literary debut in 1974 with the volume of poetry entitled Duif oor water. This was followed by historical works for young people, like Die buiteposte and Tussen twee vlae.

In 2001 he won the Sanlam/Insig/Tafelberg Competition for his novel Eilande. This novel was later also awarded the WA Hofmeyr, RAU, M-Net and Helgaard Steyn Prizes.

Islands, André P. Brink’s English translation of Eilande, was listed by The Seattle Times as one of the ten best books.

CONFERENCE THEME: Back to the Future? The Value of History Teaching for Tomorrow

This conference is a must for those academics, historians and educators concerned about sustaining the relevance of History teaching for today. Can History and an understanding of the past, still contribute towards making better decisions and creating a better future for our children? We often tend to be so future-oriented, that the impact of the past is ignored. Come and share your insights and innovative interpretations of how this can be done. SUB-THEMES:

• Voices of the past: Historical research, new trends and findings and their value for teaching • The current school curriculum and History (GET, FET levels) • The current state of History as a school subject (attitudes; textbooks; teaching meth- ods; examining; DoE and DBE involvement; assessing the ‘value’ of higher education research and quality control input). • Learners’ and teachers’ attitudes, experiences and perceptions on the value of the past for the future • Teacher education and relevant teacher training models for History teaching • Effective teaching methods to enhance the value of History knowledge for today and tomorrow • Ways of building hope by linking the past, the present and the future • Any other relevant theme on historical research and history teaching that may fit into the main theme.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We are calling upon both academic historians doing research on topics relating to the con- ference theme and history educators involved in the practical teaching of History in the

179 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

modern classroom, to submit proposals for papers (20 minutes each) and workshops (45-60 minutes each) to be presented at the upcoming SASHT Conference.

Download the Abstract Submission Form. Fax through to Karen Horn at (021) 808 2020 or e-mail to [email protected] for a copy.

An abstract of approximately 150 words (preferably in English) should be submitted as an e-mail attachment to Karen Horn at [email protected]. Abstracts can also be faxed to the following fax number: (021) 808 2020.

Abstracts for papers, workshops or/and posters must reach us no later than 17 June 2012 (deadline). The SASHT conference organisers will let prospective presenters know by 29 June whether or not their proposals were accepted. A preliminary conference programme will be posted on the SASHT website by 6 July.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS:

Paper, Workshop & Poster Abstract Guidelines:

• All authors interested in presenting a paper or poster are invited to submit an abstract on the provided form. • Use MS-Word, Arial 11, 1.5 spacing. • The maximum length is 300 words including keywords or phrases. • Full contact details and institutional affiliation of authors must be given.

Paper Presentations:

• Presentations will be confined to 20 minutes plus a 10-minute question/discussion session. Workshop Presentations:

• Presentations sessions will be confined to 45 minutes inclusive of question/discussion time. Poster Presentations:

• 5 Minute per poster plus a 5 minute question time (You are welcome to request more time for a presentation when submitting your abstract).

RE ABSTRACTS – PLEASE NOTE:

Even if accepted, no abstract will be included in the Final Programme and Book of Ab- stracts if full payment for registration has not been received by 20 July 2012.

180 Call for Papers/Versoek vir Referate

Handouts and articles for possible publication

Presenters of papers or workshops will be required to distribute a short version handout of 1-5 pages in English at the conference. Papers (maximum 20 pages, double spacing in 11 pt Arial font) must also be electronically available at the conference to download for the purpose of peer reviewing and possible publication in the November 2012 edition of the SASHT accredited Journal Yesterday&Today. When presenting an article, please study the reference guidelines in the most recent edition of the journal which currently is either the Yesterday&Today 6, October 2011 edition or the July, 7 2012 edition upcoming. All Yesterday&Today editions up to October 2010 are available on the SASHT website at www. sashtw.org.za. Members normally receive the newest editions copies as they become available.

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION

Educators, researchers and any other academics from the GET, FET and HET levels are invited to register for the conference.

SASHT MEMBERS Registration fee Non-Members Registration fee Early Bird (March to 20 July) R960 Early Bird (March to 20 July) R1100 From 20 July to 7 September R1300 From 20 July to 7 September R1500 Day tariff R700 Day tariff R750 (either 4 or 5 October) (either 4 or 5 October)

Registration fee INCLUDES:

• Use of conference facilities • Conference folder, writing paper, pen, etc. • Lunch on 4 and/or 5 October • Morning and afternoon tea/coffee & refreshments • Thursday Evening Dinner (cash bar available) • Transport and visit to SOLMS-DELTA near Franschhoek on Friday, 5 October after lunch. Refreshments will be provided.

Solms-Delta History, Archaeology and Wine tour Delegates will enjoy a guided tour through the museum that tells the story of Delta farm starting from the very beginnings of human settlement, through pre-colonial pastoral usage of the land, the establishment of private ownership through colonial viticulture, the scars left by slavery and apartheid, and beyond, to the establishment of a democratic South Africa and our hopes for the future. The tour includes a look at the fascinating archaeological sites as well as some of the beautiful Cape buildings that are a lasting testament to the colonists and slaves who built them. Please visit their website at www.solms-delta.co.za.

181 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

Registration fee EXCLUDES:

• Travelling fees • Accommodation • Arrangements and payment for accommodation must be done by yourself • The number of nights you want to reserve is your choice • Erinvale will reserve a number of single and double rooms for SASHT delegates until 15 August, so book early to avoid disappointment. • Airport transfers to and from Cape Town International Airport must be arranged with your venue of accommodation. Please arrange in advance when you make your book- ing for accommodation.

Payment of Registration:

Registration payments must be done as soon as possible in order to make use of the Early Bird Offer. All payments must be made into the SASHT’s savings account.

Payment options:

Direct bank payment or electronic transfer:

A direct payment or an electronic transfer of money into the SASHT savings account is possible. Banking details are as follows: Account Holder: SASHT

Bank: ABSA Bank (Potchefstroom Branch)

Type of Account: Savings Account

Account Number: 678209406.

Please note:

• CLEARLY indicate your payment as REGISTRATION SASHT OCT2012. If you also pay a SASHT membership fee of R150 for individuals or R200 for institutions, clearly indicate whose membership it is. • Please fax proof of payment together with your registration form to Sally Le Roux, fax number (021) 808 2020 or e-mail to [email protected].

182 Call for Papers/Versoek vir Referate

Payment by cheque:

Send your registration form and cheque (made out to SASHT) to:

The SASHT, Prof. Elize S. van Eeden, School of Basic Sciences, Vaal Triangle Campus, PO Box 1174, North West University Vanderbijlpark 1900.

General queries (registration and SASHT membership):

Any inquiries with regard to SASHT membership can be sent to the SASHT secretariat Dr Susan Bester at [email protected] or [email protected]. If you experience any dif- ficulties, please phone her on her cell: 082 293 8709. If you would like to become a SASHT member, please click here for the Membership form.

Any inquiries with regard to the conference can be sent to Sally Le Roux at [email protected]

ACCOMMODATION

NB: Conference attendants must make their own reservations.

Erinvale Estate Hotel and Spa is situated at the foot of the Hottentots Holland mountains in Somerset West and have 57 rooms. They will reserve their rooms for SASHT conference delegates until 15 August 2012. The onus is on delegates to book in time.

Accommodation tariffs at Erinvale:

R680 per person per night sharing (breakfast included)

R960 per person per night single (breakfast included)

Tel: (021) 847 1160 / Web: www.erinvale.co.za

When making your booking at Erinvale Hotel & Spa, please mention that it is for the SASHT Conference on 4-5 October.

Please follow link below for other accommodation in Somerset West.

Click here for accommodation in Somerset West.

Click here for map and directions to Erinvale Estate Hotel & Spa, and then click on Contact Us.

Click here to register for the conference.

183 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

CONFERENCE 2012

A joint initiative between Rhodes University, University of the Free State and University of Witwatersrand

THEME: Old Land, New Practices? The Changing Face of Land and Conservation in Postcolonial Africa DATE & VENUE: 11–14 September 2012, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

CALL FOR PAPERS:

The ‘land issue’ is omnipresent across post-colonial Africa. It is a highly con- tentious and contested topic, which at times has proven explosive (Zimbabwe, Kenya), or else a persistent focus of identity politics (Tanzania, Sudan), or cen- tral to historically rooted struggles for equality and restitution (South Africa, Botswana). Yet, the legacy of colonial land use management from which these struggles are borne, continues to inform contemporary conservation policy practices. They are also conceptualised and legitimated by a fusion of interna- tional environmental and neoliberal market agendas and regional and national policy exigencies, framed by diverse socio-economic development challenges.

One of many ‘solutions’ borne of this conjuncture has been the spread of conservation and environmental protection strategies which promise to ‘de- liver’ on the requisite national economic and environmental priorities in ad- herence to broader international and regional

prerogatives. Such promises are bound to the success of market orientated strategies for the preservation of Africa’s biodiversity. Furthermore, they are tied to the commoditisation of wildlife and wild spaces, and the ‘mass produc- tion’ thereof in a range of state-owned, private or joint partnership ventures, including parks, farms and conservancies. The results are not yet fully com- prehensible, but it is evident that the post-colonial echoes the colonial, and in this continuity conservation and environmental protection strategies may perpetuate historical insecurities through the alienation of local communities from land ownership and management practices.

184 Call for Papers/Versoek vir Referate

This conference was inspired by conversations amongst attendees of the Na- ture Inc. conference held at the Institute for Social Sciences (ISS) at The Hague in June 2011 interested in the complex issues surrounding land, conservation, and ‘security’ within an African context. It therefore aims to contribute to the development and sharing of knowledge and expertise with an explicitly pan- African focus. Specifically, it seeks to critically engage with the nexus between post-colonial land use changes and the development of conservation initiatives across the continent at both the theoretical and practical level with cognisance of their historical precedence.

The conference will be organised around the following themes:

1. Conservation as a post-colonial land use option 2. Historical and contemporary ecological imperialism 3. Land use and identity politics 4. Gender dynamics and conservation land use strategies 5. Alienation, (in)security and conflict 6. State and private environmental/conservation agendas 7. Community-based natural resource management 8. Market driven environmentalism and conservation in Africa 9. Continuities and divergences in colonial (and apartheid) and post-colonial environmental narratives 10. Theoretical debates and practical realities- never the twain shall meet?

WE ARE NOW OPEN FOR REGISTRATION!

Please visit our website: www.oldlandnewpractices.co.za

Any immediate queries or comments can be directed to info@oldland- newpractices.co.za

The Organising Committee:

George Barrett, Rhodes University Nqobile Zulu, University of Witwatersrand Jenny Josefsson, University of the Free State Shirley Brooks, University of the Free State [email protected]

185 New Contree, No. 63 (January 2012)

SAHS CONFERENCE 2013 South African Historical Society

VENUE: University of Botswana, Gaborone, 27-29 June 2013 CONTACT PERSON: John Makgala, University of Botswana [email protected]

THEME: All for One, One for All?: Leveraging National Interests with Regional Visions in Southern Africa

Even before English and Afrikaner reconciliation, southern Africa has been the staging ground for forces seeking to shape the entire region’s future. Na- tional visions invariably found expression in regional and international terms. Britain and the Union anticipated at minimum the incorporation of the High Commission Territories and soon Southwest Africa, just as its mining indus- try integrated the region’s black labour force. As white leadership generated regional plans to gain international recognition in the League of Nations, Commonwealth, and United Nations, and white labour unions embraced the region, African political, religious, labour, intellectual and social ambitions viewed southern Africa as the credible unit in which to mobilize and the causes in one area a legitimate rallying point in all others. The most successful initia- tives resonated among regional populations, from Garveyism to Zionism, and resistance to white minority rule in southern Africa yielded a complex array of collaborative efforts and interactions that intersected boundaries, liberation organisations, emerging independent states, external players, and individual leaders and operatives. One of the significant creations of the liberation strug- gle, apart from majority national rule, was the establishment of regional re- lationships and structures that have dominated the post-liberation phase of southern African diplomatic, political and economic history. In almost all cases, these relationships and structures were built and led by persons joined in the liberation struggle, and in the post-liberation period they have aspired to achieve integration at varying levels. While national interests have made inroads on regionalism, each member state continues to define itself to include

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its relationship to its regional neighbours and has been influenced by the man- ner in which regional attention is focused on national issues.

Given the intricate, transnational nature of hegemony, liberation and its legacy of collaboration, emerging leaders and the structures they gave rise to reflected converging perspectives born of the individual experience, back- grounds, methods, and priorities in pursuing national agendas while drawing on regional resources.

Proposals for papers and panels are invited for the following suggested themes:

1. Attempts at, and responses to, regional integration, from Incorporations, Mandates, and Confederations to Constellations. 2. Cross-border intellectual ferment: Ft. Hare, UNISA, University of Zambia, University of Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland. 3. Labour and the regional mining economy: white and black union initiatives

4. Regional religions: Apostolic movements, ZCC, DRC, Anglicans, Catholics, Congre- gationalists, etc. 5. The Front-Line States, SADDC and SADC: continuities and significance to regional politics and economic integration 6. Roads, rails, grids, and rivers: the flow of regional economic goods, commodities and resources. 7. Human and stock diseases, environmental change, and regional responses. 8. Sport, music and popular culture: its regional content and reach. 9. Regional institutions and contest and collaboration for access to water and energy. 10. Regional tourism: its past and current trends. 11. Becoming a Southern African: the consequences of individual self-relocation within the region. 12. Gender-based alliances and attitudes across borders. 13. Regional pandemics and responses, from “Spanish flu” to HIV/AIDS. 14. Youth groups, such as the YMCA/YWCA in Southern Africa. 15. Biographies of individual regional actors.

Papers and panels on other historical topics are also welcome.

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HASA Call for Papers “DOING HISTORY”

The Historical Association of South Africa Biennial Conference University of Pretoria 6 – 7 July 2012

This year’s biennial conference of the Historical Association of South Africa (HASA) will be taking on a different format - it’s prime focus will be the post- graduate cohort of the historical fraternity. The aim is to give these budding historians a forum where they will be the central concern – both in terms of the exposure to the wealth and depth of the discipline and the presentation of papers. The idea is to create an opportunity to share the experience of es- tablished historians in their respective fields of specialization. Academics and students will present papers in combined sessions with participants acting as chairs and discussants. The organisers invite proposals for papers, panels and workshops highlighting aspects of the historical craft around the broad theme of ‘Doing History’. These may include, but are by no means limited to the following: • Historiographies • Theories • Methodologies • Conventional and alternative sources • Archives and other collections • Writing papers, articles and monographs • New and old histories • Researched topics • Case studies

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• Obstacles and overcoming them • Genres Keynotespeakers: Prof Ian Phimister(University of Sheffield) &Prof Bill Nasson (University of Stellenbosch) The conference will be held on the Main campus (Hatfield) at the University of Pretoria from 6 to 7 July 2012.The conference fee has beenkept to an ab- solute minimum to encourage participation and limited funding will also be available for students. Papers presented at the conference will be considered for possible publication in Historia, HASA’s accredited journal. Abstracts of no more than 300 words to be sent to Karen Harris (hasa@ up.ac.za) by 31 May 2012. Proposals for workshop discussions and panels of thematically related papers are particularly welcome. Please include your full name, title, affiliation and email address in all correspondence.Panel propos- als should have abstracts and contact details for all participants (3-4). Both student and academic participants will be requested to act as panel and work- shop facilitators. Please note the following important dates: • Abstracts due by 31May 2012 • Notification of Acceptance of Abstracts by 15 June 2012 • Registration for Conference opens immediately • Final Date for Conference Registration is 30 June 2012 For further information or queries about the conference as well as regis- tration forms, emailKaren Harris at [email protected] write to Karen Harris atHASA Conference, Department of Historical and Heritage Studies, Uni- versity of Pretoria, Lynnwood Road, Hillcrest, Pretoria, South Africa, 0002. We look forward to hearing from you, and to welcoming you to Pretoria in July 2012.

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HGSA Versoek vir Referate “GESKIEDENISBEOEFENING” (“DOING HISTORY”)

Die Tweejaarlikse Konferensie van Die Historiese Genoot- skap van Suid-Afrika Universiteit van Pretoria 6 – 7 Julie 2012

Vanjaar se tweejaarlikse konferensie van die Historiese Genootskap van Suid-Afrika (HGSA) sal ’n ander formaat aanneem – die hooffokus is op die nagraadse studentegroep in die historiese gemeenskap. Die doel is om aan hierdie ontluikende historici ’n forum te bied waar hulle van hoofbelang sal wees – deur blootstelling aan die omvang en diepte van die dissipline en deur referate voor te dra. Die gedagte is om ’n geleentheid te skep waar hulle in die ervaring van gevestigde historici in hulle onderskeie spesialiseringsvelde kan deel. Akademici en studente sal referate in gesamentlike sessies aanbied waartydens referente as voorsitters en as besp0rekingsdeelnemers sal optree. Die organiseerders vra vir voorstelle vir referate, panele en werkswinkels waarin aspekte van die historiese nering binne die breë tema, ‘Geskiedenis- beoefening’ (‘Doing History’), na vore gebring word. Hierdie aspekte sluit die volgende in, maar is geensins daartoe beperk nie: • Historiografieë • Teorieë • Metodologieë • Konvensionele en alternatiewe bronne • Argiewe en ander versamelings • Die skryf van referate, artikels en monografieë • Nuwe en ou geskiedskrywing • Navorsingsonderwerpe

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• Gevallestudies • Hindernisse en die oorkoming daarvan • Genres Hoofsprekers: Prof Ian Phimister (Universiteit Sheffield) en Prof Bill Nas- son (Universiteit Stellenbosch) Die konferensie vind van 6 tot 7 Julie op die Hoofkampus (Hatfield) van die Universiteit van Pretoria plaas. Die konferensiefooi is tot die absolute minimum beperk ten einde deelname aan te moedig. Beperkte befondsing is ook vir studente beskikbaar. Referate wat by die konferensie gelewer word, sal vir moontlike publikasie in Historia, die HGSA se geakkrediteerde tydskrif, oorweeg word. Opsommings van nie meer as 300 woorde nie moet voor 31 Mei 2012 aan Karen Harris ([email protected]) gestuur word. Voorstelle vir werkswinkelbe- sprekings en panele met tematiesverwante voordragte is veral welkom. Sluit asseblief jou volle naam, titel, affiliasie en e-posadres by alle korrespondensie in. Paneelvoorstelle moet opsommings en die kontakgegewens van al die deelnemers (3-4) insluit. Beide studente en akademiese deelnemers sal ver- soek word om as paneel- en werkswinkelfasiliteerders op te tree. Neem asseblief die volgende belangrike datums in ag: Sluitingsdatum vir referaatopsommings: 31 Mei 2012 • Bekendmaking van aanvaarding van referaatopsommings: 15 Junie 2012 • Registrasie vir die konferensie begin onmiddellik • Finale datum vir konferensieregistrasie: 30 Junie 2012 Vir bykomende inligting of navrae oor die konferensie asook registra- sievorms, stuur ‘n e-pos aan Karen Harris by [email protected] of skryf aan haar by HGSA-Konferensie, Departement Historiese en Erfenisstudies, Univer- siteit van Pretoria, Lynwoodweg, Hillcrest, Pretoria, Suid-Afrika, 0002. Ons sien daarna uit om van jou te verneem en om jou in Julie 2012 in Pre- toria te verwelkom.

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DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL STUDIES

SEMINAR

‘Heads of the Hydra in Southern Africa: rethinking subaltern community and traditions of protest in the Cape of Good Hope, c. 1652-1770’

Dr. Nicole Ulrich Rhodes University

Abstract:

Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker’s groundbreaking The Many Headed Hydra has fundamentally reshaped understandings of class formation and popular struggle in the North Atlantic from 1600-1800: is it, however, useful for examining other regions at this time? This paper investigates this issue, by re-examining subaltern community and traditions of popular struggle at the Cape of Good Hope, a Dutch East India Company (VOC) colony at the southern tip of Africa, and at the intersection of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Much like the north Atlantic ‘proletariat’, subalterns in the Cape were ‘motley’, consisting of Asian and African slaves from the Indian Ocean basin, sailors, soldiers and low-ranking Company servants, mainly from northern Europe, and locally-born KhoiSan and mixed-race labourers. Traditionally, historians treat these different underclass sections as discrete racially, nationally and legally bounded population groups – and view subalterns as socially fragmented and politically unformed, solely engaged in ‘informal’, individualised resistance. However, this approach fails to appreciate that the Cape Colony was part of similar historical processes to those that unfolded in the northern Atlantic, and that gave rise to a new global order that disrupted traditional relations, and the nature of work. A focus on the mobility of slaves, sailors, servants, and labourers, understood in this broader world context, combined with an examination of changing possibilities for cooperation between and within the multiple sections of the underclass in the Cape, reveals the existence of a spatially-stretched, inclusive, subaltern community. This paper shows, in contrast to the historiography, that this community gave rise to an oppositional political

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