The History of the Soga Family, Race, and Identity in South Africa in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Erlank
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
African History ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
Pilgrim's Progress ◽  
African Christianity ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

The history of African Christianity in South Africa in the 19th century would be incomplete without a discussion of Tiyo Soga, the first Xhosa man to be ordained a minister in South Africa. His work as a preacher and translator was key to the spread of African indigenous Christianity in the Cape. In 1866 he completed his translation of The Pilgrim’s Progress into Xhosa, a book that had a greater impact than the Bible on how many Africans learned about Christianity. Less well known is the history of his family, including his parents, his wife, his children, and his grandchildren. While it is possible to reconstruct lives of some of the Soga men, it is difficult to uncover the lives of the women. Tiyo Soga and his wife, Janet Burnside, had seven children, and the four sons (William Anderson, John Henderson, Jotello Festiri, and Allan Kirkland) became prominent figures in Eastern Cape and South African history. The daughters, Isabella, Frances, and Jessie, had less prominent careers. African Christianity was important for all of them, and the sons pursued careers as a doctor, a historian, a veterinarian, and a journalist. The third son, A.K. Soga, was important as both a journalist and an African nationalist.

scholarly journals Die Groot Trek en die Kerk

1989 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. Pont
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Free State ◽  
African History ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonies ◽  
The Church

The Great Trek and the Church The emigration of about 15 000 pioneer-farmers from the eastern Cape districts to the interior of Southern Africa, was a definite turning point in South African history. In 1852-1854, which can be regarded as the final date of the Great Trek, there were in South Africa two British colonies i e the Cape and Natal and two Boer republics i e the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. This study traces the history of the church during the emigration and the establishment of the church by the emigrants.

‘Limping, Yet Made to Climb a Mountain!’ Re-Reading the Vashti Character in the Hiv And Aids South African Context

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’A Mphahlele)
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
External Factor ◽  
Hiv And Aids ◽  
African Women ◽  
South African Context ◽  
Land Grabbing ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
African Context

The history of the Christian Bible’s reception in South Africa was part of a package that included among others, the importation of European patriarchy, land grabbing and its impoverishment of Africans and challenged masculinities of African men. The preceding factors, together with the history of the marginalization of African women in bible and theology, and how the Bible was and continues to be used in our HIV and AIDS contexts, have only made the proverbial limping animal to climb a mountain. Wa re o e bona a e hlotša, wa e nametša thaba (while limping, you still let it climb a mountain) simply means that a certain situation is being aggravated (by an external factor). In this chapter the preceding Northern Sotho proverb is used as a hermeneutical lens to present an HIV and AIDS gender sensitive re-reading of the Vashti character in the Hebrew Bible within the South African context.

scholarly journals Reading the Bible with the marginalised: The value/s of contextual Bible reading

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald West
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Interpretive Practices ◽  
Bible Reading

There is a long history of collaboration between “popular” or “contextual” forms of biblical interpretation between Brazil and South Africa, going back into the early 1980’s. Though there are significant differences between these forms of Bible “reading”, there are values and processes that cohere across these contexts, providing an integrity to such forms of Bible reading. This article reflects on the values and processes that may be discerned across the Brazilian and South African interpretive practices after more than thirty years of conversation across these contexts.

Evolution of South Africa's Racist Constitutions and the 1983 Constitution

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-23
Author(s):  
Xia Jisheng
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
State Law ◽  
The South ◽  
Constitutional Development ◽  
The Third ◽  
Fundamental State ◽  
History Of ◽  
South African Constitution

Since the enforcement of 1983 constitution, several years have passed. The 1983 constitution is the third constitution since the founding of the Union of South Africa in 1910. By observing the history of the constitutional development in more than seventy years in South Africa and the content of the current South African constitution, it is not difficult to find out that the constitution, as a fundamental state law, is an important weapon of racism. South Africa's white regime consistandy upholds and consolidates its racist rule by adopting and implementing constitutions. The aim of this article is to analyze and expose the essence of the South African racist system in mis aspect.

scholarly journals Leadership through theological education: Two case studies in South African history

2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 642-657
Author(s):  
G. A. Duncan ◽  
J. W. Hofmeyr
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
South African ◽  
Theological Education ◽  
Visionary Leadership ◽  
African History ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
University Of Pretoria ◽  
The University

The quality of visionary leadership requires serious attention in current South Africa, both because of its importance but also sometimes because of the lack of leadership in church and theological contexts. In the first section of this article, focus is placed on leadership in the Faculty of Theology (NG Kerk) at the University of Pretoria, and in the second section, on the leadership at the Lovedale Missionary Institution in the Eastern Cape. Finally, some comparisons and conditions are drawn.

THE GREAT DEBATE AND THE ORIGINS OF SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

1997 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW BANK
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
African History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The fundamental preoccupation with race in later historical writing in South Africa has its origins in the Great Debate between liberals and their enemies in the early nineteenth century. Standard overviews of South African historiography date the emergence of racially structured histories to the second half of the nineteenth century. For Saunders, the making of the South African past and its thematic ordering in terms of race only began in the 1870s ‘when the first major historian [G. M. Theal] began to write his history’. Prior to Theal's monumental efforts, ‘only a few amateur historians had turned their hands to the writing of the history of particular areas or topics’. Likewise, in Smith's analysis, also published in 1988, the construction of South African history in terms of race is seen almost exclusively as the product of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In a very brief introductory section, Smith suggests that what little historical writing there was before the middle of the nineteenth century is scarcely to be taken seriously, and his study offers no more than a bare outline of historiographical developments before Theal and his heirs.

Strategic and Socio-Economic Explanations for Carnarvon's South African Confederation Policy: the Historiography and the Evidence

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 13-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.L. Cope
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
African History ◽  
Forward Movement ◽  
Standard Work ◽  
Cape Peninsula ◽  
Black Resistance ◽  
History Of

Although Carnarvon's attempt to unite South Africa in the 1870s was a failure, the forward movement represented by his “confederation policy” marks an important turning point in South African history. The destruction of the Zulu and the Pedi polities, which resulted directly from the confederation scheme, together with the last Cape frontier war and a rash of smaller conflicts, constituted the virtual end of organized black resistance in the nineteenth century and the beginning of untrammelled white supremacy. Britain's annexation of the Transvaal in 1877, which Carnarvon had hoped would be the decisive move towards confederation, instead set the scene for the conflict between Boer and Briton which dominated the history of the last two decades of the nineteenth century in South Africa.Carnarvon's confederation scheme had important effects, but there is little agreement on its causes. The author of the standard work on the subject, Clement Goodfellow, took the view that Carnarvon's interest in South Africa arose essentially from its strategic importance within the empire as a whole. The Cape lay athwart the vital sea-route to Britain's eastern possessions, and confederation was designed, in Goodfellow's words, “to erect from the chaos of the subcontinent a strong, self-governing, and above all loyal Dominion behind the essential bastion at Simon's Bay.” This view, or some variant of it, sometimes with “Simonstown” or “Cape Town” or “the naval bases” or “the Cape peninsula” substituted for “Simon's Bay,” has been widely accepted and now appears as a matter of fact in the most recent and widely used general accounts of South African history.

The Actuary in South Africa

1957 ◽  
Vol 14 (04) ◽  
pp. 348-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. E. de Smidt ◽  
H. Schermann ◽  
D. W. Williams ◽  
G. Rodger
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
South African ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The Third ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of

The history of the actuarial profession in South Africa starts, as far as is known, during the last decade of the nineteenth century when three actuaries arrived in the Cape Colony from the United Kingdom. Two of these took up positions with the two South African life offices which were then in existence and the third became Government Actuary to the Cape Colony. By the time the Union of South Africa was established in 1910, four more actuaries had arrived from the United Kingdom, and a further four had arrived by 1920. Some of these gentlemen established permanent homes in this country, while others returned overseas after varying periods of time. It was no doubt due to these early beginnings that the actuarial homes of South African actuaries are today London and Edinburgh.The first South African-born actuary qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty in 1921, and since that time increasing numbers of South Africans have become qualified, mostly as Fellows of the Faculty.

scholarly journals South African History and Subaltern Historiography: Ideas for a Radical History of White Folk

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Roos
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Social History ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
African History ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
Radical History

AbstractIn considering how “radical” histories of ordinary whites under apartheid might be written, this essay engages with several traditions of historical scholarship “from” and “of” below. For three decades, Marxist-inspired social history dominated radical historiography in South Africa. It has, however, proved little able to nurture historiography of whites that is politically engaged and acknowledges post-Marxist currents in the discipline. I advocate a return to theory and suggest that new sources may be drawn from the academy and beyond. Historiographies “of” below need not necessarily be historiographies “from” below and this article proposes the idea of a “racial state” as an alternative starting point for a history of apartheid-era whites. It goes on to argue that Subaltern Studies, as a dissident, theoretically eclectic and interdisciplinary current in historiography offers useful perspectives for exploring the everyday lives of whites in South Africa. After suggesting a research agenda stemming from these theoretical and comparative insights, I conclude by reflecting on the ethics of writing histories of apartheid-era whites.

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