“When in Doubt, Leave Out”:1 The Country Editor Who Declined to Publish a Long Letter from Olive Schreiner

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-58
Author(s):  
Paul Walters ◽  
Jeremy Fogg
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
English Language ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Olive Schreiner ◽  
The South ◽  
Editorial Policies ◽  
South African War

The authors deal with six unpublished communications from Olive Schreiner to James Butler, Editor of the Cradock newspaper The Midland News and Karroo farmer between March 1893 and October 1905, as well as a reply from Butler to Schreiner. These documents are housed in the Cory Library for Historical Research at Rhodes University. Transcriptions by J. Fogg are appended. The heart of the article deals with Butler’s refusal to publish Schreiner’s “letter to the Women of Somerset East” which she had sent as a contribution to the protest meeting held in Somerset East on 12 October 1900 to mark the first anniversary of the declaration of the South African War. Keywords: Unpublished Schreiner Letters, South African War, Women’s Meeting Somerset East 12 October 1900, editorial policies, Cecil  Rhodes’s control of the South African English language Press.

MORE SOUTH AFRICAN SHENANIGANS The Origins of the South African War, 1899–1902. By IAIN R. SMITH. London and New York: Longman, 1995. Pp. xix + 455. £15.99 (ISBN 0-582-27777-9).

1997 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-177
Author(s):  
BILL NASSON
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New York ◽  
South African ◽  
English Language ◽  
The South ◽  
South African War ◽  
The Relationship

In some ways, The Origins of the South African War 1899–1902 is an awfully fat book for what has perhaps become an awfully thin and fatiguing subject. Do we really need yet another stab at J. A. Hobson on the Jameson Raid and the notion of the capitalist conspiracy war? Is there much to be gained from further deliberation over the 1896 Selborne Memorandum dealing with the crisis in South Africa? Despite Dr Smith's suggestion (p. x) that recent historiography of the South African War has been preoccupied more with the experience of that conflict than with its origins, the fact remains that modern English-language scholarship on the causes of the war, starting well over three decades ago with Robinson and Gallagher's Africa and the Victorians, continues to outweigh heavily writing on the actual conduct of hostilities between Britain and the Boer republics. We continue to know much more about the pre-war shenanigans between Milner and the Uitlanders than about the relationship between technology and strategy during 1899–1902 or the demographic consequences of an exhausting war. So, the question must be: does Iain Smith breathe new life into the enormously complex, broadly familiar, sometimes tedious, historical arguments over the origins of the South African War?

South Africa, 1 January 1900

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-184
Author(s):  
Sarah LeFanu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
Olive Schreiner ◽  
The South ◽  
South African War ◽  
Newspaper Editor

This chapter records the voices of a number of other players in the drama of the South African War, on the first day of the new century. They include interpreter Solomon Plaatje in the besieged town of Mafeking; war correspondent H. W. Nevinson besieged in Ladysmith; Lieutenant Colonel Kekewich in command of the besieged town of Kimberley. Also President Paul Kruger in Pretoria, Roger Casement, Mohandas Gandhi (later the Mahatma), novelist Olive Schreiner, and newspaper editor John Tengo Jabavu in the Eastern Cape. These people provide insights into the war from across the whole of South Africa; they include combatants, non-combatants, imperialists, anti-imperialists, Boers, British, and non-whites caught up in what was mistakenly called a ‘white man’s war’.

scholarly journals Reading Practices and Literacy of Boer Combatants in the South African War of 1899–1902

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-307
Author(s):  
Fransjohan Pretorius
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
South African ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
The State ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
The South ◽  
Planning Strategy ◽  
The Bible ◽  
South African War ◽  
Reading Matter

In investigating the reading practices of Boer combatants during the South African War, diaries, letters, and reminiscences were consulted. The state of literacy reveals a picture of a small number of highly literate men, a larger group of adequately literate men, a still larger group of semi-literates, and the illiterate. Reading matter included the Bible, newspapers, and books. Issues raised are: Did literacy (or illiteracy) influence military decision-making or troop morale? Were certain works making some impact on the battlefield? Was the practical experience the Boers had gained before the war more successful in planning strategy and tactics than literacy?

Africans in the South African War

2013 ◽  
pp. 192-195
Author(s):  
S. M. Molema
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
The South ◽  
South African War
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