Dutch trade and patronage networks as facilitators of transcontinental mobility in early modern Russia and the VOC Cape

The Swellengrebels were the most important family at the Cape under Dutch East India Company (VOC) rule to become members of the Netherlands governing elite. Hendrik Swellengrebel was the colony's only locally-born governor, while his father and other members of the family at the Cape were born in Russia. Their migration between Europe, Africa and Asia reflected the development and functioning of the Dutch trade and patrimonial networks. Even on the periphery, at the Cape and among Dutch expatriates in Russia, those networks provided opportunities for overseas employment and upward social mobility. The case of the Swellengrebels shows that not only goods but also people could make their way from Russia to the Cape and the VOC Asia. Patronage enabled both spatial and upward social mobility. Keeping mutually beneficial relations with influential patrons such as Nicolaes Witsen, members of the Swellengrebel family navigated their way within the Dutch trade networks and achieved prosperity and a high status in such culturally diverse societies as Russia and the Cape. The social advancement, identity transformations and transcontinental migrations of the Swellengrebel family demonstrate the materiality of transcontinental patrimonial networks in the early modern period.

'The trees do not belong to Chief Maranke but to the Native Reserves Trust': The politics of timber resource exploitation in African reserves, colonial Zimbabwe, 1924-1948

Contextualised within a settler state characterised by racial discrimination and unequal access to natural resources, this article examines the ideological, environmental and economic considerations surrounding the formation of the Native Reserves Trust (NRT) and the role it played in the exploitation of timber resources in the African reserves of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Cognisant of the fact that the colonial state set aside marginal and less productive reserves for the Africans, the paper uses the NRT as a lens to view the process by which the settler society penetrated African reserves and exploited timber resources that were needed for the white-owned enterprises, while at the same time, Africans were barred from exploiting the same resources in European domains. The study further discusses the significance of timber in the African reserves, analyses the role of the NRT in regulating timber exploitation processes and the relations between the state, timber concessionaire companies and the African communities. Lastly, it assesses the extent to which timber exploitation contributed to environmental destruction, and how this prompted a policy shift, leading to the implementation of state-initiated afforestation programmes in these reserves and how these re-shaped state-African relations. On the whole, we note that the exploitation of timber resources in African areas replicated the larger colonial policy that favoured whites at the expense of Africans.

Counter-narratives of achievement at South Africa's first apartheid-era black medical school, 1950s to the early 1990s

This article examines the construction and dissemination of two particular achievement narratives - one focused on high academic standards, the other on a Black Consciousness-inspired "Black pride" - that were produced by academic staff and students at the University of Natal's Medical School, South Africa's first apartheid-era black medical school in the highly racialised context of the 1950s to early 1990s. While quite different in terms of their producers and periods of origin, the article argues that both these narratives developed with a similar purpose: as counter-narratives, which intended to critique or challenge the pervasive and disparaging apartheid-era discourse that portrayed black South Africans as inferior. Indeed, both these narratives sought, in their own respective ways, to enable those producing them to reframe the dominant apartheid discourse, to offer alternatives, including more positive views about black South Africans, and to take an oppositional stance. Yet, while both developed as counter-narratives, they did so with different emphases and stances taken to challenge apartheid, highlighting the complexity of these narratives. In addition, this article examines how both these narratives could sometimes, in particular historical moments, overlap in time and even amalgamate, leading to the construction of hybridised narratives.

The public and private life of Sol Plaatje

There has been an upswing in attention to South African biography in the past few decades, with a welcome trend towards remaking or revising the canon of important figures from the South African past. This has included edited collections of the works of prominent individuals, and notable among these have been early-twentieth century black African politicians and writers. Historical Publications Southern Africa (renamed from its previous moniker, the Van Riebeeck Society) has published four edited collections of the writings of such individuals since 2008, including Isaac Williams Wauchope, Richard Victor Solope Thema, and A.B. Xuma. A Life in Letters, a collection of Solomon T. Plaatje's correspondence, is the fourth such volume in just over a decade. There are 260 letters, written from 1896 to 1932, included in the book. Most are in English, but some are in Setswana, Dutch/Afrikaans, and a few are in German. Although a number of the letters are from the collections of the Cullen Library at the University of the Witwatersrand, the reviewer counted twenty-seven different collections across three continents. The book is thus an excellent resource not only for historians, but also for students and the general public who now have access to a wide range of Plaatje's thoughts, opinions, and emotions that are evident in his letters.

Perspectives: Introduction

In August 2019, economist Johan Fourie of Stellenbosch University invited Historia to publish a "reflection piece" he had written and presented in March that year at the University of the Free State. In it, he puts forward his views of what History does, what it ought to do, and how it can perhaps be done better here in (South) Africa. His central concern is with big data and digitising records. He issues a number of seemingly bold challenges and provocations to historians. A slightly edited version of that piece is reproduced below. Rather than publish it as a stand-alone piece, however, and in the spirit of respectful exchange, we are publishing four substantial engagements with several of the arguments made by Fourie. These responses are by Faeeza Ballim, Gerald Groenewald, Jennifer Upton and Tinashe Nyamunda, all of whom are experts in their respective fields and experienced in their craft. Each takes the substantive points made by Fourie seriously, and responds to them in different ways. Best read as perspectives on a complex and enduring debate amongst people who are mindful of the politics of the past as well as being critically engaged with what historians "do" in the present, they recognise the technological and methodological promises of digital histories and big data, but eloquently remind us too of their limitations and indeed their potential pitfalls. There is much more to discuss, not the least of which is the responsibility for the ownership of and access to such records in a democratic and socially just world. The authors' information is included at the close, after a brief "Response" by Fourie.

The inconography of Afrikaner nationalism and the Ossewa-Brandwag's 'ideal of freedom' in the South African internment camps of the Second World War

The emergency measures of the Union government under Jan Smuts had a strong impact on the Ossewa-Brandwag (OB) during the Second World War. The OB was especially targeted by the government because of its overt pro-German and anti-British stance and its active resistance against the war effort. The ideology of the movement was built upon a strong basis of Afrikaner nationalism in conjunction with National Socialism which was supposed to legitimise the movement as an alternative to party politics. OB members expressed Afrikaner nationalist sentiments which meant resistance against Britain with the goal of attaining an independent republic - the so-called "ideal of freedom". Consequently, the OB's active resistance led to high numbers of internment. This article focuses on the South African internment camps of the Second World War. The nationalist iconography reflected in the artefacts created by OB members during their internment are analysed within the broader context of Afrikaner nationalism and the ideology of the OB. The OB had a very specific brand of Afrikaner nationalism and the ideal of freedom, central to its ideology, was combined with existing Afrikaner nationalist goals and subsequently nationalist iconography manifested itself in internees' creative expressions of their own personal nationalist sentiments. The artefacts also reflect the integration of Afrikaner nationalist iconography and the OB's ideal of freedom with personal contexts of imprisonment illustrating how political myths can be reshaped to provide meaning for the present realities of contemporaries.

Struggles for African independent education and land rights on the Rand and the significance of the Tsewu court case, 1903-1905: A new analysis

The years between 1886 and 1910 were among the most dramatic in the history of southern Africa. Scholars have documented Johannesburg's urban history and racial politics during this period. What has often been overlooked, however, and which this article draws attention to in a fresh analysis, is the connection between the colonial state's limitation of African rights to land ownership and the development of the struggle for an independent system of education for Africans. At the local level, this broader struggle was expressed explicitly in African discontent at municipal administrative failure to address the issues of adequate sanitation, land rights, tenure security, and prospects for upward mobility. This article argues that it is in a reassessment of the significance of the 1905 litigation initiated by Reverend Edward Tsewu which provides a basis for this new inquiry into the connection between the African struggle for property rights and independent education.

Cannabis policing in mid-twentieth century South Africa

From 1922, cannabis was policed in South Africa as a "dangerous drug". At mid-century, the United Nations recorded South African cannabis seizures as accounting for more than half of the world's annual recorded totals. This article outlines some main trends in South African cannabis policing between the late 1920s and 1970. It uses quantitative data derived from historical police records to document the impact of a shift in policing strategy - from a focus on possession to a directed targeting of supply - following recommendations made in a 1952 governmental report. Analysis demonstrates how this policy change, along with other factors, impacted arrests and amounts of cannabis seized, by division and district. We situate statistical findings within South Africa's political landscape.

Programmes of frivolity on ice? Hockey, business, diasporic identity and apartheid in South Africa, 1936-1992

South Africa has a surprisingly long history of the sport perhaps most usually associated with the northern hemisphere: ice hockey. Ice skating was first introduced in the country in the last decade of the nineteenth century as a commercial venture. Entrepreneurs built ice rinks for profit-making purposes and brought showmen from overseas to demonstrate the sport. An ancillary activity was the establishment of ice hockey clubs in 1936 and beyond. Given the strong profit motive, personal and tactical differences between the chief investors and sports administrators inevitably left its imprint on the sport. The extensive involvement of German, Canadian and Swiss immigrants throughout the twentieth century also co-determined the eventual character of the sport. From its inception through to 1991, ice hockey practised racial segregation, operated within apartheid laws and remained an exclusively white activity. Unsurprisingly, the apartheid ice rink also became embroiled in global politics, became a target of the worldwide anti-apartheid sports boycott and was excluded from all international competition from the late 1960s until 1991. This article reclaims some of ice hockey's neglected history in South Africa and investigates the interplay of sport, ice rink entrepreneurship, imperial and foreign identity, and apartheid politics during the twentieth century.