Acting DNL Cooke to SNA, 28 February 1918, DNL 144/13 D205: ‘I regret to tell you that in my opinion the whole tone of this paper has considerably changed for the worse. One of the chief influences of a retrogressive nature is that of Mvabasa [Mvabaza] who is a bitter and intelligent fellow and who I understand is mixed up to some extent with Bunting and his associates.’
158 Dower to Cooke, 12 February 1918, DNL 144/13 D205(1); Abantu-Batho, 17 January 1918. Letanka was editor, but it is not clear if he was the author, and Dower did ‘not want it to appear that any threat or withdrawal of Government patronage is held over him on account of this article’.
159 J. Pilger, ‘Introduction’, in J. Pilger (ed.), Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and Its Triumphs (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004): xv.
160 Skota, The African Who’s Who: 65. Rosenthal (Bantu Journalism: 13) dubs him an itinerant musical instrument seller.
161 DNL to SNA, 1913, DNL 2528, approving his application for exemption from the pass laws.
162 Skota, The African Who’s Who: 65.
163 ‘The Future of the German Colonies’, Abantu-Batho, 7 February 1918, cited in A. Grundlingh, Fighting Their Own War: South African Blacks and the First World War (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987): 133–34.
164 Letter of Letanka and H. Msane with resolution, 11 December 1916 on letterhead with office-bearers, Thema to SNA, 20 May 1918, Thema to SNA, 13 June 1918, all in NTS 7204 17/326; TNC, Constitution (1919), para. 19, 9, NTS 7204 17/326.
165 Cooke to SNA, 28 February 1918, DNL 144/13 D205. He spoke Sepedi. Skota, The African Who’s Who: 53 remembers him only as a ‘correspondent’ of the paper, but was himself then rather distant in Kimberley.
166 R. V. Selope Thema, ‘Out of Darkness: From Cattle Herding to the Editor’s Chair’, SOAS, Mss. 320895: 47, 51. Thema’s preface is dated 1935, but the text is ‘completed’ by another hand c.1950.
167 ‘Mr Thema: His Life and His Achievements’, Bantu World, 24 September 1955.
168 E. J. Verwey, New Dictionary of South African Biography, vol. 1 (Pretoria: HSRC, 1995): 245. In London he also published S. Thema, ‘Slavery within the British Empire’, African Telegraph, December 1919.
169 Thema, ‘Out of Darkness’: 68–73, 60. In 1928 he noted a small group of ‘editors and proprietors of weekly newspapers whose columns are devoted to the furtherance of the cause of their race’ (R. V. S. Thema and J. D. R. Jones, ‘In South Africa’, in M. Stauffer (ed.), Thinking with Africa: Chapters by a Group of Nationals Interpreting the Christian Movement (London: Student Christian Movement, 1928): vi, 60–1, 63.
170 T. R. H. Davenport and K. S. Hunt, The Right to the Land (Cape Town: David Philip, 1975): 71.
171 Rhodes House Library, APS Papers, Mss. Brit. Empire s.23 H2/50 has the letter: Thema to Harris, 1 June 1921.
172 Benson, The African Patriots: 38, but letterheads do not reflect this: Mabaso to DNL, 14 February 1914, DNL to SNA, 16 February 1916, DNL 1329/14 D48, the latter noting that on 6 January there was ‘no Zulu Editor’ as Kunene had ‘severed his connection with the paper and Saul Msane had not yet joined it’.
173 Skota, The African Who’s Who: 104; ‘Petition’, Ilanga, 15 May 1914; Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism: 217.
174 Police report of meeting, 29 June 1918, NTS, file 281, GNLB 281 446/17 D48, ‘Native Agitator’; P. ka I. Seme, ‘Ku Mhleli we “Langa”’, Ilanga, 25 August 1916; with thanks to Sifiso Ndlovu.
175 ‘Doing Botha’s Business’, Sunday Times, 7 July 1918 on Abantu-Batho, 4 July 1918. The Sunday Times (‘Natives Say “No Strike”’, 20 June 1918) had earlier published in translation Msane’s leaflet.
176 ‘Another Mass Meeting at Vrededorp’, Abantu-Batho, 11 July 1918.
177 ‘New Year’, Abantu-Batho, 1 January 1920, GNLB 320, 301/19/72; Christison, ‘African Jerusalem’: 784. I thank Grant Christison for showing me Msane’s estate papers: he died 6 October 1919, left an estate worth £853, and his son was Herbert Nuttall Vuma Msane (NASA, Pretoria, Master of the Supreme Court (MHG) 42409).
178 Couzens, ‘Robert Grendon’: 54, 77–78; T. Couzens, ‘“The New African”: Herbert Dhlomo and Black South African Literature in English 1857–1956’, PhD, University of the Witwatersrand, 1980, 172, 193–94, 200–12.
179 Christison, ‘African Jerusalem’: 505, and chapter 5 in this volume.
180 Cooke to SNA, 16 February 1916, DNL 1329/14 D48, ‘Anglo German War: Native Newspapers: Abantu Batho’; Star, 9 June 1916: my thanks to Grant Christison for this observation.
181 Ilanga, 14 July 1916.
182 The first Congress mentions him as editor along with Mochochonono of M. N. Monyakoane, Naledi ea Lesotho of E. N. Monyakoane and Plaatje’s Tsala (Leselinyana, 25 January 1912).
183 Skota, The African Who’s Who: 80: Verwey, New Dictionary: 193–95; neither source is totally reliable.
184 Ilanga, 1 September 1916; Christison, ‘African Jerusalem’: 791, noting R. W. Msimang’s role either over a lawsuit Msane and Grendon brought against Abantu-Batho, settled out of court, or the merger.
185 ‘Summary of Statements … by the South African Delegation’, African Telegraph, May 1919: 226; ‘The Prime Minister and South African Native Deputation’, African Telegraph, December 1919: 298.
186 Skota, The African Who’s Who: 114; ‘Report … of the Annual Conference of the ANC January 4–5 1926’ and ‘Report … of the Annual Conference of the ANC’, Umteteli wa Bantu (hereafter Umteteli), 3 May 1930, in Karis and Carter, From Protest to Challenge, vol. 1: 299, 310; P. la Hausse de Lalouvière, Restless Identities: Signatures of Nationalism, Zulu Ethnicity and History in the Lives of Petros Lamula (c.1881–1948) and Lymon Maling (1889–c.1936) (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2000): 93; ‘Izindatyana NgeZinto naBantu’, Ilanga, 9 October 1914; ‘Ezakwa Zulu’, Ilanga, 12 March 1915, repr. from Abantu-Batho.
187 Christian Express, 1 April 1907; ‘eTembize’ to Ilanga, 8 May 1908. On Msane and the Zulu National Association and Seme’s Native Landowners’ Association, see La Hausse de Lalouvière, ‘Death Is Not the End’: 268.
188 ‘Transvaal Native Council’, Ilanga, 11 June 1915; letter of D. Letanka and H. Msane with resolution, 11 December 1916, on letterhead with office-bearers, NTS 7204 17/326.
189 ‘Indaba yase Pitoli’, Ilanga, 31 May 1916; ‘Umhlangano Omkulu ka Congress’, Ilanga, 2 June 1916; ‘Umhlangano Omkulu wezindaba eJozi’, Ilanga, 15 December 1916; H. Msane, ‘The Modern Movement’, International, 21 July 1916; ‘Nge Pasi’, Abantu-Batho, c. April 1919, in Ilanga, 25 April 1919.
190 H. S. Msimang in Abantu-Batho 5, 18 December 1913; H. S. Msimang, ‘The Natives Land Act and Its New Phase’, Ilanga, 15 October 1915, cited in R. Grendon, ‘Thou Art the Man’, letters to Ilanga 5, 19 November 1915; H. S. Msimang, ‘Mr Msane and Native Congress’, Ilanga, 24 March 1916; see also Christison’s chapter in this volume.
191 Messenger-Moromioa: see H. S. Msimang, ‘Autobiography’, Alan Paton Centre and Struggle Archives, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, John Aitchison Papers, PC 14/1/1/1-3: 12a.
192 Skota, The African Yearly Register: 257; Skota, The African Who’s Who: 97; see also Couzens, ‘“The New African”’: 2. His father, Boyce Skota, had been a subscriber to Izwi Labantu and led a delegation on African women’s rights; see B. Skota, ‘The Curfew Regulations’, Tsala, 27 Phato (August) 1910.
193 ‘Isaziso Esibukali’, Umteteli, 11 February 1922; society notes in Imvo, 8 August 1922.
194 As claimed by T. Couzens, ‘A Short History of “The World” (and Other Black South African newspapers)’, African Studies seminar paper, University