Identity area
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Title
Date(s)
- 1899 - 1900 (Creation)
Level of description
Fonds
Extent and medium
1 bound item, 180 pages
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Sol. T. Plaatje was born on the farm Doornfontein in the Boshof district on October 9 1876. He was educated at Pniel at the mission school established by the Berlin Missionary Society, from 1884 to 1890. In 1894 he worked as a postman in Kimberley, while studying for the Cape Civil Service Certificate. He moved to Mafeking where he became a court interpreter and magistrate's clerk, having at his command a knowledge of about ten languages. He rendered valuable service as an interpreter to the British during the South African War.
In 1901, backed financially by Chief Silas Molema, he begun editing the Koranta ea Becoana, the first Tswana-English weekly newspaper. In 1910 he moved to Kimberley where he edited the Tsala ea Becoana which changed its name to Tsala ea Batho in 1912. The newspaper ceased publication in 1915 because of Plaatje's presence in Britain.
Plaatje was not only an interpreter, journalist and an author but also a politician. When the South African Native National Congress was formed in 1912, Plaatje became General Corresponding Secretary. When the question of native land arose in 1913 Plaatje became a member of the delegation which went to Britain in 1914 to petition the British government. Despite the outbreak of World War I, which prevented the delegation from achieving its mission, Plaatje remained in England. During this time he wrote Native life in South Africa, before and since the European war and the Boer rebellion (London,1916), arguing the cause of the deputation and the land issue. Returning to Kimberley, he then established The Diamond Fields Men's Own Brotherhood, a body which propagated racial harmony. He returned to Europe in 1919 heading the African National Congress delegation, which attempted to get the Native Land Act discussed at the Peace Conference at Versailles. Subsequently he visited the United States and Canada in 1921.
Plaatje wrote extensively, contributing articles to English and Black newspapers, as well as producing literary works such as Mhudi: an epic of South African native life a hundred years ago (Lovedale,1930), as well as translating some of Shakespeare's works, The Comedy of Errors and Julius Caesar, into Tswana.
In 1898 he married Elizabeth Mbelle, the sister of I Bud Mbelle, an important court interpreter and one time general secretary of the African National Congress. They had four sons, St Leger, Richard, Halley and Johann Gutenberg, and two daughters, Olive and Violet. Plaatje died on June 19 1932, while on a visit to Johannesburg and was buried at Kimberley.
Archival history
The diary was donated to the University of the Witwatersrand by John Coma off in August 1996. The diary, contained in a leather scrap book, was given to him by Sol Plaatje's grandson Barolong Molema, the child of his daughter Violet, whilst doing doctoral research in 1969 in the district of Mafikeng John Comaroff later published the text of the diary in his book "The Boer War Diary of Sol T. Plaatje" in 1973. Therefore the diary does not form part of the papers of Silas T. Molema and Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, which were discovered in Mafeking, South Africa, by researchers Tim Couzens and Brian Willan in January 1977, and which where subsequently purchased by the University of the Witwatersrand in early 1977.
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Content and structure area
Scope and content
Handwritten diary of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (1876-1932), interpreter, journalist, author and politician. The diary was written during the Siege of Mafeking, which took place during the South African War of 1899-1902. It contains the only known surviving written account of the Siege by an African. The first entry is dated Sunday, 29 October 1899, and the last entry Friday, 30March 1900.
The diary makes reference to entries in the Mafeking Mail, a newspaper which was published as a Special Siege Slip during the Siege of Mafeking from 1 November 1899 - 31 May 1900.
Further reference needs to be made to the Centenary Edition of "The Mafeking Diary of Sol T. Plaatje", edited by John Comaroff and Brian Willan with Solomon Molema and Andrew Reed, published in 1999:
The Centenary edition has been greatly improved from its first edition, providing the historical context around the diary, Sol Plaatje's life and the Siege of Mafeking during the Anglo-Boer war. At the same time it has included parts which the diary omits, and it explains circumstances and historical events around the diary:
1) A letter to which Sol Plaatje refers as "public property" in his entry of the 8 December 1899 in the text of his diary, and which he meant to reproduce, but which he omits thereafter. The letter was written by Colonel Baden-Powell to General Snyman, dated 8 December 1899, and it was reproduced in the Mafeking Mail on the 11 December 1899.
2) A document by Colonel Baden-Powell dealing with the writer's threat to penalize 'grumblers' when their compensation claims were considered after the siege, published in the Mafeking Mail, 29 March. The editors of the book chose to reproduce the document in full, following Plaatje's entry of Friday 30 March 1900, where he made reference to the document.
3) The entry for Friday 30 March 1900 is the last of Plaatje's diary. The editors of the book mention some further 20 sheets of blank paper remaining in the notebook in which the diary was written, which are no longer present.
4) The Introduction and Endnotes in the book mentions earlier notes, written on loose paper. One of these notes which has survived exists in the collection A979 of Silas Molema and Solomon Plaatje, in Aa3, General correspondence, 1916-1920. It is part of a page which contains a correspondence presumably written to Silas Molema, dated 28 November 1919, written in ink. The part related to Plaatje's notebook is written in pencil, and it has the page number 7 written above the text, which reads as follows: ".... applied these remarks in order to pull them together a bit. 'It will take them 12 months, shelling every day to completely destroy a town like [Mafeking]. They will only knock a house or two down. I saw some good rocks down at your place and if you remained behind them you are perfectly safe.' We spent some of the 48 hours in sleep, when it was night, and the balance in preparing shelters."
5) The last entry of 30 March 1900 is followed by a letter, which the editors of the book explain to be the copy of a letter from Plaatje to Isaiah Bud-M'belle, Plaatje's brother-in-law. Although undated it is said to have been written at the end of February 1900.
There are a further 3 pages which cannot be related to the diary but seem to originate from the same notebook.
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Publication note
"The Mafeking Diary of Sol T. Plaatje", edited by John Comaroff and Brian Willan with Solomon Molema and Andrew Reed, published in 1999
Notes area
Note
Plaatje's diary consists of two different types of notebooks. The diary was restored in 2010 and re-bound, with the two notebooks as well as the 3 pages of loose notes bound separately from each other.
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Archivist's note
Archivist's notes: The diary has been scanned and is accessible in digital format CD no.48, and colour copies are available for handling by researchers as the original of the diary is in a fragile condition.