Vernacular Literacy and British Imperialism

The extent and nature of Southern Africa’s cultural diversity has long been a contentious topic among both Africans and Europeans. There is general agreement that the region’s inhabitants historically spoke a variety of languages and grouped themselves in different communities and polities, but there has been recurring debate over how distinct and durable those identities were and how they should be defined and labelled. Scholars have focused particularly on the construction of primordial “tribes” during the colonial era by European officials as a central feature of indirect rule and by African rulers who stood to gain from that reinforcement of their authority.Footnote ¹¹ Such critical examination has also extended to the standardization of African languages and reification of ethnic identities.Footnote ¹² While building on those studies, this article seeks to move beyond colonial binaries by contending that literate Africans were not simply agents of either imperialism or anti-imperialism, nor compelled to choose between “modernity” and “tradition,” but instead used written vernaculars to promote African communal strength in a variety of ways under colonial rule and redefined African ethnic identities for their own purposes. African communities had long practiced cultural assimilation in pursuit of “wealth in people,” but there were also significant ethno-linguistic differences that acquired new meanings and uses during the early colonial era.

Contrary to Benedict Anderson and his emphasis on the role of written European languages in the development of nationalism, African vernacular writers during the early colonial era generally did not aim to forge new ethnically-homogenous states but rather to strengthen loose regional social networks that relied to various extents on shared ancestry, customs and mutually-comprehensible languages. As suggested by Karin Barber, “the local press’s mode of constituting an imagined community depended not so much on its simultaneity and uniformity as on its hybrid, porous, and responsive character.”Footnote ¹³ Vernacular writings “did not inevitably lead people… to imagine themselves as constituents of new, wider communities,” and the multiethnic societies envisioned by African-language writers and readers would be increasingly shaped by colonial designs, but written African languages could nevertheless demonstrate the sophistication and adaptability of African cultures, asserting their continued value and importance in modern society.Footnote ¹⁴

Colonial delineation of African “tribes” began as an effort by European missionaries to comprehend the cultures and governments of Africans with whom they worked and to translate the Bible into African languages. In studying the customs and beliefs of Africans, missionaries employed European ideas of social science and ethnic nationalism, seeking to “discover” the presumed inherent traits of different “peoples” and to reduce each group’s language to a standard written form.Footnote ¹⁵ Although missionary development of written languages altered African forms of communication in some ways, Africans also were quite capable of challenging those efforts.Footnote ¹⁶ As observed by Roger Edwards of the London Missionary Society (LMS),

British missionaries in the interior of the subcontinent during the mid-nineteenth century also did not call for the conquest of the African chiefdoms where they were based, preferring instead gradual change instilled by the “civilizing” influence of Christianity and mercantile trade. Rather than diminish Africa’s cultural diversity, they hoped for the voluntary cooperation of all nations under an almighty benevolent God and a global Pax Britannica.

That professed ideal was contradicted by the reality of British expansion in the interior of Southern Africa after 1870, and the identification of African groups and development of written vernaculars came to be shaped more by the needs of colonial administrators than of missionaries. European missionaries provided information about the customs and beliefs of “Natives,” but the government was more interested in determining which African ruler had authority over each community, the customary laws of each “tribe,” and the availability of Africans as laborers.Footnote ¹⁸ Those interests were evident in the gathering of information by the South African Native Affairs Commission (SANAC) during 1903–5, which assumed the existence of different African ethnic groups without defining them. It also recommended that “Chiefs continue to be recognized as a means of government of the Native races” while also contrarily expecting the gradual “abolition of the tribal system.”Footnote ¹⁹

The SANAC made few recommendations about schooling or African languages, but it viewed the rapid growth of the “Native Press” as a positive development, welcoming their promotion of literacy and public exchange of ideas even if they were sometimes critical of government policies.Footnote ²⁰ The earliest of those newspapers was the IsiXhosa Imvo Zabantsundu (Native Opinion), followed by others such as the IsiZulu Ilanga Lase Natal (Sun of Natal) and the Northern Sotho Leihlo la Babathso (The Native Eye). African editors of the newspapers generally maintained the liberalism of their missionary teachers, extolling the benefits of education, Christianity and British rule, while also asserting that they could be loyal subjects of the Empire without abandoning their African languages and communal identities. Although some scholars have focused on the role of the newspapers as potential facilitators of Black nationalism, critiquing the limitations of their liberal ideals, the editors themselves had more faith in their ability to influence the government and to help forge a just and harmonious society.Footnote ²¹ In doing so, they “adapted, inverted and subverted polite imperial discourse,” using the teachings that they had received in mission schools to exhort Europeans to practice what they preached.Footnote ²²

As elsewhere on the continent, the development of written African languages in the interior of Southern Africa was inextricably linked with the differentiation of African group identities. Inhabitants of the region had long identified themselves primarily by the ancestral totems of patriclans and by submission to a particular kgosi (chief, king), but there were also distinct geographic variations in their languages and customs. The largest ethno-linguistic clusters of communities were labelled as “Basuto” and “Bechuana” by Europeans, or collectively as “Sotho-Tswana” by later scholars, in contrast with the “Nguni” cultural sphere to the southeast and “Khoesan” to the southwest. Versions of those labels and the names for totemic clans originated with Africans, but they acquired new meaning and rigidity under European rule with the standardization of written languages, ethnographic research, and formalization of chiefly authority.Footnote ²³ As one reader of a missionary-edited Setswana newspaper warned, “In the future we might find ourselves speaking one language that is used only in books, which is not the one created by us but the language of those who have difficulty with Sicwana.”Footnote ²⁴ At the same time, though most Batswana still regarded their various local dipuo (ways of speaking) or diteme (tongues) as more real and meaningful than the lifeless written words of missionary publications, they also had come to value literacy and the ability to communicate far beyond the reach of one’s voice. African-produced vernacular newspapers thus were not simply tools for the creation of European-imagined “tribes” but were used by Africans to assert the breadth and cohesiveness of their cultures under colonial rule as defined by themselves.

Promotion of Tswana Language and Culture

In the first issue of Koranta ea Becoana, published on 27 April 1901 as a one-page insert in the Mafeking Mail, the editor explains the newspaper’s purpose to report news to Batswana in their own language. Initially written almost entirely in Setswana, it was intended for “Becoana botlhe” (all Batswana), extending all the way from the “Nokeng e Ncho” (Black River, i.e. Orange River) to “Gamangoato” (the Bangwato chiefdom, in the northern Bechuanaland Protectorate).Footnote ²⁵ Although there were earlier mission-produced monthly periodicals, Koranta was the first Setswana newspaper to be produced weekly and, more importantly, solely by Batswana. As with earlier publications, there was also an expectation that its contents would be read aloud and publicly discussed, and complimentary copies were sent to all of the “Likgosing tsa Sicoana” (Tswana chiefs), asking them to inform their people that a light had appeared and the morning star had risen “mo fatshing ya Sicoana” (in the land of Setswana).

Koranta arose in the dual municipality of Mafikeng, the capital of the Tshidi Barolong chiefdom and an adjacent European town, in the northern Cape Colony during the last year of the South African War. The newspaper was initiated by Silas Molema, a member of the Tshidi Barolong ruling family, and Sol Plaatje, a member of the chiefdom who was working as a clerk and interpreter at the British magistrate’s court. Although the Boer siege of Mafikeng had been lifted a year earlier, the war still raged elsewhere, which, along with accelerating urbanization and European expansion, uprooted numerous Tswana communities and provoked widespread anxiety. Molema, Plaatje and the readers of their newspaper hoped that a shared sense of “Sicoana” identity might help to revive communal values and vigor, making Koranta “a sacred symbol amidst an unsettled moral environment.”Footnote ²⁶

The viability of a Setswana newspaper relied in part on the fact that, unlike in the Cape, most mission schools in the interior of Southern Africa during the nineteenth century used the local vernacular rather than English as the primary language of instruction, producing a sizable population who were literate in Setswana. Although Setswana’s various dialects remained mostly spoken, an increasing number of Batswana also corresponded with one another and with Europeans in written Setswana. The use of both spoken and written forms of Setswana across the interior of Southern Africa made the language “a crucial resource, the organic link between the educated leadership, chiefs and people, and the means of building up their communal strength and identity.”Footnote ²⁷

The newspaper’s format of headlines, columns and different types of news stories was also familiar to Tswana readers from earlier mission periodicals, and Koranta’s publishers had reason to hope for enough subscribers to pay for its costs. The size and content of Koranta ea Becoana varied significantly during the few years of its existence in an effort to meet the costs of publication and to expand its readership. As an insert within the Mafeking Mail during its first months, it consisted of one side of one page that was filled entirely with news and editorials, relying on the host newspaper’s subscriptions and advertising for support. However, under the patronage of Silas Molema, it was soon published independently of the Mafeking Mail and expanded in size, fluctuating between two and four pages during 1901–2.

The content remained mostly in Setswana during the first years, but by 1904 Koranta had grown to six pages and included a significant amount of English content as well. While the English portions tended to focus on government or mission news, the Setswana portions included more coverage of local politics and culture as well as letters from readers on a range of issues. Most of the English content also appeared in Setswana, but only some of the Setswana material was translated into English, indicating which topics Plaatje presumably felt might be of greatest interest to everyone. Unlike some later bilingual newspapers elsewhere in the British Empire, Koranta and most of its readers did not yet regard themselves as “Anglophone.”Footnote ²⁸

They also had only recently begun to think of themselves as Setswana-speakers, and one inevitable complication in publishing the newspaper was the lack of any standard way to write the language. During the nineteenth century, rival mission agencies had devised different orthographies for various local dialects (and for the closely-related languages of Sesotho and Sepedi), and graduates of the mission schools generally regarded the speaking and writing style of their own community and church to be most reasonable.Footnote ²⁹ In the LMS publication Mahoko a Becwana during the 1880s, when missionary editors claimed to be offering a newspaper “for all Batswana,” several writers challenged their attempt to produce a single standard Setswana.Footnote ³⁰ This tension persisted into the twentieth century, as a 1904 Koranta editorial complained that a revised version of the Setswana Bible did not include enough input from various Setswana-speakers.Footnote ³¹ Koranta, meanwhile, employed an orthography devised by Wesleyan Methodists for their Rolong missions, and Plaatje was accused of producing a newspaper whose language and news stories were intended more for Plaatje’s fellow Barolong than for all Batswana. Joel D. Goronyane, a prominent Morolong Wesleyan minister and agent for the newspaper in Thaba Ntsho in the Orange River Colony, defended its importance for honoring Rolong origins while also asserting that “botho bo a thusanya” (to be human is to help one another), and non-Barolong should read the newspaper in order to stay informed about events in other communities.Footnote ³² Plaatje also defended the title of the newspaper as an accurate indication of its target readership, extending beyond only one Tswana group though not necessarily to all “Bancho” (Blacks).Footnote ³³

In addition to asserting a broader scope for Setswana as a major South African language, the richness and strength of Tswana cultural traditions are also recurring themes in Koranta. Although Plaatje and other contributors to the newspaper, in adopting mission teachings and urban lifestyles, criticized some customary practices and beliefs as inhumane or superstitious, they also were proud of Tswana achievements and the ability of Batswana to manage their own affairs. They saw Setswana culture not simply as compatible with modernity but as essential for the social and economic development of each morafe (chiefdom, nation). As described by Moguerane, “The future lay in ‘progress’ in the countryside. The word was ‘coelopele’, to move forward, to advance, but in fact, Plaatje understood ‘progress’ as a return to the virtuous disposition of the morafe’s ancestry on the land.”Footnote ³⁴ Koranta makes frequent references to old proverbs and the wisdom of elders, and at one point the editor requests more information from readers about the historical foundations of Tswana society.Footnote ³⁵ In another issue, the newspaper reports on the formation of a mophato (regiment) by the “Basuto” and “Bechuana” students at Lovedale College, the leading training ground for Cape liberalism, naming themselves “Maanyapoli” (The Goat Milkers).Footnote ³⁶

In highlighting such expressions of Sotho-Tswana solidarity, Plaatje and the newspaper’s readers differentiated themselves from “Makhonkhobe” (southern Nguni-speakers), “Matebele” (northern Nguni-speakers), and other ethnically foreign Africans. In Setswana, most types of people belong to the “ba-” noun class, identifying them as fellow batho (people), but the labels for many groups instead begin with “ma-”, placing them in the same noun class as clustered objects that are relatively uniform in appearance and function, such as mae (eggs), magapu (watermelons), and maru (clouds). In contrast with the British colonial focus on Africans in the Cape and Natal, echoed today by the dominance of AmaXhosa and AmaZulu in South Africa as representatively “African,” residents of the interior of Southern Africa generally regarded their own communities as central and Nguni-speakers as outsiders who could only gradually be assimilated into Tswana society.Footnote ³⁷

While celebrating “Sicoana” as a distinct African culture, Koranta was even more emphatic in distinguishing Batswana from “Makgoa” (English-speaking Europeans). Plaatje saw certain British liberal values as universal qualities, such as the “Labour, Sobriety, Thrift and Education” lauded in a sub-header on the front page of the newspaper, but he felt those things could be achieved only by maintaining the integrity of Tswana communities and resisting the temptations of individualistic capitalism in European towns.Footnote ³⁸ Khumisho Moguerane argues that Plaatje and his compatriots felt that full “personhood” could only be achieved within the “ethical boundary” of a morafe, and therefore as Batswana became colonial subjects they should continue to regard chiefly capitals as their primary social centers.Footnote ³⁹ As Silas Molema described Koranta’s position, “To the European readers it advocates fair treatment to their Native servants, equal political rights to their Native neighbours and the absolute social segregation of the white and black races of South Africa.”Footnote ⁴⁰ At the beginning of the twentieth century, the cultural and political autonomy of African and European communities still seemed more salient than their economic interdependence, and Koranta envisioned the role of “Natives” in South Africa as separate but equal.

That view was also expressed by Sol Plaatje when SANAC representatives visited Mafikeng in September of 1904 to collect evidence. Plaatje was one of only three informants from all of British Bechuanaland, the other two being Kgosi Badirile Montshiwa and a European merchant. In Plaatje’s testimony, he asserted that Batswana’s willingness to live “under the white people’s law” should not be conflated with a desire to “live like the white people.” Seeking clarification, the interviewer asked Plaatje if he thought that Natives who “cling to their customs” should be entitled to “the highest privilege of civilised nations — the franchise,” to which Plaatje replied, “While he has his obligations to the State as well as any other civilised man, he is entitled to it.”Footnote ⁴¹

Although mission-educated Batswana accepted the British liberal idea that Africans could earn the right to participate as equals with Europeans in colonial society by adopting certain European skills and laws, many Batswana of Sol Plaatje’s generation also insisted on the continued value and importance of their own African civilization. Deeply rooted in chiefdoms that had generally maintained significant levels of autonomy until the end of the nineteenth century, they hoped and expected that Africans could enjoy the protection of British law not simply as Europeanized individuals but also as African communities. In the wake of British conquest of the interior, however, the interests of European settlers and industrialists quickly took precedence over those of Tswana communities, and Tswana “tribalism” would increasingly be used more in support of divisive indirect rule than as a means for African empowerment.

Tswana Chieftaincy

The feature of Tswana society that probably received the most attention in Koranta was the central role of dikgosi (chiefs, kings; kgosi singular) in preserving the peace, prosperity and integrity of each community. As succinctly stated by the SANAC, “It is through the existence of a Chief that the tribe is conscious of its unity.”Footnote ⁴² In almost every issue of the newspaper, there is a report about the activities and pronouncements of some Morolong or other Motswana ruler, and they are generally portrayed in a courteous manner. This interest reflected a prevalent assumption among Batswana that dikgosi continued to serve as their primary leaders in the face of European colonization, and that it was the duty of educated elites such as Plaatje to publicize and comment on their efforts, promoting respect for their authority while at the same time keeping them accountable. Loss of control over land, cattle and labor severely weakened the power of dikgosi, but their office still exercised considerable influence in the rural communities that most Africans regarded as home at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Plaatje praised the leadership of dikgosi whom he regarded as particularly capable, and he frequently published Setswana correspondence regarding their activities. In the first issue of the newspaper, there is a report by Kgosi Lekoko of the Mariba Barolong about a visit by a Barolong delegation from the Free State to Kgosi Gaborone of the Batlokwa in the Bechuanaland Protectorate.Footnote ⁴³ In 1903, there appeared a detailed report on the resolution of a boundary dispute between the Bakwena and Bangwato in the protectorate.Footnote ⁴⁴ In 1904, an article commenting on Samuel Moroka’s unsuccessful efforts to succeed his father as kgosi of the Seleka Barolong provoked responses from readers with different views of the case.Footnote ⁴⁵ Later that year, Koranta reproduced a letter in English from Kgosi Bathoen of the Bangwaketse to the colonial secretary concerned about “Asiatics” taking mine jobs from Bangwaketse and other Africans.Footnote ⁴⁶ A few years later, Plaatje wrote in defense of Sekgoma Letsolathebe when he was deposed by the British from his position as kgosi of the Batawana.Footnote ⁴⁷

Although British imperial and South African citizenship would soon be regarded as incompatible with tribal citizenship, many Africans during the early twentieth century initially hoped for a possible reconciliation of the different political systems, with chiefs playing a central role in that process. Considering the success of many Sotho-Tswana rulers in managing Christianity and trade in their communities during much of the nineteenth century, Plaatje and fellow educated elites had reason to believe that “chieftaincy was a facilitator of cosmopolitanism” rather than of rural isolation, and that chiefs could guide the growth of schooling and economic development in ways that would benefit Africans.Footnote ⁴⁸ As described by Moguerane, many literate Batswana at the beginning of the twentieth century aspired not to break free from the presumed constraints of tradition but rather to be empowered by their morafe’s adaptation to colonial rule.Footnote ⁴⁹

This collaboration between educated elites and dikgosi provoked concern among colonial authorities, who expected mission-educated Africans and local rulers to play different subservient roles in colonial society. While literate Christian Africans were encouraged to become clerks, teachers and consumers of European goods, African chiefs were to be employed as government officials, helping to maintain order and insure an adequate supply of labor for mines, industry and commercial agriculture. Therefore when Koranta published a letter in 1903 from Segale Pilane, brother of Kgosi Linchwe of the Bakgatla at Mochudi, expressing dissatisfaction with British rule in the Transvaal, it soon came to the attention of colonial authorities and they launched an investigation.Footnote ⁵⁰ In that case, the resident commissioner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate assured the high commissioner in Johannesburg that there was no cause for alarm and that, “If I gave currency to every discontented utterance circulated in the ‘Koranta’, Your Excellency would weary of my despatches.” However, he thereafter paid closer attention to the Setswana content of the newspaper for evidence of potential “mischief.”Footnote ⁵¹

African rulers and intellectuals would gradually become estranged from each other, but during the early twentieth century their responses to European colonization were closely intertwined. Silas Molema of the Tshidi Barolong chiefly family was the primary patron of Koranta, and other vernacular newspapers enjoyed similar support from African rulers.Footnote ⁵² In British West Africa, the English-language Sierra Leone Weekly News disparaged the “childish caprices and puerile ambitions” of chiefs who resisted British expansion during the 1890s, but they also felt that African rulers should not simply be conquered but instead peacefully persuaded to submit to a “wise, just and generous Civil administration, the aim of which is the welfare and content of the people.”Footnote ⁵³ Thirty years later, Yoruba-language newspapers in Nigeria defended the value of some Yoruba traditions and rallied popular support for local rulers against unjust British governance.Footnote ⁵⁴ As argued by Christopher Lowe in describing the importance of chiefs and kings in the establishment of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) in 1912, “The idea of eradicating historical identities is an anachronistic projection of later conceptions of non-racialism onto early SANNC strategy.”Footnote ⁵⁵ The development of African nationalism makes for a compelling narrative, but it overlooks the fact that African resistance to European domination was initially inspired not by visions of future non-ethnic, unitary, democratic states but by the ancestral authority of various chiefs and the belief that God was on their side.

African Christian Independence

In the last paragraph of Segale Pilane’s letter, he expressed concern about a report in the newspaper Lentsue la Batho (Voice of the People) that an African minister had been dismissed by the Dutch Reformed Church allegedly “ka ntlha ea bontsho” (because of blackness), leading Segale to conclude of the Church, “They even despise our creation and say that they cannot allow the scripture in black hands. I say, let us leave them alone. We shall see in heaven if there will be any difference.”Footnote ⁵⁶ In expressing anger at European racism in Christian terms, Segale reflected a fairly widespread concern among mission-educated Batswana that the egalitarian ideals of Christianity, as preached by British missionaries during the nineteenth century and embraced by converts, were being contradicted by the discriminatory policies of colonial rule. This conviction was shared by Plaatje, who occasionally cited biblical teachings and regularly reported on church events, appealing to Christian principles in support of Tswana interests. Disenchantment with British leadership had already taken root in several Tswana congregations during the European “scramble” of the late nineteenth century, but increased missionary collusion with colonial authorities after 1900 strained the viability of Christianity as a vehicle for Tswana aspirations.

Christianity had been received in many Tswana communities during the nineteenth century as a potential source of power, wealth and healing under the management and patronage of each kgosi and his family. With British conquest of the interior after 1870, missionaries asserted greater control over Tswana congregations, provoking confrontations with dikgosi and schisms led by African evangelists. During the 1890s, some of the new African-led churches adopted the label of “Ethiopian” and sought support from the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in the United States, but most congregational disputes in Tswana communities were driven more by local politics and personal rivalries than by ideas of Pan-African solidarity.Footnote ⁵⁷ Many Tswana dikgosi, as well as educated elites, soon had reservations about the value of a larger Black church, preferring their own institutions and vernacular expressions of Christianity, but that did not prevent concern among colonial officials that visiting AME preachers might inspire a united African resistance to European rule.Footnote ⁵⁸

European alarm about a widespread “black peril” reached a crescendo in 1904–6. As one writer commented in the Rand Daily Mail, “If there is any truth in the idea that there is at present an unparalleled disposition amongst hitherto unfriendly tribes to combine, it is a sign of the times which calls for extreme watchfulness.”Footnote ⁵⁹ A large missionary conference in Johannesburg devoted considerable discussion to the issue of Ethiopianism, concluding that, though amenable to African efforts to claim greater ownership of their congregations, the missionaries objected to intrusion by African-American ministers and AME proselytizing in areas already served by European missions.Footnote ⁶⁰ Those concerns about Ethiopianism soon dissipated, however, as the African-run churches divided from one another and lost the support of both dikgosi and African urban elites, marginalizing African independent Christianity and ultimately granting supremacy to European ideas about the separation of church and state.

Though sympathetic with the goals of Ethiopian churches and their demands for greater respect from Europeans, Sol Plaatje was critical of individual ministers ordained by the AME who appeared to lack proper qualifications. The newspaper noted the opening of new Ethiopian churches and spoke positively of Plaatje’s meetings with some AME ministers, but it also received a letter in English from E. T. Mpila of Bloemfontein offended by Koranta’s negative coverage of AME activities among the Barotse.Footnote ⁶¹ In the editor’s reply three weeks later, he assured his readers that he felt no animosity against the Ethiopian movement but remained skeptical about “incompetent preachers,” reflecting his opinion that Africans, employing Christian principles and schooling, could and should demonstrate their equality with Europeans.Footnote ⁶² Plaatje therefore seemed to be somewhat ambivalent about Christianity’s potential as a means for African empowerment, praising the moral authority of well-behaved African Christian individuals while reluctant to forsake his European mission upbringing and the various mission affiliations of Tswana dikgosi in favor of a united, independent African church.

Batswana Christians came to differentiate Christianity from colonialism during the nineteenth century as many ruling families adopted the thuto (teaching) as their own, but the combined influences of Protestantism and capitalism weakened the “tribal” churches. The Protestant Christianity of most mission agencies in Southern Africa emphasized “the primacy of individual conscience” and “the authority of the scriptures,” giving each person their own access to God’s grace, and economic changes similarly gave individuals their own access to personal wealth, undermining people’s dependence on dikgosi for such blessings.Footnote ⁶³ At the same time, however, in Koranta’s coverage of the “Ethiopian” church movement and in quoting “I am black but comely” from the biblical Song of Songs in several issues, the newspaper found divine support for dark-skinned people, suggesting a broader African claim to God’s favor.Footnote ⁶⁴

Urbanization

Erosion of chiefly authority, increased individual mobility, and the ethnic diversity of “Natives” became most pronounced in the towns that had been founded in the interior during the European scramble, where new identities emerged not only in reaction to discriminatory laws but also as creative social phenomena. Drawn to towns for employment in mines, industries, government offices, shops and large houses, people from throughout Southern Africa started new lives in urban areas that gradually became less rooted in their ancestral communities and more responsive to the economic and cultural attractions of the European-run towns. Although Sotho-Tswana people from surrounding areas usually comprised the majority in towns such as Kimberley, Mafikeng, Bloemfontein and Pretoria, “Native locations” in those towns also included significant numbers of migrants from more distant lands who contributed to the development of vibrant, multiethnic communities.

The growing importance of towns for Batswana was reflected in the news, editorials and letters of Koranta. In addition to reports of organizational meetings, incidents and court cases that took place in towns, letters to the editor were frequently written by town residents, complaining about pass laws and other restrictions imposed on Africans. The newspaper also occasionally printed a list of people who acted as agents for Koranta in various communities, from whom copies of the newspaper could be purchased and through whom correspondence could be conveyed, including three people in each city of Johannesburg, Bloemfontein and Kimberley.Footnote ⁶⁵

Perhaps the most obvious evidence of Koranta’s involvement in urban life can be found in its advertisements, upon which it was heavily dependent to support the costs of publication. In fact, considering that advertisements at times occupied the entire front page and large portions of the rest of the newspaper, one might surmise that Koranta’s primary purpose was to promote consumption rather than to convey news.Footnote ⁶⁶ There was a dizzying array of goods that readers were exhorted to “rekang” (buy) as soon as possible, including clothing, furniture, groceries and various other items deemed essential for a bourgeois lifestyle. Among the more interesting advertisements were recurring testimonials in Setswana by prominent individuals describing the amazing curative powers of “Dr. Williams Pink Pills,” their alleged veracity enhanced by being printed amidst news reports and editorials with the same font and column width.Footnote ⁶⁷

Another way that the newspaper apparently targeted upwardly-mobile readers was the “Maitisho” section that became a popular regular feature by 1904. Named for casual conversations that take place around the glowing embers of a cooking fire after dinner and before going to bed, Maitisho offered informal observations about the changing lifestyles of Africans, gossip about current events, and more stylistic creativity than the news and editorial sections of the newspaper. In one edition, for example, Plaatje composed a humorous poem exhorting all people to buy his newspaper, whether fat or thin, beautiful or ugly, or of whatever race, class or ethnicity, as in these sample stanzas:

In addition to referencing the women’s temperance union (“Women of the Belt”) and Transvaal activists, the poem also playfully caricatured Tswana regional variety as well as non-Batswana town residents, uniting all as fellow Africans undergoing rapid social change and as potential subscribers of Koranta ea Becoana.

Laying Foundations for African Unity

The self-taught, disciplined and ambitious Sol Plaatje embodied an emphasis on personal responsibility that was one of the central tenets of Cape liberalism, but he and other educated elites also became increasingly aware of their shared plight as victims of European imperialism and sought to develop closer ties with one another. Multiethnic associations had historical precedence in the frequent merging and reconfiguration of Highveld communities, but the new dimensions of race and class introduced by European colonization were the primary impetus for the formation of “African” identity in the twentieth century.Footnote ⁶⁹ In the wake of European conquest of the interior, Africans from different ethnic backgrounds moved into the same mission boarding schools, mine compounds and urban “locations,” and shared the experience of being taught, employed and governed by Europeans. Although English would eventually emerge as the main language for expressing that sense of unity in South Africa, evidence of incipient African nationalism can also be found in the Setswana pages of Koranta ea Becoana.

During the first years of the newspaper, it reported mostly only on events and issues that directly affected people in Mafikeng and other Tswana communities, but there was a gradual increase in the geographic scope of what was considered newsworthy. In 1901 and 1902, amidst reports on the activities of Tswana dikgosi and the prospects for an end to the South African War, there were also occasional references to events elsewhere in Southern Africa. By 1904, the newspaper reported regularly on major events around the world, such as fighting between Germans and Herero in Southwest Africa, and often framed such conflicts in terms of race and imperialism. As Plaatje identified the combatants in the Russo-Japanese War, “maJapan ke Bancho, maRussia ke makgoa” (the Japanese are Blacks, the Russians are Europeans), and he speculated whether other Europeans might come to the aid of the Russians.Footnote ⁷⁰

The most significant foreign influence in the shaping of Black identity in South Africa was from African Americans, and Koranta often included coverage of the racial situation in the United States. Plaatje was particularly interested in the role of Black-run schools and churches in elevating African Americans. In addition to news of AME church leaders visiting South Africa, Koranta also published a lengthy account by Sebopioa Molema of his visit to Wilberforce University in Ohio and occasionally described the work of Booker T. Washington.Footnote ⁷¹ Reports for Setswana readers portrayed African American self-improvement as an example to be emulated, advocating the acquisition of skills and status while retaining a distinct identity as “Bancho” (Blacks).Footnote ⁷² The newspaper also targeted its English-speaking readers with news of how Americans were dealing with their racial diversity, suggesting that White South Africans might learn something from their example.Footnote ⁷³ In its eagerness to promote Black empowerment and social harmony, however, Koranta tended to overlook the violent racism that was prevalent during the Jim Crow era in the United States.

The development of early Pan-Africanism relied heavily on improved communication and the sharing of ideas and writings between different educated elites. In addition to referencing African-American news and publications, Koranta also frequently cited reports and editorials from Black-run newspapers in Southern Africa and elsewhere on the continent. As noted earlier, the first such periodical was Imvo Zabantsundu, published by John Tengo Jabavu in the Eastern Cape, but it eventually came to be regarded by Plaatje and others as too accommodating to European domination.Footnote ⁷⁴ Koranta was increasingly likely to reproduce articles from other South African publications — or even a Sierra Leone newspaper — that were critical of South Africa’s colonial government, fostering a growing sense of unity among the colonized.Footnote ⁷⁵ The Lagos Weekly Record, meanwhile, published a report from the Rhodesia Herald expressing concern about Koranta ea Becoana, “which has for its aims the inflammation of hate against the white man on the part of the black, and the fostering of the contention that he is an invader of the land properly owned by the native.”Footnote ⁷⁶ Plaatje denied such accusations, but news about criticism of colonialism clearly helped to encourage a sense of African solidarity.

In March of 1904, Koranta published a copy of an English article from the Northern Sotho newspaper Leihlo la Babathso critical of British rule in the Transvaal.Footnote ⁷⁷ Though rendered in English at the time as “Native,” the literal translation of Babathso is “Blacks,” indicating a racialized collective African identity. Leihlo was edited by Levy Khomo, who also served as secretary of the Transvaal Native Vigilance Association in Pietersburg, and his political views were evidently similar to those of Plaatje. After meeting with the Secretary of Native Affairs in April of 1904 about a variety of issues, Khomo proceeded to call a meeting of all the dikgosi in the Transvaal, ostensibly to share with them what he had learned and to present a united front against Ethiopianism, but colonial authorities regarded such a gathering of chiefs together with educated elites as a greater threat than separatist churches and quickly intervened to prevent the meeting.Footnote ⁷⁸ As asserted by C. A. Wheelwright, district commissioner of the Northern Transvaal, “I think we would be making a mistake in suspecting the Ethiopian Church simply as the only source from which native sedition and agitation is preached. There is no doubt they do, but on a very much greater scale is agitation carried on by educated natives of other denominations who have nothing to do with the Ethiopians.”Footnote ⁷⁹

British efforts to minimize such “native sedition” and establish administrative control over all of its claimed territory in Southern Africa were a major concern of Koranta, and in reporting on the government’s activities and regulations, Plaatje displayed some ambivalence regarding the impact of British rule on Africans. While eagerly anticipating British victory in the South African War and apparently quite willing to serve as an official publisher of government notifications for Setswana-speakers, Koranta also criticized unjust court rulings and advised its readers on how to legally challenge unfair employment contracts.Footnote ⁸⁰ When several dikgosi signed an agreement in 1902 to fall under the jurisdiction of the Transvaal, Plaatje urged them to reconsider and to seek instead the relative autonomy of protectorate status.Footnote ⁸¹ At the same time, Plaatje highlighted instances when colonial officials acted well, and he encouraged Batswana to cooperate with the government and abide by its laws. Plaatje thus sought to influence the development of policies rather than challenge the government’s authority, while also expressing great frustration at its inability — or unwillingness — to enforce the principles of Cape liberalism.