Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (9 October 1876 – 19 June 1932) was a South African intellectual, journalist, linguist, politician, translator and writer. Plaatje was a founding member and first General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), which became the African National Congress (ANC). The Sol Plaatje Local Municipality, which includes the city of Kimberley, is named after him, as is the Sol Plaatje University in that city, which opened its doors in 2014.Address by the President of South Africa during the announcement of new Interim Councils and names of the New Universities, 25 July 2013, retrieved 25 July 2013.
Early life
Plaatje was born in Doornfontein near Boshof, Orange Free State (now Free State Province, South Africa), the sixth of eight sons. His grandfather's name was Selogilwe Mogodi (1836-1881) but his employer, the Boer farmer Groenewald, nicknamed him Plaatje ('Picture') in 1856 and the family started using this as a surname. His parents Johannes and Martha were members of the Tswana nation. They were Christians and worked for missionaries at mission stations in South Africa. When Solomon was four, the family moved to Pniel near Kimberley in the Cape Colony to work for a German missionary, Ernst Westphal (the grandfather of the linguist Ernst Westphal) and his wife Wilhelmine. There he received a mission-education. When he outpaced fellow learners he was given additional private tuition by Mrs. Westphal, who also taught him to play the piano and violin and gave him singing lessons. In February 1892, aged 15, he became a pupil-teacher, a post he held for two years.
After leaving school, he moved to Kimberley in 1894 where he became a telegraph messenger for the Post Office. He subsequently passed the clerical examination (the highest in the colony) with higher marks than any other candidate in Dutch and typing (reported by Neil Parsons in his foreword to Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion). At that time, the Cape Colony had qualified franchise for all men 21 or over, the qualification being that they be able to read and write English or Dutch and earn over 50 pounds a year. Thus, when he turned 21 in 1897, he was able to vote, a right he would later lose when the Cape Colony was merged with other Southern African colonies into the Union of South Africa.
Shortly thereafter, he became a court interpreter for the British colonial authorities in Mafeking when the settlement was under siege and kept a diary of his experiences which were published posthumously.
After the Second Boer War ended, he was optimistic that the British government would ensure that all males in South Africa would continue to be granted qualified franchise, but they instead handed over the majority of political power to the new South African government, which restricted voting rights to white South Africans only. Plaatje criticised the British government for this decision in an unpublished 1909 manuscript entitled Sekgoma – the Black Dreyfus.
Career
As an activist and politician, he spent much of his life in the struggle for the enfranchisement and liberation of African people. He was a founder member and first General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), which became the African National Congress (ANC) ten years later in 1922. As a member of an SANNC deputation, he traveled to England to protest against the Natives Land Act, 1913, and later to Canada and the United States where he met Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois.
While he grew up speaking the Tswana language, Plaatje would become a polyglot. Fluent in at least seven languages, he worked as a court interpreter during the Siege of Mafeking, and translated works of William Shakespeare into Tswana. His talent for language would lead to a career in journalism and writing. He was editor and part-owner of Kuranta ya Becoana (Bechuana Gazette) in Mahikeng, and in Kimberley Tsala ya Becoana (Bechuana Friend) and Tsala ya Batho (The Friend of the People).
Plaatje was the first black South African to write a novel in English – Mhudi. He wrote the novel in 1919, but it was only published in 1930 (in 1928 the Zulu writer R. R. R. Dhlomo published an English-language novel, entitled An African Tragedy, at the missionary Lovedale Press, in Alice; this makes Dhlomo's novel the first published black South African novel in English, even though Plaatje's Mhudi had been written first). He also wrote Native Life in South Africa, which Neil Parsons describes as "one of the most remarkable books on Africa by one of the continent's most remarkable writers", and Boer War Diary that was first published 40 years after his death.
Performing
Plaatje made three visits to Britain. There he met many people of similar views. One was the cinema and theatrical impresario George Lattimore who in 1923 was promoting with Pathé, Cradle of the World, the "most marvellous and thrilling travel film ever screened". In a letter to the pan-Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois, Lattimore reported that he was having a "successful run" at the Philharmonic Hall in London.Letter from George W. Lattimore to W. E. B. Du Bois, 21 August 1923. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, credo. Retrieved 13 October 2014. The show, which had the character of a revue, included live music and singing. Plaatje was recruited by Lattimore to take the role of an African tribesman.Topp Fargion, Janet. "Sol t Plaatje: The hidden recording" , in Playback, Bulletin of the British Library National Sound Archive, No. 12, Autumn 1995, pp. 2-4.
Importantly, according to the SOAS University of London, this short-lived acting reflects a period of Plaatje's life where he was "desperately in need of money".'Scene from the stage show of Cradle of the World, 1923' Considering "Cradle of the World" and its simplistic depictions of indigenous culture, it is likely that Plaatje only would have participated if he desperately needed too. Plaatje, descended from the BaRong people of the Tswana-speaking nation; but was born and raised in a Lutheran Mission within the Orange Free State.Brian Willians
His recording of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" with Sylvia Colenso at the piano is believed to be the earliest extant recording of what would become the national anthem of South Africa.BBC radio 4 Desert Island Disks 16 January 2022.Audio recording MP3. Audio from South African Music Archive Project.
Personal life Plaatje was a committed Christian,Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (Sol Plaatje) Mafikeng Capital City – North West Province South Africa at www.tourismnorthwest.co.za and organised a fellowship group called the Christian Brotherhood at Kimberley. He was married to Elizabeth Lilith M'belle. They had six children – Frederick York St Leger, Halley, Richard, Violet, Olive and Johannes Gutenberg.
Plaatje's "Native Life" by some scholars has been described as displaying a paternalistic attitude towards women.Swart, Sandra. “‘It Is as Bad to Be a Black Man’s Animal as It Is to Be a Black Man’ — the Politics of Species in Sol Plaatje’s ‘Native Life in South Africa.’” Journal of Southern African Studies 40, no. 4 (2014): 689–705. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24566751. One such chapter is 'Our Indebtedness to white women', which reflects notions of domesticity prevalent at the time. Nonetheless, challenging this view is The British Newspaper Archive's digitalisation of 'The International Woman Suffrage News'.
In July 1923, a 'Sol Plaatje, Esq' donated 4 shillings and 3 pence towards for the international suffragette cause.International Woman Suffrage News. “DONATIONS – continued”. Editorial. July 6, 1923, 16. The British Newspaper Archive Notably, 1923 was a particularly bad time financially, yet Plaatje made this donation. While it is not clear why he made this donation, it does raise a few important questions regarding the tone in which "Our Indebtedness to White Women" forms.
White women played various important roles in his life. Firstly, Mrs Wilhelmine Westphal, who, upon her husband's increasing role in the Mission's governance, took a larger role in young Plaatje's tutoring.Willan, Brian.Sol Plaatje: A Life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, 1876-1932. Pretoria: Jacana Media, 2018. Secondly, Georgiana Solomon and Jane Cobden, interceded on Plaatje's behalf within the So-called Aborigines' Protection Society, to try and win him an audience, which triggered their expulsion.Willan, Brian, “Native Life in South Africa: Writing, Publication, Reception.” Chapter. In Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa: Past and Present, edited by Janet Remmington, Brian Willan, and Bhekizizwe Peterson, 1–17. Wits University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.18772/22016109810.15. Thirdly, when he was writing "Native Life", Landlady Alice Timerberlake English Heritage. "Solomon T. Plaatje." Accessed February 2, 2024.https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/solomon-plaatje/. did not chase the cash-strapped Plaatje for rent, allowing him to prioritise raising funds to publish "Native Life".Willan, Brian, “Native Life in South Africa: Writing, Publication, Reception.” Chapter. In Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa: Past and Present, edited by Janet Remmington, Brian Willan, and Bhekizizwe Peterson, 1–17. Wits University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.18772/22016109810.15.
Plaatje died of pneumonia at Pimville, Johannesburg, on 19 June 1932 aged 55, and was buried in Kimberley. Over a thousand people attended the funeral.
Recognition and legacy
1935: three years after his death, a tombstone was erected over Plaatje's grave with the inscription: "I Khutse Morolong: Modiredi Wa Afrika – Rest in Peace Morolong, You Servant of Africa".
Decades passed before Plaatje began to receive the recognition he deserved. "Much of what he strove for came to nought," writes his biographer Brian Willan; "his political career was gradually forgotten, his manuscripts were lost or destroyed, his published books largely unread. His novel Mhudi formed part of no literary tradition, and was long regarded as little more than a curiosity."
1970s: interest was stirred in Plaatje's journalistic and literary legacy through the work of John Comaroff (who edited for publication The Boer War Diary of Sol T. Plaatje, and by Tim Couzens and Stephen Gray (who focused attention on Sol Plaatje's novel, Mhudi) 1978: Mhudi was re-published under the editorial guidance of Stephen GrayPlaatje, Sol T. 1978 (1930). Mhudi. Ed. Stephen Gray. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books. 1982: Plaatje's Native Life in South Africa: Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion (1916) was re-published by Ravan Press.Plaatje, Sol T. Native Life in South Africa: Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion. Johannesburg: Ravan. 1982: the African Writers Association instituted a Sol Plaatje Prose Award (alongside the H. I. E. and R. R. R. Dhlomo Drama Award and the S. E. K. Mqhayi Poetry Award).The literature police: chronology 1984: Brian Willan published his biography, Sol Plaatje: South African Nationalist, 1876–1932. 1991: The Sol Plaatje Educational Trust and Museum, housed in Plaatje's Kimberley home at 32 Angel Street, was opened, actively furthering his written legacy.Department of Basic Education: Sol Plaatje House: explanation written by Dr Karen Haire for the Sol Plaatje Educational Trust, 32 Angel Street, Kimberley, 8301, retrieved 26 July 2013. 1992: the house at 32 Angel Street in Kimberley, where Plaatje spent his last years, was declared a national monument (now a provincial heritage site).Government Gazette of South Africa, No. 14048, Pretoria: 19 June 1992. It continues as the Sol Plaatje Museum and Library, run by the Sol Plaatje Educational Trust, with donor funding. In the 2000s the Sol Plaatje Educational Trust has published Plaatje biographies by Maureen Rall and Sabata-Mpho Mokae.