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The 1907 Deputation of Basuto Chiefsto London and the Development ofBritish–South African NetworksGwilym ColensoPublished online: 10 Dec 2013.

To cite this article: Gwilym Colenso (2014) The 1907 Deputation of Basuto Chiefs to London and theDevelopment of British–South African Networks, The International History Review, 36:4, 619-652,DOI: 10.1080/07075332.2013.836123

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The 1907 Deputation of Basuto Chiefs to London and the Developmentof British–South African Networks

Gwilym Colenso*

The deputation of Basuto chiefs to England in 1907 provides an example of closeco-operation between traditional African chiefs, educated black activists, andwhite humanitarians in pursuing to the heart of empire the claims of Africansseeking remedy for injustices suffered under colonial rule. The deputation arrivedat a time when the Colonial Office felt severely constrained in its ability to fulfil itsresponsibility of trusteeship towards its African subjects in colonies which were‘on the eve of responsible government’. This article highlights the support pro-vided in England by Frank Colenso, the son of Bishop Colenso of Natal, in part-nership with his sisters in Natal, and argues that, though failing in its immediateaim, this black-led initiative led to a strengthening of relationships between blackSouth African activists and white British-based humanitarians. It also providedan impetus for the development in England of a loosely knit informal organisa-tional framework able to provide material, moral, and political support for SouthAfrican political activists who were to visit England in deputations from the newlyformed South African Native National Congress (forerunner of the ANC) to pur-sue their grievances against the South African government in the second and thirddecades of the twentieth century.

Keywords: Basuto; deputation; Gumede; Colenso; SANNC; humanitarian;Sylvester Williams

I. Introduction

One day in November 1906, Josiah Tshangane Gumede, a mission-educated African,

arrived at Bishopstowe, the residence of the Colenso family near Pietermaritzburg inNatal, South Africa. He had come to see Harriette Colenso, eldest daughter of the

late John William Colenso, the first Bishop of Natal. The following week Harriette

wrote to her brother, Frank, in London to say: ‘Last week too there called here

Josiah Tshangane Gumede, one of the Zulu choir whom you may remember. He is

on his way to England as guide, interpreter and friend to a party of six Basuto chiefs

*Email: gwil_c@hotmail.comI am indebted to the late Dr Charles Swaisland who introduced me to the Colenso Papers inthe archives at Rhodes House in Oxford and who brought to my attention documents whichled to the idea for this article. I would like to thank Professor Christopher Saunders for hisadvice and encouragement, Bridget McBean for invaluable guidance on Zulu language andculture, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. For translations of letters fromZulu, my thanks to Professor Saunders for arranging translations through the University ofCape Town, to Glen Cube, and to Bridget McBean. My thanks to the following archivists fortheir assistance: at Rhodes House, Lucy McCann and Marion Lowman; at the Pietermaritz-burg Archives Repository, Pieter Nel, Mabongi Ndwandwe and Thabani Mdladla.

� 2013 Taylor & Francis

The International History Review, 2014

Vol. 36, No. 4, 619–652, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2013.836123

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or headmen from the O R [Orange River] Colony, who have serious land claims or

grievances there . . . [I] gave them . . . your and Rob’s address . . . the poor fellows willwant all the kindness they can get.’1

The deputation of Basuto chiefs to England in 1907 provides an example of close

co-operation between traditional African chiefs, educated black activists, and white

humanitarians in pursuing to the heart of empire the claims of Africans from British

colonies. The deputation arrived in England at a turning point in the relations

between the British government and its South African colonies, and at a time whenthe Colonial Office felt severely constrained in its trusteeship of its new South

African colonies ‘on the eve of responsible government’.2

Three secondary accounts of the deputation highlight the support it received

while in England from the Caribbean born Pan-Africanist, Henry Sylvester Williams,

the white humanitarian, Charles Garnett, Secretary of the League of Universal

Brotherhood and Native Races Association (LUB), and the black South African

activist, Josiah Gumede, who travelled with the deputation from South Africa, acting

as translator and advisor.3 However, these accounts do not sufficiently explore thenetwork of relationships extending between black activists and white humanitarians

that was drawn on in preparation for the visit, and no mention is made of the

behind-the-scenes support provided in England by the son of the Bishop of Natal,

Frank Colenso, in partnership with his sisters in Natal.

This article aims to add to the existing accounts of the deputation and to situate it

in its broader historical context. Drawing on documents from The National Archives

of the UK, the Colenso Papers, held at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and

African Studies at Rhodes House, Oxford, and the Pietermaritzburg ArchivesRepository, Kwa Zulu Natal, it argues that support from the Colenso brother–sister

partnership may have been crucial to the viability of the deputation, and in enabling

its members to return to South Africa.

The visit by Gumede to Bishopstowe, and the communications between him,

Sylvester Williams, and Harriette and Frank Colenso in preparation for the deputa-

tion, exemplify the use of connections between black activists and white humanitar-

ians in the furthering of claims or grievances of traditional African peoples against

the injustices of British colonial rule. The episode also serves to illustrate the inter-connectedness of humanitarian campaigning between the metropole and the colonies

and suggests that white humanitarian networks operating in support of such black-

led initiatives in England were more extensive than previously recognised. It is sug-

gested that the 1907 deputation led to a broadening of existing relationships between

black South African activists and British-based humanitarians and provided an

impetus for the development of a loosely knit informal organisational framework

able to provide material, moral, and political support to representatives of future

deputations to Britain.This deputation and others that were to follow should be seen as situated within

networks of relationships which extended across the empire and which may therefore

be viewed within a framework of analysis which includes the metropole and colony

within a single field of study.4 From this standpoint we can envisage networks of

relationships between black South African activists and between white humanitar-

ians, which spanned the geographical and political space between Britain and South

Africa, evolved over time, and intersected with one another. These networks, it is

suggested, were facilitated and strengthened by enduring relationships such as thosewithin the Colenso family.

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Points at which key individuals are situated, and at which networks intersect,

may be associated with particular geographical locations or sites, both at the

‘core’ and at the ‘periphery’ of empire.5 One such site in South Africa was Bishop-

stowe where, for over three decades, a traffic in letters and people had reflected an

increasing level of co-operation between politically active Africans and the

Colenso family. Since 1874, when Bishop Colenso began his campaign in defence

of the Natal Zulu chief, Langalibalele, who was on trial for treason and rebellion,

Bishopstowe had been a focus of opposition to the ‘native policy’ of the Natalgovernment. During the years of the ruinous post-war settlement imposed on

Zululand by the British after the Anglo–Zulu war of 1879, the Colenso homestead

had been a centre for deputations from Zululand to congregate at. Here they

paused and sought advice, before moving on to present their petitions of protest

to Natal government officials in Pietermaritzburg. Adjoining Bishopstowe was the

mission station, Ekukhanyeni (the ‘Place of Light’), founded by Bishop Colenso.6

It was here that literate Zulu converts, who were to assist with the Colensos’ cam-

paigning work, had received their education. Bishopstowe/Ekukanyeni had there-fore become a focal point for Africans questioning or resisting colonial rule in

Natal and Zululand. It was connected to other sites of intersection between net-

works of African activists and white humanitarians including, as we shall see, the

home of the Colensos in Britain.

II. The key participants

Though of Zulu descent, Josiah Tshangane Gumede (1867–1947) was born and grewup in the Eastern Cape in South Africa where he was educated at mission school and

then at the ‘Kaffir Institute’ in Grahamstown.7 He was thus to become a member of

the new black African intelligentsia, ‘an incipient class of educated and literate

Africans’, who had emerged in South Africa by end of the nineteenth century.

Known as kholwa, these ‘pioneer elites’ were ‘at the vanguard of the intellectual,

social and political transformations of indigenous communities in nineteenth and

early twentieth century southern Africa’.8 As first- or second-generation converts to

Christianity, educated on mission stations or in mission schools, the kholwa wereimbued not only with Christian principles but also with the Protestant ethic of indi-

vidual effort and enterprise and the accumulation of private wealth and property.9

They entered the colonial economy and labour market as traders, transport riders,

interpreters, clerks, postal workers, and teachers, or in other ‘modern’ roles.10 How-

ever, they also retained links to traditional African society. Fluent in spoken English

and literate in both their African language, or languages, and English, the kholwa

were participants in two worlds: that of the traditional African and that of the white

colonist, and often acted as brokers between them.11

Mobilising the power of the written word in letter-writing, petitions, and newspa-

pers, they were beginning to assert themselves within, but also against, white colonial

society, promoting the interests of both their own emergent class and those of tradi-

tional African chiefs. They were thus ‘trafficking in the modernity of the colonial

political system while simultaneously speaking on behalf of and representing native

opinion’.12 In early adulthood Gumede moved to live under the chieftaincy of his

ancestral people, the Ngwane, near Ladysmith in north Natal where he made use of

his literacy and knowledge of colonial society to organise petitions in defence of hischief against the ‘oppressive’ rule of the local magistrate.13

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Gumede was to collaborate with a number of other mission-educated Africans,

some of whom, as we shall see, were also to travel to England as members of depu-

tations. They included Saul Msane, Sol Plaatje, and John Dube, all of whom were

to meet the Colensos in England and correspond with them in both South Africa

and England. The mission stations or mission schools where they had all spent

much of their formative years were multi-ethnic communities whose members,

looking beyond their own tribal origin, saw themselves as African Christians.

Making no distinction between converts of different tribal affiliation or ethnicbackgrounds, and allowing a broad knowledge to be gained of the different South

African societies, these institutions were to nurture ‘the revolutionary idea . . . thatall Africans were one people [my emphasis]’.14 In the words of a historian of the

ANC, they ‘became the breeding grounds for twentieth century African

nationalism’.15

Gumede was probably educated at the Wesleyan Mission School, Healdtown,

where Saul Msane was also educated. Healdtown was an educational establishment

enthusiastically supported and sponsored by Sir George Grey, Governor of CapeColony in the 1850s. At the same time, Grey also sponsored Ekukanyeni, the mission

station established by Bishop Colenso at his homestead in Natal. One of those edu-

cated there was Magema Fuze who became the bishop’s printer, and the author of

the first book on the history of the Zulu people to be written by a black African.16

Fuze was a strong supporter of the Colenso family and a prolific letter-writer and

contributor to the Natal based English-Zulu newspaper edited by John Dube.17 Like

Dube, Msane had been born on a mission station. Gumede and Plaatje had both

served as interpreters for the British, including during or after the secondAnglo-Boer War.18 Plaatje, Msane, and Dube were all to become editors of African-

language newspapers.19 However, the parallels between the backgrounds of Dube

and Gumede are the most striking. Both had been teachers at the same mission

school in Natal. Both had Zulu ancestry, being descended from chiefly lines. But

their families, or forbears, had fled Zululand due to the upheavals in the country

early in the nineteenth century.20 In keeping with the enterprising spirit of the

kholwa, the fathers of both men had run transport businesses21 and both had one

Christian and one traditional African first name, thus emphasising the tensionbetween the colonial and traditional ties of the kholwa and the split identity to which

they were irrevocably committed.22 This was particularly so in the case of Dube

whose second name, Langalibalele, was that of the chief who had resisted the Natal

government and who, as we have seen, was supported by Bishop Colenso and his

family.

Henry Sylvester Williams (1869–1911) was born in Trinidad. A founding figure of

the pan-African movement, he saw his constituency as comprising all people of

African descent. He moved between the black worlds of the Caribbean, South Africa,West Africa, the United States of America, and Great Britain, endeavouring to make

connections between these disparate black communities. One of the central achieve-

ments of his political career to date had been the organising of the Pan-African

Conference which took place in London in 1900, and the Pan-African Association

(PAA) which emerged from it. This conference was to establish the idea of African

people and people of African descent uniting globally and leading the movement for

their own liberation.23

While Josiah Gumede acted as an intermediary between the traditional communi-ties and chiefdoms of Southern Africa, and the white, English-speaking world,

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Sylvester Williams saw his role as representing the entire African race. Qualifying in

law at Gray’s Inn in 1902, Williams became probably the first black barrister to prac-

tise in England. In 1903 he went to South Africa where he represented African people

both as a lawyer and as a campaigner. By 1905 he had returned to England. Based in

London, he continued to campaign on behalf of black Africans, who he identified

very closely with, referring to them as ‘my people’. On 1 November 1906 he was

elected as Progressive and Labour councillor for the London Borough of

Marylebone becoming, with John Archer of Battersea Council, one of the first twoblack local councillors elected in the UK.24

By the time Gumede arrived at Bishopstowe in November 1906 his connections

with both Sylvester Williams and members of the Colenso family were already well

established. Gumede came to Bishopstowe bearing a letter from Williams urging

him to make haste to England and advising him of the preparations made to receive

the deputation there. This letter was copied by Harriette Colenso and sent to her

brother, Frank.25 Williams had sent a further letter to Gumede at Bishopstowe.

This was copied by Harriette’s younger sister, Agnes, who noted that it had arrivedwithout a covering letter and in an envelope addressed to Harriette. It might be

concluded from this that, at the time, Williams was using Bishopstowe as a sort of

post box for Gumede and that he had kept in touch with him closely enough to be

aware of his itinerary. In this letter to Gumede, Williams refers to ‘the photo you

once gave me’, from which it can be inferred that the two activists had already met,

presumably during Williams’ recent sojourn in South Africa, which may have been

when the idea of the Basuto deputation to Britain first arose. ‘Have you any others

as Native Scouts?’ asked Williams, suggesting that the photo he had been given waspossibly not just of Gumede but also of the Basuto chiefs.26 This is plausible as

Gumede had served as Headman over a group of Basuto scouts acting for the Brit-

ish in the recent Anglo-Boer war for which he had been highly commended by his

commanding officer. Those under his command had included followers of the

chiefs in the deputation.27

Harriette’s relationship with Gumede predates his visit to Bishopstowe in 1906

and derives initially from his knowledge of the campaigning work of her father.

Bishop Colenso, whose Zulu name Sobantu means ‘father of the people’, was held inhigh regard by many Africans due to his unflagging work for the Zulu cause.28

Gumede indicated his own feelings about the Bishop at a later date when he

addressed Harriette as ‘a child of Sobantu who is the highest in the enlightenment’.29

In her letter to him, Harriette tells her brother that Gumede and the Basuto chiefs

came ‘to see me (get a blessing in Sobantu’s name?) . . . Well I gave it them.’ In 1904,

Gumede had named his fourth daughter, Harriette Emily, after Harriette, indicating

his regard for her. Harriette emphasised the mutual regard which she considered she

and her visitor had for one another, writing to her brother: ‘And I have a good opin-ion of Josiah - perhaps partly because he will continue to have a good opinion of

me.’30

Gumede had first come into contact with Harriette while he had acted as ‘induna’

to the young Zulu Paramount Chief, Dinuzulu, in the 1880s.31 He and Saul Msane

had had discussions with her in the late 1880s and early 1890s concerning Zulu

affairs, and also, subsequently, in the late 1890s concerning the setting up of the

Natal Native Congress.32 In 1900 Gumede sought Harriette’s advice concerning pay-

ment for serving with the British in the Anglo-Boer war, and in 1904 over a landtransaction.33

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Harriette’s reference to the Zulu choir in her letter to her brother recalls an earlier

visit to England in 1892 by Gumede and Msane as members of a group of singers

who became stranded after falling out with their manager. Harriette had been in

London to lobby ministers and officials of the Colonial Office for the return of

Dinuzulu and members of the Zulu Royal Family from exile in St Helena.34 During

the harsh London winter of 1892–3, she had helped the political campaigner Jane

Cobden Unwin raise money for the performers, writing to a friend in Natal: ‘And we

now have 5 freezing Zulus on our hands! . . . We want to collect money to send themhome at once, and that is not an easy matter. Mrs. Unwin is getting up a concert for

them next week & I have to introduce them.’ Harriette later identified the ‘poor

singing Zulus’ as ‘Saul Msane and his wife, sister, brother in law, & friend Josiah

Tshangane [Gumede]’.35 Frank Colenso must have been involved too as, many years

later, Gumede was to recall being at his house in London in 1893.36

It is perhaps significant that six years later Frank and his brother, Robert, were

assisted by Jane Unwin when they came to the aid of another party of Zulu perform-

ers who had taken part in the ‘Savage South Africa’ show at Earls Court in London,but had then been incarcerated by their manager at Olympia.37 Frank Colenso was

later commended by Sylvester Williams for his ‘strenuous efforts . . . to suppress the

slavery which was being practically enacted at Earl’s Court and Olympia upon the

natives brought there’.38 Williams was speaking as chair of a meeting of the African

Association ‘summonsed’ in February 1900 ‘to interest friends & well wishers etc in

the Pan-African Conference’ which, largely through his efforts, took place in July of

that year. Williams had written to Harriette at Bishopstowe to seek her support in

encouraging delegates from South Africa to come to the Conference which wasattended by Jane Unwin and John Archer, a British-born Londoner of African

descent, and by both Frank and Robert Colenso.39 The Conference resolved to set

up the Pan-African Association, electing to its committee Unwin and Archer, with

Sylvester Williams as Secretary and Robert Colenso as Treasurer. Frank Colenso

later took over responsibility for the finances of the organisation from his brother

and, in this capacity, for at least a brief period, worked closely with Sylvester

Williams.40

III. Background to the deputation

The Basuto Chiefs’ deputation of 1907 marked a stage in a number of related devel-

opments which had been underway in South Africa for half a century: the weakening

of the power of the African Chiefdoms; the dispersal of large African communities

using land and other resources communally; and their displacement from the land as

it increasingly came under the occupation of white farmers.41

From the mid-nineteenth century, the progressive alienation of land by whitelandowners and the displacement of its African occupants had been a common fea-

ture of the colonial relationship all over South Africa. Initially, in the north-east of

the Orange Free State, where the Batlokoa and Bakulukwe were settled, the effects

of the colonial incursion on African traditional social structures had been mitigated

somewhat by large-scale, often British, landowners allowing communities of

Africans to reside on their land in exchange for labour, taxes, or rent. This arrange-

ment, however, conflicted with the interests of the smaller-scale white, and largely

Afrikaans, farmers who had the ear of the Republic’s parliament, the Volksraad. Asa result, from 1881, a series of ‘anti-squatting’ laws were introduced to limit the

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number of African families on white-owned farms. These measures had the aim of

the break-up of the large polygynous traditional African communities into smaller

units and their dispersal as a labour resource among the smaller Boer farms.

After the Anglo-Boer war of 1899–1902, the Orange Free State became the

Orange River Colony (ORC). The pressure on Africans settled there on land owned

by absentee white landlords was increased by an influx of white farmers from

Natal. At the same time, the new British administration implemented the Free

State’s anti-squatting laws more severely than the Boer republic had done. Thiswas in order to accommodate the new post-war British settler farmers who, it was

hoped, would counterbalance the Boer majority in the new colony. These develop-

ments heightened the conflict between black and white for resources of labour and

land in the post-war period. The end result was the reduction of the status and bar-

gaining power of black Africans on farms to one of servile dependence, and the

progressive proletarianisation of what had once been an African peasantry.42 In

the early twentieth century, this new situation brought forth related responses on

the part of Africans from very different backgrounds: those occupying roles ofchiefly authority increasingly began acting as political leaders representing land

claims on behalf of their followers, while members of the new elite of educated

black Africans entered into alliances with the chiefs to support their claims. It was

against this background that Josiah Gumede took up the cause of the Batlokoa

and Bakulukwe chiefs and their followers.43

The Batlokoa were a Basuto people who, in the 1850s, had broken away from the

followers of the Basuto leader, Moshoeshoe, in Basutoland and had settled north of

the Orange River in the Free State. At around the same time, the Bakulukwe, a Hlubipeople originally from Zululand, also settled in the area. Both tribes were induced to

fight on the side of the Free State in the war with Moshoeshoe in 1867–8. Their com-

mander in the war, purporting to represent the government, had offered them land

in return for their military services. In 1868, on payment of 7,000 head of cattle, they

were given to understand that more than 2,000 square miles of land on which they

were already settled had been granted to them by the Free State government. How-

ever, it appears that the tribes had been the victims of a massive fraud as the land

had already been granted to white farmers, many of whom were then absentee land-lords. In 1882 the Batlokoa and Bakulukwe were forcibly evicted after, against the

wishes of the Boers, they had helped the British in the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879.44

Under the leadership of Gumede, they subsequently served as scouts for the British

in the second Anglo-Boer war, but had been refused the silver war medals promised

to them in recognition of their war service, despite Gumede’s active campaigning for

the promised awards to be made.45

From June 1905, with the help of a white solicitor, Gumede assembled over fifty

affidavits in support of the Basuto chiefs’ land claim and, in June 1906, petitionswere presented to the ORC Governor, Lord Selbourne, on behalf of the chiefs, con-

cerning the ‘land taken from them’. The petitions asked the Governor to ‘grant your

petitioners the land or other land in lieu thereof, or grant to them such compensation

or other relief as Your Excellency may seem meet (sic).’46 The ‘numerous affidavits’

provided eyewitness accounts of the land transactions. These testified that the agreed

number of cattle had been paid for the land, and that the chiefs had been told that

the sale was ‘by the authority and on behalf of the government’.47

But their petitions were rejected on the grounds that the chiefs had never beengranted full title to the land. It was subsequently made clear by a letter from the

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Colonial Secretary of the colony that ‘the [ORC] Government repudiates all liability

in this matter’, and that there was ‘no question of any monetary compensation from

the Government’.48 In a dispatch to London, Selbourne later remarked, ‘it is doubt-

ful whether the native mind appreciated the difference between freehold and lease-

hold’, an opinion that was to be accepted uncritically by the Colonial Office.

Furthermore, the land had since been occupied by white farmers. Selbourne said

he ‘could not interfere with the rights of the present white occupants’, but offered to

place the Basuto on ‘farms, the property of private owners’, where ‘assuredly’ theywould ‘settle down as agriculturalists, to the mutual benefit of themselves and the

Orange River Colony famers’. That this arrangement would certainly benefit the

white farmers was made clear by Selbourne’s comment that the ORC government

‘are naturally anxious to obtain additional farm hands on [ORC] . . . farms’. This

passing remark laid bare the logic of the colonial relationship in the ORC by reveal-

ing that the rejection of the Basuto chiefs’ claim would be advantageous for the white

settlers because it could help them meet a labour shortage.49

Whether the proposed arrangement would be beneficial to the Basuto chiefs andtheir followers was another matter. It was made clear that their status on the farms

would be that of ‘servants’ to the white farmers and that their future would be as

farm labourers. This would represent a drastic and degrading change from their tra-

ditional way of life and means of farming, which was collectively organised around

large extended family units, recognising the authority of the chiefs. The adverse

effects of the arrangement would be further compounded by a new Act restricting

the number of ‘natives’ allowed on each farm. The petitioners had also complained

about this.50

The matter was referred by the Governor to the colony’s Advisor for Native

Affairs (ANA) for further discussion. A meeting was held in October 1906, which

Gumede attended, having kept Harriette Colenso informed of the arrangements

leading to it.51 At the meeting, a memorandum was presented to the ANA on behalf

of the chiefs putting forward a compromise: that the Batlokoa and Bakulukwe would

accept being placed on the farms on condition that they could ‘erect chapels and

schools for the education of the children and men of the tribes’ and that ‘the powers

of the chiefs be recognised’. The memorandum ended with the reminder that, ‘ourfollowers feel deeply the usurpation of the land of which they were originally owners

and thereafter purchasers by military services and cattle paid.’ Beneath the names of

the chiefs, against which they had put their marks, ‘X’, the document was signed:

‘Witness, and interpreted by me, J. T. Gumede.’52 In response to this final (and very

compromised) plea to the ORC government, the chiefs were bluntly informed that:

the farmers (i.e. their future employers) would decide whether or not they could erect

churches and schools; ‘no chiefs are recognised in this colony’; ‘the laws of the colony

prohibited the purchase or lease of land by natives’; they could not take their cattlewith them to the farms; and that their claim for land against the previous government

was ‘not one in which the [ORC] Government is concerned’.53 Seeing no other means

of obtaining redress in South Africa, Gumede led the deputation of the chiefs to Eng-

land to present their case to the British government.54

From statements made to Frank Colenso by the delegates, it is possible to

ascertain the membership of the deputation. The leading representative of the

Batlokoa was Lesisa Dumise Tsotetsi, whose name appeared on the October 1906

memorandum. He was acting Head Chief of the Tsotetsi branch of the Batlokoa andguardian of the heirs of his brothers, the late chiefs, Lesala and Letika Tsotetsi. The

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latter had settled in the area with his followers from 1864. With Lesisa Dumise

Tsotetsi was Leyaka Tsotetsi, also from the Batlokoa. The Bakulukwe were repre-

sented by Mapenene Moloi who was described in the October 1906 memorandum as

representing Letlatsa Moloi, Head Chief of the Bakulukwe and brother of the late

chief Hlomise who had moved to the neighbouring territory in 1860. At the time of

the deputation, Letlatsa Moloi was approximately eighty-eight years old. Also from

the Bakulukwe was Lequila Molife. The Bakulukwe delegates had been signatories

of the memorandum presented to the ANA the previous October.55

It is clear that Sylvester Williams played a leading role in the planning and prepa-

ration of the Basuto chiefs’ deputation before their arrival in England. By September

1906, he was raising support in Britain; co-ordinating this support with the antici-

pated arrival of the deputation; dealing with the public-relations implications; and,

crucially, having a mind to the impending constitutional changes and the consequent

importance of timing. In three letters and a telegram sent prior to the deputation’s

departure from South Africa, Williams advised Gumede to make haste, urging: ‘If

you are coming do so before the constitution is granted to the Orange River Colony. . . Bear in mind and act. Don’t delay’ [my emphasis]. He added in his next letter:

‘The Petition is being prepared in order to get it before the Government, whom [sic] I

think are now considering the constitution of the Orange River Colony - Everything

is to be gained by getting our contention in first.’ Harriette told her brother that

Gumede and the chiefs ‘are summonsed to England by cable to make haste before

constitution settled’.

Williams clearly envisaged that the best vehicle for an approach to the Colonial

Office was that of a formally constituted body of humanitarians. ‘I have arranged aCommittee of Englishmen & members of parliament with a view to further your

cause’ [emphasis in the original], he reported, adding in his next letter: ‘I have had a

conference with the committee . . . and . . . they are quite willing to support your claim

for a “location”.’ Attending to the public-relations aspect of the deputation,

Williams emphasised to Gumede that: ‘Great stress is being placed upon the fact that

you & members of the Tribes were engaged & did serve as Scouts in the late war.’

Williams asked for further proof of this adding, ‘[t]he photo you once gave me is

being used with effect,’ which suggests that efforts were already being made inEngland to raise money or support for the deputation.56

In November and December 1906, Williams wrote to the Secretary of State for

the Colonies, Lord Elgin, notifying him of the impending arrival of the Basuto chiefs

and of their wish ‘that their petition be received through deputation’. The Colonial

Office’s initial response was a blunt refusal to receive the deputation. But their reply

to Williams’ second letter allowed for this possibility. Williams’ letters had therefore

prepared the ground for the Basuto deputation to present their case directly to repre-

sentatives of the British government.57

IV. The deputation in London

On their arrival in England in January 1907, possibly as a result of the efforts of

Williams, the deputation secured a meeting with Lord Elgin at the Colonial Office. A

ninety-five-page petition was presented.58 A minute of the meeting, which took place

on 29 January, records that it was attended by Lesisa Dumise Tsotetsi and Mapenene

Moloi, with the words ‘is ill’ entered against the name of Lequila Molife. The leadingrepresentatives of each of the Basuto tribes were therefore present. The meeting was

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also attended by Josiah Gumede, by two liberal MPs, Mr Pickersgill and Mr P.

Wilson, and by Sylvester Williams, Charles Garnett, Evans Darby, Ernest Scully,

and Rev. Wilson, all committee members of LUB. Also in attendance were

Dr McKay and Mr Barnes, possibly also members of LUB, or of the committee

which Williams had told Gumede about, if such a committee had been formed sepa-

rately from the LUB committee.59 It was Sylvester Williams who introduced the

Basuto delegates and took the lead in presenting their case. A second meeting with

the Colonial Office on 27 February was attended only by Garnett and Williams whowere referred to in the Colonial Office minute as ‘representing the native chiefs’.60

It seems likely that it was Sylvester Williams who made the connection with the

LUB. In 1906 he became the League’s only black committee member and, by 1907,

his name appeared on LUB headed notepaper as one of its eight committee mem-

bers.61 Williams’ correspondence address was 5 Essex Court, Temple, E.C., the same

as that of the LUB Treasurer, Daniel Warde, who was a ‘Barrister-at-Law’ and may

have made the acquaintance of Williams in this connection.62

Williams’ ‘Committee of Englishmen & members of parliament’ could welldescribe those attending the first meeting with the Colonial Office. This body may

have been the LUB Committee, or a separate committee established (possibly at

Williams’ instigation) jointly between the League and interested MPs, specially for

the purpose. If so, Harriette’s fear that the committee that Williams had told

Gumede about ‘may consist of Rhodes-ites’, was unfounded as the outlook of the

LUB members could not have been more removed from Rhodes’ reported policy of

‘philanthropy plus five percent’.63 It therefore appears that, while Gumede saw his

role as representing the Basuto chiefs, Williams saw his role as laying the ground-work in England for their arrival, and providing the crucial link between Gumede, as

representative of the group, and the forum of white humanitarians in England. It

was this respectable front that, Williams felt, the Colonial Office would find difficult

to dismiss.

It is noteworthy that the humanitarian organisation in Britain which gave its sup-

port to the Basuto chiefs was the LUB rather than the Aborigines’ Protection Society

(APS), as might have been expected. The APS’ modus operandi had been the making

of representations to the Colonial Office in just such cases as this. But Williamsclearly expected no support from the Society, advising Gumede: ‘It is plain that he

[Henry Fox Bourne, then the APS Secretary] and his Society does not intend to do

anything for your cause.’64 In similar vein, when organising the 1900 Pan-African

Conference in London, Williams had complained to Booker T. Washington in the

United States: ‘We are receiving slight opposition from the Aborigines Protection

Society.’65

The APS had apparently shown no interest in the deputation, the minutes of their

committee meetings from December 1906 to March 1907 making no mention of it.South Africa was mentioned at the December committee meeting when it was agreed

to ‘defer further action until after letters patent have established a constitution for

the Transvaal’. During the meetings in January and February there was no reference

to South African affairs at all. And in March it was decided to ‘write to Lord Elgin

asking that, if practicable, the treatment of the natives be included in the agenda for

the forthcoming Colonial Conference’. By the time the Colonial Conference opened

in London on 15 April, the Basuto deputation had departed and a reply from Elgin

regretted that ‘in the time available for attention to the main business before theconference . . . exclusively the relations of white residents in the colonies with one

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another and the mother country, no opportunity has presented itself for discussing

native problems . . .’66

For many years, the Colenso family had worked closely with the APS after Bishop

Colenso first enlisted its support in 1874 when campaigning in defence of Langalibalele.

But it appears that, by 1907, the APS and the Colensos were no longer working closely

together. It is perhaps significant that Harriette had not referred Gumede to the Society.

And though, after his appointment as APS Secretary in 1888, she had worked

closely with Henry Fox Bourne for some years, by 1907, she was referring to him as‘Sec of APS’ rather than by name in her correspondence.67 Her concern that the com-

mittee referred to by Williams ‘may consist of Rhodes-ites’ may refer back to her dis-

paraging reference to the APS as the ‘Rhodes Protection Society’. This was a comment

made fifteen years previously when she had accused the organisation of supporting the

exploiters, rather than the defenders, of the African people.68 By 1907, Frank Colenso

preferred making approaches to the Colonial Office directly, or through MPs, rather

than in conjunction with the APS, as in earlier years.

Once the deputation had arrived in England, Charles Garnett took the lead incorresponding with the Colonial Office, writing eight letters to Lord Elgin on the

matter between January and April of 1907, one letter being signed with Ernest Scully

as Joint secretary, with Garnett, of the LUB.69 In his letters, Garnett argued that the

Basuto chiefs should receive redress for the land that they had been deprived of.

Alternatively, a location should be provided for them in the ORC or, failing this,

that they should be allowed to buy land in the colony - a right then denied to them

under ORC law. Some of Garnett’s letters enclosed press cuttings of sermons deliv-

ered by him to large congregations at the Congregational Church, Arundel Square,Islington, where he was the minister. In these sermons, Garnett expounded the cause

of the Basuto chiefs and obtained unanimous agreement from the congregation to

resolutions of support for their claim.

In a sermon preached on Sunday 17 February, reported in the Islington Daily

Gazette and copied to the Colonial Office, Garnett outlined three grounds for their

case being accepted: that they had been unjustly dispossessed of their land; that they

had undertaken valuable service to the British Empire; and that ‘they are our breth-

ren and they are British subjects.’ He appealed to the Secretary of State to observe‘the fundamental principles of Liberalism’ and, employing language and tactics remi-

niscent of the abolitionist campaigning of a century earlier, urged that they be

‘treated not as dumb driven cattle but as men and brothers’, and threatened to

‘appeal to the people of the Country’ to arouse public support for the cause.70

The reply from Elgin on 7 March reproduced, in most cases word for word, the

main points in Selbourne’s dispatch (received 23 February), including the Governor’s

comments on the ‘native mind’, as if this were factual information that was material

to the case. The conclusion (again in the Governor’s words) was that the ORC gov-ernment ‘had decided that there was not sufficient justification for taking any action

to interfere with the rights of the present white occupants of the area claimed by the

natives’. The Basuto chiefs were advised to ‘consider carefully’ the ORC’s offer ‘to

make suitable location for them among the farming population’.71 The suggested

solution would, of course, lead to the break-up and dispersal of these traditional

African communities as the chiefs’ followers were allocated individually as employ-

ees, tenants, or servants, to white farmers - an arrangement which in his reply Gar-

nett denounced as ‘tantamount to slavery’, a claim which Lord Elgin ‘emphaticallyrepudiate[d]’.72

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Garnett arranged two further meetings with the Colonial Office, which he

attended alone. He intended the meeting on 27 March to provide the Secretary of

State with a last chance to offer some concessions before the League’s AGM to be

held at Exeter Hall that night, requesting ‘a further communication from your

Lordship, which could be reported to the meeting’.73 However, none was received.

At the AGM, correspondence with the Colonial Office was read out and a resolu-

tion from Williams, supported by many speakers and carried by the meeting, urged

Lord Elgin to advise the King to make a satisfactory response to the Basuto chiefs’petition. But the discussion ranged beyond that of the Basuto chiefs’ claim. Gumede

spoke on the persecution of Dinuzulu. The radical Labour MP Keir Hardie spoke

stridently in support of the Basuto chiefs and also urged the imperial government to

restrain the Natal government in its action against Dinuzulu following the rebellion

in Natal in the previous year. The meeting was controversially reported in the press,

with articles accusing Keir Hardie of ‘inciting the Basuto to rebel’, and sensationalis-

ing Garnett’s comparison of the employment offered to the Basuto chiefs with

slavery.74

Garnett was not alone in comparing colonial systems of labour with slavery. A few

years earlier, at the international congress of anti-slavery societies in Paris in 1900, Fox

Bourne of the APS had raised the uncomfortable proposition that forms of labour

practised in the colonies were ‘substitutes’ for slavery. In the previous year, he had

referred to the ‘veiled slavery which is now common in most of the Europeanised parts

of Africa’.75 The accusation of complicity in a labour system resembling slavery was

an emotive issue for government ministers who sought to distance their administration

from the system of ‘Chinese slavery’ which they had accused their predecessors of pre-siding over in the Transvaal.76

At a fourth meeting with the Colonial Office on 3 April, Garnett alarmed the offi-

cials by announcing his intention to go to South Africa on ‘a special mission on

behalf of the African chiefs . . . so that they have an Englishman to speak for them’.77

It is clear that Frank Colenso had provided the Basuto chiefs with significant

financial support while they were in England. On the day of the League’s AGM,

Mapenene Moloi and Lesisa Dumise Tsotetsi both signed statements, written in Zulu

and witnessed by Gumede, detailing sums of money borrowed from Frank Colenso‘for the return journey and to pay the bill for food and for rental at no 6 Queen’s

Road, St John’s Wood London’. Indicating a recognition of the brother–sister

working relationship, the statement continued: ‘This money will be given in [to] the

hands of Dlwedhlwe ka Sobantu (Miss H E Colenso) so that she may send it to her

brother when I arrive at my home . . .’78 (‘Dlwedhlwe’, meaning ‘his staff or guide’,

was the Zulu name for Harriette, as she acted as guide and helper to her father in his

later years; ‘ka Sobantu’ means ‘child of Sobantu’.79) The following day, Gumede

wrote to Frank acknowledging receipt of a cheque and agreeing to meet him to con-firm the arrangements for their return journey.80

The delegates left England on 6 April.81 Gumede’s letters, written after their

departure, provide some indication of Frank Colenso’s practical involvement in the

affairs of the deputation while in England. On his return voyage to South Africa,

Gumede wrote to Frank’s wife, Sophie. Using her husband’s Zulu name, Gumede

describes ‘how Gebuza [Frank] saved us from the jaws of starvation and how he

enabled us to return home when we really found ourselves quite stranded in London’.

(‘Gebuza’ means ‘to paw the ground and toss the head, as a bull’.)82 Back in SouthAfrica, Gumede wrote to Harriette to announce his return, adding: ‘We were helped

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by our chief Gebuza ka Sobantu who gave us £176 to reach here.’83 The delegates

clearly endeavoured to repay their loans, with Harriette reporting in January of the

following year that ‘last weekend . . .Mr. Lequila and another of your Basuto friends

brought to Agnes £70 of the debt to you.’84 Just how desperate the Basuto chiefs had

been to travel to England to pursue their claim, and the heavy price that they might

have paid for doing so, can be seen from the fact that one of the party, Lequila

Molife, had not been expected to survive to return home. ‘We did not hope to come

back with him as he was very ill,’ Gumede reported to Harriette.85

From these letters and documents, it appears that it was support from Frank

Colenso that enabled Gumede and others in the deputation not only to survive dur-

ing the latter part of their stay in England, but also to return home to South Africa.

It is clear that, having made contact with them through Harriette Colenso, Gumede

was helped by the Colenso family in Britain, much as he had been helped fourteen

years earlier when he found himself in circumstances perhaps not dissimilar to those

he experienced in 1907.

We have little information on Frank Colenso’s involvement with the deputationduring the early part of their stay in England. However, while it appears that he took

no formal part in negotiations with the Colonial Office, Gumede made efforts to

keep him informed of progress made by the deputation. Writing to Frank in Zulu,

Gumede enclosed a copy of the Colonial Office’s letter of 7 March, and promised to

send ‘a copy of the response from the “League” directed to “Lord Elgin” and reply-

ing to his letter of 7 March’.86 Frank Colenso must have attended, or closely fol-

lowed, reports of the LUB AGM, as Harriette gratefully acknowledged his report to

her of references to Dinuzulu in a speech made by Keir Hardie - a speech probablymade at the AGM, as there is no record of speeches in Parliament by Hardie at

around this time.87 It is not clear whether Frank had a formal connection with the

LUB in 1907 but in the year of his death in 1910, his name appears as ‘Francis E.

Colenso (deceased)’ in the list of Vice Presidents on the League’s headed notepaper

bearing a letter of condolence to his widow signed by Garnett.88

However, it is evident that, from well before the LUB AGM, Frank had had deal-

ings with the Basuto delegates which he considered to be worth reporting on in some

detail in a number of letters to his sisters in Natal, in one case enclosing photos of‘the Basuto group’ together with himself and Sophie. In response to one of his letters,

Agnes wrote: ‘What a time those poor Basuto seem to have had from your

account!’89 In his letters to Frank and Sophie Colenso in connection with the deputa-

tion, Gumede addresses, and refers to, Frank as ‘inkosi’ (chief) - for example thank-

ing Sophie for ‘what you and our dear inkosi Gebuza did for us’, and sometimes

using Frank’s full Zulu name, ‘Gebuza ka Sobantu’.90 Though writing to Sophie in

English, Gumede uses Zulu terms of address not only for her husband, but also for

her and other members of her family. Sophie is addressed as ‘nkosikazi’ (wife of thechief), and their children as ‘amakosazana’ (daughters of the chief).91 The Zulu forms

of address employed are respectful and refer to Frank’s previous association with the

Zulu people, both by the use of his Zulu name and by reference to his status as the

son of Bishop Colenso. The use of the Zulu names, the direct communication with

Frank’s wife, and the reference to their children, all suggest that there had been a

very close and friendly association between Gumede and the whole of Frank

Colenso’s family. As we shall see, this association was to continue after Frank

Colenso’s death in 1910, and was to extend to other African activists for whomJosiah Gumede provided introductions to the Colenso family in England.

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Frank’s apparent lack of involvement in the formal negotiations between the

Colonial Office and the Basuto deputation may have been due to the differences

between him and Sylvester Williams which had emerged during their joint involve-

ment in the Pan-African Association in 1900/1.92 That Frank still harboured suspi-

cions about Williams in 1907 can be seen by his comments in regard to a deputation

of Swazi chiefs led by Josiah Vilakaze which came to England later that year and

was met by Frank on their arrival in London.93 Writing to his sisters, Frank refers to

‘warning Vilakaze about Williams, as it occurred to me he might be trying to gethold of them . . .’94 But Frank may also have had reservations concerning the

approach adopted in presenting the Basuto chiefs’ claims, apparently implying that

this experience justified employing a more formal legal approach in the Swazi case.

‘The case of a similar deputation may have served us both as a very recent illustration

of a danger that is familiar to us,’ he wrote to a representative of the deputation in

London.95

It is perhaps because Sylvester Williams was not involved in the Swazi deputation

that Frank took an active part in enabling the Swazi chiefs to present their claims:dealing with the Colonial office on their behalf, arranging for a barrister to prepare

an ‘Address and Petition’ to be presented to the King and, later, pursuing the matter

with Sir Charles Dilke, a humanitarian and senior member of the Liberal govern-

ment, when the response to the petition, and a meeting with the Colonial Office,

proved unsatisfactory. The ‘Address and Petition’ was agreed and signed by all the

Swazi chiefs in the Colensos’ home in London.96

V. The Colonial Office response

The Basuto deputation had come to England well prepared. The Colonial Office had

been formally notified of their impending arrival; their case was well documented

and a lengthy and detailed petition had been drawn up. Furthermore, their claim

was ably advocated by Gumede, Williams, and Garnett; they secured strong support

among humanitarians in London and had, initially at least, received positive and

widespread attention in the British press.97 They obtained interviews with the

Colonial Office, whose officials showed a willingness to take a great deal of troubleover the case, which was considered important enough to merit the personal involve-

ment of the Secretary of State. With such significant factors in their favour, why,

then, was it that no commitments or concessions were secured from the Colonial

Office as a result of the visit?

Part of the answer can be found in the attitude of the ‘men on the spot’: the High

Commissioner for Southern Africa, Lord Selbourne, and the Lieutenant Governor

for the ORC, H. Goold-Adams, who were both hostile to the deputation from the

outset. Selbourne initially claimed ‘I never heard anything of this question before,’adding, ‘natives in question have no claim admissible’, but later admitted that he had

met with the same petitioners in the presence of Gumede over a year previously.98 In

his dispatch on the matter Selbourne commented, ‘I fail to see how Your Lordship

can possibly interfere in their favour’ and ended by blaming the deputation on ‘a few

native agitators, backed up by persons other than natives desirous of benefiting pecu-

niarily [sic] by a continuation of the agitation’. He singled out Gumede for special

criticism.99

The Colonial Office were also prone to stereotype black leaders as ‘agitators’, oneofficial describing Williams disparagingly as ‘a Demerara Negro who . . . was

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employed as spokesperson by the Gold Coast natives in their agitation . . . last

year’.100 Nevertheless, Colonial Office ministers and officials were not inclined to

accept the advice of Selbourne and Goold-Adams without question, and were

broadly more sympathetic than the two proconsuls to the deputation. But they were

apprehensive, even defensive, about the visit. ‘If these people are going to be here in

January it might be well for us to find out something about them & their grievances

from the Gov[erno]r’, minuted one official in December 1906, on receipt of a second

letter from Williams.101 ‘Matter most urgent’ is the heading of a telegram from Elginto Selbourne asking for information preparatory to the interview he (Elgin) had

arranged with the deputation for a few days hence.

The forthcoming meeting was obviously a cause of some anxiety, as revealed by

Elgin’s lengthy letter to Lord Selbourne seeking to explain and justify his decision to

grant the interview. That the interview had taken place at all in the face of such

apprehensions on the part of the Colonial Office is testimony to the effectiveness of

the pressure applied by Williams and Garnet.102 However, by early February the

position of the Colonial Office had hardened. On 8 February, an official noted, ‘thereis no prospect of the petitioners either being granted a location, or being permitted to

purchase land,’ though in the same minute adding that ‘we must in self-defence’ ask

Selbourne to clarify his denial of all knowledge of the petitioners’ claim. The note on

Garnett’s letter of 19 February stated bluntly, ‘we cannot possibly give these natives

what they want’ and the minutes of the meeting with Garnett and Williams on

27 February make clear that it had been arranged solely ‘to accelerate the departure

of the Native Chiefs to South Africa’.103

In addition to the opposition from Selbourne and Goold-Adams, in the ORC therewere legal impediments to a satisfactory resolution of the Basuto chiefs’ claim: the

prohibition against Africans owning land themselves; the British Administration’s con-

tinuation of measures restricting land available for settlement by large African com-

munities; and lack of Crown land in the colony to provide locations for settlement by

Africans. However, there were broader political and strategic considerations which

also militated against a favourable outcome for the deputation.

When the Basuto deputation arrived in England, the new Liberal government’s

Colonial Office, led by Lord Elgin, was adjusting to a new political landscape inSouth Africa. Relations with local white elites were being reconfigured to accommo-

date to the possibility of union between colonies that had formerly been enemies. In

the aftermath of what was considered to have been a civil war between the British

and the Boers, the granting of responsible government was seen as a means to regula-

rise the status of the two newly created colonies with substantial Boer populations,

thus paving the way for the federation of the colonies of South Africa. Once

achieved, such political union would, it was felt, secure British strategic interests in

the region and create a new dominion comparable to Canada, the creation of Elgin’sfather in a previous Liberal government, and recognised by the Liberals as ‘the great-

est Triumph of British Statesmanship’.104

The issuing of letters patent for the Transvaal in December 1906 had been steered

through by Elgin in haste to avoid the British administration bearing responsibility

for the use of Chinese indentured labour in the Colony. Shortly before the arrival of

the Basuto chiefs in England, and against the advice of both Selbourne and Goold-

Adams, Elgin had begun the process of preparing to grant self-governing status to

the ORC. Liberal ministers were worried about the attitude that would be adoptedon ‘native policy’ in the colony, whose future government was bound to have a Boer

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majority in what was regarded by Liberal ministers as the ‘most “disaffected and

illiberal” portion of South Africa’. Various measures introduced to protect the

African populations had subsequently been abandoned as unworkable.

But the West Ridgeway Committee, a body set up and empowered to investigate,

and report on, the constitutions for the new colonies, had advised that, in the ORC

and the Transvaal, the views of the Europeans towards the African population had

become more liberal. This reinforced Elgin’s view that a more trusting approach on

the part of the British government towards the Boers would lead to a more‘wholesome’ attitude on their part towards the treatment of the ‘native’. After the

hostilities of the Anglo-Boer war, it was felt that a conciliatory approach towards the

former Boer republics was needed, and minimising interference in their internal

affairs, including ‘native policy’ matters, was seen as a necessary means of achieving

this.

That the desire of the imperial government to avoid antagonising the white popu-

lations of the new colonies had became a priority which overrode that of trusteeship,

was something which had become apparent to the African activists in South Africawho had campaigned against the new constitutions on behalf of Africans in the

Transvaal and ORC. In July 1906, a petition objecting to the colour bar in the new

constitutions was presented to the House of Commons in London by the Cape politi-

cal activist John Tengo Jabavu and others. In the previous month, a petition with

similar aims submitted on behalf of African and coloured people of South Africa,

had noted ‘a tendency to treat the Native Question as a “domestic” one and to elimi-

nate the interference of the imperial factor in the treatment of the native and the pro-

tection of their rights and liberties’ [my emphasis].105

In December 1906, Saul Msane wrote to Harriette Colenso from Johannesburg

referring to a petition from the executive of the Transvaal Native Congress. The peti-

tion, previously copied to Harriette, urged ‘His Majesty’s Imperial Government to

reserve [in] the new constitution granting the Responsible Government to the

Transvaal the entire administration of Native Affairs to the Crown.’ Msane later

wrote: ‘The letters patent have now been published and they are a great disappoint-

ment to the natives . . . the so called reservation for the protection of the native inter-

est is a sorry farce.’106

The situation was, moreover, exacerbated by the recent Zulu ‘rebellion’ in Natal

from which reverberations were felt in the neighbouring colonies of South Africa. In

February 1906, only weeks after the election of the new Liberal government in

Britain, the killing of two white police officers in Natal led to the declaration of mar-

tial law under which twelve Africans were sentenced to death. Elgin’s initial instruc-

tions to suspend the sentences led to a standoff with the Colony, the Natal ministry

resigning in protest.107 The British government was forced to ‘climb down’ to a posi-

tion which Winston Churchill, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies,described as ‘complete surrender’, with Elgin conceding to the Governor of Natal

that ‘HMG . . . have no right to overrule the deliberate judgement of those on the spot

who are responsible.’108 Though the conduct of the Natal government was felt to be

reprehensible, Elgin stood by the principle of non-interference and the right of a self-

governing colony to determine its own affairs, even to the point of removing from the

South African Department one official who persisted in advocating stronger

intervention.109

Elgin’s response to the situation in Natal was influenced by the desire to facilitatenegotiations over the first of the two new constitutions. To have intervened too

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strongly in Natal, an old British colony, would, Elgin thought, have given the

impression to the future Boer leadership in the Transvaal that he would be all the

more likely to intervene in their colony, a former Boer republic. Conversely, the

widespread perception among Natal settlers that the rebellion indicated the danger

of a general ‘native uprising’ probably reinforced such apprehensions among settlers

in neighbouring colonies. This was seen by Colonial Office officials to have limited

their scope for including measures in the Transvaal constitution to protect the inter-

ests of the ‘natives’, as these might be perceived by the white communities in the newcolonies as too liberal.110

It is clear that African activists in the new colonies understood the significance of

the Natal disturbances. As Msane commented to Harriette: ‘. . . we look with alarm

at our future and the Natal incident is still fresh in our memory when Smyth’s [Natal]

Ministry resigned because the imperial Govt. dared to interfere on behalf of the

natives . . .’111 It was not until later in 1907 that the prospect of ‘unjust and impolitic’

legal measures being taken against Dinuzulu, then facing trial for treason, prompted

the Colonial Office to flex its muscles and make explicit its disagreement with theNatal government over their ‘native policy’.112 This more robust position adopted

towards one of its more recalcitrant colonies, however, came too late to benefit the

Basuto deputation.

Then there was the question of timing. Williams had suggested to the Colonial

Office that the timing of the deputation’s arrival in London was opportune ‘in view

of a possible early granting of the New Constitution for the said colony’.113 But the

fact that the Boer leaders in the ORC were to be granted virtually full political auton-

omy imminently made it seem self-evident to Elgin that interference of any kind inthe affairs of the colony at this stage was unthinkable. Using an often repeated

phrase, in early February Elgin affirmed that, while ‘HMG entertain serious

objections’ to the ORC prohibition on land purchase by Africans, ‘drastic legislative

changes cannot be made on the eve of the grant of responsible government’ [my

emphasis].114 Similarly, later that month, Garnett and Williams were told that: ‘Lord

Elgin could not possibly on the eve of responsible government force a measure of

this kind through the Orange River Colony’ [my emphasis].115 Again, in March,

Garnett was told that ‘Lord Elgin could not amend the law on the eve of responsiblegovernment’ [my emphasis].116

When the Basuto deputation arrived in London in January 1907, the ORC was

indeed very shortly to be granted its new status. Elgin was thoroughly immersed in

the project, having worked on it every day in the Christmas recess. The work contin-

ued while the Basuto deputation was in London and the ORC letters patent were

issued on 11 June 1907 - just two months after their departure.

VI. Return to South Africa

After the return of the deputation members to South Africa, Josiah Gumede was

arrested in Natal for allegedly failing to get permission to leave the colony. This

prompted another meeting at the Colonial Office. The meeting on 14 May was

attended by both Garnett and Williams. The following day, Elgin raised the matter

with the Governor of Natal by telegram and was told that Gumede had been con-

victed and fined. But, again, Elgin refused to intervene. However, Gumede success-

fully appealed the sentence, which was set aside.117 After this meeting at the ColonialOffice, there is no record of further involvement by Sylvester Williams in this matter

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and he left England in 1908.118 However, Garnett continued to campaign in support

of the Basuto chiefs’ land claim for long after this.

After returning to South Africa in May 1907, Gumede re-established contact with

Harriette Colenso. Writing to her from his home near Ladysmith two days after his

arrest, Gumede described how he had been hounded and victimised by the magis-

trates in Natal ‘[who] do not give us a chance for rest: I am hated first [by the magis-

trates] rather than all of the other people here.’ At his trial, the magistrate and public

prosecutor had ‘delved into the matter of the work that I’m doing with the Basotho’and when he refused to answer questions on this ‘became extremely angry’ and

threatened him with gaol.119 This angry reaction to the news that an educated

African had assisted traditional African chiefs in making representations to the impe-

rial government suggests that deputations to London were considered, at least by the

local officials, to constitute a potentially effective political strategy.

In June, Gumede wrote to Harriette ‘to arrange a day to come to see you with the

Basotho chiefs. I will travel with them to help give a big welcome.’ Possibly as a result

of the proposed meeting in Maritzburg falling through, Harriette wrote to Gumedeoffering to come to Ladysmith to see him, thus showing her willingness to resume

her personal involvement in the Basuto chiefs’ case. It is not known whether the

envisaged meeting took place.120

During the remainder of 1907 and throughout 1908, as well as resuming contact

with Harriette Colenso, Gumede also continued to keep in touch with Frank Colenso

and with the LUB with regard to the Basuto chiefs’ claim and the repayment of the

loan from Frank. He also corresponded on other issues, including the trial of

Dinuzulu, and other Zulu chiefs accused of treason or murder.121 In Natal, Harriettewas arranging their defence, working closely with Frank who, in England, pressed

for fair treatment for those facing trial. To this end, he published pamphlets and lob-

bied MPs, ministers, and officials, writing to the Colonial Office on the Dinuzulu

case nine times in a three-week period in December 1907.122 Gumede contacted acti-

vists as far afield as Cape Town seeking to raise funds for the defence. ‘We received a

letter from Josiah Gumede telling us about their efforts of collecting money to help

Dinuzulu,’ reported one black Cape Town activist.123

In South Africa, Gumede acted as a correspondent of the LUB, supplying thecommittee in London with information from South Africa and receiving back

detailed accounts of committee decisions and LUB reports which he forwarded to

Harriette Colenso, sometimes signing himself as ‘representative and member of

LUB’.124 In this capacity, Gumede fulfilled a role comparable to that of an APS

correspondent in South Africa in the nineteenth century.125 However, it is impor-

tant to note that, as well as maintaining contact with white humanitarians in

South Africa and in England, Gumede also kept in touch by letter with other

politically active Africans concerning issues which, although of local origin, wereof wider political significance. In this sense, he was participating in an ‘epistolary

network’ which extended across South Africa. This network foreshadowed a

broad political unity that was to be achieved between kholwa in diverse parts of

the region as they ‘became conscious of themselves as a political class on a

national stage’.126

Garnett did indeed travel to South Africa, as he had said he would, and was

greeted by Gumede on his arrival in Ladysmith in September 1908. ‘Brother

Dr Garnett of London arrived here yesterday . . . We received and greeted him withthe brethren here in Ladysmith,’ Gumede reported to Harriette.127 On 1 and 2 April

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1909, Garnett attended an ‘interview’ in Bloemfontein with the ORC Governor. Also

present were Josiah Gumede and nearly twenty Batlokoa and Bakulukwe representa-

tives, including the chiefs who went in the deputation to England. The Governor’s

report of the meeting, which covered forty-eight sides of typed and printed pages,

‘show[ed] clearly that these tribes have no case against the ORC Govt. or against H.

M. government’.128

In October of 1909, after he had returned to England, Garnett received a letter

from Gumede, detailing how hundreds of landless Batlokoa and Bakulukwe peoplehad been ‘turned adrift with their large families’ by their Boer employers. This made

a mockery of Selbourne’s confident assurance to the Secretary of State, only two

years previously, that their settlement on white-owned farms would be to their bene-

fit. This prompted Garnet to write a series of letters to Lord Crewe (who had

replaced Lord Elgin at the Colonial Office) urging the intervention of the British

Government to prevent the ‘continuance of the harsh treatment’. But, in the previous

month, the draft Union of South Africa Act had been signed by King Edward. With

the union of the South African colonies inevitable, Crewe was not prepared to inter-vene in a matter that was to become the business of the new Union government.129

But Gumede was not to forget the plight of the Basuto chiefs. Ten years later,

when he was again in Britain as a member of a deputation, he submitted a report to

the Colonial Office in which he recalled the losses suffered by the Batlokoa and

Bakulukwe, noting that ‘all these injustices and wrongs have never been redressed’,

with the sad consequence that ‘[now] the aged Chief Letlatsa of the Bakhulukwe tribe

. . . has no place where to rest his head.’130

VII. The legacy for future deputations

In terms of its immediate objectives, the 1907 deputation had failed. This was the

conclusion which, it seems, was drawn by Gumede when, in 1913, he argued against

the newly formed South African Native National Congress (SANNC) sending a dep-

utation to Britain. ‘Earlier missions abroad were all failures,’ he asserted.131 But it

could be argued that the knowledge and experience gained and lessons learned from

the 1907 deputation, were not lost. The relationships which were established duringthe visit, between Gumede and the LUB, and between Gumede and the family of

Frank Colenso, were to be drawn on by him and other members of future deputa-

tions from South Africa when seeking moral, material, and political support for their

work in Britain.

In November 1907, a deputation of Swazi chiefs arrived in London intending to

‘lay their grievance to the king’. They carried a letter of introduction to Frank

Colenso from Saul Msane notifying him of the deputation, just as Harriette had noti-

fied him nearly a year earlier of the Basuto chiefs’ deputation. It seems likely thatFrank had met Msane in London in 1893 and, indeed, was later to refer to him as ‘a

friend in Johannesburg’. As Msane was already well known to Harriette Colenso, it

is possible that she suggested his writing to her brother Frank about the forthcoming

Swazi deputation. But Msane and Gumede had worked closely together in the past

and, as we have seen, Gumede was an active letter-writer in the months after his

return to South Africa in May 1907. He may therefore have suggested that Msane

contact Frank Colenso about the Swazi deputation. In this respect, the two deputa-

tions may be connected. A connection of a different kind was noted by LordSelbourne, who cabled to Elgin that the Swazi ‘saw in the papers that the Basuto had

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gone to London and seen people and they wished to do the same’. Elgin was urged to

send a ‘stiff reply’ to dissuade them.132

In June 1909, Harriette Colenso received a letter from John Langalibalele Dube.

We noted earlier a number of parallels between the lives of the Dube and Gumede.

Dube had visited the United States to further his education and raise money for a

Zulu industrial school, which he had established at Ohlange near Durban (the first

purely African-founded and African-run industrial school). He had also founded a

Zulu-English newspaper, Ilanga lase Natal, and was to become the first President ofthe SANNC when it formed in 1912.133 In 1909, he wrote to Harriette Colenso about

his forthcoming visit to London with the ‘Coloured and Native Delegation’ to make

representations in relation to the Union of South Africa Bill. Harriette forwarded

Dube’s letter to Frank, saying: ‘He [Dube] can tell you plenty about us & about

native feeling here,’ and notifying him that W.P. Schreiner, the leader of the delega-

tion, would have just arrived in England. Schreiner, a former Attorney-General and

Premier of the Cape, had only recently finished working with Harriette in Natal on

the defence in the treason trial of Dinuzulu. Harriette had referred Dube to her otherbrother Robert and to Jane Unwin. But it is clear that she expected Frank to meet

both Schreiner and Dube. Schreiner stayed with Frank and Sophie while in England

with the delegation. It is likely that, again, at Harriette’s instigation, Dube would at

least have been in contact with the Colenso family in England during his visit in

1909.134

In 1914, Dube asked Harriette Colenso’s opinion on obtaining an advisor for the

forthcoming SANNC deputation that he was to lead to England to make representa-

tions to the British government concerning the South Africa Natives’ Land Act of1913. The Act deprived Africans of the right to acquire land outside severely limited

areas set aside for their exclusive occupation but which were patently inadequate to

support them.135 Advising Dube ‘on your present mission’ Harriette said, ‘you need

someone who knows how things are behind the scenes in England now’ [my empha-

sis], showing that she was well attuned to the intricacies of political power-brokering

in Britain. But she did not offer a name.136

In June 1914, the five-strong SANNC deputation arrived in England. The out-

come of their early dealings with the APS were not encouraging and the delegatesturned to other sources of support, including the Brotherhood Movement.137 This

non-conformist religious body, espousing the ideal of the brotherhood of man

regardless of race or creed, was organisationally distinct from, and less politically

active than, the LUB. Nevertheless, the Movement promoted the deputation’s cause

in the Brotherhood Journal and offered numerous platforms on which the delegates

were invited to speak.138 Help was also received from individuals connected with the

Movement, in particular William Cross, whom one of the delegates, Sol Plaatje,

often visited at his home in London.139

However, the 1914 SANNC delegates also drew on, and developed, relationships

which had been established with Gumede during the 1907 deputation. One of the first

to greet them in England was Charles Garnett.140 They were also welcomed by the

Colenso family. Sophie Colenso invited the delegates to ‘Elangeni’, the Colensos’

‘out of town’ home in Amersham which, from 1911, had become her sole resi-

dence.141 Following a visit to Elangeni, Dube wrote on behalf of himself and Saul

Msane to thank Sophie and continued to write to update her on progress with nego-

tiations with the Colonial Office and to let her know when he would be returning toSouth Africa.142 During 1914 and 1915, another delegate, Sol Plaatje, spent a

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number of weekends at Elangeni where he ‘became a regular and eagerly anticipated

visitor’.143

If Frank Colenso had been alive in 1914, Harriette might have referred Dube to

him then, as she had referred Gumede to him eight years earlier. It is likely that she

let Sophie know of the imminent arrival of the SANNC deputation, as the sisters-in-

law frequently corresponded on South African affairs. And, as we have seen, some

delegates had already met the Colensos in England: Msane in 1893, and Dube, prob-

ably in 1909.But that contact should have been established with Charles Garnett, and with the

Colensos, almost as soon as the SANNC delegates arrived in England in 1914 sug-

gests the possibility of prior knowledge, on the part of the delegates, of previous con-

nections with these supporters in England. In this respect, it appears that Gumede

played a significant part in establishing connections with humanitarians in Britain

which could be drawn on by future visiting delegates from South Africa.

Though not a member of the 1914 SANNC deputation, Gumede had been

involved in discussions about it within the SANNC prior to its departure for Eng-land and may have referred the prospective delegates to Garnett and the Colenso

family.144

After Garnett’s trip to South Africa in 1908, Gumede had extolled his virtues to

Harriette Colenso, writing: ‘I know a sincere, reliable, complete and trustworthy

man . . . he is a white man of the League of Universal Brotherhood and Native Races

Association. He is determined . . . that they act on behalf of peace and welfare of the

People . . . just like you, Nkosazana.’145 It seems reasonable to suppose that he would

have commended Garnett in similar terms to his fellow SANNC members about toembark for London.

Gumede had advised the chiefs in Zululand to seek advice on the Land Act from

Harriette Colenso.146 It appears that he had also referred members of the 1914

SANNC deputation to the Colenso family in England. In 1919, Sol Plaatje returned

to England as the leader of a second SANNC deputation, again concerning the

Natives’ Land Act of 1913, this time accompanied by Josiah Gumede.147 During this

visit, Plaatje wrote to Sophie Colenso: ‘I am glad to have heard before of the family

of Gebuza, through my friend Mr Gumede who came with me’ and he asked after‘the dear daughters of Gebuza’.148 This letter refers to Plaatje’s first meeting with

Sophie when he visited Britain in 1914, and suggests that this acquaintance had been

made through Gumede which, in turn, points to the existence of a close relationship

between Sophie Colenso and Josiah Gumede prior to 1914. Plaatje’s use of Frank

Colenso’s Zulu name when referring to Sophie’s family nine years after her

husband’s death shows that he saw the relationship as being not just with Sophie and

her daughters, but with the ‘family of Gebuza’. And his intimation, in 1919, of an

earlier association between Frank Colenso’s family and Josiah Gumede must referback to Gumede’s previous visit to England in 1907 with the Basuto chiefs.

Sophie Colenso showed as much hospitality to the 1919 delegates as she had to

members of the earlier SANNC deputation.149 In November 1919, one delegate,

Selope Thema, wrote to Sophie thanking her for ‘the kindness shown me by members

of your family during my two days stay at Elangeni’ and adding ‘many thanks for the

clothes. I think it an honour to wear the clothes of your late husband - the champion

of the liberty of my people.’150 Plaatje, Gumede, and Thema all saw in the New Year

of 1920 at Elangeni.151 Later that year, Plaatje and Thema were to stay at Elangeniagain, and, when Sophie went to see Thema off from St Pancras Station, ‘Plaatje and

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Gumede were there also for the same purpose & felt very sad.’152 During this visit to

England, Gumede and Sophie kept in touch with one another by letter when he was

in London. In reply to letters or cards from Sophie, Gumede wrote to update her on

his progress with speaking engagements and other activities in various parts of the

country, on the whereabouts of other delegates, and to arrange his next visit to Elan-

geni.153 (‘Gumede spent a day & 2 nights here lately,’ Sophie wrote to Harriette in

December 1920.154) On his departure in March 1921, Gumede wrote to Sophie from

onboard ship and, again, after his arrival back in South Africa in May 1921.155

But the 1907 deputation had not only served to foster connections between black

activists and white humanitarians in Britain. The process had also worked in the oppo-

site direction. Just as Harriette Colenso, in Natal, instigated the connection between

Gumede and other visiting activists and the Colenso family in England, so too did

Sophie Colenso, in England, refer returning African activists to Harriette’s branch of

the family in Natal. In 1920, before he left London, Sophie gave Selope Thema a letter

of introduction to Harriette Colenso in Natal. After he had returned to South Africa,

Thema wrote to Harriette referring to this letter and arranging to meet her.156

After her husband’s death, Sophie Colenso had evidently developed connections

which she and her husband had made with other white liberals and radical MPs in

Britain, such as the Labour MP Ramsey MacDonald and E.D. Morel, Secretary of

the Union of Democratic Control. MacDonald’s connection with the Colensos dates

back at least to 1903 when he invited Frank and Sophie to share a platform with him

and Keir Hardie at an Independent Labour Party meeting on ‘Native Labour in

Africa’.157 In 1906, he had worked closely with Frank Colenso, making use of infor-

mation supplied by him from his sister in Natal, in a concerted attempt to persuadeLord Elgin to overturn the summary death sentences served on twelve Africans in

Natal referred to above.158 In July 1914, following a request from John Dube, Sophie

wrote to Ramsey MacDonald asking him to assist the 1914 SANNC deputation. But

MacDonald was unable to help since he was at his home in Lossiemouth, in his

Scottish constituency.159

In 1919, possibly responding to a request from Sophie Colenso, E.D. Morel told

her that he could help arrange for SANNC delegates to address, ‘very big audiences

in the provinces’. Gumede later reported to Sophie that ‘the great meeting last night. . . was addressed by Messrs Msane and Plaatje . . . Mr Morel the chairman sup-

ported the appeal very much.’160 Through Morel and Arthur Henderson, Secretary

of the Labour Party, Sophie Colenso may also have helped to secure the interview

which took place on 21 November 1919 between members of the SANNC deputation

and the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George.161 In 1920, Sophie introduced

Gumede to the Secretary of the Peace Society and Editor of Peace Herald, thus facili-

tating his placing of an article in theHerald and paving the way for his addressing the

Peace Society, as well as attending the National Peace Congress in Glasgow in June1920.162

VIII. A ‘drawing room circle’ of supporters

As well as seeking to use her connections with influential individuals to help African

activists in England, Sophie Colenso also contributed to their support as a member

of one of London’s liberal ‘drawing room circles’. This informal association was

composed largely of women who invited SANNC delegates to their meetings, offeredthem hospitality, and organised support for them in other ways including, where

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possible, exercising their political connections and influence to give the visitors from

South Africa access to the corridors of power in Britain.163 Members of this circle,

including Sophie Colenso, Georgiana Solomon, Jane Cobden Unwin, and Betty

Molteno, gave receptions ‘in honour of the delegates’ of the 1914 SANNC deputa-

tion when they first arrived in England.164 This hospitality was to continue through-

out the delegates’ stay in England. In July 1914, the day before his return to South

Africa, John Dube had written to Sophie: ‘We had a splendid evening last night at

Mrs Unwin’s, a very encouraging one. Dr Colenso was there and we spoke Zulu withhim.’165

As we have seen, Jane Unwin already knew the Colenso brothers, having helped

them with their work for the Zulu performers at Olympia in 1899/1900, and having

served as a committee member of the Pan-African Association in 1900/1901.166 She

had also previously met with black African activists visiting England. In London, in

1893, she and Harriette Colenso had met Msane and Gumede, both of whom were to

return to England as members of future SANNC deputations: Msane in 1914 and

Gumede in 1919. Later in the 1890s, when Harriette Colenso next visited England,she met Unwin again and was introduced by her to the South African novelist, Olive

Schreiner. Olive was the sister of W.P. Schreiner who, it will be remembered, stayed

with Frank and Sophie Colenso when he visited England in 1909.167

All the members of this circle had an interest in South African affairs and some,

like Sophie Colenso, had family there. Betty Molteno was the daughter of the first

Prime Minster of the Cape. Mrs Solomon’s late husband, Saul Solomon, a leading

Cape liberal, and her nephew, Richard Solomon, a former Attorney-General of the

Cape, were ‘friends of the natives’ with whom Sol Plaatje had been well acquaintedin South Africa.168

Solomon, a former suffragette, and Unwin were also committee members of the

APS. But in 1917, disparagingly referred to as ‘two lady . . . dissentients’, they had

been ejected from its committee for objecting to the organisation’s support for the

Natives’ Land Act.169 At one time under royal patronage, and with nobles, bishops,

and retired colonels among its Vice-Presidents, the APS was recognised as the

‘official’ humanitarian body in Britain working for the protection of the rights of

‘the native inhabitants’ of British colonies. But, as we have seen, the Society haddone little to assist the Basuto chiefs in 1907. It is significant that Harriette did not

refer Dube to the APS when he had asked her to recommend an advisor in England

to the 1914 deputation. On their arrival in Britain, the delegates met with the

Organising Secretary of the Society who pressured them not to contact the press, nor

to seek publicity, and to sign a statement affirming their assent to the very legislation

that they had come to protest against! He subsequently urged them to return to

South Africa as soon as possible.170 Prior to its amalgamation with the Anti-Slavery

Society, the APS had proposed that the new body should ‘expressly’ exclude from itsobjects ‘political questions, such as constitutional representations on self gov-

ernment’. It also resolved that ‘questions affecting the constitutional representation

of native races, etc., should not be entertained by the amalgamated societies’.171

In the light of the slighting reference made by the male-dominated APS commit-

tee to the gender of its ‘dissentient’ women members before ejecting them, it is per-

haps relevant to note the suggestion by the biographer of Gumede that their gender

may well have been an advantage in ‘winning the confidence of African Leaders’.

‘These British women’, he suggested, ‘were instrumental in opening many doors forthe SANNC delegates’.172 In opposition to the APS, Solomon and Unwin, with

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another of their circle, Alice Werner, a long-standing friend of the Colensos in both

Britain and Natal, formed a committee of support for the visiting SANNC delegates.

The new committee included Charles Garnett who congratulated Solomon for her

‘splendid stand’ against the ‘retrogressive policies’ of the APS.173

In 1919, the same liberal sympathisers extended hospitality to members of the sec-

ond SANNC deputation to Britain. In July of that year, Sophie ‘was at a meeting at

Mrs Saul Solomon’s to welcome the S African Native Deputation - with Plaatje at

their head & there were splendid addresses by him . . .’ All the other delegates werepresent and, Sophie added, ‘there was an interesting and very sympathetic audience -

amongst them Alice Werner, Olive Schreiner, Mrs Fisher [Jane Cobden] Unwin . . .’174

The meeting was also addressed by John Archer, the black South Londoner whose

connections with Unwin, Sylvester Williams, and the Colenso family went back to at

least 1900 when, as we saw, he had been a committee member of the Pan-African

Association. In that position he had taken Frank Colenso’s side in the dispute with

Williams concerning the dissolution of the Association.175 Archer became the mayor

of Battersea in 1913 and hence the first person of African descent to hold civic officein Britain. He shared with Sylvester Williams the honour of being one of the first two

black local councillors elected in the UK.176 In 1918, he became the first President of

the African Progress Union and, in his presidential address to its inaugural meeting,

had praised Frank Colenso’s work ‘for the Negro’.177

As well as providing moral and material support for the delegates, members of

this drawing-room circle sought to achieve political objectives. In 1919, Georgiana

Solomon wrote to the Prime Minister, Lloyd George: ‘At a drawing room meeting

lately held in my house Mr. Plaatje and his colleagues ably expounded the Cause ofSouth African natives. Your old friend, Dr. G.B. Clark, ex-MP was in the chair.’178

Referring to the same meeting, Charles Garnett wrote to King George V, the Prime

Minister, and the Colonial Secretary, confirming the resolution passed on the 1913

Land Act and requesting that the SANNC deputation should have the opportunity

to meet the King.179 It appears that Sol Plaatje envisaged combining the campaign-

ing potential of these supporters with that of the Brotherhood Movement in what he

referred to as a ‘brotherhood scheme’. He confided to Sophie: ‘When Mr Cross

comes we should decide something definite regarding the brotherhood scheme:Mrs Solomon, Mrs Unwin, Miss Moltemo ought to be used now to help us along.’180

IX. Connecting places and people

Returning to the analytic framework outlined previously, it may be suggested that

Elangeni and the drawing rooms of liberal supporters in London, as well as in

Bishopstowe/Ekukanyeni, were all sites in which networks of relations between black

activists intersected with those between white humanitarians. At Elangeni andBishopstowe, visitors were able to recuperate, meet one another and regroup, as well

as engage in political discussion and the planning of political activity. They could

also collect mail or messages, as we saw when Gumede collected a letter sent to

him at Bishopstowe by Williams from London.181 As we have seen, in Natal,

Bishopstowe was a centre of resistance to colonial rule. For some, Ekukhanyeni was

‘the heart of the land and nation’.182 In England, Elangeni and the London drawing

rooms were sites at which members of deputations from South Africa were able to

gather support and plan the next moves in their challenge to the imperial governmentto fulfil its duty of trusteeship to its subject peoples. They were also centres of dissent

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within the mainstream humanitarian movement in Britain, as well as of resistance to

its attempts to quash what was thought to be overly demonstrative support for the

deputations.

The channels of communication between Bishopstowe and Elangeni (and previ-

ously the Colensos’ home in London) served as a conduit for the transmission of

information between Great Britain and South Africa and facilitated the passage of

visitors between the two locations. These channels were maintained by enduring

bonds within the Colenso family. The initial relationship between Harriette andFrank was succeeded, after Frank’s death, by the frequent and intimate correspon-

dence kept up between the sisters-in-law: Harriette and Frank’s widow, Sophie. But

this bond was not only between individuals. It was also between two households, or

branches of the Colenso family. This connection acted as an axis with respect to

which black activists and their white supporters were able to organise alliances and

orientate their political activities.

As pointed out by Zoe Laidlaw in her study of colonial connections in the early

nineteenth century, bonds are strengthened where there are ‘multiple connections’between the same individuals. The example given is of ‘two men who were in-laws

and also former comrades [in military campaigns].’183 It may be suggested that, for

members of a family who had campaigned long and hard together for a common

cause under the leadership of their father, family ties, together with the mutual obli-

gations resulting from shared political aims, would amount to multiple connections

between the family members.

Some members of visiting deputations referred to Colenso family members in

England in terms of their relationship to ‘Gebuza ka Sobantu’, even after the death ofFrank. This highlights the importance attached by the delegates to relating to the

Colenso family and not just to its individual members. Relations between the Colensos

and the Zulu people may also have been a significant factor. Deputation members

would have been aware of the very close historic association between the Colenso fam-

ily in Natal and the Zulu Royal Family. Dinuzulu and his father, the former Zulu

King, Cetswayo, had commonly used close kinship terms to address Bishop Colenso

and Harriette.184 Those with a Zulu background (including Gumede, Msane, and

Dube) may therefore not only have seen the Colensos as friends and political allies, butalso had regard to their special connection with the traditional centre of power in

Zululand. Furthermore, we have noted that delegates wrote to both the South African

and British-based Colensos in Zulu, and that the ability to converse in Zulu with

Colenso family members in England was remarked on with approval by Dube. The tie

of a shared African language may have been an additional factor strengthening the

bonds between the delegates and the Colensos. It is evident that these relationships

were grounded in a depth of feeling beyond that derived from political expediency

alone. ‘How understanding she writes of our dear Sol Plaatje! Just what we feel andthink,’ Sophie wrote on a letter received from Georgiana Solomon expressing admira-

tion for the work of Sol Plaatje.185 At a farewell concert to mark his return to South

Africa in 1923, Sophie presented a wreath of laurels to Sol Plaatje bearing the inscrip-

tion: ‘with heartiest congratulations to the brave champion of the natives of S Africa

from the family of Gebuza ka Sobantu’.186 In 1916, Sol Plaatje dedicated his book on

the 1913 Natives’ Land Act to Harriette Colenso (‘Nkosazana . . . ka So-bantu,’) and

wrote to tell Sophie Colenso of this.187 In 1919, after a connection with the Colenso

family going back nearly four decades, Gumede wrote to Sophie saying: ‘The names ofSobantu, Gebuza and Dhlwedwe shall never die out in the memory of our race.’188

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X. Conclusion

For the visiting African delegates, an informal circle of liberals in England, drawing

in unorthodox but committed and energetic humanitarians like Garnett, would

surely have seemed a welcome alternative to the unsympathetic APS who, by com-

parison, must have appeared hidebound and unduly deferential to the authorities.The receptiveness of these white sympathisers to the visiting Africans was no doubt

in some cases facilitated by previous connections in South Africa, as in the case of Sol

Plaatje’s acquaintance with members of the Solomon family. However, the connection

with Garnett was made in England, and Gumede’s relations with the Colensos were

based on personal contact with both the South African and English branches of the

family, extending back over decades. In 1919, Gumede wrote to Sophie recalling being

‘at your London residence at St. John’s Wood, some 26 years ago’.189 And, as we have

seen, Sol Plaatje and Josiah Gumede traced back their very close relationship withSophie Colenso to their association with the family of Frank Colenso, the family which

they both referred to by its Zulu name, and with whom relations had become firmly

established, or strengthened, during the visit of the Basuto deputation in 1907.

The hospitality provided by, and the lines of influence opened up through, an

informal circle of white liberals in London with an interest in South African affairs

can be seen, at least in part, to derive from the strong bonds formed between Josiah

Gumede and Charles Garnett and the Colenso family when Gumede came to

England with the Basuto chiefs in 1907. It may be suggested, therefore, that, thoughfailing to achieve its immediate goals, the 1907 deputation acted as a catalyst for the

development of a wider framework of support among British-based humanitarians

for black South African activists visiting Britain in the following two decades. The

connections made at this time can be seen as facilitating further relationships being

established between white humanitarians and other African activists including Saul

Msane, John Dube, Sol Plaatje, and Selope Thema, all of whom, along with Josiah

Gumede, held, or were to hold, key positions in the SANNC, later to be renamed the

African National Congress.

Notes

1. Harriette Colenso to Frank Colenso, 30 Nov. 1906, [Oxford, The Bodleian Library ofCommonwealth and African Studies,] R[hodes] H[ouse], MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fos. 487/8. Rob[ert] was Harriette and Frank Colenso’s brother.

2. On trusteeship see A. Porter, ‘Trusteeship, Anti-slavery and Humanitarianism’ in A.Porter (ed), The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. III, The Nineteenth Century(Oxford, 2001), 198–221.

3. O.C. Mathurin, Henry Sylvester Williams and the Origins of the Pan-African Movement1869–1911 (Westport, CT, 1976), 132–6; R. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom FairPlay and Justice: Josiah Tshanguna Gumede 1867–1947: A Biography (Belhar [SouthAfrica], 2001), 26–34; M. Sherwood, Origins of Pan-Africanism: Henry Sylvester Wil-liams, Africa, and the African diaspora (London, 2011), 196–202. For convenience, LUBwill be used in preference to the full acronym, LUBNRA, for the League of UniversalBrotherhood and Native Races Association.

4. A. Lester, Imperial Networks: Creating Identities in Nineteenth Century South Africa andBritain (Hoboken, 2001), 1–9; F. Cooper and A. Laura Stoler, ‘Between Metropole andColony: Rethinking a Research Agenda’ in Cooper and Stoler (eds), Tensions of Empire:Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley, 1997), 1–15; Z. Laidlaw, ColonialConnections, 1815–45: Patronage, the Information Revolution and Colonial Government(Manchester, 2005), 1–37.

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5. T. Ballantyne, Orientalism and Race: Aryanism in the British Empire (Basingstoke,2006), 15.

6. J. Guy, The Heretic: a Study of the Life of John William Colenso, 1814–1883 (Pietermar-itzburg, 1983), The View Across the River: Harriette Colenso and the Zulu Struggleagainst Imperialism (Oxford, 2002); A. Odendaal, The Founders: The Origins of theANC and the Struggle for Democracy in South Africa (Auckland Park, 2012), 161; G.Colenso, ‘The Colenso Papers: Documenting “An Extensive Chain of Influence” FromZululand to Britain’, African Research and Documentation, cxv (2011), 1. On Ekukha-nyeni see J.W. Colenso, ‘Church Missions Among the Heathen in the Diocese of Natal’in R. Edgecombe (ed), Bringing Forth the Light: Five Tracts on Bishop Colenso’s ZuluMission (Pietermarizburg, 1982), xviii; Guy, Heretic, 50; V. Khumalo, ‘The Class of1856 and the Politics of Cultural Production(s) in the Emergence of Ekukhanyeni’ in J.A. Draper (ed), The Eye of the Storm: Bishop John William Colenso and the Crisis of Bib-lical Inspiration (London, 2003).

7. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 2–4.8. H. Mokoena, Magema Fuze: the Making of a Kholwa Intellectual (Scottsville, South

Africa, 2011), 18–20.9. S. Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa, Class Nationalism and the

State in Twentieth-Century Natal (Johannesburg, 1986), 48–9.10. Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, 45.11. Mokoena,Magema Fuze, 22–3.12. Mokoena,Magema Fuze, 23.13. Odendaal, Founders, 164; Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 11–5.14. N. Etherington, Preachers, Peasants and Politics in Southeast Africa, 1835–1880: Afri-

can Christian Communities in Natal, Pondoland and Zululand (London, 1978), 172–4;Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 4.

15. Odendaal, Founders, 13.16. M.M. Fuze, The Black People and Whence they Came: a Zulu View, (ed) A.T. Cope,

(Pietermaritzburg, 1979).17. Mokoena, Magema Fuze; H. Hughes, First President: A Life of John L. Dube, Founding

President of the ANC (South Africa, 2011); V. Khumalo, ‘Ekhukanyeni Letter Writers:a Historical Inquiry into Epistolary Network(s) and Political Imagination in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa’ in K. Barber (ed), Africa’s Hidden Histories. Everyday Literacy andMaking the Self (Bloomington, 2006), 113–42.

18. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 16; B. Willan, Sol Plaatje: South African Nationalist,1876–1932 (Berkeley, 1984), chaps. 3, 4.

19. Willan, Sol Plaatje, chs. 5; Odendaal, Founders, 272; Hughes, First President, 103–4.20. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 1; Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, 45; Hughes,

First President, 3.21. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 2; Etherington, Preachers, 126; Hughes, First Presi-

dent, 15, 22.22. Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, 13; Mokoena, Magema Fuze, 23. Magema Fuze

did not have a Christian first name as Bishop Colenso ‘objected to African peoplebeing called by foreign names which meant nothing to them’ (See Mokoena, MagemaFuze, 30–1).

23. I. Geiss, The Pan-Africanist Movement: A History of Pan-Africanism in America, Europeand Africa (London, [1968] 1974), chap. 10, 176–98; Mathurin, Henry Sylvester Wil-liams, chap. 5, 60–85; J.R. Hooker, ‘The Pan-African Conference 1900’, Transition, xlvi(1974), 20–4 and Henry Sylvester Williams, Imperial Pan-Africanist (London, 1975),chaps. 4, 5; Sherwood, Origins, chaps. 5, 6.

24. Mathurin, Sylvester Williams, 131; Sherwood, Origins, 175; P. Fryer, Staying Power,The History of Black People in Britain (London, 1984), 287.

25. Sylvester Williams to Josiah Gumede, 21 Sep. 1906, copied by Harriette to FrankColenso, Harriette to Frank Colenso, 30 Nov. 1906, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fos. 470,487–8.

26. Williams to Gumede, 28 Sep. 1906, copied by Agnes Colenso, [Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa,] P[ietermaritzburg] A[rchives] R[epository], A204, vol. 43.

27. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 15–6, 26.

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28. On the name ‘Sobantu’ see J.W. Colenso, Church Missions among the Heathen, 6; Ether-ington, Preachers, 41–2; Guy,Heretic, 48; G.W. Cox, The Life of John William Colenso,D.D. Bishop of Natal (London, 1888), i. 85, 209.

29. Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 7 May 1907 (translated from Zulu by Bridget McBean[BM]), PAR, A204, vol. 68.

30. Harriette to Frank Colenso, 30 Nov. 1906, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fos. 487–8. VanDiemel, In Search of Freedom, 6, 25.

31. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 4–8; Odendaal, Founders, 161–2. An induna is anadvisor or councillor to a Zulu chief.

32. S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: the 1906–8 Disturbances in Natal (Oxford, 1970), 69, 71and ‘Harriette Colenso and the Zulus, 1874–1913’, Journal of African History, iv, no. 3(1963), 409–10; Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 19–20; P. Walshe, The Rise of Afri-can Nationalism in South Africa: the African National Congress 1912–1930 (London,1970), 16, 228. Odendaal, Founders, 165.

33. Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 6, 26 July, 29 Aug. 1900, 16, 21 March 1904 (translatedfrom Zulu by BM), PAR, A204, vol. 68; Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 15–6.

34. J. Guy, The View Across the River: Harriette Colenso and the Zulu Struggle againstImperialism (Oxford, 2002), chap. 24.

35. Harriette Colenso to Kate Giles, 5, 20 Jan. 1893, PAR, A204, vol. 73. Van Diemel, InSearch of Freedom, 175, n. 81; V. Erlmann, Music, Modernity, and the Global Imagina-tion: South Africa and the West (New York, 1999), 134–40 and African Stars: Studies inBlack South African Performance (Chicago, 1991), 116–7.

36. Gumede to Sophie Colenso, 22 Oct. 1919, PAR, A204.37. F.E. Colenso, ‘To the Editor of The Times’: ‘The Natal Zulus at Olympia’, The Times,

29 Dec. 1899, 11, col F. Robert J. Colenso, ‘To the Editor of The Star,’ The Star,31 Dec. 1899.

38. Minutes of a General Meeting of the African Association, 22 Feb. 1900, RH, MSS. Afr.s.1286/1b (iv), fos. 269–271.

39. Williams to Harriette Colenso, 9 June 1899, PAR, A204.40. G. Colenso and C. Saunders, ‘New Light on the Pan-African Association: Parts I & II’,

African Research and Documentation (ARD), nos. 107, 108 (2008), and ‘New Light onthe Pan-African Association of 1900: a Further Note’, ARD, no. 115 (2011). See alsoGeiss, Pan-Africanist Movement, 192; Mathurin, Sylvester Williams, 68–9; Report of thePan-African Conference held on the 23rd, 24th and 25th July, 1900, at Westminster TownHall, PAR, Pamphlets and Periodicals, vol. 148, C.1284/44, page facing page 1.

41. This paragraph and the following paragraphs draw heavily on T. Keegan, ‘White Settle-ment and Black Subjugation on the South African Highveld: the Tlokoa Heartland inthe North Eastern Orange Free State ca. 1850–1914’ in W. Beinart, P. Delius, and S.Trapido (ed), Putting a Plough to the Ground: accumulation and dispossession in ruralSouth Africa, 1850–1930 (Johannesburg, 1986), 218–49.

42. For a discussion of this process in the broader South African Context See Colin Bundy,The Rise And Fall Of The South African Peasantry (London, 1978).

43. The spelling of Batlokoa and Bakulukwe varies between different accounts of the depu-tation and in the official records. I have retained the spelling in the original versions ofthe petitions and memorandum on behalf of the chiefs referred to below. However,alternative spellings have been retained in quotations from other documents.

44. See petitions of Letlatsa Moloi and Lesisa Tsotetsi of June 1907 and memo from QuayleDickson, Advisor for Native Affairs (ORC) to Colonial Secretary (ORC), 23 June 1906,[The National Archives of the UK: Public Record Office], C[olonial] O[ffice] 224/23/7024, pp. 187–94, enc[losure]s 1, 2 & 3 with Governor of ORC, Lord Selbourne, to Sec-retary of State, Lord Elgin, despatch 17, 4 Feb. 1907, also printed in CO 879/94, Conf[identical] Print, no. 866, [South Africa, further correspondence, 1907], pp. 29–32, no.26, encs. 1, 2 & 3; Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 26–7; Keegan, ‘White Settlement’,219–5; Mathurin,Henry Sylvester Williams, 133; Sherwood, Origins, 197–8.

45. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 15–6, 26; Odendaal, Founders, 13.46. Petitions of Letlatsa Moloi and Lesisa Tsotetsi. See n. 44 above.47. See for example the affidavit of Jacob Hlogwana, 24 June 1905, CO 224/23/7024, pp.

218–9.

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48. H.F. Wilson to F.W. Foley, 9 Aug. 1906, CO 224/23/7024, p. 206, enc. 12 with Sel-bourne to Elgin, despatch 17, 4 Feb. 1907, also printed in CO 879/94, Conf. Print, no.866, p. 36, no. 26, enc. 12.

49. Selbourne to Elgin, despatch 17, 4 Feb. 1907, CO 224/23/7024, 180–6, also printed inCO 879/94, Conf. Print, no. 866, pp. 27–9, no. 26. On the demand for black labour inthe colony see Keegan, ‘White Settlement’, 235.

50. See point 8 of petition from Lesisa Tsotetsi of the Batlokoa, June 1906, CO 224/23/7024,pp. 190–2, enc. 2 with Selbourne to Elgin, despatch 17, 4 Feb. 1907, also printed in CO879/94, Conf. Print, no. 866, pp. 30–1, no. 26, enc. 2. For legislation restricting the num-ber of heads of families per landowner, see Keegan, ‘White Settlement’, 235.

51. Gumede to Harriette Colenso (translated from Zulu by University of Cape Town[UCT]), 11 Oct. 1906, PAR, A204.

52. For the memorandum and a report of the meeting see Dickson to Acting Governor,ORC, 19 Oct. 1906, with memorandum, 15 Oct. 1906, CO 224/23/7024, pp. 200–4, enc.10 with Selbourne to Elgin, despatch 17, 4 Feb. 1907, also printed in CO 879/94, Conf.Print, no. 866, pp. 34–5, no. 26, enc. 10.

53. Acting Colonial Secretary (ORC) ‘To Lesisa Tsetetsi and other Natives who Signed theMemorandum’, Nov. 1906, CO 224/23/7024, p. 205, enc. 11 with Selbourne to Elgin,despatch 17, 4 Feb. 1907, also printed in CO 879/94, Conf. Print, no. 866, p. 36, no. 26,enc. 11.

54. Keegan, ‘White Settlement’, 242–3; Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 26–7.55. Statements by Lesisa Dumise and Mapenene Moloi, prepared for Frank Colenso, 27

March 1907 (translated from Zulu by UCT), RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15, fos. 100, 101.‘Dumise’ is as spelt in the statements prepared for Frank Colenso but contrary toKeegan’s spelling which is ‘Dumisi’, Keegan, ‘White Settlement’, 222.

56. Williams to Gumede, 21 Sep. 1906, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fo. 470; Williams toGumede 28 Sep. 1906, PAR, A204, vol. 43. In the former of these letters, Williams refersto an earlier letter to Gumede, dated 14 Sep. 1906. Harriette to Frank Colenso, 30 Nov.1906, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fos. 487/8.

57. Williams to Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Elgin, 28 Nov., 20 Dec. 1906 anddraft replies, CO 224/22/44143, 46982.

58. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 30; Mathurin, Sylvester Williams, 134. The petitionentitled ‘The Humble Petition of the Batlokwa and Bakhulukwe Tribes’ was signed byJ. T. Gumede, 29 Jan. 1907. The only known copy is in the OFS archives. See Keegan,‘White Settlement’, 243, 249 notes.

59. See Colonial Office notes of meeting and attendance list for meeting of 29 Jan. 1907, CO224/23/3564, pp. 106, 112. For membership of LUB committee, see LUB headed note-paper, e.g. Charles Garnett to Elgin, 8 Feb. 1907, CO 224/25/4955, pp. 272–4. Althoughnot mentioned in previous secondary accounts of the meeting, Scully was not an insig-nificant member of the LUB.

60. ‘Notes of Interview . . . 27th February 1907’, CO 224/23/3564, pp. 119–21; Van Diemel,In Search of Freedom, 31.

61. Fryer, Staying Power, 287. See also Mathurin, Sylvester Williams, 132. For LUB headednotepaper, see n. 59 above.

62. Williams to Elgin, 28 Nov., 20 Dec. 1906, CO 224/22/44143, 46982. For Warde’saddress, see LUB headed notepaper, n. 59 above.

63. J.C. Johari, Voices of Indian Freedom Movement (New Delhi, 1993), 207.64. Williams to Gumede, 21 Sep. 1906, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fo. 470.65. Williams to Booker T. Washington, 29 June 1900, quoted in J. Schneer, ‘Anti-imperial

London’ in G. Gerzina (ed), Black Victorians/Black Victoriana (New Brunswick, N.J.,2003), 183, n. 51. See also, Williams to H.F. Fox Bourne, 11 Nov. 1899, RH, MSS. Brit.Emp. s.18, C/153, fo. 41.

66. See minutes of APS committee meetings of 6 Dec. 1906, 17 Jan., 14 Feb., 7 March 1907,Minute book of APS 1902–1909, RH, MSS. Brit. Emp. s.20, E5/10. See correspondencewith the Colonial Office printed in ‘Native Questions and The Colonial Conference’,Aborigines Friend (May 1907), 36–8. In 1909, following the death of its Secretary, H.R.Fox Bourne, the APS amalgamated with the Anti Slavery Society (ASS) to form theAnti Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society (ASAPS). For convenience, however, I

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shall continue to refer to the organisation formed as a result of the amalgamation as theAPS.

67. Harriette to Frank Colenso, 19 Jan. 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fo. 506.68. Guy, View Across the River, 330.69. The letters to Elgin from Garnett were dated 11, 18 Jan., 8, 19 Feb., 8, 14, 26 March, 4

April 1907. The two January letters are referred to in the despatch from Elgin to Sel-bourne, 2 Feb. 1907, CO 224/23/3564, printed in CO 879/94, Conf. Print, no. 866, pp.18–9, no. 19. The other letters are to be found in CO 224/25/4955, 6419, 8732, 9427,11206, 12301.

70. Garnett to Elgin, 8 Feb. 1907, CO 224/25/4955; Islington Daily Gazette, 19 Feb. 1907,enclosed with Garnett to Elgin, 19 Feb. 1907, CO 224/25/6419. Van Diemel, In Searchof Freedom, 31. Compare the threat made in 1834 by the parliamentary abolitionistleader, Thomas Fowell Buxton, to ‘raise up the body of religious people of England andScotland’, quoted in E. Elbourne, Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions, and the Contestfor Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853 (Montreal, 2002), 287.

71. It was not Winston Churchill (as suggested by Mathurin and Sherwood) but H.W. Just,a Colonial Office official, who wrote on behalf of Elgin in reply to Garnett’s letter of8 Feb. 1907. H.W. Just to Garnett, 7 March 1907, CO 879/94, Conf. Print, no. 866,pp. 55–7, no. 35.

72. Garnett to Elgin, 14 March 1907; R.L. Antrobus (CO) to Garnett, 23 March 1907, CO224/25/9427, printed in CO 879/94, Conf. Print, no. 866, pp. 61, 81, nos. 37, 45.

73. Garnett to Elgin, 26 March 1907, Minute by H.W. Just, 2 April 1907, CO 224/25/11206.74. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 32; The Times, Daily Chronicle, Daily Express,

Morning Post, 28 March 1907.75. ‘Slavery and its Substitutes in Africa’, APS Annual Report 1899, Aborigines Friend

(1899), 14–5; D. Laqua, ‘Tensions of Internationalism: Transnational Anti-Slaveryin the 1880s and 1890s’, The International History Review, xxxiii, no. 4 (2011), 715,n. 115.

76. R. Hyam, Elgin and Churchill at the Colonial office, 1905–08: the watershed of theEmpire-Commonwealth (London, 1968), 104–27.

77. Garnett to Elgin, 4 April 1907, CO 224/25/12031.78. Quotes are taken from the statement of Mapenene Moloi. Though the wording differs in

detail from that of Lesisa Dumise Tsotetsi, the two are identical in substance on thispoint. See n. 55 above.

79. For the meaning of ‘Dlwedhlwe’ see: W. Rees, Colenso Letters from Natal (Pietermaritz-burg, 1958), 374; Marks, ‘Harriette Colenso and the Zulus’, 404; B. Nicholls, ‘HarrietteColenso and the Issues of Religion & Politics in Colonial Natal’ in R. Ross and H. Bre-dekeamp (eds), Missions & Christianity in South Africa (2001), 176; Guy, View Acrossthe River, 62.

80. Gumede to Frank Colenso, 28 March 1907 (Translated from Zulu by UCT), RH, MSS.Afr. s.1285/15, fo. 94.

81. The delegates sailed on SS ‘German’ of the Union Castle Line. Garnett to Elgin 14 May1907, CO 179/243/17238, pp. 459–60.

82. Gumede to Sophie Colenso, written from ‘Las Palmas’, 11 April 1907, RH, MSS. Afr.s.1285/15, fos. 95–6. For the meaning of Gebuza see Fuze, The Black People, 175, n. 5.

83. Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 7 May 1907 (translated from Zulu by UCT), PAR, A204,vol. 68, 1904–7.

84. Harriette to Frank Colenso, 25 Jan. 1908, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fo. 605.85. Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 7 May 1907 (translated from Zulu by UCT), PAR, A204,

vol. 68, 1904–7.86. Gumede to Frank Colenso, 20 March 1907 (translated from Zulu by UCT), RH, MSS.

Afr. s.1285/15, fos. 88–92, 93. The enclosure is a copy of the letter of 7 March 1907from the Colonial Office. See n. 71 above.

87. Harriette to Frank Colenso, 6 April 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/1b, fo. 527.88. Garnett to Sophie Colenso, 11 Aug. 1910, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/16e, fo. 59.89. Harriette to Frank Colenso, 5, 26 May 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fos. 532, 540;

Agnes to Frank Colenso, 14, 20 April 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1287, fos. 185–6, 187–90.90. Gumede to Sophie Colenso, 11 April 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15, fos. 95–6.

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91. See translations of ‘nkosikazi’ and ‘nkosazana’ in Fuze, The Black People, 130, 132–3.‘Amakosazana’ is the plural of ‘nkosazana’.

92. See n. 40 above.93. Saul Msane to Frank Colenso, 28 Oct. 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15, fo. 101a.94. Frank to Agnes and Harriette Colenso, 25 Nov. RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15, fos. 124–31.95. Frank Colenso to A.G. Marwick, 27 Nov. 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15, fos. 117–18,

MSS. Afr. s.1285/14, fos. 414–16.96. Frank to Harriette and Agnes Colenso, 25 Nov./4 Dec. 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15,

fos. 124–31; Frank to Sophie Colenso, 23 Nov. 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/11, fo.2955; A.G. Marwick to Frank Colenso, 22 Dec. 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15, fos.143–7; Josiah Vilakaze to Frank Colenso, 1 Jan. 1908, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15, fo.150; Charles Dilke to Frank Colenso, 1 Jan. 1908, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15, fos. 154–7.

97. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 28.98. Selbourne to Elgin, telegrams, 28 Jan., 19 Feb. 1907, Elgin to Selbourne, telegram,

15 Feb. 1907, CO 224/23/3564, printed in CO 879/106, Conf. Print [South Africa 1907,Telegrams], no. 874, pp. 22, 42, 46–7, nos. 54, 102, 117.

99. Selbourne to Elgin, despatch 17, 4 Feb. 1907, CO 879/94, Conf. Print, no. 866, pp. 27–9,no. 26.

100. See minute on Elgin to Williams, 28 Nov. 1906, CO 224/22/44134, p. 551. For prejudiceby white colonial officials against the ‘educated native’ see Jonathan Derrick, Africa’sAgitators Militant Anti-Colonialism in African and the West, 1918–1939 (New York,2008), 424.

101. File note on Williams to Elgin 20 Dec. 1906, CO 224/22/46982.102. Elgin to Selbourne, telegram, 25 Jan. 1907, printed in CO 879/106, Conf. Print, no. 874,

p. 22, no. 53. See draft of letter Elgin to Selbourne, CO 224/23/3564, p. 117 and as sent indispatch 20, Elgin to Selbourne, 2 Feb. 1907, CO 879/94, Conf. Print, no. 866, p. 18, no. 19.

103. Note on Garnett to Elgin, 8 Feb. 1907, CO 224/25/4955; Note on Garnett to Elgin,19 Feb. 1907, CO 224/25/6419; ‘Notes of Interview . . . 27th February 1907’, CO 224/23/3564, pp. 119–21.

104. This paragraph and the following paragraphs draw heavily on Hyam, Elgin andChurchill.

105. A. Odendaal, Vukani Bantu!: the Beginnings of Black Protest Politics in South Africa to1912 (Cape Town, 1984), 78–80.

106. Saul Msane to Harriette Colenso, 2, 26 Dec. 1906, PAR, A204. For reference to Msaneas a ‘prominent figure’ in the Transvaal Native Congress, see Odendaal, Founders, 272.

107. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, 191; J. Guy, Remembering the rebellion: the Zulu Uprising of1906 (Scottsvile, South Africa, 2006), 41.

108. R.F. Shinn, Arthur Berridale Keith (1879–1944): the Chief Ornament of Scottish Learn-ing (Aberdeen, 1990), 102.

109. Arthur Berridale Keith was removed from the South African Department on 5 May1906. See Shinn, Arthur Berridale Keith, 107.

110. Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, 164.111. Saul Msane to Harriette Colenso, 26 Dec. 1906, PAR, A204.112. Elgin to Nathan, Governor of Natal, telegram, 9 Dec. 1907, CO 879/106, Conf. Print,

no. 874, pp. 188–9, no. 553.113. Williams to Elgin, 28 Nov. 1906, CO 224/22/44143.114. Elgin to Selbourne, 9 Feb. 1907, despatch 21, CO 879/94, Conf. Print, no. 866, p. 19, no.

20.115. Minute of meeting between H. W. Just, C. Murray, Garnett, and Williams, 27 Feb.

1907, CO 224/23/3564.116. Minute of meeting between H. W. Just and Garnett, 27 March 1907, CO 224/25/11206.117. Garnett to Elgin, 14 May 1907, CO 179/243/17238, pp. 459–60; Elgin to McCallum,

Governor of Natal, telegram, 15 May 1907, McCallum to Elgin, telegram, 15 May1907, printed in CO 879/106, Conf. Print, no. 874, pp. 95, 98, nos. 270, 275; Garnett toElgin, 18 June 1907, CO 179/243/21853, pp. 459–60. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom,32–3. Sherwood, Origins, 201–2.

118. Mathurin, Sylvester Williams, 154; Hooker, Henry Sylvester Williams, 106, quoted inSherwood, Origins, 217.

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119. Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 15, 17 May 1907 (translated from Zulu by BM), PAR,A204, vol. 68, 1904–7.

120. Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 11, 16 June 1907 (translated from Zulu by BM), PAR,A204, vol. 68, 1904–7.

121. Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 7 May, 27, 29 Dec. 1907, 3, 17, 28 Jan. 7, 24 March, 15,28 Sep., 2, 28 Oct., 15 Dec. 1908 (translations from Zulu by UCT, BM, Glen Cube[GC]); Ernest Scully, writing as LUB committee member to Gumede, 30 Jan. 1908, inreply to Gumede to LUB, 27 Dec. 1907, PAR, A204.

122. Frank Colenso to Sir Francis Hopwood, Colonial Office, 7, 10, 11 (i), 11 (ii), 12, 13, 19,20, 27 Dec. 1907, CO 179/243, Natal 1907, vol. 4/43116, 43274, 43301, 43820, 44410,44681, 45221.

123. Frank M. Reuben of Woodstock, Cape Town, to Harriette Colenso, 7 March 1907[1908], PAR, A204. Letter wrongly dated 1907.

124. See in particular Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 28 Jan., 24 March 1908, also, 27, 29Dec. 1907, 7 March, 15 Sep. 1908 (translations from Zulu by UCT, BM, GC), PAR,A204.

125. See C. Swaisland, ‘The Aborigines Protection Society and British Southern and WestAfrica’ (D. Phil. dissertation, Oxford, 1968), 47, 197.

126. Khumalo, `Ekhukanyeni Letter Writers’, 115, 138; Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, 12.127. Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 15 Sep. 1908 (translated from Zulu by BM), PAR, A204.128. Covering file note on despatch 76, Goold-Adams to Secretary of State, 24 May 1909, in

CO 224/29/19637, p. 463. Goold-Adams was now the Governor of the ORC. Van Die-mel, In Search of Freedom, 33.

129. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 34. Garnett to Lord Crewe, 6, 15, 16 Nov., 8 Dec.1909, CO 224/32/36707, 37479, 37609, 39954.

130. J.T. Gumede, A Cry for Freedom, Liberty, Justice and Fair Play, copy dated Sep. 1919enclosed in CO 551/123/48382, pp. 306–7.

131. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 46.132. Selbourne to Elgin, telegram, 13 May 1907, CO 879/106, Conf. Print, no. 874, p. 95, no.

269.133. Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, 44; Hughes, First President, 103–4, 162–5.134. John Dube to Harriette Colenso 10 June 1909, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/2, fo. 88; Harriette

to Frank Colenso, 20 June 1907, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1286/1b, fo. 325; W.P. Schreiner toFrank Colenso, 25 Aug. 1909, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1293 (7), fos. 1–2.

135. B. Willan, ‘The Anti Slavery and Aborigines’ Protection Society and the Natives’ landAct of 1913’, Journal of African History, xx, no. 1 (1979), 84.

136. Harriette Colenso to John L. Dube, 28 March 1914, PAR, A204, vol. 76.137. S. Plaatje, Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer

rebellion (London, [1916?]), 181.138. For the relationship between the SANNC deputations and the Brotherhood, see S.

Plaatje, Native Life, chap. 17; D. Killingray, ‘Rights, Land, and Labour: Black BritishCritics of South African Policies before 1948’, Journal of Southern African Studies,xxxv, no. 2 (2009), 375–98; Willan, Sol Plaatje, 201–2.

139. Plaatje, Native Life, 183; Willan, Sol Plaatje, 186.140. Plaatje, Native Life, 151. Sol Plaatje describes Garnett as being ‘of the Brotherhood

League’ rather than of the League of Universal Brotherhood. By 1917, Garnett signedhimself as Hon. Sec., ‘The Brotherhood League of Liberty, Justice, and Peace. Origi-nally founded in 1904.’ It seems reasonable to assume that this is regarded by Garnettas the same organisation as the LUBNRA under a different name. See Garnett to G.Solomon, 30 May 1917, [Bristol University Special Collections,] [Jane Cobden] UnwinPapers.

141. For the meaning of ‘Elangeni’ see N. Gammage, ‘Where the Sun Shines Through’. TheRemarkable History of Elangeni (nd), 2, 9. Available from AmershamMuseum.

142. J.L. Dube to Sophie Colenso, 19, 23, 25, 27 June, 17 July 1914, PAR, A204.143. Willan, Sol Plaatje, 186.144. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 44–6.145. Gumede to Harriette Colenso, 29 Dec. 1907 (translated from Zulu by BM), PAR, A204,

vol. 68, 1904–7.

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146. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 44.147. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 60.148. Sol Plaatje to Sophie Colenso, 17 July 1919, quoted in Willan, Sol Plaatje, 234–5.149. Sophie Colenso to Harriette and Agnes Colenso, 7 Aug. 1919, quoted in Willan, Sol

Plaatje, 248.150. Selope Thema to Sophie Colenso, 15 Nov. 1919, PAR, A204, vol. 56.151. Sophie to Harriette and Agnes Colenso, 2 Jan. 1920, PAR, A204, vol. 56. Willan, Sol

Plaatje, 248.152. Sophie to Harriette Colenso, 7 May 1920, PAR, A204, vol. 56.153. Gumede to Sophie Colenso, 22 Oct. 1919, 1, 18, 21, 29 May, 15 Dec. (postcard), 1920,

PAR, A204.154. Sophie to Harriette Colenso, 30 Dec. 1920, PAR, A204, vol. 56.155. Gumede to Sophie Colenso, 13 March, 3 May 1921, PAR, A204.156. Selope Thema to Sophie Colenso, 28 April 1920, Sophie to Harriette Colenso, 7 May

1920, Selope Thema to Harriette Colenso, 12 Feb 1921, PAR, A204, vols. 56, 80.157. Ramsey MacDonald to Sophie Colenso, 29 April 1903, PAR, A204.158. Ramsey MacDonald to Frank Colenso, 30 March 1906, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/15,

fo. 32. See notes 107–9 above.159. J.L. Dube to Sophie Colenso, 27 June 1914, PAR, A204. Ramsey MacDonald (from

Lossiemouth) to Sophie Colenso, (no day specified) July 1914, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1291/9b, fos. 5–6.

160. E.D. Morel to Sophie, (no day specified) June, 21 June 1919, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1291/9b,vi, fos. 10/11, 23–4; Gumede to Sophie Colenso, 22 Oct. 1919, PAR, A204.

161. Arthur Henderson to E.D. Morel, 30 Oct. 1919, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1291/9b, vi, fo. 25. Inthis letter, the original of which must have been sent by Morel to Sophie Colenso, Hen-derson says he is arranging to meet Sol Plaatje, possibly at the instigation of Morel,prompted by Sophie. For the meeting with Lloyd George, see Willan, Sol Plaatje, 241.

162. Gumede to Sophie Colenso, 21 May 1920, PAR.163. Willan, Sol Plaatje, 186, 235.164. Plaatje, Native Life, 152.165. John Dube to Sophie Colenso, 17 July 1914, PAR, A204. Dr Colenso was Frank and

Harriette Colenso’s brother, Robert, who also lived in London.166. See notes 37–8 above. For the election of Jane Cobden Unwin, to the PAA committee,

See Geiss, Pan-Africanist Movement, 192; Mathurin, Sylvester Williams, 68–9; Report ofthe Pan-African Conference, page facing page 1.

167. Harriette Colenso to Jane Cobden Unwin, 14 Feb. 1897, West Sussex Record Office,Cobden Papers, 972, 501.

168. Willan, Sol Plaatje, 185/6.169. Committee meetings, 19 Feb., 29 March 1917, ASAPS Minute Book 9, RH, MSS. Brit.

Emp. s.20, E2/14, fos. 2787, 2808. Willan, ‘Anti Slavery’, 97–8, Sol Plaatje, 201. Seealso undated statement by Jane Unwin denouncing APS support for the ‘tyrannicallaw’ and a statement by Mrs Solomon entitled ‘Notes of an Unusual Episode’, UnwinPapers, detailing an earlier attempt to oust herself and Unwin from the APS committee.

170. Willan, ‘Anti Slavery’, 87–9.171. Travers Buxton to Secretary of the APS, A. Bryant, 22 March 1909, Henry Gurney to

A. Bryant, 2 April 1909, RH, MSS. Brit. Emp. s.22. G415/2, fos. 11, 17, quoted in D.Lorimer, ‘Reconstructing Victorian Racial Discourse’ in G. Gerzina (ed), Black Victor-ians/Black Victoriana (New Brunswick, N.J., 2003), 202. On ‘the amalgamated societies’see n. 66 above.

172. Van Diemel, In Search of Freedom, 19, 62.173. Circular letter from Alice Werner, 17 Feb. 1917, RH, MSS. Brit. Emp. s.22, G203, fos.

256–7. Garnett to Solomon, 30 May 1917, Unwin Papers.174. Sophie Colenso to Harriette and Agnes Colenso, 24 July 1919, PAR, A204. Jane

Cobden Unwin was the wife of T. Fisher Unwin, the publisher.175. Colenso and Saunders, ‘New Light, Part II’, 91–5, 101. For the election of Archer to the

PAA Committee see sources cited in n. 166 above.176. S. Creighton, John Archer: Battersea’s Black Progressive and Labour Activist, 1863–1932

(History & Social Action Publications, 1999); Fryer, Staying Power, 287, 290–1.

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177. See Presidential address by Archer printed in Fryer, Staying Power, 414.178. Georgiana Solomon to Prime Minister Lloyd George, 15 Oct. 1919, Unwin Papers; CO

551/123/60993, pp. 637–41.179. The request was refused. See Garnett to King George V, 12 Aug. 1919 and draft reply

from the Colonial Office, 23 Aug. 1919, CO 551/123/48382, pp. 308–9.180. Sol Plaatje to Sophie Colenso, nd, PAR, A204, vol. 80.181. Khumalo, `Ekukhanyeni Letter Writers’, 117–8, 124.182. Khumalo, `Ekukhanyeni Letter Writers’, 138.183. Laidlaw, Colonial Connections, 15.184. G. Colenso, ‘Campaigning and Collaborating across the Empire: the Family of Bishop

John William Colenso’, unpublished paper delivered at the conference: ‘Imperial Rela-tions: Families in the British Empire’, organised by the Family & Colonialism ResearchNetwork at the Institute for Historical Research, London, 5–6 Sep. 2011.

185. Georgiana Solomon to Sophie Colenso, nd [1923], PAR, A204.186. Note from Sophie to Harriette Colenso on copy of inscription, nd. PAR, A204. For the

concert, which took place in early October 1923, see Willan, Sol Plaatje, 290–2.187. Sol Plaatje to Sophie Colenso, 28 Jan. 1916, quoted in Willan, Sol Plaatje, 191. The

Bodleian Library edition of Sol Plaatje, Native Life, is undated but the catalogue citesthe year 1916 followed by a question mark.

188. Gumede to Sophie Colenso, 22 Oct. 1919, PAR, A204.189. Gumede to Sophie Colenso, 22 Oct. 1919, PAR, A204.

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