Black Responses and Black Resistance

Abstract Solomon Plaatje, destined to be the first secretary of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) in 1912, arrived in Kimberley in 1894. His Tswana-speaking forebears, some of whom had been Christians since the 1830s, acquired their Dutch surname when living with Griqua people. Plaatje was brought up on Lutheran missions near Kimberley and the town was an obvious place of employment for a promising product of their school. He joined the Kimberley Post Office, which in a late Victorian liberal gesture had staffed its telegraph department with graduates of Lovedale, the most prestigious black school in the colony. In 1898 Plaatje moved to Mafikeng as the court interpreter. He played an important role in the South African War, supplying the British forces with intelligence about Boer combatants and African communities.