Native Life in South Africa is replete with its author's views on the ‘proper’ role of women in society. Sometimes these are expressed as accounts of notable events in the period about which Sol Plaatje is writing, sometimes as references to personal circumstance, and sometimes as intellectual debt. This chapter is structured around the following themes: Plaatje's network of support during the writing of his book; his own family relationships and the light that they throw on connections between private and public life; and his wider perspective on women's emancipation. As will be seen, there is a racial divide cutting through the chapter, which partly reflects different geographic localities and partly the relative class positions of the women discussed. Of course, an attitude towards women's social roles implies a particular stance on gender relations and, while this chapter focuses on the former, it also addresses the implications for the latter.

An important point needs to be made at the outset about the nature of the evidence at one's disposal. In a society in which Africans were reduced to virtual serfdom, the record of their struggles to resist such degradation was not of great interest to established libraries and archives, except perhaps where they threatened the status quo. By the same token, the insecurity of Africans’ organisations (premises, finances) was not conducive to the long-term safeguarding of records. Thus, in an archive generally marked by absence or patchiness, the challenges of locating African women are immense. There are tantalising hints of correspondence that passed between protagonists but no extant letters of organisations that women founded and ran and whose papers have long vanished. This has skewed (and will likely continue to skew) the way in which African women's public roles, political thought and reach of influence are presented. Whatever the difficulties, however, it is important not to equate a lack of evidence with a lack of participation in debate and struggle.

‘Dear Mr Plaatje’: A network of support

Throughout his time in London, Plaatje was able to draw on the indispensable support of those who had welcomed the Congress delegation in mid-1914 – and, indeed, others before that. They were also to continue their support for him after his return to South Africa in 1917 and through his second visit in 1919.