¹ Cape Times, 21 03 1917Google Scholar, report of debate in the South African House of Assembly about the South African Native Labour Contingent.

² John, and Perry, Cassandra (ed.), A Chief is a Chief by the People (O.U.P., 1975), 92Google Scholar; henceforth referred to as Jingoes, Chief.

³ Public Record Office, W.O. 107/37, ‘Report on the Work of Labour with the B.E.F. during the War’, and ‘History of the South African Native Labour Contingent’ (Appendix F), the latter written by Lt. Col. Barnard, an officer of the S.A.N.L.C. I am grateful to Dr Philip Jones for directing me to this reference.

⁴ Cape Times, 10 03 (1917)Google Scholar. The unopposed motion was moved by General Botha.

⁵ Official History: Union of South Africa and the Great War (Pretoria, 1924), Appendix X, 218–19.Google Scholar

⁶ Buchan, John, History of the South African Forces in France (London, 1921).Google Scholar

⁷ SirJohnston, Harry, The Black Man's Part in the War (London, 1917)Google Scholar. A later condensation, ‘African Fighters and Labourers in France’, can be found in The African World Annual 1918–19 (London, 1919).Google Scholar

⁸ Buxton, Earl, General Botha (London, 1924), 284–9.Google Scholar I am grateful to Mr Peter Warwick for this reference.

⁹ Jingoes, , Chief, chap. 4Google Scholar. Dr John Perry has kindly made available to me additional unpublished transcripts of Jingoes's relating to his experiences in France.

¹⁰ Dept. of Defence to Rubusana, W. B., 6 Nov. 1914Google Scholar, quoted by Plaatje, S. T., Native Life in South Africa (London, 1916), 281.Google Scholar

¹¹ Plaatje, , Native Life, 282–3.Google Scholar

¹² The role that Africans could play in the German South-West African campaign was explained by Colonel S. M. Pritchard, Director of Native Labour, at a meeting with leaders of the South African Native National Congress in Jan. 1915, reported in Ilanga lase Natal, 22 Jan. 1915Google Scholar. Figures for those who served in the German South-West African and East African campaigns are taken from the Official History, 218.Google Scholar

¹³ Hancock, K. and Van der Poel, J. (eds.), Selections from the Smuts Papers (Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar, Merriman, to Smuts, , 22 Nov. (1916), vol. 14, no. 118.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Dept. of Native Affairs Circular D7/16, reproduced in Ilanga, 13 Oct. (1916)Google Scholar. The rank of ‘Native Sergeant’ was subsequently abolished and replaced by those of ‘Induna (First Class)’, and ‘Induna (Second Class)’.

¹⁵ In July 1917 General Botha arranged for the distribution of his appeal for further recruits amongst ‘missionaries and other members [of churches] in close touch with the Natives’; Ilanga, 13 July 1917.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ilanga, 22 Jan. 1915.Google Scholar

¹⁷ The full text of the Native Affairs Dept. communication to Dube is reproduced in Ilanga, 20 Oct. 1916.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Diamond Fields Advertiser, 20 Aug. 1917, ‘Native Grievances/A Labour Recruiting Speech’.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Peregrino, F. Z. S., His Majesty's Black Labourers: a treatise on the Camp Life of the S.A.N.L.C. (Cape Town, 1917)Google Scholar. This pamphlet should be compared with Peregrino, 's earlier Life amongst the Native and Coloured Miners in the Transvaal (1910)Google Scholar, which it resembles in purpose and style. An important if idiosyncratic figure in the history of Pan-Africanism, Peregrino claimed descent from a West African king, and lived and worked in England and America before coming to Cape Town at the turn of the century. Well known locally as the editor of the South African Spectator during the first decade of the twentieth century, he maintained his reputation for political eccentricity to the last by becoming involved—shortly before his death in 1919—in a journal supporting the Afrikaner Nationalist party.

²⁰ Mhlungu, I., ‘The Native Contingent’, in Ilanga, 3 Nov. 1916.Google Scholar

²¹ Peregrino, , Labourers, quotations from pp. 4 and 6Google Scholar; see also pp. 7, 15.

²² A detailed account of the speeches made appears in the Diamond Fields Advertiser, 28 June 1917.Google Scholar

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Ilanga, 13 July 1917.Google Scholar

²⁵ Related by Plaatje during the course of an address to the Lyndhurst Road School, Kimberley, reported in the Diamond Fields Advertiser, 17 Dec. 1917.Google Scholar

²⁶ Jingoes, , Chief, 73.Google Scholar

²⁷ Jacob Koos Matli's account of his experiences with the S.A.N.L.C, which concentrates on the sinking of the Mendi, appears in verbatim form in ‘The Mendi and After’, by Jeffreys, M. D. W., Africana Notes and Nevis, Mar. 1963Google Scholar. I am grateful to Mr Randolph Vigne for providing me with this and other references relating to the Mendi.

²⁸ Quoted in the Cape Times, 3 Apr. 1917.Google Scholar

²⁹ D. L. Smit Papers, Albany Museum, Grahamstown; Smit, D. L. to the Magistrate, East London, 26 July 1917.Google Scholar

³⁰ Reproduced in Ilanga, 13 July 1917.Google Scholar

³¹ Peregrino, , Labourers, 1.Google Scholar

³² Smit, D. L. Papers, the Magistrate, East London, to the Secretary for Native Affairs, 30 July 1917.Google Scholar

³³ Ibid., Smit, D. L. to the Magistrate, East London, 27 Aug. 1917.Google Scholar

³⁴ Letter from Hafe, D. to the editor, Ilanga, 26 Oct. 1917.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ilanga, 15 June 1917.Google Scholar

³⁶ Diamond Fields Advertiser, 22 Aug. 1917.Google Scholar

³⁷ Buxton, , General Botha, 288Google Scholar. Buxton himself, it should be added, naturally did no; consider that there was any justification for this.

³⁸ Letter from Mapulumo, J. to the Natal Mercury, 8 June 1917Google Scholar; reproduced, with editorial comment, in Ilanga, 15 June 1917.Google Scholar

³⁹ Jingoes, , Chief, 91.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Letter from ‘A Native’, Ilanga, 10 May 1918.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Diamond Fields Advertiser, 28 June 1917Google Scholar. The following formed part of the appeal for recruits:

One of the finest incidents that had happened in connection with the war was in regard to the son of a minister who was preaching in the location. That minister's son responded to the King's call, and was on board the Mendi, and was drowned. Did they think that that kept the others back? The deceased's elder brother went to his father and said ‘Father, my brother has died doing his duty to King and country. It is now my duty to go, and I am going’. He had gone. (Applause).

⁴² Jingoes, , Chief, 74.Google Scholar

⁴³ W.O. 107/37, ‘History’, 3.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ibid. 1.

⁴⁵ This ‘liberal segregationist’ school is perhaps most clearly reflected in Lovedale's Christian Express, and is expressed, for example, in its preference for the ‘closed compounds’ on the Kimberley model as against those on the Rand.

⁴⁶ W.O. 107/73, ‘History’, 2.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ W.O. 107/37, Appendix G, Directorate of Labour, ‘Appendix to Notes for Officers of Labour Companies (South African Native Labour)’.

⁴⁸ W.O. 107/37, ‘History’, 6.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Jingoes, , Chief, 89.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ W.O. 107/37, ‘Report’, 3.Google Scholar

⁵¹ W.O. 107/37, ‘History’, 8Google Scholar. The historical accuracy of ‘(3)’ may be challenged; the intent is clear.

⁵² W.O. 107/37, ‘Report’, 5.Google Scholar

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ W.O. 107/37, ‘History’, 7.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ W.O. 107/37, Appendix IIIA, ‘Statistical Return respecting officers of the S.A.N.L.C.

⁵⁶ Reported in the Cape Times, 1 June 1917.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Jingoes, , Chief, 83–6.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Ilanga, 9 Nov. 1917Google Scholar. Hertslet was a Natal medical missionary. The article concluded as follows:

The disadvantages, involving contamination, to which he [the native] has been exposed have been small, so that if the experiment closes as it has begun, the whole contingent ought to return to South Africa wiser and better men, and more useful to the state in every way.

⁵⁹ For example, letter from Native Sargeant Mareli, reproduced in the Cape Times, 22 Mar. 1917Google Scholar:

Our men are a cheerful lot. They have the manliness of enduring great difficulties. Cold and snow are now testing them, and are now playing the part mercilessly. We have a good number of men with chilblains on their feet and hands. They are doing their bit.

⁶⁰ W.O. 107/37, ‘History’, 9–10.Google Scholar

⁶¹ The Society for the Welfare of Africans in Europe was started and operated under the auspices of the Aborigine's Protection Society; see A.S. and A.P.S. Papers, MSS Brit. Emp. S23 H2/1, H2/6, H2/7, Rhodes House, Oxford, and in particular the report of Sir Herbert Sloley (‘Memorandum for Information of the Committee’) on his visit to the S.A.N.L.C. camps in France. An article based on this (‘The African Native Labour Contingent and the Welfare Committee’) appeared in the Journal of the African Society, xvii, 1917–1918Google Scholar. The attitude of the organizers of the Society towards the S.A.N.L.C. ‘experiment’ closely parallels that of the South African authorities.

⁶² W.O. 107/37, Appendix 111B, ‘Statistical Return respecting Natives of S.A.N.L.C.’

⁶³ Letter to the Cape Times, 1 Feb. 1918, signed ‘A Sargeant, Labour Contingent’.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ilanga, 9 Nov. 1917Google Scholar; see note 58.

⁶⁵ Police report on meeting at African Catholic Church, New Doornfontein, 24 Aug. 1921, S.A. Dept. of Justice, file 3/127/20 (microfilm).

⁶⁶ Jingoes, , Chief, 80.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Jeffreys, , ‘The Mendi’, 185–6.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Buxton, , General Botha, 289.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Jingoes, , Chief, 93.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Geiss, I., The Pan-African Movement (London, 1974), 235.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Jingoes, , Chief, 87.Google Scholar

⁷² This incident was related by Doyle Modiakgotla at a meeting of the South African Native National Congress in Bethlehem, O.F.S., 29 Mar. 1918; see police report to District Commandant, S.A.P., Bethlehem, S.A. Dept. of Justice, file 3/327/17. The incident was confirmed by another witness to it who was also at this meeting, Chief Ramamba. Modiakgotla added that ‘they were told that they would work under their own officers, but it was these officers who treated them so badly’.

⁷³ Jingoes, , Chief, 83–6Google Scholar. There was an outbreak of scurvy in the S.A.N.L.C. in March 1918: Lancet, 19 Oct. (1918), pp. 513–5.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ W.O. 107/37, ‘History’, 6.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Jeffreys, , ‘The Mendi’, 187.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ W.O. 107/37, ‘Report’, 42.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Cape Times, 18 Jan. 1918.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Letter from Rev. Mahabane, Z. R. to the Cape Times, a Feb. 1918.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ The debate is reported in the Cape Times, 1 June 1917.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Jeffreys, , ‘The Mendi’, 187.Google Scholar

⁸¹ W.O. 107/37, ‘Report’, 113.Google Scholar

⁸² Cape Times, 18 Jan. 1918.Google Scholar

⁸³ See notes 58 and 64.

⁸⁴ Jingoes, , Chief, 92–3.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ MSS Brit. Emp. S.23 Hz/7, ‘Report by the Rev. J. W. W. Owen on the tour of Four Native Chaplains’.

⁸⁶ Jingoes, , Chief, 93.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Msimang, H. S., unpublished ‘Autobiography’, S.O.A.S. Archives.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ The full text of the memorial can be found in Karis, T. and Carter, G. M. (ed.), From Protest to Challenge (Stanford, 1972), I, 137–42.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Ilanga, 13 Oct. 1916Google Scholar. The South African Native National Congress, Ilanga added with heavy-handed pun, should be ‘alive to what may be called the contingent issues of that valuable event’.

⁹⁰ Police report of meeting of Bantu Women's National League at Ebenezer Hall, Johannesburg, 18 Jan. 1918, S.A. Dept. of Justice, file 3/527/18, 165.

⁹¹ Police report of meeting of Transvaal Native Congress, Vrededorp, 20 Apr. 1919, S.A. Dept. of Justice, file 6/658/18/1.

⁹² A photograph of the monument appears in Skota, T. D. Mweli, African Yearly Register (Johannesburg, 1931), 434Google Scholar. The accompanying text makes the most of the contribution of the S.A.N.L.C. in World War I: ‘Can it be said, even in a military sense, that the South African native has not played his part in world politics alongside his white countrymen?’.

⁹³ Quoted by Bam, Jacob, The New African, Mar. 1966.Google Scholar