Preface

Robert Shell, professor of history and director of the Program in African Studies at Princeton University, had this to say in his course outline for South African History:

Assignment 2: The second idea is more ambitious... I want volunteer members of this class to attempt a short, informal history of South Africa for possible use by refugee students, i.e. those scholars who have fled South Africa since 1976. Such a book would attempt to a balanced, but progressive view of South African history, i.e. book which would attempt to create a consensual view where everybody may draw inspiration from the past. In short, a lively, readable history book for post-apartheid South Africa...

A particular problem with writing this sort of material is the necessity of having to draw extensively on secondary sources for information. Certainly, there is a wealth of material available for primary research, but all of it so specialized that it would fail to meet the very specific needs involved in this project. An even greater difficulty arises in deciding which events are to be discussed, and which left out. Clearly, there is no "right" answer to this.

I chose to write about the San, the Mfecane, and the Trek because those are the time periods which are neglected in the overall education of Black South Africans. Most of us know — even though we were never taught it by the country's educational system — that the African National Congress was founded in 1912 and that the Freedom Charter was drawn up by the Congress of the People in Kliptown in 1955 because this recent history has been passed down to us by family and friends. The Khoikhoi — unlike the Zulu or Xhosa — no longer exist as a people. Similarly, I have glossed over those areas which South African propaganda has already acquainted us with — leaving it to the reader to decide (for example) whether Simon van der Stel's practice of approving installation of Khoi chiefs was "good" for the Khoi people.