Historic Sol Plaatje papers return to Wits University

17 October 2024 - Wits University

Precious papers will be added to the Sol Plaatje collection already housed in the William Cullen Library.

At a moving ceremony held on Tuesday, 8 October 2024, Professor Adam Habib, the former Wits Vice-Chancellor and the current Vice-Chancellor of the SOAS University of London, returned precious papers that form part of the Sol Plaatje collection to Wits. The papers, which were deposited at the SOAS Library for safekeeping in 1977, have now arrived in South Africa.

Speaking at the ceremony, Habib said: “When South Africa’s great leaders were not welcome in this country, they had to turn to the world, and left a series of heritage items there. A donor gave [Sol Plaatje’s papers] to us, with the intention that they would one day be returned to South Africa... Bringing these papers back to South Africa ¬ now – as a South African citizen, as Vice-Chancellor of SOAS and former Vice-Chancellor of Wits, is particularly special."

Habib handed the papers over to Professor Zeblon Vilakazi (FRS), the current Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal.

“The return of these papers is welcomed and speaks directly to the relationship that we enjoy with SOAS – that of establishing equal partnerships in an unequal world,” said Vilakazi. “Archives can no longer be nativised. They have a source of origin, but they serve the global knowledge of commons. Knowledge is transcendental and whilst these papers are now back in South Africa and at Wits, they will be digitised together with the other partial Sol Plaatje collection that we hold, for the benefit of people at home, and around the world.”

The papers of Solomon Tshekisho (Sol) Plaatje have been a longstanding feature and most research collection in the Historical Papers Research since the late 1970s. They were deposited by historians from South Africa, the UK and the US, following their extensive research of Sol Plaatje’s life and work. The collection that was established at the Wits libraries at the time, was called the Silas Thelensho Molema and Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje Papers.

Later, in the 1990s, this collection was joined by yet another outstanding item, being a notebook kept by Sol Plaatje during the Siege of Mafeking, which took place during the South African War of 1899 - 1902, and which saw the town and community of Mafeking completely surrounded and cut off by British forces for several months from 1899-1900. This humble looking notebook would become known as Sol Plaatje’s diary of the siege of Mafeking.

Around the same time in the 1970s, another deposit of material from Sol Plaatje was entrusted to the SOAS Library at the University of London. They included amongst others Sol Plaatje’s Canadian passport which allowed him to travel (he was denied a passport in South Africa) notebooks, Sechuana proverbs, press cuttings on life in South Africa, segregation and the native pass laws, source material for Plaatje’s books and review of his novel Mhudi, some rare publications and photographs. These papers were returned from SOAS to Wits this week.

“SOAS is an institution that wants to serve as a bridge between the Global North and the Global South. Bringing Sol Plaatje’s papers from SOAS back to South Africa by a South African  is special, and back to Wits as its former Vice-Chancellor is momentous,” said Habib. “Both Wits and SOAS are part of the world and decolonisation must never become a nativist agenda, so as  we return some aspects, let us remember as the Japanese say, that part of our heritage belongs to the world and that part of our heritage belongs in our country. As part of the decolonisation agenda, we must have a more nuanced conversation about what comes back, and what we give to the world as part of our global culture.”

Habib concluded with a comment on the importance of partnerships: “This is another example of the SOAS-Wits partnership that includes collaborating on a joint PhD and other academic programmes. This is a friendship that will continue for many years and in different parts so that we can build a collective humanity to address the challenges of our time.”

The collection of Sol Plaatje’s papers can be accessed digitally  and physically in the Historical Papers Research Archive, situated in the William Cullen Library on the Wits Braamfontein Campus East.