Revisiting South Africa through Gale Primary Sources

│ By Tom English, Strategic Initiatives Manager – EMEA │

Was South Africa the first African state to gain independence from colonising powers or the last? This question is posed by Frank Welsh’s telling of the country’s colonial history in his book, A History of South Africa, and it speaks to the rich and complex nature of the country known as the rainbow nation.

If we want to make sense of, and make new discoveries about, a country as complex and dynamic as South Africa, we need to look at it from a range of perspectives. What are the different narratives of its inception? Who are its constituents? How do they see themselves in relation to their country? How did South Africa come to be as it is today? And what journey has the country been on in its long walk to freedom and beyond?

Gale Primary Sources collections give us the perspectives and insights that can help us to make sense of these questions and find some answers.

Visiting South Africa

My first introduction to South Africa came when making a brief visit to Johannesburg in 2003 to have a minor medical procedure. I was living as a missionary in Antananarivo, Madagascar, at the time and the mission leadership trusted the medical facilities in South Africa more than those in Madagascar. I was struck by the diversity of the place, how similar the motorways were to those in the UK, and how vast the malls were. Despite it being a fleeting visit, I felt a strong pull to return.

My (non-literal) return to South Africa came in 2005 while studying History at the University of Leeds. And it came through a module I took on Apartheid and Nelson Mandela’s long walk to freedom. As much as I enjoyed revisiting South Africa through my studies, our class was highly reliant on printed primary source materials from our tutor as well as other much less accessible sources. We certainly didn’t have access to the goldmine of digital primary source materials that is now available within the Gale Primary Sources catalogue.

Without succumbing to primary source envy, however, it’s worth looking at how Gale Primary Sources might help students and researchers answer the questions outlined above.

The Struggle Against Apartheid Through Gale Primary Sources

Doing an entire document search for “South Africa” across all Gale Primary Sources collections gives you more than two million articles from newspapers and periodicals, 35,638 manuscripts, over 22,000 monographs, and several other types of source material, including magazines, maps, photographs, and other images.

Taking, for example, the subject of Apartheid and Nelson Mandela’s long walk to freedom and leadership of the nation, these are some of the primary source materials I might have been interested in as an undergraduate student:

The article above strongly reflects mainstream western views on racial tension in South Africa in the immediate aftermath of the infamous Rivonia Trial where Nelson Mandela and several of his colleagues in the African National Congress (ANC) were sentenced to life imprisonment.

The above is a birthday card that was created and distributed by the ANC to celebrate Nelson Madela’s 70^th birthday and continue the momentum in the campaign to have him released from prison.

This document is particularly useful in providing authentic insight into the workings of the ANC, particularly regarding its collaboration with others, in the struggle against Apartheid.

This letter from American President, Ronald Reagan, to PW Botha, the South African President, contains a variety of geopolitical insights from the late 1980s, as well as a strong example of how to appeal to the better angels of an interlocutor’s nature. In part, it also indicates how President Reagan’s regard for Nelson Mandela evolved over time.

This page was printed one week before Nelson Mandela’s release from prison on Robben Island and is a strong illustration of the excitement and anticipation that was felt by many throughout the western world in the run-up.

We move from newspaper articles about Mandela’s imprisonment and struggle for freedom to articles about his fashion sense and style as “world statesmanship’s nattiest dresser”. A fantastic contrast in every respect.

This photograph is iconic in its depiction of the unity that Mandela fought so hard for in South Africa through his courage, conviction and, ultimately, forgiveness.

As this small sample shows, Gale Primary Sources include a range of different types of primary source materials on the struggle against Apartheid and Nelson Mandela’s personal journey. Here we see newspaper articles, ANC conference papers, a letter from President Ronald Reagan petitioning for Mandela’s release, and even a birthday card to celebrate Mandela’s seventieth birthday. There is much more besides – and there are many more topics to explore through the lens of South Africa.

South African History Through Gale Primary Sources

Notable examples of South African history that can be explored through Gale Primary Sources include early human history, indigenous societies and pre-colonial kingdoms, colonial arrival and settlement, frontier wars and resistance, mineral revolution, the formation of the Union in 1910, the Apartheid era starting in 1948, Nelson Mandela and the ANC’s struggle against Apartheid, the transition to democracy in the 1990s, post-Apartheid reflections, and South Africa’s place in the world.

Key Gale collections to research these topics, and more relating to South Africa, include the following:

• Gale Historical Newspapers (particularly Times Digital Archive, Financial Times, The Economist, International Herald Tribune).
• Decolonisation: Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories
• Nineteenth Century Collections Online, Part V: Europe and Africa, Colonialism and Culture
• Archives of Sexuality and Gender, Part IV: International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture (includes collections from GALA in South Africa)
• Slavery and Anti-Slavery
• Chatham House Online Archive
• Declassified Documents Online, Part I: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence: An Intelligence Empire
• U.S. Declassified Documents Online
• Political Extremism & Radicalism, Part I: Far-Right and Left Political Groups in the U.S., Europe, and Australia in the Twentieth Century
• Environmental History: Colonial Policy and Global Development, 1896-1993
• Women’s Studies, Part IV: Female Frontrunners Worldwide
• Power to the People: Counterculture, Social Movements, & the Alternative Press, Nineteenth to Twenty-first Century
• Refugees, Relief and Resettlement, Part I: Forced Migration and World War II
• Refugees, Relief, & Resettlement: The Early Cold War & Decolonization (Part II)
• Global Development and Humanitarian Aid: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 1919-1997
• Smithsonian Collections Online

It’s also worth noting that these collections have broad inter-disciplinary appeal and application that extends far beyond history, including the humanities at large, social sciences, politics, international relations, law, environmental studies, and more.

Visit the Rainbow Nation Through Gale Primary Sources

If you’re already familiar with South Africa, then you can revisit the country’s history through different lenses and perspectives within Gale Primary Sources gaining rich new insights along the way. If you aren’t, then Gale Primary Sources can give you a powerful, multifaceted gateway into the history and essence of the rainbow nation. The building blocks of new knowledge on South African history are waiting in the archives to be assembled.

If you’re a librarian, why not contact your Gale Sales Representative to learn how you can access more? And if you’re a student, why not contact your library to see which Gale Primary Sources collections you already have access to?

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If you enjoyed reading about South African history, check out these blog posts:

• Celebrating South Africa’s Independence “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”
• Exploring the Rise of Black Consciousness in South Africa using Gale Primary Sources
• Using Primary Sources to Explore How Courts Punished Interracial Sex in Apartheid South Africa

Blog post cover image citation: a collage of documents explored in this blog post.