NATIVE LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Before and since the European War and the Boer Rebellion

Fifth edition: 382 pages, frontispiece portraits of the author and his wife, folding map, original dark red cloth boards with slight scuff marks on the covers, the front cover and preliminary pages are slightly damaged at the top, titled in black on the upper cover and spine, a good copy.

2 pages of press opinions on the first edition on the front free end papers.

Neil Parsons in the introduction to Native Life in South Africa writes that it is one of the most remarkable books on Africa, by one of the continent's most remarkable writers. It was written as a work of impassioned political propaganda, exposing the plight of black South Africans under the whites-only government of newly unified South Africa. It focuses on the effects of the 1913 Natives' Land Act which introduced a uniform system of land segregation between the races. It resulted, as Plaatje shows, in the immediate expulsion of blacks, as "squatters", from their ancestral lands in the Orange Free State now declared "white". But Native Life succeeds in being much more than a work of propaganda. It is a vital social document which captures the spirit of an age and shows the effects of rural segregation on the everyday life of people.'
For the full description see: http://www.thuto.org/ubh/etext/nlisa/nl-np.htm

In the second edition of Native Life, Plaatje writes, 'During the past two years while the Empire was involved in one of the mightiest struggles that ever shook the foundations of the earth, South Africa was wasting time and money in a useless and unprecedented attempt at territorial segregation betwixt white and black. Judging by the recently published Report of the Land Commission, however, she failed ignominiously in the task.'