HEALDTOWN 1855-1955

Staple bound pamphlet.

14pp.

This short work from the pen of Dr. Silas Modiri Molema consists of four parts.

1.) CELEBRATORY POEM on the history of the Missionary Station, Healdtown (written at Mafeking).

2.) HISTORY OF HEALDTOWN 1855-1955. Officially established on the 4th Feb., 1855 by Sir George Grey, Governor of Cape Colony. Molema describes the location of the mission station, the picturesque surroundings, he mentions the strange and tragic episode where the Xhosas were driven by the demon of superstition to self-destruction by a wholesale slaughter of their cattle (May 1856 to Feb. 1857). A list of the successive Reverend Governors of Healdtown is supplied and short biographies added.

3.) A CHAPTER OF LIGHT AND SHADOWS details events between the years 1905 - 1909. This includes football matches, examinations and inspections, music festivals, a Monitor's responsibilities, the boys' 1906 food strike, initiation of new comers, student concerts, debating society etc. Molema also records the unexpected deaths of four students under the heading "shadows", "Jerry Ntsiko was a fine looking, clean gentlemanly and particularly likeable chap from Potchefstroom, a brilliant scholar who took all the prizes and passed his Govt. exams high up in the First Grade. He finished in 1907, Dec. In 1908, the Governor, with tears in his eyes announced his death from T.B. in Klerksdorp."

4.) SOME DATES OF INTEREST is a chronology of important events in South Africa's history, particularly from the African's point of view.

A scarce work from the pen of one of South Africa's first black ethnographers (The Bantu, Past and Present, 1920) and former National Secretary of the ANC.