“Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.” Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje opens the first chapter of his Native Life in South Africa with this well-known declaration. Plaatje wrote most of the manuscript for Native Life in 1914 aboard a ship to England. He was travelling with a team of four other leaders of the South African Native National Congress (later the ANC). The deputation