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‘Tin Trunk Literati’ and Beyond: hidden sources for Africa's History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

David Killingray
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Extract

Serendipity and surprise occasionally contribute to the work of the historian. A chance discovery of crucial documents, a word from an informant, or a brief text helping to resolve a puzzle from the past, can set the adrenalin pulsing. Despite the apparent dull, desk-bound procedures of historical research it can at times be a rather exciting venture with eureka moments. There is another dimension that never ceases to thrill me: bringing to life an insignificant voice from the past, recovering the words of those supposedly ‘without history’, giving flesh and being to a forgotten ‘common person’, and contributing a further piece of evidence to history ‘from below’.

Here is a eureka moment, John L. Comaroff, the South African social anthropologist describing finding the diary of Sol T. Plaatje written about the siege of Mafeking in 1899: “The document was discovered by accident rather than by design.

Type
Articles
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 112 , 2010 , pp. 5 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2010

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References

Notes

2 Comaroff, John L., ed. (1976) The Boer War diary of Sol T. Plaatje an African at Mafeking, London: Cardinal, pp. 8-9.Google Scholar

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