Excerpt from ‘Beauty of the Heart’

WHEN Charlotte crossed the choppy seas from America back to Cape Town in 1901, her homeland was in the steely grip of the third year of the Anglo-Boer War. Some historians described it as the first civil war, because of the involvement of so many different layers of people.

Others referred to it as the first full-blown white-on-white war.

In the public imagination, it was remembered largely as a war between two colonial powers and this was how the story was told for nearly a century.

School textbooks affirmed this version of history and depending on where you lived in South Africa, museums either reinforced the suffering or victory of one of the two powers.

Boer suffering and trauma was the leitmotif of the then Orange Free State. The British woman, Emily Hobhouse, who helped the Boers when they were interned in concentration camps, occupies a place of honour in Bloemfontein.

The War Museum in this town tells of the bravery of the Boer soldiers, some of them born in Holland.

The democratic government has slowly encouraged a more inclusive narrative and a visit to the museum today shows stories of a broader layer of South Africans affected by the war, but it remains a segregated narrative with colonial stories remaining as they are with local stories added on.

Because of the war situation, Charlotte was unable to join her family in Ramokgopa in the north near Zoutpansberg, a village on the outskirts of Polokwane in today's Limpopo province.

She remained in the Cape until the war ended on May 31, 1902. The church welcomed her into its fold. Under the guidance of Bishop Levi J Coppin, the presiding bishop of the AME Church in the Cape Province, she was at the helm of organising women into a formation of the WMMS while anxiously waiting for her fiancé to join her.

Marshall Maxeke, the young man who had caught her attention at Wilberforce University would arrive home as an ordained minister and the two were expected to make a perfect pair to drive the development of the mission of the church.

At first it was impossible for Charlotte to get news of her family. They had left Kimberley for the village shortly after she had gone to America.

She had expected this since her father had moved to Kimberley to accumulate enough resources to help his father and other relatives in Ramokgopa.

Communication would have been easier if they had stayed in Kimberley, but getting letters to and fro from the north was impossible during the war. Large areas of the country were battle zones creating barricades across wagon routes. Train travel was disrupted. Movement was greatly restricted. All she could do was to wait for the war to end.

She was aware that her sister Katie had married a Zulu man, much to her mother's dissatisfaction.

Her parents had not opposed the marriage, but at the same time had not expressed support.

Katie had married Ndeya Makanya in 1895, a year after Charlotte left for America. By this time, Katie had left Ramokgopa to live with her aunt in Doornfontein, Johannesburg.

In a sense she was as resolute as Charlotte. She left the village and moved in with her aunt where she believed she had a greater chance of meeting a suitable husband.

And this was exactly what happened. Many people passed through her aunt's home. One night when she arrived home she had the good fortune to meet John Bokwe and Enoch Sontonga. She heard the singing on her aunt's veranda, but did not expect to meet the two great composers.

The tall John Bokwe was seated in an armchair and asked if she was one of the sisters who had sung before the queen. Yes, Katie said shyly, We sang your Vuka Deborah and she liked it very much. She recalled her aunt asking Enoch Sontonga to teach them a song. I have one in my head, but it is not quite right, he said.

He hummed a few notes and began, Nkosi sikelel; iAfrika which means God bless Africa.

In the book, Beauty of the Heart, The Life and Times of Charlotte Mannya Maxeke, footnotes are provided to source the content in this extract.

Published by Number10Publishers, the book is available at www.zubeidajaffer.co.za.