‘Map of Africa’ Mapikela

t was fitting that the nearly 6km ‘big walk’ to the stadium started f r o m t h e h i s t o r i c Ma p i k e l a house in Bloemfontein, home to Thomas Mtobu ‘Map of Africa’ Mapikela, who was instrumental in uniting political leaders and a founder of the ANC.

Mapikela left a deep impression in the areas where he lived and worked and it became difficult not to think of Bloemfontein without an asssocation with him.

According to his granddaughterin-law, Ester Mapikela, he became known as Tatomkulu, or grandfather, and inspired such freedom fighters as Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, who she describes as the “ANC youth.”

“Meetings used to be held at the house and then at the church and the catering was done by his wife, Martha,” she says.

Born in Lesotho in 1869, Mapikela and his parents moved to Queenstown in the Cape Colony when he was very young. He grew up there, and completed his studies in the college in Grahamstown, where he obtained a first-class certificate in cabinet making.

He worked for the government in Queenstown for t wo years before moving to Waaihoek i n Bloemfontein, where due to strict laws, he continued working for government, initially as a storeman in the ironmongery department.

In 1903, Mapikela established his own contracting business in Waaihoek and the legacy of his work lives in some of the schools, colleges and churches in Bloemfontein.

In the early years of the century, believed to be around 1906, he was a founding member of the Orange River Colony Native Vigilance Association, which later became the Orange River Colony Native Association then the Orange River Colony Native Congress. The fundamental task of the Orange River Colony Native Congress was to safeguard the political, social and religious welfare of Africans in the Orange River Colony, which when the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 became the Orange Free State.

Mapikela was selected to be a member of the 1909 William Schreiner delegation, which also included among others, John Tengo Jabavu, Abdullah Abdurahman, Walter Rubusana and Matt Fredericks, which delegation travelled to London to protest to the British government and British Parliament the racist provisions of the draft South African Act. He travelled to London with a second delegation in 1914 to protest the protesting the Natives’ Land Act of 1914 which reflected huge disparities in land distribution in terms of racial entitlement.

His keen mind sharpened his dedication to the liberation of people from colonial and apartheid governments and when the African National Congress was established in 1912, he was one of the founding members. He was appointed as speaker of the annual conferences which were usually held in Bloemfontein and was eminently suitable for this position being fluent in both the Nguni and the Sotho languages fluently, having a good command of English and being a diplomatic chairman.

Mapikela was the organiser and co-convener of the South African Native National Congress in 1912 and led the congress for over two years. When the Native Representative Council was established in 1937, he stood as a candidate and was elected to represent the urban areas of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

In 1919 Mapikela assisted in the drafting of the ANC’s constitution and he remained politically active through the 1930s and 1940s until his death in 1945.

Mapikela’s role in South Africa’s political history has secured him a prominent place, particularly in the town he loved — Bloemfontein.