The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

After collecting oral testimony from his relative, Emelia Pooe, on tape in SeSotho over a
period of a year in 1979/80, “using an informal, conversational approach”, Matsetela
effected a “retelling” of her life in the form of a biographic article about the life history of
a Free State peasant tenant‐farmer. While an attempt was made to try and make Pooe’s
life stand on its own, “certain historical facts” were included in order to “give this
personal story a wider significance”. On its own, her testimony was characterised by
“inconsistencies and gaps” and an “incapacity ... to supply ‘facts’ other than how ... she
subjectively experienced them”. In addition, Matsetela suggested that when transcribed
and translated into English from the original SeSotho “for a wider audience”, a
significant proportion of “subtleties and idiomatic feeling” was lost. 128
However, much of Pooe’s story had been confirmed by historical research on processes
of rural transformation and her story “constitute[d] an authentic ... account of peasant
life” as dealt with in the historiography, and epitomised the fate of many Orange Free
State communities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Like other black peasant
farmers, the Pooes had benefited from agricultural skills passed down from generation
to generation. Like many other families, they had taken to sharecropping on various
farms. Later, they were also displaced from the land in the Free State by legislative
measures and capitalising forces in agriculture. However, the Pooes had moved to the
Transvaal in 1915 where they persisted with sharecropping for a number of decades, in
spite of unfavourable conditions and the intentions behind the Natives’ Land Act of
1913. As such, Emelia Pooe’s story stood as a case study of the resilience of
sharecroppers and the persistence of sharecropping arrangements in the Transvaal and
even the Free State, albeit in modified form. 129
Malete Nkadimeng and Georgina Relly, drawing on 20 hours of interviewing conducted
with sharecropper Kas Maine and the resultant “wealth of material about his life”,
presented a “tentative” reconstruction of his life story. A “more coherent” picture of
Maine’s life would only be possible at a later stage, they felt, once testimonies from his
128 Ted Matsetela, ‘The Life Story of Nkgono Mma‐Pooe’, pp 212‐213.
129 Ted Matsetela, ‘The Life Story of Nkgono Mma‐Pooe’, pp 213‐214, 229‐233.
156