The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

was “tolerably easy”. In fact, he suggested to her that “it demands much less anxiety than
you give to it.” 11
Tabata went further, however, to explain to Taylor what he thought its significance was.
He was “particularly pleased” to discover the extent to which it was “a compliment, nay
more, a filling out” of ‘The Boycott’. This was without the two works “in any way
crossing, clashing or intruding on each other”. He felt compelled to re‐examine ‘The
Boycott’, and found that it was “too concentrated” for many people “to fully grasp all its
meaning”, even when it is read out to others. The Rôle of the Missionaries was needed by
“the bulk” of the people “to bring them up gradually”. It gave “a fuller picture, a more
detailed and more rounded explanation of the events”. Tabata felt “even more strongly”
that the work needed to be finished before ‘The Boycott’ went “stale”. The two needed to
be “read together”. Tabata admitted that he understood Taylor’s difficulty “in being
forced to bend” her style, and “to cast it in a different mould”. Taylor’s style demanded
“the flight of creative imagination ‐ like Shakespeare’s poet”. History, on the other hand,
“clips your wings and trammels your feet in shrubs of historical data.” 12
In September 1952, Tabata reported to Seymour Papert that Taylor was “deep in the work,
which grows”. 13 At the end of 1952, The Rôle of the Missionaries in Conquest was published
by SOYA in Alexandra and its anonymous authorship was designated as ‘Nosipho
Majeke’. 14 This pseudonym was carefully chosen by Taylor, perhaps with Tabata’s Xhosa
language assistance, because it approximated a Xhosa‐ised rendition of her own birth
name, Dora Jack. The book stimulated “considerable interest”. Letters to SOYA, such as
one from Patrick Duncan, who wrote from Basutoland, sent congratulations to Majeke for
“her masterly treatment of the subject” and expressed hopes of being “in regular contact”
with her. The Congress Youth League agreed it was “a good book”, which served “a
11 I.B. Tabata to Dora Taylor, 23 July 1952, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
12 I.B. Tabata to Dora Taylor, 23 July 1952, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
13 I.B. Tabata to Seymour Papert, 19 September 1952, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
14 Nosipho Majeke (Dora Taylor), The Rôle of the Missionaries in Conquest, Alexandra, Johannesburg;
Society of Young Africa, 1952. I would like to thank Irwin Combrinck for giving me his rare, original
copy of this publication on long loan.
401