History versus customary law: Commission on Traditional Leadership: Disputes and Claims

This article examines the practices of the Commission on Traditional Leadership: Disputes and Claims, set up under the Framework Act of 2003 to ‘cleanse’ the institution of traditional leadership by ridding it of the illegitimate traditional leaders installed during the colonial and homeland eras. Close analysis of the Commission’s hearings and determinations with regard to kingship claims by the Western Mpondo and Mpumalanga Ndebele shows that the Commission violated not only the historical past but even the limited constraints of binding legislation, in order to impose its own preferences in the name of custom. The experience of the Commission therefore highlights one of the most fundamental deficiencies in the Framework Act, namely insisting on the guiding role of ‘custom’ while failing to define the meaning of the term and its implications

Unsocial bandits: the stock thieves of Qumbu and their enemies

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Democracy, Popular Precedents, Practice and Culture, 13-15 July, 1994

Piet Draghoender's Lament

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: The Making of Class, 9-14 February, 198

“Get money – honestly if you can – but get money”: a bicentenary tribute to the British settlers of 1820

The author is Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Fort Hare in Alice. A renowned historian, he once served as head of the Cory Library in Grahamstown/ Makhanda. He graduated with a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA