POLITICAL ACTION, LABOR AND AFRICAN RESISTANCE IN H. RIDER HAGGARD’S TRAVEL DIARIES (SOUTH AFRICA, 1914)

Abstract

The period around the formation of the Union of South Africa (1910) was characterized by political debates about South African national identity, as well as the amendment of segregationist laws which excluded black South Africans from political rights. In this context, the British novelist H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925) returned to South Africa, where he had lived in his youth, and recorded his travel impressions. The article seeks to analyze the marks of political articulation and African resistance in Haggard’s travel diaries, with special attention to the worlds of labor of black South Africans and the so-called “poor whites”. Despite Haggard’s political alignment, the novelist’s diaries make it possible to glimpse fragmentary traces of claims of those historical subjects in a context of institutionalization of segregationist policies.

Keywords
African’s History; South Africa; H. Rider Haggard; colonialism; travelers’ narratives