Seetsele Modiri Molema: Historian of the Barolong, 1891–1965

Abstract

African intellectuals started to write history before academic historians began to take an interest in Africa. Often, they spent decades elaborating research methods and research practices, perfectioning their knowledge, and presenting and debating their findings. Their efforts were rarely noticed by academic scholars, who turned their attention to colonial archives and oral sources which they then processed with the techniques of the newly founded African history discipline. This article discusses the life and historical work of Seetsele Modiri Molema, doctor and historian of the Barolong of Mafikeng, in modern South Africa. It follows the development of his methods between the 1930s and 1965, demonstrating that his less-known books are valuable for historians today. Finally, it proposes a first reconstruction of the three drafts of an unpublished manuscript, the History of the Barolong, which may constitute the most important work about the deep past of central southern Africa.

Keywords

• Precolonial Africa
• African historians
• South Africa
• Botswana
• Oral Traditions
• Barolong Kingdom