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Know more about Alice Kinloch

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PNS would like to thank Dr. Tshepo Mvulane Moloi of the University of Johannesburg for his time speaking to us about his research on Kinloch and signposting resources.

 

Alice Kinloch was born in South Africa around 1863. Overcoming racism in South African society at this time, she was a gifted writer and speech maker. She later travelled to Britain to campaign against the treatment of Black people in the South African diamond mining industry. A large part of this industry was to fuel the British Empire. She went on a speaking tour to inform and drum up support. In this way we can see links to others from around the world such as Douglass and Wells Brown who came to Britain to educate the home of the consequence of empire.

 

Diamonds were discovered in South Africa in the 1860’s and quickly the area was colonised. Robert Ross writes in A Concise History of South Africa about the Compound System. Mine owners, afraid of theft of their diamonds, would hold Black miners in closed barracks. As they were now very close to the mines this led to a drop in wages under the argument that wages were not needed for transport, etc. Conditions were awful, described by Ross as, ‘inhuman, overcrowded and unhealthy.’ It also contributed to the racial differences in South Africa.[1] Alice Kinloch came to Britain to campaign and educate against this.

 

Alice Kinloch wrote ‘Are South African Diamonds Worth the Cost?’ under the alias A. V. Alexander. This was published in Manchester. In this and the lectures she gave in Newcastle and other cities, Kinloch writes about the terrible conditions, breaking them down into segments, allowing the listener/reader to get a picture of the plight of Black South African miners. She tells of heavy-handed policing of the miners on the streets of Kimberley and in the homes of miners, who could be entered, searched, and destroyed in the search for possibly stolen diamonds. This included the ‘trapping’ of miners by getting undercover agents to sell a diamond to a miner and then allow the police to swoop in.[2] She talks of searches to find digested diamonds using doctors to insert instruments into the bowels of miners. When this practice ended, suspected miners were drugged and placed in confined rooms to purge them of any presumed stolen diamonds.[3]

 

Kinloch placed the blame for all this on whites; those who encouraged the thefts to those who ran the mines and the government of the area, where this treatment was legal. Miners wore mitten-like leather gloves, enabling them to handle tools, but not handle the smaller diamonds. Some were made to work naked. Kinloch writes:

 

The handsome dividends that a certain company pays are earned at the price of blood and souls of the Black men. Shareholders may be in happy ignorance of this, so we would remind them that there are several thousands of fellow-men kept under lock and key for their sole benefit, and that the gems on their wives’ hands, and the finery bought by their “profits” are, to “seeing” eyes, bespattered with human gore.[4]

 

It would be interesting to know if the purpose of this speaking tour and authoring this pamphlet was to target and enlighten British shareholders in these mines.

 

At this point Kinloch’s motivation to speak in the northeast of England is unknown. The region’s links to mining make it an obvious location to find sympathetic audiences. Also, its history of accepting Black leaders and openness to progressive issues of the day. Maybe it was at the invitation of the region’s Quaker community.

 

As part of her speaking tour, she spoke in Newcastle in summer 1897. The visit must have been a success, as there was a petition drawn up to be sent to Queen Victoria.

 

David Killingray writes in Significant Black South Africans in Britain before 1912: Pan-African Organisations and the Emergence of South Africa's First Black Lawyers of Kinloch’s visit to Britain. He states she spoke in Newcastle’s Central Hall in early May in 1897. A resolution was passed.

 

that this meeting having heard the statements of the present position from Mrs Kinloch and Mr. Fox Bourne, calls upon Her Majesty’s Government to take such action as shall effectually stop the cruel and violent measures by which the native races in South Africa and elsewhere are being deprived of their lands and liberty[5]

 

Kinloch was instrumental in the establishment of the African Association (which later became the Pan-African Association) which convened the first congress in Westminster Town Hall in London in 1900. She became one of its founder members despite being for ‘Black men only’ and was also its treasurer.[6]

 

Her role in the setting up of the African Association has gone largely unrecognised. To date no pictures of her in England are known to exist. Dr Tshepo Mvulane Moloi of the University of the University of Johannesburg is researching Kinloch. He stated in a 2022 article that, ‘Her pioneering leadership in the latter organisation, advances the argument that she must be fittingly recognized as the founding mother of Pan-Africanism.’[7]

 

[1] Ross, R.J. (2012) A concise history of South Africa. Cambridge I Pozostałe: Cambridge University Press. P 61-62

[2] Victorian material culture (2019). ROUTLEDGE. P 397. This edition puts her visit in 1895, not 1897 as other sources would have it.

[3] Victorian material culture (2019). ROUTLEDGE. P 398

[4]  Victorian material culture (2019). ROUTLEDGE. P 402

[5] David Killingray (2012) Significant Black South Africans in Britain before 1912: Pan-African Organisations and the Emergence of South Africa's First Black Lawyers, South African Historical Journal, 64:3, 393-417, DOI: 10.1080/02582473.2012.675810 quotes from Transactions of the Aborigines’ Protection Society, 1 July 1897, 233234. Accessed on 23/11/2023.

[6] Adi (2018) Pan-Africanism: A history. London etc.: Bloomsbury. P. 20

[7] congnd91 (2021) Culture review, International Women’s Day Must Also Evoke Unsung Pan-Africanist Heroines Such as Alice Kinloch. Available at: https://culture-review.co.za/international-womens-day-must-also-evoke-unsung-pan-africanist-heroines-such-as-alice-kinloch (Accessed: 27 January 2024).

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