Under Smuts's Rule

Jan Smuts is revered by some as a national and international statesman, but he is condemned by others as an architect of segregation. In his new book, prize-winning author Bongani Ngqulunga examines how Smuts’s political life affected black South Africans. The book considers Smuts’s role in the treaty ending the Anglo-Boer War and in the creation of the Union of South Africa, and how these affected the rights of black people. It tracks Smuts’s approach to the ‘Native question’ as a minister under Louis Botha, as prime minister from 1919 to 1924 and from 1939 to 1948, and in opposition to and then fusion with J.B.M. Hertzog’s National Party. Analysing letters, speeches and other documents, the book unpacks Smuts’s thinking and how it affected his approach to the franchise, segregation and suppression of dissent. Tracing the currents in black politics, it presents the views of African leaders on Smuts and his policies – figures such as Sol Plaatje, D.D.T. Jabavu, Z.K. Matthews, A.B. Xuma, and, later on, Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela. The book demonstrates how Smuts evolved in his views, eventually coming to recognise that segregation had failed. But the reforms he introduced in the 1940s were too little, too late, and were swept away by the National Party and its policy of apartheid. Giving a balanced view that is both respectful and critical, Under Smuts’s Rule is a vital addition to the literature on Smuts and to South African history.

Bongani Ngqulunga is an associate professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). Prior to this, he served as the director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), also based at UJ. He directs the African Biographies Project, which brings together scholars and writers researching and writing biographies of figures from the African continent. Ngqulunga's scholarship focuses on the politics and history of South Africa. He is the author of the multiple-winning book The Man Who Founded the ANC: A Biography of Pixley ka Isaka Seme (Penguin, 2017) and co-editor of Reappraising the Life and Legacy of Jan C. Smuts (UJ Press, 2024). He obtained his doctoral degree from Brown University in the USA.