The incidental servants in Olive Schreiner’s letters

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Olive Schreiner memorial lecture, 24 September 2023
Etienne van Heerden Veldsoirée, Cradock

Olive Schreiner writes during the transition of the 19th and 20th centuries, in a period in which South Africa as we know it today is taking shape.^[1] For almost a century, British colonial control is visible in the region. English has become the language of the Cape and Natal colonial governments. In the Cape Colony, men, regardless of descent or skin colour, have qualified franchise with the proviso that they have to meet certain property and literacy requirements. The slogan “Equal rights for all civilised men” captures this liberal tradition. The unfulfilled dream of Cape liberalism holds for many the promise that one day they, too, will be admitted to the Cape Colony’s high political echelons.

This is also the time in which the identity constructs, political affiliations and religious orientations as we know them today became established. Missionaries set up mission stations, converting large groups of people and extending their influence to a developing education system. Colonialism is changing, with an ever sharper demarcation between upper and lower classes based on outward appearance and descent, literacy, access to capital and land ownership.

Large displacements of indigenous people are taking place. European influence gradually expands northwards with the impetus of the Voortrekkers and British imperialism. Various frontier wars, the wars of dispossession, are fought. Gold and diamonds are discovered; railroads are laid. The region is experiencing a move away from communalism and pastoral lifestyles to early industrialisation, a development that would lead directly to the Anglo-Boer War and finally the establishment of the Union of South Africa.

Writing, and what we call literature today, depends on literacy, a social skill that was introduced with colonialism in South Africa, but remained unattainable for the majority of the population. Education served as an instrument of social control, the deposition of colonial values and the creation of a colonial elite. Mass education would not become available to people of “European descent” (to use the contemporaneous terminology) until the beginning of the 20th century, or to people of “non-European descent” until only the middle and end of the 20th century. Towards the end of the 19th century, those who could read and write were part of a tiny section of the population.

Against this background of sweeping change, I excerpt some of Schreiner’s statements on “parasitism”, a Darwinist-influenced term, and refer to selections from her letters where she mostly incidentally refers to the servants in her immediate environment. I present another voice, that of Katie Jacobs, a former slave – contemporaneous with Schreiner. Although this subaltern voice does not directly engage Schreiner, her presence helps us to hear the unheard voices of servants of that time.

Schreiner is known as an early feminist. Under the influence of Marxist thought, she writes in Woman and labour (1911) about the “parasitism” of women from the dominant class in a society:

Beneath that body of women of the dominant class or race, who did not labour either mentally or physically, there has always been of necessity a far more solid body of females who not only performed the crude physical toil essential to the existence of society before the introduction of mechanical methods of production, but who were compelled to labour the more intensely because there was a parasite class above them to be maintained by their physical toil.^[2]

This idea of women from a “dominant class or race” parasitising on the labour of women from a lower status has already been taking shape with Schreiner since the late 19th century. In a letter to Betty Molteno, she wrote in 1896 that she “hated” women who always complained about their children. “I think the modern wealthy, and middle-class married woman tends to become very selfish, & to fall into a complete state of mental & moral disease.” She contrasts these upper-class women with the women of an earlier age who, even if their husbands were rich, worked in the fields and washed their own clothes. The modern middle-class woman of her time is a spoiled brat:

But the modern middle-class woman has servants & governess & all sorts of single women to do her work, & then she sits & howls that she hasn’t every thing she wants, & that she’s so badly off, because she has to bear children &c &c.

It is these women that Schreiner wants to put back to work: “It’s this kind of woman we want to do away with, & turn into a working-woman.”

Even when women’s suffrage arises, Schreiner first wants to deal with the parasitic, upper middle-class women who are “mere toys and seekers of pleasure”, because this is part of the condition of women as a whole, and the idea of individual freedom. In a letter to John X Merriman, a member of parliament and later prime minister, she wrote in 1906:

I cannot discuss the ^seemingly small^ question of the franchise, without tracing its relation to other vast & vital human problems – prostitution, the whole body of sex problems, the terrible parasitism of the woman of our … wealthier classes, robbed of all forms of labour & becoming mere toys & seekers of pleasure; & the terribly under paid over worked condition of our women of the poorer classes, & the whole fixed problem of the right of the individual human to freedom!

Mindful of her pronouncements on parasitism, my attention now shifts to Schreiner’s references to servants in her letters.

In a letter to Rebecca, her mother, the 19-year-old Schreiner writes on 10 June 1874 about her work as a governess and her activities at Colesberg. I quote this passage in full, since the silences are relevant. From the letter, it appears that Schreiner had the same routine every day at Colesberg. She writes:

I think you will like to have some idea of the way in which I spend my days here & it will be very easy to give it to you as one day passes exactly like another. I get up pretty early, & always find many little things in the house to be seen [to] after till breakfast time. As soon as that meal is over, & it like all the others is a very hurried one, I go into school & we don’t come out until one, which is the dinner hour. When dinner is over I dress at once & go down with Mr Weakley to the shop where I stay until sunset. This is the hard part of my day’s work & I like it less and less every day. By the time we get up to the house supper is generally on the table & that being over & the little ones put to bed Mrs W & I get to do needle work which we keep on until half past ten. We have no [machine]^[3] so here is a great deal to do but I manage to get through some in the morning school. Mrs W is generally down at the shop all morning, but as we have two servants I don’t have much to do except see that they keep to their work.^[4]

I want to argue that this description offers us more than a glimpse of a colonial household. Here we notice something about the ingrained – self-evident and seemingly natural – social stratification and the relationships between people.

We do not find out what Schreiner’s work as governess entails. Usually, this type of work involves basic teaching, counselling and childcare. Schreiner’s mother is obviously familiar with the work, and therefore no further explanation is necessary. In the domestic sphere, the work of women is often regarded as self-evident. This certainly applies to the work of the two servants. In Schreiner’s description, the breakfast appears as if out of nowhere, as do the lunches and suppers. The servants’ work, the preparation of meals, the cleaning of the house and the many tasks that had to be performed without machines in Schreiner’s late 19th century sphere remain undescribed. Even though the servants’ jobs are obvious, they cannot work without her supervision. In this world, it goes without saying that a white 19-year-old could be the supervisor of the domestic servants. Presumably, the unnamed servants are older, non-white women, who for years would have been familiar with their work. The servants themselves remain only a category of labour, unnamed, and without the possibility of individualisation. (By the way, the servants in Schreiner’s letters remain mostly unidentified – except for a single case.)

In a letter to her friend Jessie Rose in February 1894, she writes about her forthcoming wedding and her health. With the prospect of moving to Krantz Plaats, she offers a brief description of the wind and the river that flows past the house, and quite casually adds that she has the services of two servants:

We are going to live at Krantz Plaats, that place where the wind always blows! The Fish River flows just in front of the door. I shall have an old Kaffir woman & a little boy for servants.

While her surroundings and her marital status change significantly, there is the reassuring presence of the servants. Again, their obviousness is notable here. As a category of labour, some questions do not even arise, such as, what is the bond between the old woman and the young boy? What are the connections of the old woman? Does she have a husband? Where is he? Is he coming along? Does she have children or grandchildren, and do the children come along? In the colonial frame of mind, servants do not appear to have extended human relations or connections.

The inclusion of servants as part of the background and the natural environment is not exceptional, for it happens more often. In a letter in 1899 to Alice Greene, Schreiner writes about her temporary residence, Karree Kloof, which is heavenly for her. With further clarification, she describes the sunset over the Karoo hillocks and the animals on the farm. Just as in her previous description, the self-evidence of the servants is notable. With the accumulating ampersands, the “& coloured & black servants” are literally inserted in between the descriptions of nature. The beginning of the letter reads as follows:

We seem to be living in heaven here. The only shadow on our happiness is that we shall have to go away again: But I won’t think of that. There are 23 dogs here & 500 ostriches & there are sheep & horses, & coloured & black servants, & lovely kopjes on which the sun shines at sunset, as it only can in the karroo. Oh it’s all so beautiful & restful.

However, servants also have complex lives. How does a critic reach beyond the silences and attempt to reconstruct a life or lives? To reconstruct the lives of the servants on the Weakleys’ property or those who crossed Schreiner’s path in the Karoo and elsewhere is impossible. Therefore, an artifice is needed where a servant’s life can be presented, and then by approximation.

I refer to Schreiner’s meeting with Dr Abdullah Abdurahman and his wife on Thursday, 8 April 1909, and her note of thanks in which she refers to the APO with the comment, “I think your paper first rate.” The APO was the paper of the African People’s Organisation, of which Abdurahman was the president. A few months later, a profile article about a former slave appears in the APO. It is contemporary to Schreiner, at a time when she was busy preparing Woman and labour. It is the profile of Katie Jacobs, also called Grietje, an emancipated slave. The profile article is unusual, for it is one of only a few slave narratives that are not based on criminal records.

Katie Jacobs, 96 years old, is presented as a woman who still moves about freely, is compos mentis and is in excellent health. She lives in the backyard of 63 Hanover Street, District Six, in a hovel, according to the APO interviewer, “barely fit for human habitation”.^[5] The interview was published in English, but there are enough indications that it was originally conducted in Cape Dutch, that is, Afrikaans. In my rendition here, I have modified some of the excerpts slightly.

Katie Jacobs was born into slavery on Mostert’s farm at Kalabas Kraal, as the child of a Malagasy father and a Cape mother. She was separated from her mother at a very young age, since as slaves – and therefore the property of their owners – they had no right to familial relations.

I started working when I was still little. When my baas got old, and could no longer farm, he gave most of his chattels to his sons. I and some of the cattle and horses were given to baas Kootje; my mother and some more cattle were given to his other son in Frenchhoek. From that day I never [again] saw my mother, nor do I know what became of her. I always wanted to go see my mother. The baas, however, always refused my request. I think he was afraid that I would not return.

The work on the new farm was hard, because it had never been farmed. From sunrise to sunset, the land had to be cleared for planting. After working on the land with a pick and shovel, Jacobs had to “help out in the kitchen at night”. Sometimes she had to herd cattle, something she “hated”, not “just because it was boring or because I wanted to go home, but because I had to wear men’s clothes”. Since she was ashamed of wearing men’s clothes, she devised ways of concealing her true identity when encountering strangers. She says: “I raised my stumpy clay pipe and pulled my slough hat over my eyes. So that I passed for years as a young boy.”

As a young girl, probably in her early teens, she became pregnant, but her first child died prematurely. The madam of the farm was expecting at the same time, and Katie had to stand in as the wet nurse.

I was healthy then. My miesies was sickly and I had to suckle her first child. I was like one of the family then. I slept on the floor in the dining room, near the bedroom, so if the kleinbaas wants the teat, I was close.

Life on the farm was demanding, and she was sjamboked on occasion when some colts went missing. But there were also times, probably over weekends, that they could “go dancing at night” on the condition that they “had to be back by two o’clock at night”.

On the slave emancipation, she tells that one day they were told to gather in the dining room, washed and dressed, where the magistrate announced that they would be freed four years later.

During that time, Jacob, my husband, came to me twice or thrice weekly on evenings – and I began to build castles in the air. He would work for me, and get a little hut of our own, where we could dwell together and be happy.

On Emancipation day, 1 December 1838, it poured with rain; Jacob arrived at the farm drenched and frantically wanted to leave.

While performing my usual duties, I was startled by an angry voice demanding whether I was coming along. On turning round I recognised my husband in a violent passion. His baas was cruel, and sjamboked his slaves as often as he fed them.

That morning, Jacob’s baas chased his former slaves off the farm armed and on horseback, warning them that if he caught any of them on his land, they would be shot.

My baas and miesies, though somewhat irritated at the news of our prospective liberation, were on the whole kind, and I was not overjoyed at the idea of leaving them.

Says Katie:

I was about nineteen, twenty at the time, my miesies wept at the idea of my leaving her. “No; you must stay!” she cried. “Think of my son, whom you have suckled and nursed, and who has now grown so fond of you. What will become of him? No; you must stay; you cannot go!”

Even though he was upset, Jacob finally gave way.

My baas offered to take Jacob and me into his service at ƒ1 10s and 10s a month respectively, and food and house.

Katie and Jacob would remain on the farm for another three or four years after emancipation, before settling in the Durbanville district and working on various farms.

“My baas never wanted me to be baptised,” but then after emancipation, “I was baptised and could get married.” Her father, who also worked on Kootje Mostert’s farm, died a year before he could be emancipated. “My old father died in slavery, and so did not live to enjoy the God- given freedom which is the right of every human being,” she recalled.

Katie Jacobs had 13 children and, by 1910, 65 grandchildren.

As a reflective person, Schreiner was not unaware of the stratification of women and specifically servants in her society. On 22 June 1904, she wrote this revealing letter to her sister Henrietta (“Ettie”) in Hanover, from which I quote a full paragraph:

No people who have not all their own work to do can realize how grateful one should be to servants, even the stupidest & worst, for what they do. There is no case on record of any cook or housemaid or scullery maid doing any literary or intellectual work of any kind, & the woman who combines all these forms of labour even for a small household of two becomes only a labour machine & has no thought or … life beyond. It may be the most useful & best life a woman can lead, but to suppose it can be combined with any real mental or creative work of any kind is idiocy. Managing a large household with several servants is a distracting life, but it’s quite different from having to do everything yourself. All your brain goes into your hands.

Although Schreiner’s ideas about the place of women, the stratified nature of their labour, constantly developed over the course of her life, she evidently has a blind spot in her letters about the non-white servants in her close circle. From this paragraph, the indispensability of servants for Schreiner is clear, where her own creativity and well-being, by implication – like that of women from the upper classes – also depend on that of women from the lower classes. Servants and their omnipresence are taken for granted; they exist on the almost invisible margins of Schreiner’s world. It’s a broad category of labour without any individuality that forms the basis for her intellectual presence in the world. She herself admits: they are the hands that make her creativity possible. In her letters, these people are treated with the same casualness as others show in the colonial sphere. They appear as beings without history, without language or opinion and without any significant human connections.

Notes:

[1] A presentation delivered at the Etienne van Heerden Veldsoirée, Cradock, 22 September 2023. My sincere thanks for the organisers for the opportunity to deliver the Olive Schreiner lecture to Darry David, Izak de Vries, Etienne van Heerden and Menán van Heerden.

[2] Olive Schreiner. Woman and labour. London: TF Unwin, 1911, page 113. https://archive.org/details/womanlabour00schrrich/page/n2/mode/1up.

[3] Richard Rive adds the word “machine” in his excerpt of the letter. The editors of Olive Schreiner letters online render the word as “unreadable”. See Richard Rive (ed), Olive Schreiner letters 1871-99. Cape Town, Johannesburg: David Phillip, 1987, page 13; Olive Schreiner: Rebecca Schreiner 97.12.3.6.22 (11-26). The Olive Schreiner letters online. https://www.oliveschreiner.org/vre?view=collections&colid=138&letterid=4.

[4] Olive Schreiner BC16/Box1/Fold3/1896/30 (35-47). The Olive Schreiner letters online. https://www.oliveschreiner.org/vre?view=collections&colid=88&letterid=30 (original emphasis). All subsequent quotations were sourced from The Olive Schreiner online website, www.oliveschreiner.org. The quotations contain original spelling and punctuation errors; these have not been corrected.

[5] For an accessible version of Katie Jacobs’s story, see Shamiega Chaudhari, “Die rebellie van die slavin”, unpublished PhD, University of Fort Hare, 2015, pages 283–6. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11837/585.