Lagging or Leaping? Digital Sources for Researchers of Music in Nineteenth-Century South Africa

The multifaceted nature of South Africa's nineteenth-century history makes it a rich site for understanding how musical cultures are instantiated and enacted, and how they interact with one other. 1Digitized source material documenting the societal and cultural aspects of the country's music, however, is only starting to become available and large gaps remain in the material available from South African repositories.This review, therefore, will move between discussing sources that could be available and those that are, and will provide some reflections on the usefulness of both in order to show some of the ways in which the digitization of source material could enhance research into music of the South African nineteenth century.Before proceeding, however, it is necessary to provide some context for readers who may not be familiar with South Africa's history in this period, and to say something about what is meant by 'South Africa' and 'nineteenth century'.At the outset, it should be noted that South Africa's nineteenth century was shaped by colonial activity, part of which involved complicated and fraught entanglements between societies and cultures. 2 The period was marked by war and conflict between the various groups in the region.The wars that occurred between 1779 and 1879 in the Eastern Cape, involved not only amaXhosa, in whose territory the conflicts took place, but also various indigenous nations, and alliances of colonial, white settler forces. 3In 1879, the British Empire launched an