Theal en sy bronne
Keywords:
Theal, Sources, George McCallAbstract
In 1944 het prof. J. S. Marais in sy inleiding tot Maynier and theFirst Boer Republic, Theal se bewering dat hy daarna gestreef het omgeskiedenis sonder vooroordeel te skryf, in twyfel getrek. "Succeedinghistorians of South Mrican peoples", skryf prof. Marais, "have notendorsed this. ..claim: they have questioned many of Theal's inter-pretations of, or comments on, his facts, On the other hand they havetended to accept the facts themselves as reliable. It is one of the aimsof this study to question Theal's competence as a finder of the facts."Aangesien Theal baie seIde 'n aanduiding gee waar hy sy bronne gevindhet, is dit 'n moeilike taak. Die navorser wat horn ten doe I stel om aante to on dat Theal onbekwaam was ,,as a finder of the facts", moet voor-waar die Argivale bronne baie goed ken om dit te doen,Wat gebeur wanneer 'n navorser geen grondige kennis van die bronnewat Theal gebruik het, besit nie, kan gesien word in 'n proefskrif metdie naam A Critical Assessment of Dr. George McCall Theal. Die skryfster,mej. Merle Babrow, se tereg: "Historians frequently make mistakes. Theyoverlook or neglect important evidence, make uncritical use of unreliablesources, misinterpret documents and misunderstand issues. Theal does allthese things." Dan gaan sy verder en beweer dat Theal "also presentsfacts contrary to the evidence which he had, distorts his mate.rial, mis-represents the issues and repeatedly ignores a massive quantity of relevantdocuments with which he was familiar". As stawing van hierdie emstigeaanklag teen Theal, word dan dele van sy werk vergelyk, nie met dieoorspronklike bronne waarvoor hy kamtig sy oe sou toegemaak hetnie, maar met werke van skrywers soos die van W. M. MacMillan en J. S.Marais.
