A collection of valuable books, pamphlets, maps, pictorial works and other items on sub-Saharan Africa, with specific focus on Southern African history, is preserved for the future.

The collection

• Africana books are mainly associated with sub-Saharan Africa and its history.
• The collection preserves works dating from the 17th century, but is also continually augmented with new acquisitions reflecting current history.
• The section strives to build a collection relevant to current academic research and collects works worthy of preserving for the future.
• The comprehensive Africana collection available in this section today is largely based on the unique and valuable Hugh Solomon library which was bequeathed to Stellenbosch University in 1957. Hugh Ross Solomon (1876-1956) was a Johannesburg lawyer who for many years added to the Africana collection which he had inherited from his father, Sir Edward Philip Solomon.

“When we speak of Africana we mean to imply all those objects large and small, natural and man-made, that relate to the history of Africa and of Southern Africa in particular … More specifically, we think of Africana in terms of human settlement in the sub-continent – but always in terms of history and the living past.” (Adventures in Africana by Douglas Varley, Cape Town : University of Cape Town, 1949)

• 18th- and 19th-century traveller’s journals and other early views of Africa.
• African maps published before 1860.
• All aspects of South African history.
• Stellenbosch history.
• South African War 1899-1902 (Anglo-Boer War).
• South African art and artists.