Some reflections on the history of Port Alfred in the aftermath of World War II.

Abstract

• Opsomming: Hierdie artikel poog om die Oos-Kaapse gemeenskap van Port Alfred tydens 'n redelik onlangse dekade van sy bestaan uit te beeld. Hierdie re-evaluasie vind plaas teen die agtergrond van die baanbrekerswerk van Fernand Braudel van die Annalesskool en soos later verfyn deur die moderne Britse streekshistorikus Charles Phythian-Adams. Eerstens word die probleme van oorlogtydse sloping uitgelig. Tweedens word gelet op Port Alfred se aandeel in die koninklike besoek van 1947. Derdens word ondersoek ingestel na die reaksie van Port Alfred op die taan van die Smuts-era in die politiek. Laastens word gelet op die rol wat die dorp gespeel het tydens die nasionale Uitdagingskampanje (Defiance Campaign) van 1952. Reg deur die analise word erkenning daaraan gegee dat Port Alfred ('n klein, afgeleë gemeenskap), 'n eie patroon van bestaan het Hierdie patroon word egter ook beïnvloed deur gebeure op beide nasionale en internasionale vlakke.

• Summary: This article represents an attempt to portray the Eastern Cape community of Port Alfred during a decade of its more recent existence in an idiom pioneered by the Annaliste Fernand Braudel and refined by a modern English local historian, Charles Phythian-Adams. Highlighted are first, the problems of war-time-dismantlement; second, Port Alfred's "share" in the royal visit of 1947; third, its response to the passing of the Smuts era in politics and the advent of apartheid including, fourth, the role it played in the national Defiance Campaign of 1952. Throughout the analysis there is the recognition that, although a small, out-of-the-way community has its own pattern of existence, part of that pattern is fashioned by its linkage with developments at both the national and international level of human affairs.