Charlotte Maxeke was packaged up and labelled to sing for Queen Victoria

Few South Africans know anything about the woman after whom Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (the former Johannesburg General) was named. In her book 'Beauty of the Heart', Zubeida Jaffer details the life of this religious leader, social worker and activist. At the age of 20, Charlotte and her sister Katie were members of a choir touring Britain ...

When Charlotte and the choir reached the shores of Britain in 1891, they stepped into a country steeped in imperial notions of superiority. Women were unable to vote, very few could attend university and most Britons had twisted notions about Africans.

Queen Victoria was then 72 years old. She was Empress of India and presided over an Empire that consisted of approximately 10,500,000 square miles [27 million square kilometres]. It stretched from central America to the East Indies, China, India and West, East and Southern Africa.

By 1901 the Empire had further expanded its predatory tentacles and the aggregate area of the British colonies, dependencies and protectorates at that time was more than one-fifth of the land surface of the globe.

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Charlotte arrived in London 80 years after another Eastern Cape woman by the name of Sarah Baartman was gawked at and displayed as a freak in the city.

Not realising that this was what was in store for her, Sarah had accepted an offer of a British doctor, William Dunlop, to join him and work in London in 1810.

His intention was to display her as a "scientific curiosity" and make money from these shows, some of which he promised to give to her. Sarah was of Khoisan descent and fondly referred to as Saartjie.

It was her huge buttocks and voluptuous body that attracted the doctor's attention and earned her the name "the Hottentot Venus". Four years later, in 1814, she landed in France where she was sold to a man who showcased animals in Paris.

As part of the church, Charlotte and the choir had a greater say in the terms of their engagement, although they were restricted too. They were soon to find themselves on display as heathens converted to Christianity.

London was a revelation to them. Katie related that she was surprised to see white people running to carry their suitcases. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the piles of manure left in the middle of Piccadilly and the bird droppings encrusting a statue in Trafalgar.

"The white people were a puzzle," she thought. Here in England they did not seem to notice the dirt and grime, yet in Port Elizabeth Mrs Hutchinson was always asking, "Won't you Kaffirs ever learn to keep things properly clean?"

They settled into McCready House Hotel in Henrietta Street where they met their agent, a Mr Vert. There was great excitement when he informed them that their first show was at a public Jubilee celebration for Queen Victoria at Crystal Palace at a tonic sol-fa competition.

block_quotes_start She laughed heartily when the two young nephews of Paul and Eleanor Xiniwe stepped forward and began to dance during the singing of Singamewele block_quotes_end

Tonic sol-fa (or tonic sol-fah) is a pedagogical technique for teaching sight-singing. They would be competing with the best choirs in England and had four days in which to prepare.

They were unfazed, but then came a shock announcement. Their host, Mr Howell, informed them that he wanted their name changed from Jubilee Choir to Kaffir Choir. He said, "The English know of Kaffirs and would be curious to hear you sing."

Charlotte and others objected vociferously to no avail. The first African choir to sing for the queen would be called the Kaffir Choir and Orpheus McAdoo and his Jubilee Singers that had inspired them would be forgotten.

According to Katie, they were particularly upset since for them it echoed the Xhosa word kafula, which means [to "spit out"]. The term "kaffir", meaning non-believer in Arabic, was by then an accepted term in colonial language and not questioned. It had been taken over from one set of slave masters and used by another.

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Charlotte and her team's objections to the name change were ignored and the show went on. On that day, the hall at the Crystal Palace was packed with 28,000 visitors and singers. There were a number of locals performing alongside them. Their performance attracted attention and calls for encores. Later the queen requested a command performance and invited them to perform for her.

On 24 July 1891 the choir performed for the queen at her summer palace at Osborne on the Isle of Wight. Katie remembered that Queen Victoria entered the room dressed in a simple black dress and a white lace bonnet.

She had rings on her fingers, but no other jewellery. Her small stature and no-frills appearance surprised the choir. She walked into the room holding a little blonde girl by the hand. She wore no purple robes and no crown. She was just like any old widow-woman listening politely as Mr Xiniwe stepped forward to thank her for summoning the choir to Osborne and tell her about the various parts of their costume.

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The show was divided into two parts. First, Charlotte, Katie and the rest of the singers appeared wearing traditional dress. With beaded robes covering their breasts, carved wooden combs in their hair and anklets of seedpods, they sang the prepared songs associated with hunting and social celebrations. These were songs they had grown up with and were deeply embedded in the cultural fabric of their society.

Their strong voices echoed words of ancient times and vibrated in the halls of the palace. The queen listened intently, her head tilted a little to one side as she tried to understand the words of the hymns Lizalis' Idinga Lakho [Fulfil Your Promise] and Vuka Deborah [Awake, Deborah].

She laughed heartily when the two young nephews of Paul and Eleanor Xiniwe stepped forward and began to dance during the singing of Singamewele, a traditional Xhosa song and dance about twins.

The choir sang a wedding song, a travelling song, a work song, with different members taking turns with the solo parts, and finally a goodbye song, before they left to change into their Western clothes for the second part of the show.

This part was designed to demonstrate their conversion to Christianity. The men were dressed in dark suits and the women in white dresses with long gloves. They were transformed into Englishness and switched from their language to the English songs they had learnt at school, in cosmopolitan Kimberley and London.

Katie recalled that the queen patted the arm of her chair with the flat of her hand in time to The Merry Peasant, The Dawn of Day and On the Mountain, but when the programme ended with The Lord's Prayer, she bent her head and closed her eyes.

At last, after Mr Balmer turned and bowed before her, she tapped lightly with her fan on a little table and immediately everyone in the huge room applauded. "I'm pleased to see you here and I admire your singing very much," she said to the choir.

The little blonde girl tugged at her grandmother's hand and said: "Granny, Granny come away, I don't like these darkies."

"Hush Alice, you must not be afraid, these are Granny's people."

This is an edited extract from 'Beauty of the Heart', published by Sun Press (R230)