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Primary sourcePaintingFebruary 1879

Saul Solomon and His Pets

W. H. Schroder · February 1879

A racist pro-imperialist cartoon from 1879 mocking Cape liberal politician Saul Solomon by depicting Cetshwayo and others as his pets.

Depicts Cetshwayo as a caricatured "pet" in a propaganda attack on his liberal sympathisers.

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Pen-and-ink cartoon titled 'Saul and his pets'. A seated man with spectacles and a wide grin sits in a chair before a brick wall. A figure in a loincloth holding a spear crouches at left, and a bearded, lion-like figure sits at right. A cat arches on the wall above, and a man with a moustache stands on the chair back. An inkwell and paper labelled 'Cape Argus' sit below.
W. H. Schroder, Saul Solomon and His Pets, Cape Lantern, February 1879.

About this source

What it is

This pen-and-ink cartoon, titled "Saul and His Pets", was published in the Cape Lantern in February 1879 and drawn by W. H. Schroder. It attacks the Cape liberal leader Saul Solomon by showing him surrounded by figures representing Zulu King Cetshwayo, politician John Molteno, and John X. Merriman, drawn as his tame animals.

Why it matters

Made at the start of the Anglo-Zulu War, the cartoon shows how pro-imperialist colonial newspapers used racist imagery to attack anyone who sympathised with African resistance to British expansion. By reducing Cetshwayo to a crouching

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Cetshwayo kaMpande on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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