According to A Long Walk to Freedom, his father was summoned to the local magistrate’s court when a subject complained about an ox which had strayed from its owner.

Mandela considered himself to have inherited his father’s “straight and stately posture” as well as his “proud rebellious” cast of mind and “stubborn sense of fairness”.Ī critical moment of his father’s life in Mandela’s autobiography and which reflected these character traits was his father’s dismissal from his position of chief at Mvezo in Thembuland. The decisive figures in Nelson Mandela’s early life were his father Gadla Henry Mandela and Thembu chief regent Jongintaba Dalindyebo. The following research is an edited version of the result of an investigation into the differences between the documentary record in the Mthatha Archives and Mandela’s autobiography, on request of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Taking a closer look at the documentary record of his father’s life and Mandela’s recollection in A Long Walk to Freedom.Ī discrepancy regarding the historical facts and dates of Nelson Mandela’s father’s title as a headman in Madiba's autobiography, A Long Wak to Freedom, came to light during the research for a cookbook, Hunger for Freedom: The Story of Food in the Lives of Nelson Mandela. A Long Walk to Freedom vs the Mthatha Archives

A long walk to freedom