Stanlake J. W. T. Samkange


Stanlake John William Thompson Samkange was a Zimbabwean historiographer, educationist, journalist, author, and African nationalist. He was a member of a prominent Zimbabwean nationalist political dynasty and is considered one of the most prolific early black Zimbabwean creative writers in English.

Early life and education

Stanlake Samkange was born in 1922 in Zvimba, Mashonaland, in British South Africa Company-administered Southern Rhodesia. He was the son of Reverend Thompson Samkange, a Methodist minister and nationalist politician, and Grace Mano, a Methodist evangelist.
He studied at Adams College in Natal, South Africa, and later at the University of Fort Hare in Alice, South Africa, the first institution of higher learning in Africa open to black Africans.

Academic and political career

Samkange was active in liberal politics during the 1950s and 1960s, serving as Secretary-General of the African National Congress in 1951 alongside Joshua Nkomo as the president and Charles MZingeli as chairman. He also served as Junior Deputy President of the Central African Party in 1959.
He moved to the United States and earned a Ph.D. from Indiana University Bloomington. In the U.S., he worked as a journalist, opened a public relations firm, and taught African history at institutions including Harvard University and Northeastern University.

Writing

While studying at Indiana University Bloomington, Samkange began writing historical novels that blended fiction with African historiography. His novel, On Trial for My Country, dramatizes the historical conflict between Cecil Rhodes and Lobengula, the Ndebele king, through a fictionalized ancestral trial. The book was banned in Rhodesia for its anti-colonial themes.
With his wife, Tommie Marie Anderson, Samkange co-authored Hunhuism or Ubuntuism: A Zimbabwe Indigenous Political Philosophy, one of the earliest attempts to formalize Hunhu/Ubuntu as a political and ethical system rooted in African communal values.
He also wrote African Saga, a popular history of Africa aimed at general readers, which sought to reclaim African historical agency from colonial narratives.

Hunhu/Ubuntu as African epistemology

Samkange’s 1980 work, Hunhuism or Ubuntuism: A Zimbabwe Indigenous Political Philosophy, was one of the first attempts to formally articulate **Hunhu/Ubuntu** as a political and philosophical framework. He argued that African societies possess indigenous systems of ethics and governance rooted in communal values, dignity, and moral responsibility. His famous maxim, “A person is a person through other persons,” encapsulates the core of Hunhu/Ubuntu.
This work positioned Hunhu not merely as cultural tradition but as a **system of knowledge production** — challenging colonial epistemologies and offering a distinctly African worldview for post-independence governance, education, interconnectedness and justice.

Contemporary resonance: Sylvia Tamale

Ugandan feminist scholar Sylvia Tamale reclaims Ubuntu as a feminist and decolonial ethics in her book Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. She argues that Ubuntu offers a counter-hegemonic framework to Western liberalism and applies it to gender justice, legal reform, academic decolonization and leadership.
Although Tamale does not explicitly cite Stanlake Samkange, her work resonates with his earlier efforts to formalize Hunhu/Ubuntu as a distinctly African system of ethics and governance. Together, their writings reflect a continuum of African intellectual resistance — using Ubuntu to reimagine identity, power, and knowledge from within African traditions.

Return to Zimbabwe

Samkange returned to Rhodesia in 1978 and became involved in nationalist politics during the final years of white minority rule. He held positions in the Zimbabwe African People's Union and the United [African National Council], contributing to the broader liberation movement. However, he retired from active politics before the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979, which paved the way for Zimbabwe’s independence.

Personal life

Stanlake Samkange was born in 1922 to Reverend Thompson Samkange, a Methodist minister and early nationalist leader, and Grace Mano, a Methodist evangelist. Raised in a household deeply engaged in both faith and political activism, Samkange inherited a strong sense of purpose rooted in African liberation and education.
He married Tommie Marie Anderson, an American educator and writer. Together, they co-authored Hunhuism or Ubuntuism, a philosophical work that helped define Hunhu/Ubuntu as a distinctly African ethical and political framework.

Death

Stanlake Samkange died on March 6, 1988, in Zimbabwe.

Publications

Stanlake Samkange was a prolific Zimbabwean author whose writings spanned historical fiction, political philosophy, and African historiography. His works are foundational in shaping postcolonial Zimbabwean thought and popularizing the concept of Hunhu/Ubuntu.

Nonfiction

  • Origins of Rhodesia –
  • African Saga: A Brief Introduction to African History –
  • Hunhuism or Ubuntuism: A Zimbabwe Indigenous Political Philosophy. Harare: Graham Publishing –
  • What Rhodes Really Said About Africans –

Historical Novels

  • On Trial for My Country –
  • The Mourned One –
  • Year of the Uprising –
  • Among Them Yanks –
  • On Trial for That UDI –