Tiyo Soga

Tiyo Soga was born about February 1829 at the village of Gwali, in the Tyumie Valley of the Xhosa-Ngqika territory of the principal late-colonial Cape Colony, the son of the Ngqika chief-and-counsellor Soga ka Jotello and his eighth wife Nosutu, a Ngqika-Xhosa Christian convert. He was raised in the principal Tyumie Valley Ngqika-Xhosa community of the principal post-Sixth-Xhosa-War South-African Eastern Cape.

He was educated at the principal Lovedale Missionary Institution at Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa from 1844 to 1846 — and at the principal United Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Glasgow, Scotland from 1846 to 1847 and from 1851 to 1856.

He was the principal first Black South African to enroll at the principal post-1844 Lovedale Missionary Institution preparatory programme — and the principal first Black South African to enroll at the principal United Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Glasgow.

He was ordained a Presbyterian minister at the John Street United Presbyterian Church at Glasgow on the twenty-third of December 1856 — the principal first Black South African ordained Christian minister.

He was married on the twenty-seventh of February 1857 at the Greyfriars Church at Glasgow to Janet Burnside, a Scottish-Glasgow Presbyterian schoolteacher — and they had seven children together.

He returned to the Eastern Cape in 1857 and founded the principal Mgwali Mission Station near King William's Town in 1857 — at the principal post-1857 United-Presbyterian Mgwali commercial-mission-station community. He served the principal Mgwali Mission Station from 1857 to 1866 and then the principal Tutura Mission Station near Komga from 1868 to 1871.

He completed the principal translation of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress into Xhosa in 1866 — at the principal post-1866 United-Presbyterian Mgwali-and-Tutura-Mission editorial-and-translation community. The principal Soga Xhosa-translation of The Pilgrim's Progress was published at the principal Lovedale Press in 1867 — and is at this day the principal foundational Xhosa-language Christian-and-philosophical literary text of the principal post-1867 South-African Xhosa-language theological-and-philosophical canon.

He composed the principal Inkutshulako (Daybreak), the principal Xhosa-language Presbyterian hymnal of 1864 — at the principal post-1864 Lovedale Press editorial-and-publication community.

He composed across the principal post-1864 South-African Xhosa-language community the principal Xhosa-language theological-and-philosophical journal essays — at the principal post-1864 South-African post-Lovedale Xhosa-language theological-and-philosophical journal-publication community.

He died at Tutura, Eastern Cape on the twelfth of August 1871 of complications of tuberculosis, at forty-two.

He is honored here as the first Black South African ordained Christian minister and translator of the Pilgrim's Progress into Xhosa.