A thesis advanced here is that Smuts and Wilcocks are part of the history of African psychology. Depending on the test of paternity, each can lay claim to fathering modern African psychology.

The idea of white males as fathers of African psychology, illegitimate or otherwise, is not one that is going to be readily accepted by some psychologists. Yet both men were citizens of an African country, after all.

Ranged against that claim is the recognition that the two men were of European origin, and that the indigenous Africans were oppressed, their knowledge discounted.