The society sets out to make historical sources available to the average reader, but it also maintain a high academic standard and has produced valuable Africana.
As leader of the free burghers opposed to the Dutch East India Company and governor of the Cape, Willem Adriaan van der Stel, Tas personified the struggle against colonialism.
With surplus money from the publication fund, it was decided to publish Baron van Pallandt's General Remarks on the Cape of Good Hope, an 1803 pamphlet originally written in French, printed clandestinely and suppressed by Uitenhage De Mist, and consequently a rare work.
B. M. Hertzog, the then prime minister, who was upset by passages describing the poor treatment meted out to the Khoikhoi by the settlers.
However, the library's mandate did not include publishing archival documents so that a decision was taken to found a private society to deal with the management of the project.