Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T09:54:47.692Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Apartheid's ‘Testing Ground’: Urban ‘Native Policy’ and African Politics in Brakpan, South Africa, 1943–19481

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Hilary Sapire
Hilary Sapire
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Although studies of both state ‘urban native’ policy and African life on the Witwatersrand in the 1940s have increased in volume and sophistication over the last decade, these two themes have generally been treated discretely in the literature. While a regional focus has yielded a complex and differentiated picture of urban African politics and culture, studies of the state still tend to miss this complexity by focusing on the ‘view from above’, from the vantage point of central state institutions.

This article draws together these two separate historiographical threads to examine state policy from the perspective of local state officials, those individuals most intimately concerned with day-to-day administration of urban African communities in the rapidly industrialising Witwatersrand of the 1940s. Through the narrative of a deep personal antagonism between an African politician in the Witwatersrand location of Brakpan and a white administrator, the article explores the intersection of two microcosms: the world of the Afrikaner intellectual, educated in the tradition of ‘volkekunde’ and thereby claiming expert knowledge of the African, and the real worlds of the Africans the expert claimed to know—themselves shaped by new, radical currents in the changing wartime urban context. Using the Brakpan case study, the article also shows that in contrast to the national government's fumbling indecision in the face of the urban crisis, it was the municipalities which agitated for state control over all Africans, tighter influx and efflux controls and the more efficient distribution of African labour between different economic sectors. In voicing their discontent with state policy and in their policy improvizations, local officials anticipated much in the apartheid order of the 1950s.

Type
Politics in the Townships
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 99 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Brakpan Herald, 2 Apr. 1948.

3 This organisation was established in 1948 at the behest of the Afrikaner Broederbond to study the country's ‘racial problem’.

4 Central Archives Depot [CAD], Native Affairs Department [NTS] 4319 179/313, Hyman Basner to the Secretary for Native Affairs, 26 Dec. 1947.

5 Brakpan Herald, 11 Aug. 1944.

6 CAD, NTS 4320 179/313, Native Commissioner, Benoni to the Director of Native Labour, 5 May 1948.

7 Sondagnuus, 19 Oct. 1947.

8 See Bloom's, Harry remarkable novel, Transvaal Episode (London, 1956)Google Scholar, which explores the emotional currents and racial tensions in the Transvaal location through the powerfully drawn central characters of a white superintendent and an African leader.

9 See, for example, Proctor, A., ‘Class struggle, segregation and the city: a history of Sophiatown 1905–1940’, in Bozzoli, B. (ed.), Labour, Townships and Protest (Johannesburg, 1979)Google Scholar; Koch, E., ‘“Without visible means of subsistence”: slumyard culture in Johannesburg, 1918–1940’, in Bozzoli, B. (ed.), Town and Countryside in the Transvaal (Johannesburg, 1983)Google Scholar; Stadler, A. W., ‘“Birds in the cornfield”: squatter movements in Johannesburg, 1944–1947’, J. Southern Afr. Studies, vi (1979)Google Scholar; Bonner, P. L., ‘“Desirable or undesirable Basotho women”? liquor, prostitution and the migration of Basotho women to the Rand, 1920–1955’, in Walker, C. (ed.), Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945 (Cape Town, 1990)Google Scholar; French, K., ‘James Mpanza and the Sofasonke Party’ (M.A. thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1984).Google Scholar

10 The term is O'Meara's, D.; ‘“Muldergate” and the politics of Afrikaner nationalism’, Work in Progress, XXII (1983), 2.Google Scholar See Hindson, D., Pass Controls and the Urban African Proletariat in South Africa (Johannesburg, 1987)Google Scholar; Evans, I., ‘The political economy of a state apparatus: the department of Native Affairs in the transition from segregation to apartheid in South Africa’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1986)Google Scholar; Dubow, S., Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid South Africa, 1919–1936 (London, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Posel, D., The Making of Apartheid 1948–1961: Conflict and Compromise (Oxford, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Evans, ‘The political economy’, and Posel, The Making of Apartheid, however, do signal the importance of local authorities.

12 See, for example, Lodge, T., Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945 (Johannesburg, 1983)Google Scholar; Hirson, B., Yours for the Union: Class and Community Struggle in South Africa (London, 1989)Google Scholar; Stadler, A., ‘“A long way to walk”: bus boycotts in Alexandra, 1940–1945’, in Bonner, P. (ed.), Working Papers in Southern African Studies, 11 (Johannesburg, 1981), 228–57.Google Scholar

13 However, see Bonner, P., ‘“Siyawughobha, siyawugebhula umhlaba ka maspala” [“We are digging, we are seizing great chunks of the municipality's land”]: popular struggles in Benoni, 1944–1952’ (paper presented to the African Studies Institute Seminar, University of the Witwatersrand, October, 1985)Google Scholar; Van Tonder, D. P., ‘Sophiatown: removals and protest, 1940–1955’ (M. A. thesis, University of South Africa, 1990).Google Scholar

14 Bonner, , ‘“Siyawugubha, siyawugebhula”’, 1.Google Scholar

15 This account has been compiled from the following sources: Sapire, H. interview with MrsLanguage, F. J., Pretoria, August, 1988: ‘Brakpan Verloor Groot Deskundige’, Springs and Brakpan Advertiser, 15 01. 1960Google Scholar; Nel, C. J., ‘Gedenks: F. J. Language’, Tydskrif vir Rasse Aangeleenthede, XXXII (1981), 92–3.Google Scholar

16 Language's Ph.D. thesis, dealing with the political history of the Thlaping and their relationships with missionaries in the nineteenth century, was entitled ‘Stramregering by die Thlaping’. He published an article summarising his findings: ‘Die herkoms en geskiedenis van die Thlaping’, African Studies, 1 (1942), 115–33.Google Scholar

17 For an account of Stellenbosch in the 1940s and some of its luminaries, see Schuller, G., ‘Stellenbosch en Sabra jare: ʾn persoonlike blik’, in Hugo, P. (ed.), South African Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Nic Olivier (Cape Town, 1989), 1–14.Google Scholar

18 Dubow, S., ‘Afrikaner nationalism, apartheid and the conceptualisation of race’, J. Afr. Hist., XXXIII (1992), 209–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Rhoodie, N. J. and Venter, H. J., Apartheid: A Socio-Historical Exposition of the Origin and Development of the Apartheid Idea (Cape Town, 1960)Google Scholar, cited by Dubow. These writers have suggested that it was the isolation of Afrikanerdom from the centre of political power which focused Nationalist thinkers' minds on the question of race and made them more susceptible to radical segregationist alternatives. See also Giliomee, H., ‘The ideology of Apartheid’, in Hugo, P. (ed.), South African Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Nic Olivier (Cape Town, 1989), 80–100.Google Scholar

19 Posel, D., ‘The making of Apartheid before 1948: conflicting interests and forces within the Afrikaner nationalist alliance’, J. Southern Afr. Studies, XIV (1987), 123–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Dubow, , ‘Afrikaner nationalism’, 210.Google Scholar

21 Sharp, J., ‘The roots and development of Volkekunde in South Africa’, J. Southern Afr. Studies, XVIII (1982), 16–36Google Scholar; Gordon, R. J., ‘Serving the Volk with Volkekunde—On the rise of South African anthropology’, in Jansen, J. D. (ed.), Knowledge and Power in South Africa: Critical Perspectives Across the Disciplines (Johannesburg, 1991), 79–87.Google Scholar

22 For Language's views on the relevance of his discipline, see his inaugural lecture, ‘Die aard en omvang van die Volkekunde: intreerde deur Professor F. J. Language’ (Die Universiteit van die Oranje Vrystaat, 1961).Google Scholar

23 Dubow, , ‘Afrikaner nationalism’, 36.Google Scholar

24 Coertze, P. J., Language, F. J. and van Eeden, B. I. C., Die oplossing van die naturellevraagstuk in Suid Afrika: wenke oreenkomstig die Afrikanerstandpunt van apartheid (Johannesburg, 1943Google Scholar) [Solutions to the native question in South Africa: suggestions in accordance with the Afrikaner's doctrine of apartheid].

25 ‘Die naturellevraagstuk en die Afrikaner student’ [‘The native question and the Afrikaner student’], in Wapenskou (04 1943Google Scholar). For a discussion of the relationship of ‘English’ anthropological study and state policy in the interwar years, see Dubow, S., ‘Race, civilisation and culture: the elaboration of segregationist discourse in the inter-war years’, in Marks, S. and Trapido, S. (eds.), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa (London, 1987), 71–94Google Scholar; Rich, P., White Power and the Liberal Conscience: Racial Segregation and South African Liberalism (Johannesburg, 1984)Google Scholar, ch. 3; Sharp, ‘The roots and development of Volkekunde’.

26 By this time, however, liberal social anthropologists were convinced that some sort of integration was inevitable. The obsession with bloedvermenging marks out the distinctly Afrikaner nationalist strand.

27 Even after confronted by the realities of African urbanization and the full extent to which Africans were integrated into urban political economies, Language's views, expressed to the Native Laws Commission in 1946, departed little from the essence of the pamphlet.

28 For a discussion of the ‘purist’ strain within SABRA, see Lazar, J., ‘Verwoerd versus the visionaries: the South African Bureau of Racial Affairs and apartheid, 1948–1961’ (paper presented to the ‘South Africa in the 1950s’ conference, University of Oxford, 09. 1987.)Google Scholar

29 Posel, , The Making of Apartheid, 69.Google Scholar

30 Language fits well into the typology of the volkekundige of this time provided by Gordon, ‘Serving the Volk’. Language took an activist stance as an anthropologist, and like his peers, did little research after completing his Ph.D., acting instead as a ‘backroom boy’ in National Party political and social organisations and in moving between the universities and official bodies which dealt with ‘native affairs’.

31 H. Sapire interview with Mrs F. J. Language, Pretoria, August 1988.

32 Between 1936 and 1946, the urban African population in the country as a whole grew by 57·2 per cent, from 1,141,642 to 1,794,212, outstripping the white urban population. See Report of the Native Laws Commission. 1946–1948, U.G. 28/1948, 6.

33 CAD, Brakpan Municipal Records [BMR], N3/57, Report of the Manager of Non-European Affairs, 24 Jan. 1943.

34 Records of the South African Institute of Race Relations [SAIRR], University of the Witwatersrand. Miscellaneous File AD 1756, Evidence submitted to the Native Laws Commission of Enquiry, 1947, Minutes of F. J. Language.

35 CAD, BMR N3/57, Minutes of the Meeting of the Location Sub-Committee, 29 Mar. 1943.

36 Sapire, H., ‘African urbanisation and struggles against municipal control in Brakpan, 1920–1958’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1988)Google Scholar, ch. 3.

37 CAD, BMR N3/57, Minutes of the Meeting of the Town Council, 26 April 1943.

38 Nothling, F. J., ‘The story of Brakpan, 1864–1969’ (unpublished manuscript, n.d.), ch. 6.Google Scholar

39 H. Sapire, interview with Mrs F. J. Language, Pretoria, Aug. 1988.

40 This account of Bopape's early life has been drawn from various interviews conducted with him over the last few years. See D. Cachalia, interview with David Bopape, Johannesburg, 31 May 1982, Records of the SAIRR, University of the Witwatersrand; H. Sapire and A. Cobley, interview with D. Bopape, Johannesburg, 21 Sept. 1983; H. Sapire, interview with D. Bopape, Johannesburg, Apr. 1988; Karis, T. and Carter, G. M., From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882–1964; Vol. iii, 1953–1964 (Stanford, 1977), 81.Google Scholar

41 For an account of this election, see Hyman Basner Collection, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, ‘Autobiographical manuscript’; H. Sapire and A. Cobley, interview with D. Bopape, Johannesburg, 21 Sept. 1983.

42 Records of the SAIRR, AD 1756, Evidence submitted to the Native Laws Commission of Enquiry (Fagan), 28 Feb. 1947; Minutes of Evidence of Councillors D. J. Muller and F. C. Davey and Mr Roux (Acting Manager), Brakpan; H. Sapire, interview with D. Bopape, Johannesburg, May 1988.

43 Lodge, , Black Politics, 132.Google Scholar

44 Lodge, , Black Politics, 22Google Scholar; Lodge, T., ‘Class conflict, communal struggle and patriotic unity: the Communist Party of South Africa during the Second World War’ (paper presented to the African Studies Institute Seminar, University of the Witwatersrand, 1985).Google Scholar

45 D. Cachalia, interview with D. Bopape, 31 May 1982.

46 H. Sapire and A. Cobley, interview with D. Bopape, Johannesburg, Aug. 1983.

47 Inkululeko, 30 Oct. 1944; Lodge, ‘Class conflict’.

48 H. Sapire and A. Cobley, interview with D. Bopape, Johannesburg, Aug. 1983.

49 For an account of the legal work undertaken by these lawyers, see Hyman Basner, ‘Autobiographical manuscript’. Basner himself left the Party in 1942.

50 Inkululeko, 30 Oct. 1944; Lodge, , Black Politics, 26–9Google Scholar; Lodge, ‘Class conflict’.

51 For example, Inkululeko, 4 Dec. 1943 and 4 Mar. 1944.

52 For a discussion of the limitations in the CPSA's relationship to the locations and the African working classes, see Fortescue, D., ‘The Communist Party of South Africa and the African working class in the 1940s’, Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXIV (1991), 481–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 L. Callinicos, interview with D. Bopape, cited in Callinicos, L., ‘The Communist Party during the war years: the beginnings of grassroots protest politics?’, South African Labour Bulletin, XV (1991), 101–7Google Scholar; Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, A. B. Xuma Papers, 4306229; H. Sapire, interview with Dr N. Motlana, Soweto, July 1984.

54 Walshe, P., The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa (London, 1970), 239–54.Google Scholar

55 Sapire, H., ‘African political organisation in Brakpan in the 1950s’, African Studies, XXXXVIII (1989), 183–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 T. Lodge, interview with Dr N. Motlana, Soweto, 1981, cited in Lodge, Black Politics, 153.

57 Inkululeko, 4 Mar. 1944; CAD, BMR S3/7, Location Superintendent to the Manager of Non-European Affairs, 7 Sept. 1945.

58 CAD, BMR N3/1, Minutes of the Native Affairs Sub-Committee Meeting, 12 May 1944.

59 Brakpan Municipal Archives (BMA) 14/1/1, Minutes of the Meeting of the Town Council, 26 Nov. 1943; H. Sapire and A. Cobley, interview with D. Bopape, 21 Sept. 1983.

60 CAD, NTS 4320 179/313, Report of the Superintendent of the Brakpan Location: Native Unrest in the Location, n.d. but c. August 1944; CAD, NTS 4320 179/313, Report of Meeting Held in Brakpan Location Shop Square, 28 June 1944; Lodge, ‘Class conflict’.

61 For a detailed account of these events, see Sapire, H., ‘The stay-away of the Brakpan Location, August 1944’, in Bozzoli, B. (ed.), Class, Community and Conflict: South African Perspectives (Johannesburg, 1987), 358–400.Google Scholar

62 CAD, NTS 4320 179/313, Town Clerk to the Secretary for Native Affairs, 12 Feb. 1945; Brakpan Herald, 5 Nov. 1945.

63 CAD, NTS 4320 179/313, Secretary for Native Affairs to the Native Commissioner, Benoni, 22 July 1944.

64 BMA, BMR 14/1/1, Evidence of Dr Language to the Native Laws Commission, 1946–1948.

65 In 1942, the NAD dispatched a circular letter to municipalities urging them to ‘hold in abeyance’ those aspects of urban legislation ‘as may be deemed not wholly essential to the establishment and maintenance of good order’. See Bell, M. M. S., ‘The politics of administration: a study of the career of Dr D. L. Smit with special reference to his work in the Department of Native Affairs, 1934–1945’ (M.A. thesis, Rhodes University, 1980), 149.Google Scholar

66 Evans, , ‘The political economy’, 118.Google Scholar

67 For an account of the reformist endeavour of the NAD and liberals in this period, see Lewsen, P., ‘Liberals in politics and administration, 1936–1948’, in Butler, J., Elphick, R. and Welsh, D. (eds.), Democratic Liberalism in South Africa: Its History and Prospect (Middletown and Cape Town, 1987), 98–115.Google Scholar

68 Sapire, ‘African urbanisation’, ch. 4.

69 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Report of the Manager of Non-European Affairs, 1 March 1945.

70 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Manager of Non-European Affairs to the Town Clerk, 8 Dec. 1944.

71 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Minutes of the Meeting of the Finance and General Purposes Committee [FGPC], 18 June 1945. See also BMA, BMR 14/1/8, Manager of Non-European Affairs to the Town Clerk, 8 Mar. 1946.

72 H. Sapire, interview with Mr E. Pakade, Tsakane, Jan. 1985.

73 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Undated letter to the Town Council from the Secretary of the Locations Joint Organisations Committee, n.d., but c. Nov. 1947.

74 Ibid.

75 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, C. Joffee (solicitor) to the Town Clerk, 14 Feb. 1949.

76 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Location Superintendent to the Manager of Non-European Affairs, 13 Dec. 1946.

77 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Native Commissioner, Benoni to the Town Clerk, 28 Jan. 1947.

78 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Native Commissioner, Benoni to the Town Clerk 25 Feb. 1947.

79 In 1942, the Association of Reef Managers of Non-European Affairs had resolved to ‘provide assistance’ to the NAD by non-action in the matter of removing ‘redundant’ African residents. See Bell, , ‘The politics of administration’, 49Google Scholar; BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Minutes of the Meeting of the FGPC, 17 May 1948.

80 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Secretary, Brakpan Location Joint Organisations Committee to the Administrator, 1 Oct. 1947.

81 Rand Daily Mail, 6 Oct. 1947.

82 BMA, BMR 14/7/7, Manager of Non-European Affairs to the Town Clerk, 7 Feb. 1948; CAD, NTS 4320 179/313, Secretary for Native Affairs to the Director of Native Labour, 21 Oct. 1947.

83 Native Advisory Boards were bodies set up in most urban locations in terms of the 1923 Natives Urban Areas Act. They contained both elected and nominated African representatives who acted in an advisory capacity to the [white] local authorities who were responsible for the day-to-day administration of urban African communities. The Boards, however, did not have any power to change policy.

84 Inkululeko, 4 March 1944; CAD, BMR S4/7, Superintendent to the Manager of Non-European Affairs, 7 Sept. 1945.

85 Brakpan Herald, 20 Apr. 1945.

86 CAD, BMR N3/74, Interview with the Minister at Cape Town: Memo Covering Points for Discussion between the Minister of Native Affairs, Major P. V. G. van der Bijl and Deputation from Brakpan Town Council, 5 Apr. 1945.

87 Brakpan Herald, 21 Apr. 1945.

88 Brakpan Herald, 21 Apr. 1945.

89 BMA, BMR 14/3/2, Minutes of the Meeting of the Advisory Board, 14 Feb. 1946.

90 BMA, BMR 14/1/3, R. Khanoe, ANC branch secretary, Brakpan, to the Mayor and Members of the Town Council, 1 July 1946.

91 BMA, BMR 14/3/2, Statement by Councillor F. C. Davey before the Brakpan Native Advisory Board, 8 Aug. 1946.

92 CAD, NTS 4320 170/313, Native Commissioner, Benoni to the Director of Native Labour, 11 Oct. 1946.

93 BMA, BMR, 14/3/2, Minutes of the Meeting of the Advisory Board, 28 Nov. 1946.

94 CAD, NTS 4320 170/313, ‘Report of Special Brakpan Advisory Board Meeting’, 22 Oct. 1947, and ‘Assault of Bopape by the Manager of Non-European Affairs’, Confidential Report.

95 CAD, NTS 4320 170/313, Records of Proceedings of Rex v F. J. Language charged for assault [common], 28 Nov. 1947.

96 As in the case of Bopape's dismissal in 1944, location organizations raised funds for legal proceedings and enlisted the support of Senator Basner.

97 CAD, NTS 4320 323/179, Records of the Proceedings of Rex v Language, charged for assault [common], 28 Nov. 1947. See Brakpan Herald, 2 Apr. 1948.

98 Nel, C. J., ‘Gedenkskrif: F. J. Nothling’, Journal of Racial Affairs, XXXII (1981)Google Scholar. See for example, Language, F.J., ‘Kennis van rasseprobleme noodsaaklik’ [Knowledge of racial problems essential], Sondagnuus, 19 10. 1947.Google Scholar

99 Cobley, A., Class and Consciousness: The Black Petty Bourgeoisie in South Africa, 1924–1950 (New York, 1990), 171Google Scholar. In the same way that Bopape could reconcile his seemingly contradictory allegiances to the CPSA and the Youth League, he also saw no incongruity between his occupation [based on the acquisition and sale of property] and his politics.

100 Delius, P., ‘Sebatakgomo: migrant organization, the ANC and the Sekhukuneland revolt’, J. Southern Afr. Studies, XV (1989), 581–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

101 H. Sapire and A. Cobley, interview with D. Bopape, 21 Sept. 1983.

102 CAD, NTS 4320 170/313, Minister of Native Affairs to the Native Commissioner, Benoni, 10 Dec. 1947.

103 Similarly, as Deon van Tonder has shown in his study of the genesis of the scheme to destroy the mixed suburb of Sophiatown in Johannesburg, while the United Party councillors were not as ideologically zealous and programmatic as their Nationalist counterparts, they were in essential agreement over the need to enforce spatial racial segregation; Van Tonder, ‘Sophiatown: removals and protest’, chs 1–3.

104 H. Sapire, interview with T. Mosuku, Tsakane, Jan. 1985.

105 CAD, NTS 4320 179/313, Statement of the Location Residents to the FCPC, n.d., but c. Sept. 1944.

106 Evans, , ‘The political economy’, 119–20.Google Scholar