Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T10:31:12.125Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transkeian Migrant Workers and Youth Labour on the Natal Sugar Estates 1918–1948*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

William Beinart
William Beinart
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the inter-war years, there were frequent reports of desertion, youth labour and atrocious conditions on the sugar estates of Natal, South Africa. Sugar production, assisted by heavy state protection, was expanding rapidly; planters recruited vigorously amongst rural Africans in Transkei to replace Indian indentured workers. They also used their political muscle in order to prevent the extension of labour regulations in the mining industry to the sugar fields and could thus employ workers rejected from the mines on health grounds as well as youths. The conflict between mines and agriculture over labour in South Africa was resolved by non-regulation of agriculture as well as by the immobilization of labour tenants on farms. Officials in the departments of Health and Native Affairs, anxious to control social disruption and minimize fatalities, tried to regulate the sugar estates. The issue divided the state and the Native Affairs Department.itself. Agrarian interests, including English-speaking planters, became particularly powerful in the inter-war years, and officials had little success in controlling them.

But African youth labour was available not simply because there was a large demand, but also because there was a supply. Youths had to work in peasant communities. Although their work was embedded in a different social ethic, there is evidence to suggest that demands on them were increasing; some ‘ran away’ to the sugar fields. Chiefs and councillors wished to control youth and child migration both because of fears about their welfare and the need for herdboys. This pattern of migration became less common in the 1940s not only because production patterns on the estates changed, but also because of social changes in the rural areas. As in other contexts, the nature of the South African labour market was partly shaped through a process of struggle within and by rural communities.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 41 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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

1 South African archives, Pretoria, Native Affairs papers (NTS) 2048 71/280. Annexure B to file 65/280 part III. ‘Report by Committee to Enquire into: (1) The mortality amongst natives at Izingolweni who were returning home from the sugar estates, and (2) The general medical attention on the sugar estates in Natal’, Larsen, E. J., Station Master Izingolweni to Magistrate Harding, 6 January 1922.Google Scholar

2 Ibid.

3 Izingolweni served another important function as soon as it was built. In 1912–13, the devastating tick-borne cattle disease of East Coast Fever reached Pondoland from Natal. Ox-wagon transport was greatly disrupted, and the station quickly became a railhead for goods moving in and out of Eastern Pondoland. See Beinart, W., The Political Economy of Pondoland (Cambridge, 1982), ch. 3.Google Scholar Izingolweni, picturesque under a canopy of tall gum trees, remains a small station. Most rail traffic now goes via Umtata or Kokstad, and most passenger traffic into Natal is by bus. (Rail lines were not extended into Pondoland.)

4 NTS 2048 71/280, Larsen to Magistrate Harding, 6 January 1922. The road from Izingolweni to Lusikisiki via Bizana, Emagusheni and Flagstaff was a good 100 miles, but many migrant workers still walked straight overland and slept in homesteads on the route which cut the distance by about half.

5 Ibid.

6 NTS 2408 71/280, annexure A to the Committee report, Statement by Lc/Sergt. S. Swartz, 8 November 1922.

7 NTS 71/280, Report of Committee. The subsequent parts of this section are based on the report itself except where otherwise mentioned.

8 Dr Bonfa, the medical officer in question, was also Umzinto District Surgeon, Indian Medical Officer, Railway Medical Officer and Gaol Medical Officer and had a large private practice with both white and black patients. He and his assistants admitted that estate workers were a low priority and that minimum anti-scorbutic diets were not arranged even for those workers who did get to hospital and dressing stations.

9 NTS 2048 65/280 vol. III, Annexure C, CMT to SNA, 4 June 1924 enclosing minutes of discussion at Transkeian Magistrates officials conference.

10 NTS 7048 65/280, part I, Chairman, Natal Sugar Association, speech on 19 September 1911 as reported in Natal Mercury, 20 September 1911.

11 The words come from a white Natal Provincial Councillor. Archive of the Department of Commerce and Industry, Pretoria, HEN 1092 135/4 vol. II, Article by Feldman, R. MPC in Illustrated News, 13 02 1946Google Scholar: ‘We don't want sweated sugar’.

12 Albert, Bill and Graves, Adrian (eds.), Crisis and Change in the International Sugar Economy (Norwich, 1984);Google ScholarRichardson, Peter, ‘The Natal sugar industry in the nineteenth century’, in Beinart, W., Delius, P. and Trapido, S. (eds.), Putting a Plough to the Ground (Johannesburg, 1986)Google Scholar; Swan, Maureen, Gandhi: The South African Experience (Johannesburg, 1983).Google Scholar

13 Harries, Patrick, ‘Plantations, passes and proletarians: labour and the colonial state in nineteenth century Natal’, Journal of Southern African Studies, XIII (1987)Google Scholar; Marks, S., Reluctant Rebellion (London, 1970).Google Scholar

14 NTS 7048 65/280, part I, Chairman, Natal Sugar Association, speech on 19 September 1911 as reported in Natal Mercury, 20 September 1911.

15 Harries, , ‘Plantations, passes and proletarians’ Jeeves, A., Migrant Labour in South Africa's Mining Economy (Kingston, 1985).Google Scholar

16 NTS 7048 65/280, part I, speech 19 September 1911.

17 Gandhi, Swan; Swan, M., ‘The Natal Indian strike of 1913’, Journal of Southern African Studies, XI (1984).Google Scholar

18 NTS 7048 65/280, vol. I, for records on the problems of labour supply in the 1910s from which much of the following paragraphs is drawn. See also Natal Coast Labour Recruiting Corporation, Proceedings of Annual General Meeting, 1919 (Durban, 1919)Google Scholar for detailed notes on labour problems.

19 Etherington, N., ‘Labour supply and the genesis of the South African Confederation in the 1870s’, Journal of African History, XX (1979), 235–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harries, ‘Plantations, passes and proletarians’.

20 See Morrell, R., ‘Competition and cooperation in Middelburg, 1900–1930’, in Beinart, Delius and Trapido (eds.), Putting a Plough to the Ground, 394Google Scholar, for attempts by Bethal and Middelburg maize and potato farmers to find a similar supply.

21 NTS 7048 65/280, Edward Dower, Secretary of Native Affairs, to Henry Burton, Minister of Native Affairs, 26 September 1911. A departmental committee into the ‘Alleged shortage of Native labour in the Natal province’ was appointed and reported in 1918. For inspections of conditions on the fields see Natal Archives, CNC 358/1465/1919.

22 Wilks, Terry, Douglas Mitchell (Durban, 1980), 14.Google Scholar

23 No central record was kept of the number of migrant workers from Pondoland on the estates; passes were not always obtained nor are pass figures available for this period. These figures are based on estimates made by the industry or government enquiries.

24 Beinart, Pondoland.

25 See pp. 53–55 below.

26 NTS 2048 65/280, vol. II, note on J. Mould Young CMT to SNA, 2 July 1934.

27 Richardson, ‘The Natal sugar industry’.

28 Hammond, A. G., South African Cane Growers' Association: The First 50 Years 1927–1977 (Durban, 1977)Google Scholar is a detailed treatment of tariff issues and legislation. The book, like the South African Sugar Journal which Hammond edited, makes little mention of sugar workers. Biljon, F. J. van, State Interference in South Africa (London, 1939)Google Scholar has an interesting chapter on sugar. For Mozambique, see, Vail, L. and White, L., Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique (Minneapolis, 1980), ch. 5.Google Scholar Conditions and wages on Hornung's giant Sena Sugar Estates in Quelimane which had supplied the South African market were probably worse than in Hurwitz, Natal. N., Agriculture in Natal 1860–1950, Natal Regional Survey, vol. 12 (Cape Town, 1957).Google Scholar

29 Union of South Africa, Report of the Sugar Enquiry Commission, 1922.Google Scholar

30 Albert, Bill and Graves, Adrian (eds.), The World Sugar Economy in War and Depression, 1914–40 (Routledge, 1988)Google Scholar for the international context; Wilson, Francis, ‘Farming, 1866–1966’, in Wilson, M. and Thompson, L. (eds.), The Oxford History of South Africa, vol. II (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar, for the local context.

31 Union of South Africa, Social and Economic Planning Council, The Future of Farming in South Africa, report no. 4, U.G. 10–1945. One of the leading critics of agricultural protectionism, Prof C. S. Richards of the University of the Witwatersrand, seems to have come to a similar conclusion some years before in his ‘Subsidies, quotas, tariffs and the excess cost of agriculture in South Africa’, South African Journal of Economics, III (1935), Table II, 381.Google Scholar

32 Martin, W. A., ‘Subsidies, quotas, tariffs and the excess cost of agriculture in South Africa: a criticism’, South African Journal of Economics, III (1935), 567.Google Scholar

33 See Wilson, , ‘Farming’ van Biljon, ‘State interference’ Richards, ‘Subsidies, quotas’ Horwitz, R., The Political Economy of South Africa (London, 1967).Google Scholar

34 Richards, ‘Subsidies, quotas’ suggests this; wool producers by contrast received a subsidy for export.

35 Hammond, , First Fifty Years, 136.Google Scholar

36 Hammond, First Fifty Years, passim., Marks, Shula, ‘Natal, the Zulu royal family and the origins of segregation’, Journal of Southern African Studies, IV (1979)Google Scholar; Marks, S., The Ambiguities of Dependence (Johannesburg, 1987)Google Scholar; Dubow, S., Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919–36 (London, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 There is extensive correspondence in NTS 2048 65/280 and subsequent files.

38 See note 26.

39 The Pondoland General Council covered the three Western Pondoland districts from 1913 to 1927 when the four Eastern Pondoland districts were incorporated. In 1931 the PGC was merged with the Transkeian Territories General Council to form the United TTGC which met annually. Debates were recorded.

40 United Transkeian Territories General Council (UTTGC), Debates and Proceedings, 1934, 166.Google Scholar

41 UTTGC, 1936, 241.

42 NTS 2202 315/280, including Union of South Africa, Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to Enquire into and report upon certain questions relating to Native Labour in Zululand, the Transkeian Territories and the Ciskei (Pretoria, 1935)Google Scholar and minutes of evidence, especially of Larrington, Macleod, and J. Moshesh, L. Bam and C. Sakwe for the UTTGC, 42.

43 There was considerable interchange between the Natal and Transkei sections of the service although less so between these and the Department of Native Labour and Head Office. J. Mould Young, the Chief Magistrate in the 1930s, had served as CNC in Natal; Pringle, the Lusikisiki magistrate in the early 1930s, had also been a key Natal magistrate. However, they became increasingly concerned about the issue when serving in the Transkei, and Lugg, the Natal CNC from 1934, seemed to be more sympathetic to the planters.

44 Dubow, S., ‘Holding “A just balance between black and white”: The Native Affairs Department in South Africa c. 1920–1933’, Journal of Southern African Studies, XII (1986).Google Scholar

45 Union of South Africa, Report of the Native Farm Labour Committee, 1937–39 (Pretoria, 1939), paragraph 496, 207.Google Scholar

46 Cape Archives, CMT 3/604/49, Table attached to Director of Native Labour, circular, 10 May 1922; Fox, D. and Back, D., ‘A preliminary survey of the Transkeian territories with special reference to their bearing on the recruiting of labourers for the gold mining industry’, unpublished report to the Chamber of Mines, Johannesburg, 1938, Table 29, 240.Google Scholar

47 NTS 7048 65/280, report in Natal Mercury, 20 September 1911.

48 la Hausse, P., ‘Mayihlome! towards an understanding of Amalaita gangs in Durban c. 1900–1930’, unpublished paper, 1988Google Scholar, forthcoming Journal of Southern African Studies, VI (1990)Google Scholar; van Onselen, C., ‘The witches of suburbia: domestic service on the Witwatersrand, 1890–1914’, in Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand 1886–1914, vol.2 (London, 1982)Google Scholar; Atkins, Keletso, ‘Origins of the Amawasha: the Zulu Washerman's Guild in Natal, 1850–1910’, Journal of African History, XXVII (1986).Google Scholar

49 GNLB 252 357/10/98, enclosing newspaper cutting. Reference from Paul la Hausse.

50 Delius, P. and Trapido, S., ‘Inboekselings and Oorlams: the creation and trans formation of a servile class’, Journal of Southern African Studies, VIII (1982)Google Scholar; Keegan, T., Rural Transformations in Industrialising South Africa (London, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar includes the most developed analysis of African family labour on white-owned farms.

51 Interviews, Mcetywa Mjomi, Amadiba location, Bizana, 15 April 1982; Meje Ngalonkulu, Mtayiso location, Bizana, 7 April 1982; Phatho Madikizela, Amangutyana location, Bizana, 12 April 1982.

52 Beinart, , Pondoland; Monica Hunter, Reaction to Conquest (London, 1936, 1964).Google Scholar

53 Guy, J., ‘Analysing pre-capitalist societies in southern Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, XIV (1987) for a recent restatement of this position.Google Scholar

54 Beinart, , Pondoland, Tables 5 and 6.Google Scholar

55 Pondoland General Council, 1929, 57–8, speech by Councillor Soxujwa, Lusikisiki.

56 Interview, Phato Madikizela, Mbongweni, Bizana, 12 April 1982.

57 Cape Archives, CMT 3/604/49 for the case of Govuza who deserted in 1921. Interview, Leonard Mdingi, June 1982.

58 University of Cape Town library, MS BC 630, ‘Memorandum dealing with the conditions of Native Labour in the sugar industry for submission to the Natives Laws Commission of Enquiry’, South Africa Sugar Association, 8 January 1947.

59 Ibid.; Union of South Africa, Report of the Native Laws Commission, 1946–8 (U.G. 28–1948).

60 Dubow, , Racial Segregation, 145.Google Scholar

61 ‘Memo, dealing with Native Labour in the Sugar Industry’.

62 Figures are taken from the Agricultural Census material which recorded, in these years, both the acreage of Uba and other canes planted and reaped.

63 Social and Economic Planning Council, The Future of Farming in South Africa.

64 Watson, R. G. T., Tongaati: An African Experiment (London, 1960)Google Scholar; van den Berghe, P., Caneville the Social Structure of a South African Town (Middletown, Connecticut, 1964).Google Scholar

65 Department of Health Archives (GES), especially GES 585 36/12 and 2624–2628 6/56. See Packard, Randall M., ‘Maize, cattle and mosquitoes: the political economy of malaria epidemics in colonial Swaziland’, Journal of African History, XXV (1984), 189–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 NTS 2049 65/280A, Secretary of Public Health to SNA, 10 May 1929.

67 Watson, , Tongaati, 15.Google Scholar

68 GES 2624 6/56, vol. I, ‘Report on investigations into malaria epidemic in Stanger, Mtunzini and Eshowe Magisterial areas’, Government Pathologist et al to Assistant Health Officer, Durban, 11 June 1929 and J. Alexander Mitchell to Prime Minister, 31 July 1929.

69 NTS 2048 65/280, Report on visit by SNA D. Smit to Natal Sugar estates.

70 Hammond, , The First Fifty Years, ch. 10.Google Scholar

71 Swan, Maureen, ‘Ideology in organised Indian politics, 1891–1948’, in Marks, S. and Trapido, S. (eds.), Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa (London, 1987).Google Scholar I am indebted to Maureen Swan for discussions of this period as well as

72 Union activities in the sugar industry are the subject of considerable correspondence in NTS 2049 65/280 and HEN 1092 135/4.

73 The African National Congress newspaper, New Age, carried considerable coverage of rural labour conditions in the 1950s. See Morris, M., ‘State intervention and the agricultural labour supply post-1948’, in Wilson, F., Kooy, A. and Hendrie, D. (eds.), Farm Labour in South Africa (Cape Town, 1977).Google Scholar