Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note for Readers
- Introduction: Searching the Archive
- 1 Representations of Domestic Workers
- 2 Enslaved Women at the Cape: The First Domestic Workers
- 3 Migrant Women and Domestic Work in the City
- 4 Legislation and Black Urban Women
- 5 Domestic Workers in Personal Accounts
- 6 Oral Testimonies, Interviews and a Novel
- 7 Domestic Workers and Children
- 8 Domestic Workers and Sexuality
- 9 Domestic Workers in Troubled Times
- 10 Domestic Workers in Post-apartheid Novels by White Authors
- 11 Domestic Workers in Post-apartheid Novels by Black Authors
- 12 Domestic Workers Bridge the Gap
- Notes
- Artists and Photographers
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Legislation and Black Urban Women
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 October 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note for Readers
- Introduction: Searching the Archive
- 1 Representations of Domestic Workers
- 2 Enslaved Women at the Cape: The First Domestic Workers
- 3 Migrant Women and Domestic Work in the City
- 4 Legislation and Black Urban Women
- 5 Domestic Workers in Personal Accounts
- 6 Oral Testimonies, Interviews and a Novel
- 7 Domestic Workers and Children
- 8 Domestic Workers and Sexuality
- 9 Domestic Workers in Troubled Times
- 10 Domestic Workers in Post-apartheid Novels by White Authors
- 11 Domestic Workers in Post-apartheid Novels by Black Authors
- 12 Domestic Workers Bridge the Gap
- Notes
- Artists and Photographers
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Native man is himself the arbiter of his women's conduct and […] any incursion damaging to the domestic state of the Native people becomes an extremely hazardous proceeding.
Editorial — Umteteli wa Bantu, 31 January 1925While South African cities may have different origins and histories, their demographics have all been determined by laws and regulations relating to race relations. After gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in 1886, the mining settlement had a continuous stream of newcomers, and Johannesburg soon became the fastestgrowing and largest city in South Africa. Katherine Eales identifies four distinct periods when black women migrated to Johannesburg: 1903–1912, 1913–1923, 1924–1931 and 1932–1939. Apart from the many other restrictions they faced, the looming threat of the pass laws, which were eventually implemented in 1956, was a heavy burden to domestic workers. To this day, a defining characteristic of many such women is their status as migrant workers.
1903–1912
‘She may take it into her head to walk away the next day’
The fact that 1903 is such an important date regarding the settlement of black people on the Witwatersrand is owing to the South African War (1899–1902). Quite apart from the imperialistic ambitions of Cecil John Rhodes, the war was provoked by the British to give them a greater say in the running of the gold mines in the Boer Republics. The lengthy war had left the region's economy in tatters, and there was an urgent need for the mines to start producing again. There was a huge shortage of unskilled labour in the area around Johannesburg, and around 129 000 workers were urgently needed to go down the mines. In his influential study, Anglo American and the Rise of Modern South Africa (1984), Duncan Innes makes the following observation: ‘Given the centrality of the mines to the Transvaal's economic recovery, the mines’ labour problems became the state's Native Question in this period.’ Initially, the term ‘natives’ referred only to men, and so women were not considered part of the ‘Native Question’. The result was that, for many years, women occupied an ambivalent space in the urban environment.
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- Like FamilyDomestic Workers in South African History and Literature, pp. 57 - 82Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2019