Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T08:00:17.039Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Natal Sugar Industry, 1849–1905: An Interpretative Essay*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Peter Richardson
Peter Richardson
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper has sought to examine the basis of capital accumulation in the Natal sugar industry from its beginnings in the late 1840s until the opening of Zululand for white settlement in 1905. It has traced the emergence of plantation production in the colony in the context of developments within the regional sugar market and the shifting patterns of the international trade. It has also sought to elucidate the weaknesses of this system which undermined and finally destroyed it in an extended crisis which lasted from the late 1860s until the turn of the century. Finally it has analysed the productive relations which emerged within this reconstructed industry, identifying the large units of production known as the miller-cum-planter concerns which combined central milling activities and extended areas of cane production in a form of monopolistic control which still profoundly affects the industry today.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , October 1982 , pp. 515 - 527
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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 Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, P., Abstract of British Historical Statistics (London, 1962), 356–7Google Scholar; for a general discussion of the global implications of this enormous increase in demand see Hobsbawm, E. J., The Age of Capital, 1848–1875 (London, 1975), 205–27.Google Scholar

2 Martineau, G., A Short History of Sugar, 1856–1916: A Warning (London, 1917), 14–15.Google Scholar

3 Green, W. A., British Slave Emancipation: The Sugar Colonies and the Great Experiment, 1830–1865 (London, 1976), Table 17, 284.Google Scholar

4 Albert, B., An Essay on the Peruvian Sugar Industry, 1880–1920 (Norwich, 1976), 16a–25a.Google Scholar

5 Graves, A. A., ‘Pacific Island Labour in the Queensland Sugar Industry, 1862–1906’ (D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar, passim.

6 Hattersley, A. F., The British Settlement of Natal, A Study in Imperial Migration (London, 1950), 224–48.Google Scholar

7 Natal Archives Depot (NAD), Pietermaritzburg, Natal (PMB) – Natal Blue Books (NBB), Report of the Trade Commission, 1885–6 (PMB, 1886), evidence of Acutt, 91.Google Scholar

8 NAD/I.I./1/2, Report on Emigration from Calcutta by Colpepper, 1877.

9 McMartin, A., ‘The Early Days of the Natal Sugar Industry with Special Reference to the Introduction of Varieties’, Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Congress of the South African Sugar Technologists Association, 13–18 April 1948 (Durban, 1949), 83Google Scholar; Hattersley, A. F., The Natations: Further Annals of Natal (PMB, 1940), 79.Google Scholar

10 Natal, , Blue Books, 1852–1866 (PMB, 1853–1867)Google Scholar, passim.

11 NAD/NBB, Report of the Commission to Enquire into the Failure of Coffee Cultivation in the Colony of Natal, 1881 (PMB, 1881)Google Scholar, passim; Hattersley, , The British Settlement of Natal etc., 225–35.Google Scholar

12 Natal, , Blue Books, 1852–1866 (PMB, 1853–1867)Google Scholar, passim.

13 Campbell, W., ‘Sugar Planting in Natal’, Natal Almanac and Register for 1874, 157–8.Google Scholar

14 Natal Ordinances 6 and 7 of 1855; Natal Law 1 of 1867; Law 16 of 1875; Laws 2, 3 and 4 of 1881 and Law of 1886.

15 Schedule A to Natal Ordinances 6 and 7 of 1855.

16 Order-in-Council of Sept. 1846; Natal Ordinances 6 and 7 of 1855; Law 19 of 1859; Law 11 of 1861; Law 13 of 1863; Law 1 of 1867.

17 Slater, H., ‘The Changing Pattern of Economic Relationships in Rural Natal, 1838–1914’ in Marks, S. and Atmore, A. (eds), Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa (London, 1980), 154.Google Scholar

18 See inter alia Welsh, D., The Roots of Segregation. Native Policy in Colonial Natal, 1845–1910 (Cape Town, 1971)Google Scholar, passim; Thompson, L. M., ‘Indian Immigration into Natal, 1860–1872’, Archives Year Book of South African History, xv, ii (1952), 1–67a.Google Scholar

19 Tayal, M., ‘Indian Indentured Labour in Natal, 1890–1911’, Indian Econ. and Soc. Hist. Rev., xiv, iv (1979), 519.Google Scholar

20 NAD/NBB, Report of the Indian Immigration Commission, 1908–1909 (PMB, 1909), 4–5.Google Scholar

21 Slater, , Changing Patterns, 149 and 159.Google Scholar

22 Douglas, A., ‘A Month's Trip to Natal’, The Cape Monthly Magazine, xiii (new series), (06-12 1876), 51.Google Scholar

23 Cape Archives Depot, Cape Town – Master of the Supreme Courts Records – Insolvent Estates, 2/854,1857, No. 68, Insolvent Estate of E. L. Chiappini, List of Assets; Robinson, J., Notes on Natal. An Old Colonist's Book for New Settlers (Durban, 1872), 27.Google Scholar

24 Graves, A. and Richardson, P., ‘Plantations in the Political Economy of Colonial Sugar Production: Natal and Queensland, 1860–1914’, J. Southern African Studies, vi, ii (1980), 223–8.Google Scholar

25 See for example Natal, , Blue Book for 1868, Return of Manufacturers, Y8–Y24.Google Scholar

26 Natal, , Blue Book for 1865, Improvements in Agriculture and Manufacture Introduced, Y22.Google Scholar

27 NAD/NBB, Report of the Protector of Immigrants for the y/e 30 June 1894: Memorandum to the Government of India with reference to suggested alterations in the conditions under which Indian labourers may be indentured in Natal, 20 June 1894, 419–20.

28 Local History Museum, Durban, Record of Proceedings and Information Collected for Planters' Conference, Durban, 13 July 1888, statement by Polkinghorne, J. A., Nollsworth, Victoria County, 20–1.Google Scholar

29 Thompson, E. T., ‘The Plantation: The Physical Basis of Traditional Race Relations’, in Thompson, E. T. (ed.), Race Relations and the Race Problem: A Definition and an Analysis (Durham, N.C., 1939), 180–218.Google Scholar

30 Eisenberg, P. L., The Sugar Industry in Pernambuco. Modernization without Change, 1840–1910 (London, 1974), 85.Google Scholar

31 Green, , British Slave Emancipation, 254–5Google Scholar; Bernstein, H. and Pitt, M., ‘Plantations and Modes of Exploitation’, J. Peasant Studies, i, iv (07 1974), 517–20.Google Scholar

32 For the alternatives available to Africans even in white areas see Slater, H., ‘Land, Labour and Capital in Natal: the Natal Land and Colonization Company, 1860–1948’, J. Afr. Hist., xvi, ii (1975), 257–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Etherington, N., Preachers, Peasants and politics in South East Africa, 1835–1880. African Christian Communities in Natal, Pondoland and Zululand (London, 1978), 120–2.Google Scholar

34 Hattersley, , The British Settlement of Natal etc., 240–1Google Scholar; Robinson, , Notes on Natal, 113.Google Scholar

35 Robinson, , Notes on Natal, 90–1.Google Scholar

36 Campbell, W. Y., The Natal Sugar Industry. An Enquiry and Report (Durban, 1885), 93.Google Scholar

37 de Kiewiet, C. W., The Imperial Factor in South Africa. A Study in Politics and Economics (Cambridge, 1937; reprinted London, 1965), 195–6.Google Scholar

38 Hancox, F. V. P., ‘From Sandbank to Superport. The Growth of Durban Harbour’, in Macmillan, A. (ed.), Durban Past and Present: Historical, Descriptive, Commercial, Industrial (Durban, 1928), 63–72.Google Scholar

39 NAD/NBB, Report of the Industries and Tariff Revision Commission, with Appendices and Evidence (PMB, 1906)Google Scholar, evidence of Bishop, q. 15 and 16; Killie Campbell Library (KCL), Durban – Marshall Campbell Papers (MCP), Sugar Corr., MS. Sug. 1.091, M. Campbell to Imp. Sec., 3 Nov. 1902.

40 See for example KCL/MS. 1812, Papers of Natal Plantations Co. Ltd, affidavit of E. Taussig in the case of Natal Plantations Co. Ltd vs. F. B. Louch, 7 Mar. 1878.

41 Natal, , Blue Books, 1852–1893 (PMB, 1853–1894)Google Scholar; Natal, , Statistical Year Books, 1894–1904 (PMB, 1895–1905).Google Scholar

42 British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1877, lxxxv, C. 1842, Statistical Abstract for the Several Colonial and Other Possessions of the UK, 1861–1875: BPP 1886, lxxxiii, C. 4825, ibid, for 1871–85; BPP 1896, xxxii, C. 8210, ibid, for 1881–95; BPP 1906, cxxxii, Cd. 3253, Statistical Abstract for the Several British Colonies, Possessions and Protectorates, 1891–1905.

43 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for Natal in 1897, in Agricultural Journal and Mining Review, I, xii (1898), 367.Google Scholar

44 South African Sugar Association, The Natal Sugar Industry (Durban, 1924), 58Google Scholar; Union of South Africa, Board of Trade and Industries, Report No. 66: Report on the Sugar Industry (Cape Town, 1926), 3.Google Scholar

45 Natal, , Blue Books, 1877–1893 (PMB 1878–1894)Google Scholar: Statistical Year Books, 1894–1898 (PMB 1895–1898).Google Scholar

46 Christopher, A. J., ‘Natal: A Study in Colonial Land Settlement’ (University of Natal, Ph.D. Thesis, 1969), 339.Google Scholar

47 Tayal, ‘Indian Indentured Labour in Natal’, passim.

48 This phrase appears for the first time in the Sugar Act of 1936.

49 Not all sugar grown in Natal was crushed on the planters’ own estates even in the early days, although the percentage of growers relative to plantations was small; for an example of this type of arrangement prior to the emergence of the miller-cum-planter, see Mann, R. J., The Colony of Natal: An Account of the Characteristics and Capabilities of this British Dependency (London, 1859), 73.Google Scholar

50 Natal Agricultural Journal, viii, vii (1905), 64.Google Scholar

51 S. A. Sugar Year Book and Directory for 1930 (Durban, 1930), 37–41Google Scholar; ibid, for 1931, 203–4.

52 Macmillan, , Durban Past and Present, 310–11.Google Scholar

53 Agricultural Journal and Mining Review, 1, xxi (1898), 656–7Google Scholar; ibid. I, xxii (1899), 675–7; ibid, i, xxvii (1899), 865–7.

54 See for example Trollope, A., South Africa, 2 vols. (London, 1878), 1, 267–8Google Scholar; Kermode, W., Natal. Its Early History, Rise, Progress and Future Prospects as a Field of Emigration (London, 1882), 163.Google Scholar

55 Brookes, E. H. and Webb, C. de B., A History of Natal (PMB, 1965). 196–6.Google Scholar

56 Campbell, W. Y., The Natal Sugar Industry, 59Google Scholar; Cave, A. E., The Book of Natal Industries (Durban, 1893), 37–9.Google Scholar

57 Union of S.A., Board of Trade and Industries Report No. 66, 27.Google Scholar

58 NAD/NBB, Report of the Lands Commission with Appendices and Minutes of Evidence, 1902 (PMB, 1902), 4, 28Google Scholar; NAD/NBB, Report of the Native Affairs Commission, 1906–7, with Evidence (PMB, 1907)Google Scholar, evidence of Wm. Pearce, 76.

59 NAD/NBB, Report by the Joint Imperial and Colonial Commissioners of the Zululand Lands Delimitation Commission, 1902–1904 (PMB, 1905)Google Scholar, Final Report, 18 Oct. 1904, 46; Stuart, J., A History of the Zulu Rebellion of 1906 and of Dinizulu's Arrest, Trial and Expatriation (London, 1913), 478Google Scholar; Marks, S., Reluctant Rebellion. The 1906–8 Disturbances in Natal (London, 1979), 120–43.Google Scholar

60 NAD – Natal Sessional Papers, L.A. 4, 4th Session, 4th Parliament, Précis of Action Taken by Government re tenders for establishment of a Central Sugar Mill In Zululand, 19 June 1906; S.A. Sugar Year Book etc., for 1930, 187–92.