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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
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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

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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’.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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