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Company estate, company town: Pilgrim's Rest 1910-1932

Literature › Works

Bonner, P.C.; Shapiro, K. (1987). Company estate, company town: Pilgrim's Rest 1910-1932. African Studies Seminar Paper No. 223, African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand (seminar of 19 October 1987). University of the Witwatersrand, African Studies Institute.
Type working paper
Scope Economics and economic history of apartheid
Method archival narrative
Period studied 1895–1932
Regions Pilgrim's Rest (eastern Transvaal), Lowveld / Bushbuckridge, Mozambique and Nyasaland labour sources, Witwatersrand (as comparator)
Themes mining migrant labour, agriculture land, origins segregation, labour markets wages, business and state, resistance social movements, unions strikes
Citation key bonner1987

Argument

The paper argues that South African mining history has wrongly equated mining with the Rand. Peripheral sectors such as the eastern Transvaal gold fields, Natal and Witbank coal, and Rhodesian gold had thinner profit margins and were drained of labour by the Rand's higher wages. The Transvaal Gold Mining Estates (TGME) answered by combining a company estate (labour tenancy on 29-32 freehold farms) with a company town that controlled the white population. Black labour was secured through rent-for-labour obligations, juvenile and Mozambican workers, chiefly collaboration, and a lax, informal compound regime that bought a measure of consent. The company also relied on a weak and compliant Native Affairs Department. From the 1918 influenza epidemic, falling yields and rising costs led TGME to tighten the squeeze on tenants, and the old order had broken down by the early 1930s.

Evidence and method

TGME company archives at Pilgrim's Rest (head office and general notebooks, mine reports), Barlow Rand Archive (TGME annual reports), Central Archives Depot files (GNLB, NTS, MNW) on Native Affairs and labour, commissions of evidence (Eastern Transvaal Land Commission 1918, Native Economic Commission 1931-2, Low Grade Mines Commission), the Natal Advertiser and local press, Mabin's unpublished seminar papers, and oral interviews in 1985 with former mine workers (Silikane, Sedibe, Mashile, Kok, Chief Mogane).

Place in the debates

Findings

  • Peripheral mining sectors paid less than the Rand and suffered labour drain, pushing them to coercive or informal labour-capture devices. (p. 3)

    Both industries responded by depressing the wages of black workers to rates substantially below those ruling on the Rand, and by shaving costs in the provision of accommodation, food, health and safety to dangerously low levels.

  • TGME owned the town's institutions and could exclude opponents even though it lacked scrip or a company store. (p. 8)

    Nevertheless the TGME did own the town - its stores, its houses, its churches, hospitals and schools

  • Estate tenants paid rent and owed labour-service tickets, with a real burden heavier than the nominal six months. (p. 9)

    £1 for each extra wife (plus sundry minor charges), and the performance of 6 'tickets' of 30 shifts on the TGME mines.

  • Tenants' sons supplied cheap juvenile labour that suited narrow stopes and cut costs. (p. 9)

    forty to fifty per cent of the TGME's 3 000 workers were under 18 years of age.

  • Black wages at TGME were far below Rand levels in 1918 (average 1/3d a shift against 2/2d on the Rand). (p. 11)

  • The state failed to apply the 1911 Native Labour Regulation Act to the district, allowing tenant recruitment to continue. (p. 12)

    Section 4 of the Act which prohibited the recruitment of rent-paying tenants by landlords was quietly ignored (53).

  • The 1918 influenza epidemic marked the turning point from boom to decline and led TGME to demand more state intervention. (p. 16)

    Spanish 'flu ushered in an era of declining yields, dwindling profits and labour unrest.

  • Lax pass and registration practice allowed workers to desert and return, which helped secure consent. (p. 19)

    'few mines require the production of a travelling pass when a native is engaged'

  • Half of TGME's lowveld labour came from its own large landholdings, which gave tenants relatively generous land access. (p. 23)

    Of this a full 50% was drawn from the TGME's 87 000 morgen land-holdings in the area of Bushbuckridge

  • The company used chiefly collaboration to sustain pre-capitalist relations and supply cheap, docile labour. (p. 25)

    In a more direct way than perhaps anywhere else in South Africa, the company thus sustained pre-capitalist relations of production, to provide it with cheap and relatively docile labour power.

  • Profits fell sharply after 1920, driving the squeeze on tenants. (p. 25)

    Between 1921 and 1932 working profit on the mines only three times exceeded £40 000.

  • Juvenile labour was economically critical to low-grade mines, which is why the company resisted enforcement of the 1911 Act. (p. 27)

    Between 1 200 and 1 500 juveniles were employed by TGME, and these often meant the difference between profit and loss on the company's small low grade mines.

  • Tenant crowding on the company farms increased in the later period (citing Mabin), with the land and livestock base eroded. (p. 30)

    the numbers of families residing on the company's six most densely settled Pilgrim's Rest farms rising from 395 in 1934 to 726 in 1945

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source Kind Period How used
TGME Archives, Pilgrim's Rest: General Notebooks, Head Office Notebooks, Letterbooks and mine reports (Barry to Secretaries/Chairman, etc.) company records or reports 1914-1926 (notebooks), c.1915-1921 Establishes company management's views, labour policy, pressure on officials, labour shortages, flogging and responses to the 1918 influenza and 1920 strike.
Barlow Rand Archive (BRA), TGME Annual Reports 1907-1932, including 'Summary of Results Since Commencement of Milling Operations', 1895-1932 company records or reports 1895-1932 Supplies profit figures, floods and cyclone damage, labour supply remarks, mortality comparisons and mine closures.
TGME Vaalhoek Mine monthly reports 1918-1925 and Elandsdrift Mine Annual Reports 1918-1926 company records or reports 1917-1926 Used to show seasonal recruitment troughs (October-January) and Mozambican workers returning at that time.
TGME Diaries of Mrs Gladys Barry, Jan 1915-June 1917; TGME 'Diamond Jubilee 1895-1955' (Registrar of Companies) company records or reports 1915-1917; 1955 Documents the May 1915 anti-German riots and the company's German/Rand Mines links.
TGME file 5EH, SAMWU correspondence (Miners' Union, du Toit; Moyle-Phillips) union or movement records 1919-1920 Shows the company's refusal of a closed shop and union agreements.
Central Archives Depot (CAD), Governor-General file GG 1411 44/25 (Pilgrim's Rest Vigilance Association correspondence) state archives 1915 Source for residents' complaints about company autocracy and the government's non-response.
CAD, Government Native Labour Bureau file GNLB 303 402/18/98 state archives 1918-1919 Provides wage comparisons, juvenile labour, conferences on enforcing the 1911 Act, the deputation notes and Mining Commissioner statements.
CAD, Native Affairs file NTS 271 1190/16/F639 (and F634, F693): Cooke report of Dec 1918, Barry letters, Soames memo, Cochran report on Graskop maladministration, Hook report state archives 1916-1919 Evidence on compound conditions, desertion, child labour, flogging of tax defaulters and the Arbous scandal.
CAD, MNW 527 2338/20 (Mines and Works file on the 1920 Sabie/Pilgrim's Rest strikes) state archives 1920 Documents the May 1920 strikes and the Transvaal Native Congress's role.
Minutes of Evidence to the Eastern Transvaal Native Land Committee/Commission 1918 (UG 32-'18) commission or official report 1918 Evidence on Shangane immigration, TGME landholdings (87,000 morgen), tenant prosperity and the labour tenancy terms.
Native Economic Commission 1931-2 evidence (CPSA Archives): replies to questionnaires by Assistant Native Commissioner Graskop, Lydenburg Magistrate, Zoutpansberg commission or official report 1931-1932 Supports claims on clandestine immigration, the length of time to work off tickets and women in the compounds.
Native Laws (Fagan) Commission 1947 minutes of evidence (CPSA Archives, Vol. 44), Chamber of Mines representative commission or official report 1947 Quoted to show coal mines accept family settlement because they cannot get migrants.
Low Grade Mines Commission, UG 34-'20 commission or official report 1920 Source for the average Rand African wage (2/2d per shift) against TGME's 1/3d.
Native Labour Regulation Act No. 15 of 1911 and the 1913 regulations; Phthisis Act 1919; 1916 Government Gazette proclamation legislation gazette 1911-1919 Frames the legal framework that the company evaded or resisted, including recruitment, registration and phthisis employment rules.
Oral history interviews: Christian Silikane, July Sedibe, Tiger Mashile, Jubilee Kok, Chief L.L. Mogane and others (Feb 1985) interviews oral history interviews 1985; recollections of c.1915-1932 Supplies worker experience of juvenile labour, influenza, compound life, tenant prosperity, the ICU and the land cuts.
Natal Advertiser (20 June, 3 July 1918) and The Pilgrims and Sabie News (18 June 1920) newspapers periodicals 1918-1920 Soames's 'Black Justice' exposé and the company press's stance on the 1920 strikes.
A. Mabin, 'Labour Tenancy and the Land Clearances at Pilgrim's Rest' (1985 seminar paper) and 'The Land Clearances at Pilgrim's Rest' secondary literature compilation 1934-1945 data Supplies the only hard figures on family numbers on the six most densely settled farms (395 in 1934 to 726 in 1945).
A.R.C. Fowler, 'Mining at Transvaal Gold Mining Estates, Limited, 1872-1967'; A.P. Cartwright, Valley of Gold secondary literature compilation 1872-1967 Supplies the mining history, floods, yield trends and shareholder pressures.

New data

The authors conducted oral-history interviews in 1985 with former TGME workers and a chiefly lineage (Silikane, Sedibe, Mashile, Kok, Mogane and others). No quantitative dataset was built.

Inference

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Archival case study of one company and its estate. It reconstructs the labour regime from company letterbooks, annual reports and Native Affairs files, supplemented by oral testimony, with implicit comparison to the Rand and to Rhodesian and coal-mining labour systems.

Key claims

Claim Basis Strength
TGME used its freehold estate of tenant farms to secure cheap labour through a labour-tenancy obligation of six 30-shift tickets, including juvenile and Mozambican labour. (p. 9) Mabin paper, ZAR exemption, Eastern Transvaal Land Commission evidence, Native Economic Commission replies, Mining Commissioner statements. Partial data
TGME paid African workers substantially less than Rand mines (1/3d against 2/2d a shift in December 1918). (p. 11) GNLB file letter of 28 Dec 1918 compared with the Low Grade Mines Commission average. Partial data
The company ran a tightly controlled company town over its white population, and officials were unable or unwilling to curb it. (p. 8) Vigilance Association letters to the Governor-General, Native Affairs files and TGME correspondence. Partial data
The state largely failed to enforce the 1911 Native Labour Regulation Act at Pilgrim's Rest, and officials who tried were hounded or retreated. (p. 12) CAD NTS and GNLB files, conference notes, Hemsworth and Arbous episodes, magistrate's report. Partial data
The 1918 influenza epidemic was the turning point after which labour supply, profits and yields declined and the company demanded harsher state control. (p. 15) Barry's letters to the Secretaries and Chairman, TGME Annual Reports, Native Commissioner Damant's report and oral testimony. Partial data
Consent was manufactured through lax compounds, the facility to desert, access to women and beer, proximity to home and fairly generous access to land. (p. 22) Cooke's report, Hook's report, oral interviews and company reports; the author concedes the evidence is scanty. Illustrative or anecdotal
After 1920 the company squeezed its tenants harder (flogging, Sunday work, land cuts), and the old collaborative relationships collapsed with Chief Chaane's removal in 1932. (p. 30) Mabin's family-count figures, TGME Annual Reports 1921-1932, and interviews with Sedibe, Mashile and Mogane. Illustrative or anecdotal
The company's profits peaked in 1911-1916 above £200,000 a year, then fell with declining yields. (p. 25) TGME Annual Reports, 'Summary of Results Since Commencement of Milling Operations', 1895-1932. Systematic data

The author's caveats

The authors admit the evidence is 'sparse' on the company's tolerance of undocumented Mozambican immigrants, that evidence on tenant prosperity is 'scanty', and that it is unclear how the 1919 enforcement conflict ended. They also say it is difficult to judge between conflicting opinions on compound health, and that only Mabin provides hard evidence on rising tenant numbers. A cyclone destroyed the Vaalhoek mine records in 1921.

Gaps in the evidence

The argument relies on a small number of management and official voices plus a handful of retrospective interviews, so the claims about consent, tenant prosperity and a golden age are hard to test. Systematic series would help: wage bills, tenant registers, shifts worked, labour turnover and desertion, mortality and morbidity by mine, and farm-level tenant counts. Parts of the TGME, Native Affairs and census material survive in archives, but the interview base is limited and cannot be extended to those who worked before about 1915.

Replicability: Data described but not public.