'Money with Dignity': Migrants, Minelords and the Cultural Politics of the South African Gold Standard Crisis, 1920-33¶
Keith Breckenridge (1995). 'Money with Dignity': Migrants, Minelords and the Cultural Politics of the South African Gold Standard Crisis, 1920-33. Journal of African History, 36(2). Cambridge University Press.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | mixed |
| Period studied | 1917–1933 |
| Regions | Witwatersrand, Transkei and Pondoland, Mozambique (Delagoa Bay hinterland), Britain and the international gold standard system |
| Themes | mining migrant labour, macro fiscal finance debt, business and state, labour markets wages, origins segregation, comparative theory |
| Citation key | breckenridge1995 |
Argument¶
Breckenridge argues that in the 1920s African migrant mineworkers and the mine owners ('minelords') jointly made gold coins the regional cornerstone of value. Mine owners, led by Samuel Evans of Crown Mines, defended the gold standard against British and South African state policy. They did so partly by paying wages in sovereigns and by invoking a 'metallic mystique' about African attitudes to money. Migrants, especially Mozambicans, had their own reasons to prefer gold: bridewealth, hoarding, resistance to discounting of paper, and male homestead authority. The 1931-33 abandonment of gold is read as a turning point. It freed mining capital and the state to profit from devaluation and let wages decline in value through chronic paper-money inflation. The author calls for a periodisation of southern African capitalism that joins cultural and economic history, and that keeps Marxist class politics alongside the anthropology of commodities.
Evidence and method¶
Archival material from the Transvaal Archives (GNLB), Central Archives (South African Mint), Barlow Rand Archives (Rand Mines letters, Evans letterbooks, directors' confidential letters), and the Chamber of Mines Archive (GPC minutes, Native Labour files). Also the Kemmerer-Vissering commission evidence, the Rand Daily Mail, Umteteli wa Bantu and Abantu Batho, Union Statistics for Fifty Years, ethnographies (Junod, Hunter), and oral-history interviews with old Mpondo and Bhaca miners conducted in 1992 with J. D. Mzayifani.
Place in the debates¶
- Periodisation of South African economic and political history (Wolpe, Yudelman, Davies et al.) (see Finance, capital flight, the 1985 debt crisis and banking). Endorses 1933, the end of the gold standard, as a major turning point, but on monetary and cultural grounds rather than the state/class-fraction grounds of earlier Marxist periodisations, which he says are detached from the daily lives of the masses.
- Cultural versus political-economy approaches to commodities and money (see Historiographical approaches). Draws on Appadurai, Ferguson and the Comaroffs but insists that class politics of production and the state must be integrated. He adds gold (imali bomvu) as a third term alongside cattle and paper money in the anthropology of commodities.
- Cheap labour thesis / mine owners' motives (see Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves). Rejects the view that the minelords' defence of gold was merely 'cynical hypocrisy' to get cheap servants. He says they acted against their immediate material interest, though by 1931 they embraced devaluation partly to cut the real cost of labour.
Findings¶
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Core thesis: migrants and mine owners together made gold the regional anchor of value in the 1920s. (p. 2)
in the course of the I920S African migrant mineworkers and their white bosses on the South African gold mines conspired to make gold coins the regional corner-stone of value.
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Gold paid to returning Mozambican migrants leaked out of the South African money supply, prompting the 1920 move to paper. (p. 9)
The South African money supply had begun to haemorrhage gold coins through Mozambique at a rate in excess of 5 per cent per annum.
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Mozambicans were a large, long-serving part of the workforce and led resistance to paper money. (p. 12)
never constituted less than 40 per cent of the mine workforce between the end of the First World War and the onset of the Depression.
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Paper wages were discounted in Delagoa Bay, which gave Mozambican migrants a concrete material reason to prefer gold. (p. 13)
Workers at Modderfontein B informed their compound manager that storeowners in the Delagoa Bay area were offering only I5 shillings for every pound that the migrants presented.
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The African wage bill in gold was comparable to the whole national paper note issue, so wage payments reshaped the money supply. (p. 19)
The total wage bill for African workers on the gold mines between I925 and I933 hovered around nine million pounds per year.
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Minelords did not coin their entire output largely because of strong non-monetary demand for gold, chiefly from India. (p. 19)
It was this massive, apparently insatiable, demand for non-monetary gold, which discouraged the mines from coining their gold.
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Compound savings societies were large and sophisticated, contradicting officials' picture of a 'primitive' economy of saving. (p. 24)
A treasurer at the Village Deep mine was found to be in possession of C2,000 - the full monthly wages of 500 workers.
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In 1932 the GPC abolished the re-engagement bonus as a wage cut aimed mainly at Mozambican workers, signalling a shift away from a skilled, stabilised workforce. (p. 27)
This move amounted to a reduction in the wages of experienced workers of 2d. per shift and it was directed very largely at Mozambican workers
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After leaving gold, mine revenues and profits rose sharply, and the mines' profitability came to depend on state-managed gold prices. (p. 31)
Revenue from the sale of gold jumped by twenty million pounds after 1932, a record year itself that saw the mines' gold revenues approach fifty million pounds for the first time.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| TAD GNLB 251, 340/16/90(1) Export of Gold over Inland Borders: Question of Payment to Natives of Paper Currency, 1919-22 (affidavits, correspondence, meeting report of 3 Oct 1919) | state archives | 1919-1922 | Establishes the 1919-20 official debate on gold leakage, the replacement of gold by notes, and worker and compound protests against paper wages. |
| Barlow Rand Archives (BRA), Method of paying natives paper currency, 1473x, 1920-42, 856 | company records or reports | 1920-1942 | Shows compound managers' views on paying African workers in notes, the first paper pay-day arrangements, and workers' losses when exchanging notes in Mozambique. |
| BRA Private Letters from Johannesburg and Evans Letterbooks (Samuel Evans correspondence 1923-25) | company records or reports | 1923-1925 | Documents Evans's fears of state inflation, his campaign for the gold standard and coinage of the whole output, and his reaction to British policy. |
| BRA Directors' Confidential Letters, May 1924-Feb 1929; BRA London Letters Directors' Confidential 1929-35; BRA Private Cables 1932-33; BRA Gold Standard 1931/1932 (file 252) | company records or reports | 1924-1933 | Traces the minelords' positions during the 1931-32 gold standard crisis, including Martin's letters to Wallers and the decision to abandon gold. |
| Chamber of Mines Archive (CMA) files: Gold Standard 1931; Native Labour Miscellaneous 1924-29; Native Labour Supply 1932; Native Wages 1932; Taxation 1933 | chamber of mines or recruiting records | 1924-1933 | Supports the Chamber's wage-in-gold policy, the savings societies investigation, wage-cut deliberations in 1932, and the 1931 response to Britain's exit from gold. |
| CAD SAM (South African Mint) files, e.g. SAM 38 C2/57, SAM 34 C2/39, SAM 190 7/6/3 | state archives | 1924-1929 | Source for Kemmerer-Vissering evidence (Warner), McKenzie's report on notes, Mint correspondence on coinage, and estimates of the money supply. |
| Kemmerer-Vissering Commission (1924-25) evidence and inquiry | commission or official report | Dec 1924-1925 | Evidence by Evans's associate Warner shows how the 'metallic mystique' was presented to officials and the commission's endorsement of gold. |
| CAD NTS 7239, 167/326 Transkeian Territories Co-operative Credit Societies | state archives | 1920s | Cited for rural credit and trader advances in the Transkei. |
| Union Statistics for Fifty Years (Pretoria, 1961) | official statistical series | 1910-1960 | Supplies the retail price index showing stable or declining prices, wage and money supply figures, and mining revenue 1912-32. |
| Transvaal Chamber of Mines Annual Report, 1950 | company records or reports | 1950 | Cited with Union Statistics for mining revenue trends after 1932 and the 1950 devaluation. |
| Table dated 16 Sept 1927, CMA Native Labour Miscellaneous, 1927; Territorial analysis of desertions, 21 Mar 1928 | chamber of mines or recruiting records | 1927-1928 | Provides the African wage bill and workforce composition (East Coast and Cape migrants over 80 per cent of 200,000). |
| Rand Daily Mail, 1927 and 1931 (reports on saving societies, Invergordon) | newspapers periodicals | Nov 1927; Sept 1931 | Documents the compound saving societies, their fraud cases and hoards, and the reaction to the Invergordon mutiny. |
| Abantu Batho (29 July, 26 Aug 1920); Umteteli wa Bantu (7 Aug 1920); Star (21 Sept 1931); Rand Daily Mail Mining and Finance News (14 Nov 1933) | newspapers periodicals | 1920-1933 | Shows African political and elite opinion on the withdrawal of gold in 1920 and later pricing of gold in London. |
| Oral history interviews by Breckenridge and Jones Mzayifani with old Mpondo and Bhaca mineworkers (Mdlamza, Sohlathi, Sodladla, Dzingwe), Tabankulu/Mount Frere, 1992 | interviews oral history | 1992 (recalling the 1920s-30s) | Establishes migrants' own meanings of gold ('red money'), burying of hoards, patriarchal control of wages, and savings practices. |
| Proceedings of the United Transkeian Territories General Council, 16 April 1932; Magistrate Mount Fletcher cable to Director of Native Labour, 2 June 1932 | commission or official report | 1932 | Shows rural currency shortage, drought and crop failure in the early 1930s. |
| Convention regulating Mozambican recruitment, Article 26 (1928) and Portuguese legislation of 1922 on foreign currency | legislation gazette | 1922-1928 | Shows Portuguese insistence on payment in gold and confiscation of South African paper currency. |
| Currency and Banking Act 1920 and Budget Statements 1933-4 | legislation gazette | 1920; 1933 | Frames the 1920 withdrawal of gold, the Pretoria mint, and post-1933 taxation of mining profits. |
| Secondary data and ethnography: Eichengreen, Golden Fetters; Dalgaard, South Africa's Impact on Britain's Return to Gold; De Kock, History of the South African Reserve Bank; Junod, Life of a South African Tribe; Hunter, Reaction to Conquest; Beinart, Political Economy of Pondoland | secondary literature compilation | 1860s-1930s | Supplies the international gold standard context, mint history, Mozambican and Pondo bridewealth practice, and Pondoland cattle numbers. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Qualitative archival narrative and cultural history: reading company, Chamber of Mines and state correspondence against international gold standard literature, supplemented by 1992 oral histories. Figures on gold wages, revenue, dividends and money supply are used descriptively to support the argument that mines and migrants shared a belief in gold.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Mine managers and officials believed African workers held that value resided only in gold, and workers protested against paper wages in 1920. (p. 278) | GNLB 251 files, Rand Mines compound manager letters (BRA) and the 1919 Chamber meeting report, quoted from officials. | Partial data |
| Between 1925 and 1931 the mines deliberately paid wages in gold sovereigns, recasting the form and velocity of the money supply, to defend gold's monetary role. (p. 288) | Evans correspondence (BRA), Mint files (CAD SAM), CMA wage tables compared with note issue figures and Union Statistics. | Partial data |
| Mozambican workers preferred gold because of bridewealth practice and Portuguese fiscal measures that discounted paper money. (p. 282) | Junod's ethnography, Harries, Chamber and Rand Mines letters on discounts, McKenzie to Evans, Portuguese legislation and convention. | Partial data |
| Migrants' own memory and practice, including hoarding and compound saving societies, show gold as a store of value and 'money with dignity', contradicting the officials' simple 'mystique'. (p. 290) | 1992 interviews with Mpondo and Bhaca ex-miners; 1927 Rand Daily Mail reports and GPC minutes on savings societies. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| The minelords came to abandon the gold standard in late 1931 because devaluation offered higher profits and reduced labour costs, after learning from Australia's experience. (p. 298) | BRA letters of Martin, Evans and Anderson, cables with the Australian Mines and Metals Association, Chamber minutes. | Partial data |
| After 1932 revenue and profits boomed and the mines' growth became tied to the rising gold price, making the 1933 break a turning point for capital and migrant workers. (p. 300) | Union Statistics for Fifty Years and Chamber Annual Report for revenue and dividends; Budget Statements 1933-4. | Partial data |
| The gold standard epoch (1910-33) was one of stable or falling prices that protected migrant wages, ending with persistent inflation. (p. 276) | Union Statistics retail price index (food), plus oral memories; no systematic wage-price series. | Partial data |
The author's caveats¶
The author notes that the interview evidence comes from a small number of life histories, and that old migrants' memories are shaped by later inflation. He also says the indebtedness of migrants and the work-related meaning of the Imbawula snake need fuller study, and that migrants may not have read coin symbolism uniformly.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The central claim that migrants themselves valued gold rests mostly on managers' reports and four 1992 interviews, with no 1920s African-authored sources beyond newspapers. A fuller test would use compound-level wage and deferred-pay records, Mint coin issue data, regional price and wage series, and Mozambican archives on coin flows, most of which existed at the time and survive. Evidence of the miners' views on gold, such as testimony to the Native Economic Commission or strike records, and a wider oral sample, would also help.
Replicability: Data described but not public.