Class and Social History: The Evolution of Class amongst the African Peasantry in the Lichtenburg District on the Western Highveld, 1914-1954¶
Tim Clynick (1990). Class and Social History: The Evolution of Class amongst the African Peasantry in the Lichtenburg District on the Western Highveld, 1914-1954. History Workshop, 'Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid', 6-10 February 1990. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
| Type | conference paper |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | archival narrative |
| Period studied | 1914–1954 |
| Regions | Lichtenburg district, western Transvaal highveld, Bophuthatswana (Ditsobotla region) |
| Themes | agriculture land, origins segregation, bantustans removals influx, inequality poverty unemployment, resistance social movements, labour markets wages |
| Citation key | clyhick1990 |
Argument¶
The paper argues that a class of 'progressive' African farmers existed in Lichtenburg's African areas long before apartheid. It was strongest on the privately owned farms, the Middleton Estates and the farms bought by the South African Native Trust (SANT) in 1936 (Scheduled Area No. 2). This class took part in the district's maize economy and was stratified from the start. The state's entry policy preserved and favoured these old tenants, so later arrivals were squeezed onto 5-morgen plots. The result was class and generational conflict over betterment, land and stock culling in 1939-55. The author concludes that apartheid was not crucial in determining the class character of this future Bantustan. Local struggle and historical 'pedigree' shaped it, and the homelands were not simply a Verwoerdian creation. The case is built from NAD/Native Commissioner files, Native Affairs Commission reports, petitions, and some oral evidence.
Evidence and method¶
Central Archives Depot files (Lichtenburg Native Commissioner, Secretary for Native Affairs); the 1936 Heaton Nicholls/Collins Native Affairs Commission committee report; Local Native Commissioner annual reports and correspondence; SAIRR (Rheinhallt Jones, Ballinger) papers with tenants' petitions; Noord-Wes Ko-operasie jubilee history; Breutz's ethnography; interviews (a former white tenant in 1989, Chief Kelly Molete in 1987); a 1941 table of Trust population origins and a table of Trust landholdings from c.1952.
Place in the debates¶
- Origins of the Bantustans: apartheid design vs rural class history (see Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry). Homelands are read 'not so much as the creatures of a Verwoerdian nightmare, but as the products of a complex historical process of rural class struggle'. Apartheid is held not to have been crucial in setting the Trust's class character.
- Survival and differentiation of the African peasantry under segregation (see Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry). Argues a prosperous, differentiated 'progressive' peasantry persisted in Lichtenburg into the 1940s and 50s and continued to grow on Scheduled land even as opportunities for African farmers declined elsewhere. It compares this to the Marico peasantry studied by Manson and Drummond.
- Causes of landlessness and labour-tenant eviction on white farms (see Farm labour: mechanisation, labour shedding, wages and labour control). Treats the post-war white 'maize revolution', with mechanisation and capitalisation, as the main spur to dispossessing labour tenants. It places the emergence of a landless black proletariat in the 1950s rather than in the 1930s.
Findings¶
-
White farm indebtedness to the Co-operative grew explosively in the post-war maize revolution, which provides the context for capitalisation and labour shedding. (p. 3)
by 1945 this figure had grown by a staggering 600 % to £74,000, and by 1953 to a monumental £601,000.
-
In 1936 the Native Affairs Commission committee identified a strongly individualised, stratifying class of African producers in Lichtenburg, which alarmed segregationists. (p. 4)
A section of the native population of the Lichtenburg Native Areas is probably the most individualised in the Transvaal
-
The endemic farm labour shortage is read as evidence of peasant strength up to the late 1930s, with white farmers unable to draw labour from the district's African producers. (p. 6)
We could probably interpret the endemic farm labour shortage on the farms in the district as evidence for the strength of the Lichtenburg peasantry up until the end of the 1930's
-
A landless proletariat became visible only in the 1950s, as the state supported the removal of Africans from white farms after the maize revolution. (p. 6)
Thus it is from the 1950's that a "landless black proletariat" became evident in the district, as the State supported the removal and expulsion of Africans living and working in "white areas"
-
White farm labour terms were poor: the Secretary for Native Affairs saw them as the cause of the labour shortage that farmers blamed on the Trust. (p. 7)
the payment of a cash wage of £3 per year and a 4 morgan plot, or the payment of no wage at all and 8 morgen
-
The NAD strictly vetted entry to the Trust, so few new arrivals were ex-farm labourers, which protected the old tenants' position. (p. 8)
Among the new arrivals on the Trust farms, only 83 in 1940, were former farm labourers
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Individual progressives such as Simon Tsatsi accumulated freehold land from the Trust and held local office. (p. 11)
In 1940 he purchased 200 morgan of Driehoek from the Trust, at a time when land was at a premium
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A large share of Trust farmers worked sizeable plots by 1948-51, and the NAD's official admissions policy reproduced this stratification. (p. 13)
At least 40 % of the Trust farmers were working plots in excess of 25 morgen, whilst on the ME, there were farmers on plots of between 100 and 150 morgen.
-
Opposition to betterment on the Trust had a class basis, directed at the privileged old tenants as well as at officials. (p. 14)
Of interest to me is that this opposition had a clear class basis - which was directed as much at the old residents of the farms with their large allotments
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The 1952 stock-culling dispute showed the NAD defending the progressive old tenants against equalisation of land and stock. (p. 17)
To give every squatter an equal holding of ground would mean that the progressive squatter will have to be penalised as there is not sufficient arable ground to give each squatter 30 morgen
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Wealthier 'influential residents' drew back from the ANC-led culling resistance as it turned populist, and may have been drawn into the Bantu Authority system. (p. 16)
we can detect a growing suspicion amongst the "influential residents" at the increasingly "populist" character of this protest
-
The conclusion downplays apartheid as the determinant of the Bantustan's class character. (p. 18)
suggesting that Apartheid was not crucial in determining the class character of this Bantustan.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native Affairs Commission Committee report on Lichtenburg (Heaton Nicholls and Col. Collins), 4 November 1936, CAD NTS File 1233/308 | commission or official report | 1936 | Main general account of the African rural economy; shows class stratification, land inequality and the 'islands' of African enterprise, and recommends purchase of the Released Area. |
| Annual Reports of the Native Commissioner, Lichtenburg (KLI N1/15/6), 1944 and 1949/50 | state archives | 1944-1950 | Evidence of African maize deliveries (70,000 bags in 1944), good farming, and the contrast between Trust farms and Reserves. |
| LNC (HR van den Bergh) to Lichtenburg Magistrate, 'Natives on Trust farms in the District of Lichtenburg', 14 March 1942 (KLI 2/14/5) | state archives | 1941-1942 | Source of Table One on the origins of the Trust population and of evidence on admissions policy and former farm labourers. |
| KLI N2/7/2 Administration SANT Land (Main File), including meeting of LNC (W Ross) with the Lichtenburg Distrik Boere Saamwerk Vereeniging, 10 June 1941, and SNA reply of 27 July 1941 | state archives | 1941-1951 | Documents white farmers' complaints about labour loss to the Trust, NAD admissions policy and wage conditions. |
| Parliamentary question by AP Swart and Mr Labuschagne MPs on Africans on the Trust, with SNA reply 27 July 1941 | parliamentary debates | 1941 | Shows white farmer political pressure over African tenants moving to Trust farms. |
| LNC (SC Becker) returns to the Tomlinson Commission, 1954 (KLI N2/11/3 Settlement and Rehabilitation) | commission or official report | 1954 | Estimate of how many more families the Trust could hold, and contrast with overstocked Reserves. |
| PL Breutz, A History of the BaTswana and the Origin of Bophuthatswana (Ramsgate, 1989) | secondary literature compilation | to 1959 and after | Shows the Kopano Tribal Authority was 'known for its progressive agricultural development' and the origins of Middleton Estates buyers. |
| NAD land files on African and European Land Co. rentals and Driehoek (KLI N2/7/3(6)); KLI N2/10/2 petition; letters of J Marks and A Saunders 1937-38 | company records or reports | 1937-1938 | Rents paid by African tenants of the A&E company, showing their status before the Trust purchase. |
| Interview with a former white A&E tenant, 1989 | interviews oral history | 1989 (describing 1930s) | Describes the company's rent collection and the comparability of white and African tenants. |
| Interview of George Stacey with Chief Kelly Molete, 1987 | interviews oral history | 1987 (describing to 1940s) | Supports sharecropping and big-farmer activity in the Locations. |
| Oral evidence on mechanised Trust farmers ploughing up to 1000 morgen | interviews oral history | 1940s | Claims some mechanised farmers sharecropped and ploughed far more than allowed. |
| NTS 16/308 files on Farm Kunana No.1 (Middleton Estates), incl. Thornton report 1 April 1930 | state archives | 1921-1940 | Documents land purchases, bonds, tenant applications and the 'progressive type' of settlers on the Middleton Estates. |
| KLI N2/7/3(6) and N2/14/5(23) on Simon Tsatsi (letters 1940-1951, Agricultural Officer report c.1951) | state archives | 1940-1951 | Case study of progressive farmer Simon Tsatsi. |
| SAIRR collections (Rheinhalt Jones correspondence AD843; Ballinger Collection A410), Wits Historical Papers | union or movement records | 1937-1953 | Letters and petitions from Trust tenants (Matlhatsi, Local Tenants Committee, Lehetla) on the 5 morgen limit and culling; and Molamu land deals. |
| KLI N8/5/2 Administrasie Bantoe Landbou Vee Beperkings, incl. minutes of meeting of LNC and Trust residents, 21 April 1953 | state archives | 1952-1953 | Evidence on the 1952 culling resistance, LNC statistics on squatter families and stock, and the class basis of protest. |
| Noord-Wes Ko-Operasie, 50 Jaar van die Ko-Operasie | company records or reports | 1939-1950s | Source for farmers' debt at the Co-op (£13,000 in 1939 to £601,000 in 1953) and the depot shares of maize deliveries. |
| KLI N2/11/3 Circular CNC (HB Myburgh) to LNC, 'Village Settlements', 12 March 1951; Letter CNC to LNC 6 April 1949; Report LNC to Planning Committee 28 May 1951 | state archives | 1949-1951 | Shows shift to settlement policy and the survey of the Trust population (40% on plots over 25 morgen; some 5,400 people). |
| Unpublished theses and research papers (Relly MA SOAS 1979; Rymer MA Wits 1988; Ntamu papers UNIBO; author's MA Wits 1989) | secondary literature compilation | various | Background on African land in the Western Transvaal and detailed community histories. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Qualitative regional case study based on reading Native Affairs Department and Native Commissioner files, a 1936 commission report, tenant petitions and some oral testimony. Individual case histories (Tsatsi, Lekgethu, Molamu) and a few counts are used to infer a continuous class of progressive farmers and class conflict on the Trust. No systematic statistical analysis.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| African peasants and sharecroppers produced much of the maize and sorghum delivered to the Lichtenburg Co-op until about 1950, and the African rural economy was strong and stratified. (p. 4) | 1936 Native Affairs Commission committee report, the 1944 Native Commissioner report (70,000 bags delivered), and farm labour shortage inferences; no series on African output. | Partial data |
| A distinct class of 'progressive' African farmers existed from the 1910s and was concentrated on Scheduled Area No. 2, and it persisted into the Trust era. (p. 15) | NAD and LNC files, the Middleton Estates records, and cases of Tsatsi, Lekgethu and the Molamus. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| African farmers on the Trust farms were more prosperous than those in the Reserves, because of NAD admission control, and the white farmers' labour complaints reflect the viability of this class. (p. 7) | LNC annual reports of 1944, 1948 and 1950, the SNA reply of 1941, and Table One on the origins of the Trust population (455 persons). | Partial data |
| The Trust was internally stratified between old privileged tenants with large allotments (up to 30 morgen) and newcomers with 5 morgen, and about 40% held more than 25 morgen. (p. 13) | Table Two from the LNC breakdown, the NAD survey of the Trust population, and tenant letters. | Partial data |
| Resistance to betterment and stock culling on the Trust had a class (and generational) basis, directed partly against old privileged tenants. (p. 14) | Tenant petitions and letters (Matlhatsi, Lehetla), LNC replies, and one son's opinion; the author calls the evidence fragmentary. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| The 1950s maize revolution and state removals produced a landless proletariat only from the 1950s; before then the farm labour shortage reflects peasant strength. (p. 6) | Inference from the farmers' union labour complaints and the Heaton Nicholls report, without labour statistics. | Asserted |
| Apartheid was not crucial in determining the class character of this Bantustan; local struggles and the historical heritage of Scheduled Areas were. (p. 18) | Extrapolation from the case-study evidence above. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
The author calls the research 'work in progress' and 'still in its infancy'. He says the evidence is partial, fragmentary and hidden, and that the account 'may appear murky and incomplete'. He notes that much more research is needed on the Trust, the politics of resistance, and class relations.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The argument needs systematic data on African maize and sorghum output and sales, such as Co-op delivery ledgers by race, and on land and stock holdings across all farms and categories of land. Tax rolls, Native Commissioner returns or the Trust tenant registers could quantify stratification and persistence of families through time. Some of these records exist in the Central Archives Depot and the Co-op, and oral histories could be gathered more widely. A comparison with Reserve and Location households would test whether the Trust class was really distinct.
Replicability: Data described but not public.