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The Restructuring of Agrarian Class Relations in a Colonial Economy: The Orange River Colony, 1902-1910

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Tim Keegan (1979). The Restructuring of Agrarian Class Relations in a Colonial Economy: The Orange River Colony, 1902-1910. Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2. Taylor & Francis.
Type journal article
Scope Economics and economic history of apartheid
Method archival narrative
Period studied 1902–1910
Regions Orange River Colony / Orange Free State, Basutoland, Highveld, Transvaal
Themes origins segregation, agriculture land, labour markets wages, business and state, politics ideology elections, demography urbanisation
Citation key keegan1979

Argument

Keegan argues that British imperial intervention after the Anglo-Boer war supplied the capital and coercive apparatus needed to restructure class relations in Free State agriculture, shifting black peasants (sharecroppers, rent-paying squatters) towards restricted labour-tenancy or 'enserfment'. The shift was uneven and delayed by post-war devastation, the maize glut-famine cycle and the power of large landowners and absentee landlords who profited from squatters. It accelerated after 1907-8 once export markets for maize broke the glut cycle, land filled up, and capitalizing farmers took over the anti-squatting agitation from poor whites and small men. The 1908 Act, which anticipated the anti-squatting clauses of the 1913 Natives Land Act, and the poor-white question are presented as two sides of one process linked to early segregationist ideology.

Evidence and method

Colonial Office (CO) and Colonial Secretary (CS) archives in the P.R.O., the Friend newspaper, SANAC 1903-05 evidence, the 1908 ORC Native Affairs and Poor White commissions, the Natives Land Commission evidence (UG 22-'16), Basutoland colonial reports, legislative debates, and petitions and correspondence from landowners and missionaries.

Place in the debates

Findings

  • The study's central claim is that political power and imperial capital restructured Free State class relations, though proletarianization was incomplete. (p. 2)

    The transfer of large quantities of capital into the settler economy and the establishment of a more effective coercive apparatus were necessary preconditions to the restructuring

  • After the war sharecropping became the dominant arrangement in arable districts, since the peasants held stock and equipment while white farmers lacked capital. (p. 6)

    Thus the sharecropping system became the predominant feature of farming throughout the arable districts of the Free State.

  • Large landowners and merchants opposed anti-squatting measures, which prevented effective enforcement in the 1880s-90s and again after 1902. (p. 5)

    In general then it would be true to say that the bigger the landowner the more likely he was to oppose anti-squatting measures.

  • Maize overproduction and poor transport produced a glut-famine cycle that hampered settler recovery. (p. 9)

    In 1904, before the harvest farmers had to pay 25/- a bag for maize; but no sooner was the crop in than the price dropped to as low as 3/6.

  • The colonial administration retreated in 1904 from strict enforcement of the 1895 anti-squatting law under landed pressure. (p. 13)

    it was impossible to restructure class relations in the countryside by mere legislative edict or administrative fiat.

  • By 1908 progressive capitalizing farmers had replaced small men as leaders of anti-squatting agitation. (p. 15)

    Now it was the progressive, capitalizing farmers who were in the forefront of anti-squatting agitation, unlike the 1890s when it bore the unmistakable stamp of the 'little man'

  • Peasant stock accumulation was both a hedge and a counter-claim to land, and it made wealthy peasants the first to be evicted. (p. 18)

    peasant communities with the greatest accumulations of wealth were the first to be turned off.

  • Black peasant restructuring and poor-white regeneration were two sides of the same process, with class divisions made to coincide with race. (p. 19)

    if that world was to be a well-ordered one, class divisions must coincide with the 'natural' divide of race.

  • The 1908 Act anticipated the 1913 Natives Land Act, whose anti-squatting clauses applied fully only to the Free State. (p. 21)

    the anti-squatting provisions in their entirety were made applicable only to the Free State in the 1913 Land Act, and were rendered ineffective in their application elsewhere.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source Kind Period How used
South African Native Affairs Commission 1903-1905, evidence (Cape Town, 1904), Vol IV commission or official report 1903-1905 Evidence on African accumulation of stock and equipment after the war and on post-war conditions of tenure.
Colonial Secretary, Orange River Colony files (CS series), Public Record Office / state archive, e.g. CS 1095/03, CS 1019/01, CS 1001/02, CS 1876/03, CS 1763/02, CS 3625/02, CS 981/06, CS 3357/02, CS 4566/02, CS 1894/03, CS 3303/04 state archives 1901-1906 District commissioners' reports, land company letters and farmers' correspondence documenting debt, land purchases, labour conditions, grain stocks, transport costs and landlord opposition to anti-squatting enforcement.
Colonial Office records, CO 224 series (Orange River Colony despatches), e.g. CO 224/15, 224/16, 224/25, 224/27, 224/31, 224/32 state archives 1904-1909 Despatches on land valuations, subdivisions, Swinburne's complaints, the 1904 enforcement instruction, Hertzog's comments on the 1908 Act, and Garnett's reports on evictions.
Colonial Office records, CO 417 series (Basutoland despatches), CO 417/297 and CO 417/455 state archives 1900, 1908 Shows the wartime influx of cattle into Basutoland and forestry/soil deterioration.
Colonial Office archives 1906-10, oral evidence on Tlokoa and Khulukhwe claims in north-eastern districts interviews oral history 1906-1910 Source on displaced people's history and the north-eastern districts.
Annual Basutoland Colonial Reports (British Command Papers) official statistical series annual, c.1900-1908 Evidence of population pressure and soil deterioration in Basutoland.
The Friend (Bloemfontein newspaper), reports and editorials 1905-1909 newspapers periodicals 1905-1909 Prices of maize, storage, exports, crop prospects, farmer congresses, legislative debates on the 1908 Act.
Trade statistics on ORC exports and imports (maize, oats, dairy, sorghum, flour), 1906-1909 (unspecified source) official statistical series 1906-1909 Quantifies the rise in agricultural exports and fall of imports after 1906.
Union Government Blue Book for Native Affairs, 1911 commission or official report 1911 Examples of wealthy black peasants with large stock holdings.
1908 ORC Native Affairs Commission, evidence (published 1911 by Union Government) commission or official report 1908 (pub. 1911) Evidence of settler opinion in favour of restructuring class relations.
U.G. 22-'16, Natives Land Commission, Evidence (Free State evidence collected 1913) commission or official report 1913-1916 Testimony on child proportions, stock holdings, labour hours, evictions and Rolong trek.
ORC Poor White Commission, 1908, evidence commission or official report 1908 Evidence on disintegration of Boer society and pressure on lower white strata.
Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, 21 August 1908 parliamentary debates 1908 Documents the Responsible Government's agricultural colonies for poor whites.
Act 42, 1908, Rights of Coloured Persons in Respect of Fixed Property (ORC) legislation gazette 1908 Shown as forerunner of 1913 Natives Land Act anti-squatting clauses.
Law No. 4 of 1895 (Orange Free State anti-squatting law) and 1880s anti-squatting legislation legislation gazette 1880s-1895 Shows the settler attempts to limit squatter families and the 1904 non-enforcement.
Magisterial reports (Kroonstad and other districts) commission or official report c.1908-1913 Evidence of squatters being ordered to reduce stock and increase labour services.
H. J. van Aswegen, 'Die Verhouding tussen Blank en nie-Blank in die Oranje Vrystaat, 1854-1902', D.Phil., UOFS, 1969 secondary literature compilation 1854-1902 Mined for evidence of white rural distress and resentment of black peasants in the 1890s.
Statements and petitions by Dr Charles Garnett, League of Universal Brotherhood (and J. T. Gumede letter) company records or reports 1909 Anecdotal evidence of evictions and the case of Chief Linta Maloi.
S. T. Plaatje, Native Life in South Africa (1916) other 1916 Contemporary account supporting the claim that wealthiest peasants were first expelled.

Inference

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Qualitative historical argument based on archival correspondence, official commission evidence and newspaper reports, supplemented by a few scattered price and trade figures; regional comparison (arable vs pastoral districts) and chronological narrative of change before and after 1907-08.

Key claims

Claim Basis Strength
Post-war conditions favoured the black peasant economy, producing a predominance of share-cropping in arable districts as white farmers lacked capital and presence. (p. 238) SANAC evidence, CO 417 and CS archival reports; reasoning from conjuncture. Partial data
Large landowners and merchants resisted anti-squatting enforcement, forcing the British administration to retreat in 1904. (p. 245) Swinburne correspondence (CO 224/16), land company letters in CS files, 1904 instruction (CO 224/15). Illustrative or anecdotal
Assured prices after 1907-08 changed landowners' attitudes so that progressive farmers led agitation against share-cropping and squatter communities. (p. 247) Friend editorials, Native Affairs Commission evidence, legislative debates; inferred ideological shift. Illustrative or anecdotal
Growth of African stock holdings and the accumulation of cattle was a response to enclosure and led to evictions of wealthier peasants. (p. 248) Garnett letters, Natives Land Commission evidence, Plaatje, magistrates' reports. Illustrative or anecdotal
Blacks grew the great bulk of the colony's grain after the war (two-thirds claimed in the Legislative Assembly). (p. 253) Claim reported from Legislative Assembly debate; no systematic production data. Asserted

The author's caveats

Notes that the contribution of African peasants to production and trade is difficult to assess; uses hedged language such as 'seems to', 'it was estimated', 'no doubt' and 'probably'.

Gaps in the evidence

The argument lacks systematic quantitative series on acreages, output by race, farm sizes, tenancy forms, land transfers and stock numbers by district, which would test the claimed shift from share-cropping to labour-tenancy. Census and agricultural returns (e.g. the 1904 ORC census and later Union returns) and magisterial and land registry records existed at the time and could be used. Evidence on the African side relies largely on white officials, petitioners and newspapers, so African voices and quantitative evidence of peasant accumulation are thin.

Replicability: Data described but not public.