The Local Evolution of Urban Apartheid: Influx Control and Segregation in Durban, c. 1900-1951

Literature › Works

Paul Maylam (1990). The Local Evolution of Urban Apartheid: Influx Control and Segregation in Durban, c. 1900-1951. History Workshop, 'Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid', 6-10 February 1990. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Type	conference paper
Scope	Wider apartheid literature
Method	archival narrative
Period studied	1900–1951
Regions	Durban, Natal
Themes	origins segregation, bantustans removals influx, labour markets wages, demography urbanisation, business and state, politics ideology elections
Citation key	maylam1990

Argument

Maylam traces how influx control and residential segregation evolved in Durban in three phases (to c.1920, 1920 to 1936-37, and 1936-37 to the early 1950s). He argues that both were geared to regulating the African presence in line with capital's labour needs. They were also driven by the fears of a white middle class, the police and ratepayers, who linked Africans to crime, disease and disorder. The Durban local state had considerable autonomy and often clashed with the central state, for instance over relaxing or tightening pass laws. Yet its policy was consistent with, and often ahead of, what the Nationalist government did after 1948. The Group Areas Act therefore did not mark a sharp break in Durban and was not imposed on an unwilling municipality. The essay warns against both a view of the local state as a mere arm of the central state and a purely economic-reductionist account of urban apartheid.

Evidence and method

Durban Town Clerk's Files, Department of Native Affairs files, Durban Native Administration Committee agenda books, the South African Native Affairs Commission evidence, the Judicial Commission on Native Affairs in Durban, the Durban Housing Survey (1952), censuses and municipal population estimates, and secondary work (Hindson, Swanson, Hemson, Davenport, la Hausse).

Place in the debates

• Relationship between local and central state in urban native administration (see Urban segregation, Group Areas and the apartheid city). Rejects the view that the local state is simply an extension of the central state. The Durban corporation enjoyed substantial autonomy until the late 1930s, and even afterwards it asserted its own interests.
• Stallardism (temporary migrant labour) versus stabilisation of the urban African labour force (see Influx control, pass laws and African urbanisation). Neither was a stark alternative. Following Hindson, policy moved toward a system of 'differentiated labour-power'. Durban leaned Stallardist in the 1920s and accepted stabilisation in the 1940s.
• Was urban apartheid a Nationalist creation, and was group areas imposed on non-Nationalist municipalities? (see Urban segregation, Group Areas and the apartheid city). Argues for continuity. Durban's council, which was not Nationalist-controlled, was an enthusiastic proponent of segregation before and after 1948. The Nationalists added centralisation, uniformity and compulsion.
• Economic (capital/labour-supply) versus non-economic explanations of influx control and segregation (see Influx control, pass laws and African urbanisation). Economic imperatives mattered, but the explanation must also include white middle-class mentality, police and ratepayer pressure. Segregation was often not in employers' interests.

Findings

• Maylam identifies a gap in the literature: no longitudinal study of influx control and segregation in a single city. (p. 2)

  There has, though, been virtually no attempt to trace and analyse the development of influx control and segregation over time in any specific local urban context.

• Durban's dock economy relied on casual migrant 'togt' labour, which shaped early demands for barracks and control. (p. 3)

  Thus the docks came to rely on casual, 'togt' labour, supplied largely by unskilled African migrants.

• Rural impoverishment in the 1920s pushed Africans toward Durban. (p. 5)

  The reserves came to wilt under the pressures of overpopulation, overstocking and drought, giving rise to outmigration.

• The 1923 Urban Areas Act had little immediate effect on Durban, which already had its own system (the 'Durban system'). (p. 6)

  This intervention was embodied most apparently in the 1923 Natives (Urban Areas) Act. However this measure had a very limited impact on Durban.

• Pressure for 1930s segregation came from police and ratepayers, not from capital, which preferred workers housed near work. (p. 8)

  The pressure did not come from capital. Indeed, strict residential segregation was often not in the best interests of employers who liked to have their worker's living close to the work-place.

• Deportation powers enabled mass expulsions from Durban in 1930. (p. 8)

  Armed with these weapons, Layman's department was able to organise the expulsion from Durban of over 1,000 Africans in 1930 alone.

• Durban's African population grew rapidly with industrial expansion and rural immiseration, 1936-49. (p. 10)

  The estimated size of Durban's African population rose from 63,457 in 1936 to about 150,000 in 1949.

• The 1937 Native Laws Amendment Act strengthened local expulsion powers, but Durban's labour needs and the war led local officials to seek flexible implementation. (p. 11)

  This legislation strengthened the influx control and expulsion powers of local authorities.

• The wartime relaxation of pass laws, combined with Durban's boom, produced an influx that later exceeded labour demand, prompting calls for stricter controls. (p. 12)

  The combined effect of Durban's war--time boom and the relaxation of the pass laws was to bring Africans flocking into the city.

• The corporation faced a contradiction between wanting African labour and disliking the African presence. (p. 12)

  The Durban corporation was caught in a contradiction. It needed the labour to service the city's growing economy.

• Maylam rejects the claim that group areas was imposed on Durban by a monolithic central government. (p. 15)

  It has sometimes been suggested that the group areas policy was inflexibly imposed by a monolithic central government on some non-Nationalist municipal authorities (such as Durban) that did not accept the group areas principle.

• Local and central state were often out of step on influx control. (p. 17)

  In the late 1930s, when the central state was trying to tighten influx control, the Durban corporation was calling for it to be relaxed.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source	Kind	Period	How used
Durban Town Clerk's Files (DTCF), various files incl. 4/1/2/1173-1177, 4/1/3/1618-1624, 4/1/2/75, Native Locations file 10, subject no. 290 P	state archives	1916-1947	Documents municipal by-laws, registration and pass administration, Layman's and Chester's statements and council deliberations on influx control and segregation.
Department of Native Affairs (DNA) files, e.g. vol.2067 138/280; vol.5389 29/313; vol.5304 29/313(E); vol.4270 120/313	state archives	1911-1951	Supplies the Tait memorandum on Natal labour supply, the 1949 telegram on unemployment, the 1951 technical sub-committee race-zoning reports, and central state housing thinking.
South African Native Affairs Commission 1903-1905, Minutes of Evidence, Vol. III	commission or official report	1903-1905	Evidence of Superintendent of Police R.C. Alexander on barracks, passes and control of African labour in early Durban.
Report of the Native Economic Commission, 1930-32, U.G. 22, 1932	commission or official report	1932	Cited as expressing official recognition of the stabilisation and permanence of urban African labour.
Stallard Commission (Transvaal Local Government Commission) Report 1922 and Young-Barrett Committee report 1935	commission or official report	1922, 1935	Used as the two poles of central-state debate on urbanisation (Stallardism vs stabilisation); text quoted via Davenport.
Select Committee on Native Affairs, S.C. 3-23, 1923, and Natives (Urban Areas) Bill proceedings	parliamentary debates	1923	Layman's testimony opposing African freehold and family settlement in towns.
Natives (Urban Areas) Act 1923 and amendments (1930, 1937, 1952); Natal acts of 1869, 1888, 1901, 1904; Durban by-laws 1916; 1940 Proclamation no. 39; 1949 Government Notice 1032; Natives (Abolition of Passes) Act 1952	legislation gazette	1869-1952	Traces the evolving legal framework of influx control and segregation and local implementation (e.g. proclamation of Durban in 1928).
Official government censuses of 1936 and 1946 (African population, sex ratios); municipal estimates and 1938 municipal census	population census	1936, 1938, 1946	Establishes growth of Durban's African population, male/female ratios as evidence of stabilisation, and 1938 unemployment of 2% of African males.
Report of the Judicial Commission on Native Affairs in Durban, 31 January 1948, and Durban City Council memorandum to it	commission or official report	1948	Source of population estimates (1936-49), sex ratios and the official 1946 estimate of 74% migrants.
Durban Native Administration Committee (DNAC) Agenda Books, 1931-1937, and Minutes of DNAC 1945	state archives	1931-1945	Documents police and ratepayer segregation pressure (Whitsitt, ratepayers' associations) and the vote of no confidence in Layman.
The Durban Housing Survey, Department of Economics, University of Natal (1952)	secondary literature compilation	1952	Source for Indian penetration, Pegging and Ghetto Acts, post-war development committee plans, and the technical sub-committee proposals on racial zoning.
Technical Sub-Committee on Race Zoning, First Report Part I (June 1951) and Draft Notes on the Group Areas Act	commission or official report	1950-1951	Shows the Durban corporation's enthusiasm for group areas and its specific zoning plans.
Native Beer / Kaffir Beer memorandum by P. Gray, 27 June 1950, and DNA housing memoranda (1940, 1944, 1948)	state archives	1940-1950	Supports claims on central-state concern about unemployed Africans and cost-cutting in African housing.
Natal Advertiser extract, February 1916	newspapers periodicals	1916	Contemporary newspaper extract on the native pass system filed in DTCF.
Unpublished theses and papers used for data: Hemson (1979), Hindson (1983), la Hausse (1984), Edwards (1987), McCarthy (1988), Mesthrie	secondary literature compilation	1900s-1950s	Supports claims on dock togt labour, pass system operation, 1950s migrant proportions and Indian segregation.
Swanson, 'The Durban System', and Maasdorp and Humphreys, From Shantytown to Township (1975)	secondary literature compilation	1900-1921	Source of early Durban population totals (55,700 in 1900, 90,500 in 1921) and African numbers.

Inference

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Single-city historical case study using chronological periodisation (three phases) and narrative reading of municipal and Native Affairs archival documents, interpreting policy shifts against demographic and economic context and comparing local-state with central-state positions.

Key claims

Claim	Basis	Strength
Before the 1920s influx control and segregation in Durban were limited because the town's commercial/shipping economy and rural hinterland did not demand rigid controls, though pass and registration measures existed from the nineteenth century. (p. 3-4)	Natal legislation, SANAC 1904 evidence of Alexander, DTCF files, Swanson and Maasdorp/Humphreys population figures.	Partial data
In the 1920s-30s Durban's local state enjoyed considerable autonomy and pursued a Stallardist policy, driven by structural factors and manager C.F. Layman, with the 1923 Act having limited impact. (p. 6-7)	1923 Select Committee evidence, DTCF statements by Layman, DNAC agenda books, Act provisions and dates of Durban's proclamation and township openings.	Partial data
Early-1930s segregation proclamations arose from police and middle-class ratepayer pressure rather than capital, pushing Africans into shack settlements, but wholesale segregation was blocked by the 1923 Act's alternative-accommodation condition and the corporation's unwillingness to finance housing. (p. 8-9)	DNAC agenda books (Whitsitt, ratepayers' associations 1933-34), DTCF, Act's provisions.	Partial data
Durban's African population grew rapidly (about 71,000 in 1936 to about 150,000 in 1949) with a declining male/female ratio indicating stabilisation, though the migrant share (74% in 1946 vs 50% in 1953) is uncertain. (p. 10)	1936 and 1946 official censuses, municipal estimates, Judicial Commission 1948 report, Edwards paper.	Systematic data
In the late 1930s and 1940s Durban's corporation and central government were often out of step on influx control: the corporation sought flexibility tied to fluctuating labour demand, wanting relaxation in 1938 and tightening after the 1942 pass-law relaxation. (p. 11-12)	Chester's correspondence in DTCF, 1938 municipal census (2% African male unemployment), 1944 crime conference memorandum, DNAC minutes.	Partial data
The Nationalist government after 1948 centralised and standardised influx control but did not depart radically from earlier urban policies or from the Durban corporation's own thinking. (p. 12-13)	DNA telegram of May 1949, 1949 regulations, 1952 Acts, Hindson.	Partial data
The Durban corporation was an enthusiastic proponent of group areas segregation, with 1940s racial zoning blueprints prefiguring the Group Areas Act, rather than an unwilling local authority imposed upon by Pretoria. (p. 14-16)	Post-War Development Committee and Valuator's plan via Durban Housing Survey; 1951 technical sub-committee reports and draft notes; May 1951 deputation to Minister.	Partial data

The author's caveats

Acknowledges that the estimates of migrant share (74% in 1946 vs 50% in 1953) are unreliable and hard to distinguish given weekly commuters, that most population figures are municipal estimates rather than census figures, and that only one municipal census (1938) was actually undertaken. Also notes that the detailed group areas demarcation and 1950s centralisation are beyond the essay's scope.

Gaps in the evidence

The argument rests mainly on municipal and Native Affairs correspondence and a few population estimates, with no systematic data on labour demand, wages, employment by sector or actual pass prosecutions and expulsions in Durban. Series of pass-law arrests, influx control removals, and industrial census data for Durban (existing in official statistics and municipal archives) could test the claim that controls tracked labour demand. Evidence on African voices and on the central state's internal views toward Durban in the 1940s is also thin, though archival sources exist.

Replicability: Data described but not public.