Review Article: Landlords, Tenants and Share-croppers - Agrarian Change in Regional Perspective (reviewing Beinart, Delius & Trapido eds, Putting a Plough to the Ground; Keegan, Rural Transformations in Industrialising South Africa; Robertson, The Dynamics of Productive Relationships)¶
Colin Murray (1987). Review Article: Landlords, Tenants and Share-croppers - Agrarian Change in Regional Perspective (reviewing Beinart, Delius & Trapido eds, Putting a Plough to the Ground; Keegan, Rural Transformations in Industrialising South Africa; Robertson, The Dynamics of Productive Relationships). Journal of Southern African Studies 14(1). Taylor & Francis.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | synthesis review |
| Period studied | 1850–1930 |
| Regions | Southern Highveld (Orange Free State), Transvaal, Natal, Cape, East Griqualand, Lesotho, Ghana, Sudan, Senegambia |
| Themes | origins segregation, agriculture land, labour markets wages, business and state, comparative theory |
| Citation key | murray1987 |
Argument¶
Murray reviews three books on agrarian change and finds three themes in the two South African studies: a long struggle between landlords and tenants, with labour tenancy as an uneasy compromise; class differentiation within white settler communities; and heavy state promotion of white agricultural capitalisation from 1908. Share-cropping was a survival condition for undercapitalised white farmers but also blocked their accumulation, which is why the state moved against independent squatters and share-croppers. The transition to wage labour was uneven and locally contested, not uniform or inevitable. Robertson's comparative African cases show share-cropping to be flexible and not simply pre-capitalist, and so to challenge both Chayanov's and Lenin's models of peasant society.
Evidence and method¶
Secondary review of three books. Cites the books' archival sources (company minute books, oral testimony from the Wits Oral History Project) and Robertson's fieldwork cases (Lesotho, Ghana, Sudan, Gambia). Murray adds a brief anecdote from a Lesotho lecturer's family history.
Place in the debates¶
- Nature and inevitability of the transition to capitalist agriculture (structuralist marxist vs History Workshop social history) (see Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry). Murray endorses the books' view that the transition was complex, uneven and indeterminate, shaped by local class struggle and regional variation rather than a uniform schema.
- Role of the state in agrarian change (instrumentalist 'view from above' vs regional/class-struggle accounts) (see Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry). Endorses Keegan's view that state support was a political necessity for undercapitalised white farmers, while outcomes were still shaped by local struggle and not simply determined by legislation such as the 1913 Land Act.
- Significance of share-cropping (seigneurial stereotype vs flexible, equitable small-farmer contract) (see Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry). Sides with Keegan and Robertson that the seigneurial stereotype does not fit South Africa or Africa generally, and that share-cropping is inimical to class formation.
- Efficiency of capitalist vs peasant farming before mechanisation (see Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry). Argues that before mechanisation capitalist farming had no clear scale advantages over peasant farming, so white agriculture depended on state support.
Findings¶
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Landlords wanted maximum labour from tenant households without dispossessing them of key capital such as oxen, so the transition was not simply a move to wage labour. (p. 3)
undercapitalised white farmers were anxious both to maximise the labour-time they could extract from labour tenant households and to avoid dispossessing them altogether of vital capital resources such as plough oxen
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Share-cropping was necessary to undercapitalised white farmers but also hindered their accumulation. (p. 5)
But share-cropping became the principal obstacle to capitalist accumulation, since white farmers could not command sufficient black labour to exert direct control of agricultural operations.
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Labour tenancy was a contested compromise between landlords and tenants. (p. 5)
Labour tenancy was an uneasy compromise, whose (unwritten) contractual terms were almost infinitely variable in practice and constantly subject to dispute.
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The squatter laws of the Boer republics had little effect until wider state intervention after Union shifted class power in the countryside. (p. 5)
but they were largely ineffective until other forms of state intervention, rationalised and consolidated after Union in 1910, had decisively shifted the balance of class forces in the countryside.
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State capitalisation of white farming from 1908 (credit, railways, marketing) undermined black tenants' bargaining position and the peasantry on white land. (p. 6)
It was this development that gave decisive impetus to the decline of the semi-autonomous black peasantry on white-owned land throughout the highveld maize belt
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Capitalist farming had no clear efficiency advantage before mechanisation. (p. 6)
in the period before widespread mechanisation, there were no obvious advantages of scale which made capitalist agriculture more efficient or more economically rational than peasant agriculture.
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Murray judges the state's support for white agriculture since the 1930s to be an extravagantly wasteful distortion. (p. 6)
Its intensification since the 1930s arguably represents the most extravagantly wasteful distortion arising out of the politics of white supremacy in South Africa.
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Natal sugar relied on a very large indentured Indian labour force. (p. 3)
the importation of 152,184 indentured Indian labourers over a period of fifty years between 1860 and 1911
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Robertson argues that share-cropping resists the class formation usually seen as integral to capitalism, and so challenges both Chayanov and Lenin. (p. 8)
share-cropping in all its variety and complexity is inimical to processes of class formation which are normally represented as integral to the development of capitalism.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minute Books of the Vereeniging Estates company (five surviving volumes), used by Trapido | company records or reports | c. 1900 | Supplies detailed crop yields that document the vigorous share-cropping economy of the Estates (as reported by the reviewer from Trapido's chapter). |
| Tape-recorded testimonies of elderly survivors on the Vereeniging Estates (late 1970s-early 1980s) | interviews oral history | recorded late 1970s and early 1980s; recalling c. 1900 | Provides vivid testimony complementing the company records on share-cropping. |
| Wits Oral History Project material used by Keegan | interviews oral history | not specified | Incorporated by Keegan into the rewritten thesis as 'fascinating material' on rural transformation. |
| Bloemfontein Friend editorial, 1908 | newspapers periodicals | 1908 | Quoted by Keegan to illustrate the contradiction between farmers' collective demands for enforcement of squatting laws and their individual reliance on squatters. |
| Plakkerswetten (squatter laws) of the Boer republics | legislation gazette | before 1900 | Evidence that settler agitation produced squatter legislation that was largely ineffective until later state intervention. |
| Natives Land Act 1913 (prohibition of share-cropping) | legislation gazette | 1913 | Context for the claim that outcomes were not simply determined by legislative prohibition of share-cropping. |
| Masters and Servants Act (local enforcement) | legislation gazette | early 20th century | Cited as legislation whose local enforcement was facilitated by weakened black tenant bargaining position. |
| Indentured Indian labour importation figures to Natal, 1860-1911 (152,184), reported in Richardson's chapter | secondary literature compilation | 1860-1911 | Quantifies the scale of Natal sugar plantation labour importation, compared with Chinese labour on the Transvaal mines. |
| Robertson's fieldwork and case-study data on African share contracts (Lesotho, Ghana, Sudan, Senegambia) | author survey or fieldwork | to 1980s | Detailed comparative investigation of specific share contracts underpins his argument on flexibility of share-cropping. |
| Oral reminiscence of a university lecturer at Roma (Lesotho) recorded in Robertson's DPR | interviews oral history | c. 1913-1930s and present | Single oral-history case showing continuity of share-cropping across generations and the OFS-Lesotho link. |
Inference¶
Quantification: None.
This is a review article. It summarises regional case studies and archival/oral-history based historical narratives, comparing outcomes across regions and time (highveld, Natal, Cape, East Griqualand) and across African cases, and reaches thematic conclusions about landlord-tenant struggle, white class differentiation and state capitalisation of agriculture. The reviewer's own inferences rest on the reviewed books.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Landlords and tenants engaged in an intensifying struggle in which landlords sought to destroy tenant independence and impose labour tenancy; outcomes varied by region. (p. 156) | Regional case studies in PPG and Keegan's RT, drawing on archives and oral evidence, as summarised by the reviewer. | Partial data |
| Share-cropping was indispensable to undercapitalised white landowners after the Anglo-Boer war yet became the main obstacle to capitalist accumulation, prompting state action against squatters and share-croppers. (p. 156) | Keegan's southern highveld study, as reported by the reviewer. | Partial data |
| Settler communities were sharply differentiated, between wealthy 'cheque-book' and absentee landlords and impoverished bywoners and small mortgaged proprietors. (p. 156) | Case studies of individuals (Erasmus, De Villiers, Newberry, Lewis and Marks, Strachan, Lazarus) in the reviewed books. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| State promotion of white agriculture from 1908 (credit, railways, marketing) undermined the black peasantry on white-owned land by removing farmers' dependence on tenants' capital. (p. 157) | Keegan's analysis and other essays in PPG; no figures reported in the review. | Partial data |
| Before mechanisation, capitalist farming had no efficiency advantage over peasant agriculture, so state intervention was a political necessity for white farmers' survival. (p. 157) | Inference from Keegan and Trapido's account of the costly steam-plough experiment at Vereeniging Estates. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| The 'seigneurial' stereotype of share-cropping does not apply to South Africa; share contracts in Africa are relatively equitable and efficient arrangements among small farmers. (p. 157) | Keegan's conclusion (RT) and Robertson's comparative case studies. | Partial data |
| Share-cropping contracts are flexible and can outperform fixed rents or wage labour under some conditions, and are inimical to class formation. (p. 158) | Robertson's four African case studies (Lesotho, Ghana, Sudan, Gambia). | Partial data |
The author's caveats¶
As a review, it does not discuss data limitations in detail; it notes only that the reviewed volume has too few maps to illustrate regional diversity.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The review rests on summaries of other authors' work and offers no systematic quantitative evidence on tenant numbers, output, share-cropping incidence or farm finances to test claims about the timing and extent of the decline of share-cropping. Agricultural and population census returns, Land Bank records and magisterial district reports existed then and could provide such tests. Oral evidence is used illustratively and could not be assessed for representativeness.
Replicability: Not applicable.