Mine Labour Recruitment in the Bechuanaland Protectorate

Literature › Works

John Taylor (1978). Mine Labour Recruitment in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Botswana Notes and Records, Vol. 10. Botswana Society.

Type	journal article
Scope	Economics and economic history of apartheid
Method	archival narrative
Period studied	1899–1966
Regions	Bechuanaland Protectorate (Botswana), Witwatersrand gold mines, South West Africa, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and Angola (tropical labour), Cape manganese and asbestos mines
Themes	mining migrant labour, business and state, labour markets wages, origins segregation
Citation key	taylor1978

Argument

Taylor argues that the Bechuanaland Protectorate became a labour reserve for South African mining less through drought, taxation or infrastructure than through the colonial administration's failure to develop the domestic economy and its acceptance of recruiting as inevitable and desirable. Over time what was good for the Union's mines came to be treated as good for the Protectorate, producing a 'symbiosis'. The Protectorate's position at Independence is read as a compromise among the administration, the tribal authorities (chiefs and the Native Advisory Council) and the recruiters (NRC, WNLA, smaller agencies). He traces two phases: 1912-34, with trader-recruiters in the south, and 1934-66, with WNLA depots in the north and NRC offices and active recruiting in the south and the Kalahari. The north served mainly as a transit area for labour from neighbouring territories.

Evidence and method

Botswana National Archives files (Resident Commissioner and Resident Magistrate correspondence, Native Advisory Council records), NRC annual reports from Mafeking and Molepolole, and WNLA material. Also Schapera's Migrant Labour and Tribal Life (1947), Chamber of Mines annual reports, a Star newspaper article, and a personal communication. Small tables cover SWA diamond recruits 1923-28 and tropical mortality rates.

Place in the debates

• Causes of the Protectorate's transformation into a labour reserve (environmental and fiscal pressures vs colonial policy) (see The mine migrant labour system: origins, recruitment, foreign labour and stabilisation). Accepts drought, pestilence, taxation and market depression as contributing factors but gives greater weight to administrative policy: lack of opposition to recruiting and failure to stimulate the domestic economy.
• Colonial state agency in labour migration (active promotion vs passive regulation) (see The mine migrant labour system: origins, recruitment, foreign labour and stabilisation). The Protectorate government never actively encouraged migration as British Bechuanaland's officials did, but regulated recruiters while treating them as inevitable and desirable, so it facilitated recruitment by omission and by design (hut tax, compulsion, support for the Chamber of Mines).
• Cheap labour thesis / mine wage and recruitment strategy (see Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves). Supports the view that the mines sought cheap contracted migrant labour on the assumption of rural subsidy and a recruiting monopoly, and that the Chamber expanded recruitment areas rather than raise wages.

Findings

• Administrative policy, not only environmental or fiscal pressure, created dependence on migrant labour. (p. 2)

  the Protectorate Government's lack of opposition to labour recruitment and its failure to stimulate the domestic economy between 1899 and 1966 created conditions that were conducive to a growing dependence on migrant labour

• The Hut Tax pushed men into mine wage work, which in turn served the Administration's revenue interest. (p. 3)

  because the resources for cash employment were not available in the Protectorate and the ability to generate income from agriculture was low, the tax consequently increased pressure upon men to seek wage employment in the mines.

• In the 1930s the Chamber of Mines widened its recruiting area instead of raising wages to meet the gold-boom labour shortage. (p. 5)

  rather than augment the supply by increasing wages, the Chamber of Mines sought to expand the area of recruitment still further.

• The Resident Commissioner welcomed tropical recruitment for fiscal reasons, tying mine labour to Hut Tax revenue. (p. 5)

  it will help the Natives to get a little money which they need badly and will enable the Administration to get in a certain amount of additional Hut Tax which they need no less badly

• Local officials used Hut Tax enforcement to push men towards WNLA recruitment, with chiefly cooperation. (p. 6)

  I made it very clear that they were not being coerced into going to the mines or anything else but that if the failed to do something towards paying their Hut Tax they would have to take the consequences.

• The tropical labour experiment was declared a success despite higher mortality among tropical recruits. (p. 6)

  Although the mortality rates for tropical areas were clearly much higher than average, the experiment was pronounced a success

• Northern Bechuanaland supplied few of the recruits passing through WNLA depots; its main function was as a transit area for other territories' labour. (p. 9)

  Even in 1936, of 2 404 recruits arriving in Francistown, only 1 341 were from the Protectorate, the rest were from Barotseland.

• Chiefs documented the social and agricultural costs of migration, with a high share of fit men leaving each year in the Kwena Reserve. (p. 9)

  Therefore there are 4 000 fit men in the Tribe. Thirty-seven percent leave every year for the mines.

• The Protectorate government explicitly justified opposing numerical limits on recruiting by its economic dependence on the Union. (p. 10)

  We should deprecate adhering to a Convention that the Union have refused to adhere to on the grounds that we are entirely dependent economically upon the Union.

• Colonial officials proposed wage labour as a development path for the Basarwa (San), supporting active recruitment of them. (p. 12)

  To obtain these possessions the Bushman would have to be given the opportunity, in fact encouraged, to become a wage earner for at least part of his life.

• British rule integrated the Protectorate as a periphery of a South African economy dominated by mining interests. (p. 14)

  The period of British rule in Bechuanaland saw a transformation of the Protectorate into an element on the periphery of an economic system which had its centre in the Union of South Africa

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source	Kind	Period	How used
Botswana National Archives (BNA) files, Resident Commissioner and Government Secretary correspondence (S.92/10, S.344/3, S.344/5, S.344/7, S.387/5, S.387/7/3, S.117/1/1, S.191/10/1, S.391/7, 5031/7)	state archives	1898-1960	Supply the correspondence and official statements on which the narrative of Administration, chiefs and recruiters rests.
NRC Annual Reports, Mafeking, and reports from NRC offices at Molepolole and Mafeking	chamber of mines or recruiting records	1940s-1950s	Document the NRC representatives' accounts of recruiting in the Kalahari, Letlhakeng camp throughput and Basarwa recruitment, and NRC distancing from the Authorities.
WNLA offices in Francistown and Shakawe (reports)	chamber of mines or recruiting records	1930s	Used for the origin of recruits arriving at Francistown and Shakawe, showing the Protectorate's small share of the WNLA intake.
Schapera, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life (1947) and Schapera's 1947 report to the Protectorate Administration	secondary literature compilation	1898-1947	Source for the 1898 Resident Commissioner quote, Chamber of Mines recruitment figures, WNLA road subsidy, the 1941 policy statement and confirmation of adverse effects.
Annual Reports of the Chamber of Mines	company records or reports	1912-1938	Source (via Schapera) of the annual average of 3,267 men recruited from the NRC area 1912-1938.
Proclamations No. 6 of 1899, No. 7 of 1909 and No. 45 of 1907 (labour agents, Hut Tax)	legislation gazette	1899-1909	Show how the legal framework licensed agents, defined recruiters to include traders and runners, and tied Hut Tax to wage migration.
Memorandum to the Gold Producers' Committee, 1938, 'The mortality amongst Natives from tropical areas employed on the Witwatersrand gold mines' (BNA S.344/5, S.344/7)	company records or reports	1934-1938	Supplies mortality rates per thousand for tropical recruits (Table 2) and the verdict that the experiment was a success.
Resident Commissioner's 1898 report and later Resident Commissioner/Resident Magistrate correspondence (e.g. Rey to Chamber of Mines 29/8/33; Serowe magistrate 3/4/34)	commission or official report	1898-1957	Show the Administration's attitudes, the Hut Tax pressure on men to go to the mines, and the recruitment quotas.
Native Advisory Council session records, 1936 (Kgari Sechele statement; Tshekedi Khama interventions) (BNA S.387/5)	state archives	1936-1950s	Provide chiefs' testimony on the adverse social and economic effects of recruitment, with quantified Kwena male-absence figures.
Letter from Tati representative on European Advisory Council to High Commissioner, Sept. 1923 (BNA S.92/10); Table 1 of recruits for Consolidated Diamond Mines, SWA 1923-1928	state archives	1923-1928	Establishes annual recruitment numbers for South West Africa diamond mines and the labour-supply conflict with Tati farmers.
The Star (newspaper), 21/8/33	newspapers periodicals	1933	Illustrates the mining industry's desire for a supply of labour from British territories without Mozambique-type concessions.
Theron's Native Labour Organisation letter to Resident Commissioner, June 1937 and Secretary for Native Affairs (Union) letter; report of Assistant Resident Commissioner on Cape mines visit, Nov. 1937 (BNA S.191/10/1)	state archives	1937-1939	Show competing recruiters' demands, Union government support, and conditions at Cape mines.
District Commissioner, Tshabong, letter to Resident Commissioner 1957 (BNA S.387/7/3)	state archives	1957	Gives an official's field interviews of Basarwa women on the effects of recruitment of their husbands.
Personal communication with Supang Boleie, Molepolole	interviews oral history	c.1976/77	Source for the description of the trader/runner recruiting chain in Kwena Reserve in the late 1920s and 1930s.
Secondary data compilations: Stahl (1976) on wages and recruitment area; Wilson (1972) on gold mine labour; Breytenbach (1972) on Mozambique Convention	secondary literature compilation	1928-1976	Support background points on wages, recruiting area, the Mozambique Convention and the anti-pneumonia vaccine.

Inference

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Archival narrative history based on documentary quotation and case studies. The argument follows the sequence of Administration, chiefs and recruiters across two periods (1912-34 and 1934-66), with a few recruitment counts and mortality tables as illustration, and no statistical analysis.

Key claims

Claim	Basis	Strength
The Protectorate Administration did not oppose and in effect facilitated recruitment, steering the territory into economic dependency on the Union's mines. (p. 107)	Resident Commissioner correspondence in BNA files, including Rey's letter to the Chamber of Mines and the statement on the ILO Convention.	Illustrative or anecdotal
Hut Tax and the Proclamations tied Administration revenue to wage migration, so officials applied pressure to get men to the mines. (p. 100)	Proclamations of 1899 and 1909, Rey's letter and the Serowe magistrate's 1934 report on tax prosecutions.	Illustrative or anecdotal
WNLA's northern Bechuanaland operation was mainly a transit and forwarding base for labour from Barotseland, Angola, SWA and Nyasaland, not a large source of Protectorate labour. (p. 106)	WNLA recruit arrival counts at Francistown (1936) and Shakawe (1938), plus depot locations.	Partial data
Recruitment imposed heavy burdens on rural communities, with 37 percent of fit Kwena men leaving yearly and consequences for agriculture, health and social order. (p. 106)	Kgari Sechele's 1936 statement to the Native Advisory Council (BNA S.387/5), later confirmed by Schapera.	Partial data
The tropical labour experiment of 1934-38 was declared a success despite mortality rates for northern Bechuanaland recruits well above average. (p. 103)	Gold Producers' Committee 1938 memorandum (Table 2) and the early 1934 respiratory mortality comparison.	Partial data
From the 1940s and 1950s the NRC moved from passive trader-forwarding to active recruiting in the Kalahari, including Basarwa, over objections from officials and Tribal Authorities. (p. 109)	NRC representatives' annual reports, Resident Commissioner 1954 discussion, the DC Tshabong 1957 letter and Kgari Sechele and Tshekedi Khama complaints.	Illustrative or anecdotal
Chiefs and the Native Advisory Council shaped the course of recruitment by banning recruiters, forcing withdrawal of Theron's licence and rejecting the Rhodesian farm scheme. (p. 107)	Native Advisory Council discussions and BNA correspondence on Theron's licence (S.191/10/1) and the 1942 scheme (S.391/7).	Illustrative or anecdotal

Gaps in the evidence

The argument rests on selected archival correspondence and a handful of counts, with no continuous series of recruits by district and year, wages, remittances or Hut Tax receipts to test the claims about dependency and causation. Chamber of Mines and WNLA/NRC records, Protectorate annual reports and tax returns could supply such series and probably existed then, and may now be traced in the BNA and TEBA archives. African voices come mostly through chiefs and officials rather than migrants' own accounts, which interviews could add.

Replicability: Data described but not public.