Development Trust and Land Act

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With the Development Trust and Land Act ( Act No. 18/1936 ) (alternatively: Native Trust and Land Act , German about: as indigenous merger - and land law; or Bantu Trust and Land Act ) was in the 1936 Union of South Africa passed a law , which served to reorganize their agricultural structures and land use rights. In doing so, the legislature followed the recommendations of the Beaumont Commission . This legal provision is an integral part of the segregation policy of the then Prime Minister Hertzog .

Effects

The law stipulated that the reserve area allocated to the black population in the Natives Land Act of 1913 should be increased from 7.13% (9,709,586 hectares ) to approximately 13.6% of the total area of ​​what was then South Africa. However, this value was not reached and remained unfulfilled until the 1980s. In 1972 the government bought 1,146,451 hectares in the Homelands area to meet this requirement .

Because the black population made up about 61 percent of the total population at that time, this area share is very small. The damage to agricultural land caused by erosion and overgrazing during the global economic depression played a decisive role in the preparation of the law.

In particular, the law regulates the use and distribution of land for blacks outside designated reserves . At the same time it further restricted the rights of the black tenants on the farm areas of white owners. From then on it was only allowed blacks to live on white farms, when for the white farm owners as employees worked. For the end of this land reform were Native Commissioners (Native Commissioners) and Agricultural Officers (Agriculture officials) responsible. It developed under the generic term betterment planning , which was common at the time . The first conceptual ideas about a strictly separate land use by the white and black population came up with the South African Native Affairs Commission (1903–05) and were consequently implemented politically with the Development Trust and Land Act .

Because this law did not achieve a rapid increase in area through the purchase of land by the state, the migration pressure on the population of the reserves increased. This tendency was accelerated by the barely recoverable poll, hut and labor tax. This tax pressure forced many black people to look for work in wage-related jobs outside of their family and tribal traditionally rooted residential areas. The destinations of these migratory movements were the large white farms and cities, preferably industrial centers.

South African Development Trust

The South African Development Trust (SADT) established with this law , in German about "South African Development and Trust Company", was a state corporation that had to implement the legal requirements of the Development Trust and Land Act at the instigation of various government agencies . The State President later formally headed the Trust, delegating his authority to the Secretary of State for Works and Land Affairs. The official purpose of the SADT was "[settlement] compensation, support, subsidies and the material and moral well-being of blacks".

Legislative follow-up development

The Act, along with other apartheid legislation, was repealed in 1991 by the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act ( Act No. 108 of 1991 ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Department of Rural Development and Land Reform: Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act 108 of 1991 . PDF document p. 9–12 at www.ruraldevelopment.gov.za (English) Proof of the exact designation, different designations in the literature listed here
  2. ^ Nelson Mandela Foundation : Native Trust and Land Act No 18 1936 . on www.nelsonmandela.org (Nelson Mandela Center of Memory and Dialogue)
  3. ↑ Muriel Horrell: The African Homelands of South Africa . SAIRR , Johannesburg 1973, p. 64
  4. ^ A b Edward Roux: Land and Agriculture in the Native Reserves . In: Ellen Hellmann, Leah Abrahams (Ed.): Handbook on Race Relations in South Africa . Cape Town, London, New York, Oxford University Press, 1949. p. 173
  5. ↑ a b Manfred Kurz: Indirect rule and violence in South Africa . Work from the Institute for Africa Customer No. 30. Hamburg (Verbund Stiftung Deutsches Übersee-Institut) 1981, p. 27
  6. ^ Andrea Lang: Separate Development and the Department of Bantu Administration in South Africa . Work from the Institute for Africa Customer No. 103. Hamburg (Verbund Stiftung Deutsches Übersee-Institut) 1999, p. 88
  7. ↑ SAIRR : Race Relations Survey 1991/92 . Johannesburg, 1992, p. 381