Glen Gray Act

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The Glen Gray Act ( Cape Colony Act No. 25/1894 ), German Glen Gray Act , was a legal provision in the Cape Colony . It is a legislative milestone in the colonial history of South Africa and for the racial segregation policy that was later established in this country. The law came into effect on October 4, 1894.

Goals and framework conditions

The intention of this law was based on the principle of "one man - one land" ( one man - one plot ). The Glen Gray Act is a reaction of the colonial administration under Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes and his influential supporter Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr to the industrial and agricultural development in the area of ​​the former British colony on the Cape. This should have a positive effect on the labor supply for the resident colonial economy. The South African gold mines in particular experienced a strong boom at the end of the 19th century and this led to a high demand for workers in this sector. Together with the influential white agricultural companies, the so-called "gold and maize alliance" was formed as an informal political alliance in favor of a policy geared towards their interests, which the Prime Minister was in a favorable position. Rhodes is considered to be the architect of this law, the development of which he relied on the preliminary work of regional administrators such as Charles Brownlee and Captain Blyth. At the center of his legislative initiative was the change in economic structures among the black population through the introduction of individual land ownership, labor tax and regional self-government. Its main political message is described by the British historian Basil Williams as follows: "work, segregation in native areas, individual property and local self-government" (German for example: "Working, segregation in native areas, individual (land) property and local self-government" ").

Application and effects

The immediate purpose of the Glen Gray Act was to distribute land to sections of the black population based on colonial policy considerations. The regulations allowed the property to be transferred to the eldest son of the black landowner, but not to other sons. These were supposed to seek work in the Cape Colony, which inevitably pushed them into the role of migrant workers for the prosperous economic sectors. In addition, land ownership for the black population of the Glen Gray District was set at 4 acres (8.5 acres ) per family. In this way a consistently uniform, individual land ownership for the natives should be introduced. This was in fact connected with the dissolution of previous power structures in the tribal associations, as they only knew common land ownership.

With the law, colonial policy also created a new representative system in the form of local self-government bodies for blacks, which were integrated into the political system of the British-administered Cape Colony. An attempt was made to introduce the native population to the parliamentary electoral system of the whites. The indigenous members of the local councils in the administrative districts were partly elected by the black population and partly appointed by the governor-general of the Cape Colony. The district councils were given joint responsibility for the construction and expansion of the road infrastructure, disease control in animal husbandry and the establishment of schools. All district councils of the Bantu population were integrated after years of administrative influence in the General Council (Generalrat), which was under the direction of white colonial officials and had its seat in Umtata . This process took place in stages and by 1903 the majority of all district councils were represented in the Transkeian Territories General Council . A few more were added by 1924.

Furthermore, a wage tax was introduced with a mandatory payment of 10 shillings . With this compulsory levy, every male capable of working was inevitably obliged to work.

Cecil Rhodes founded his law, arguing that the natives something "from the dignity should find work" ( "... to find out something of the dignity of labor"). Protests arose among sections of the black population against the effects of the law, especially because of the wage tax and the imposed individual land ownership. The regulatory effects intended by the legislature did not result to the extent hoped for. The United Transkeian Territories General Council , commonly referred to as Bunga , a parliament-like representative body in what would later become the Transkei reservation, is considered to be the most important consequence of the Glen Gray Act .

Concept and history

Queenstown region including the Lady Frere area known as the Tambookie Location (1885 map)

The name of the law is derived from an earlier district of the Cape Colony. The Glen Gray District was east of Queenstown in today 's Eastern Cape and formed the area around the village of Lady Frere . It belonged to the area of ​​the former Transkei and was later assigned to the Ciskei . Lady Frere was the seat of his district administration. The region was originally called the Tambookie Location . In 1879 an area around Lady Frere, which had previously belonged to Tembuland , was administratively separated . It was named after the British colonial administrator George Edward Gray , who was governor of the Cape Colony from 1854 to 1861. During his tenure, George Gray made several attempts to expand the British-controlled area in the eastern border area of ​​the Cape Colony. To curb the military escalating conflicts west of the Great Kei River , he saw the so-called Ciskei, where black and white populations were not strictly separated, an effective development tool. His efforts to expand the British sphere of influence beyond the Great Kei River ( Transkeian Territories ) were subsequently disapproved by the government in London, and Grey's annexations were temporarily revised.

The area called Tambookie Location was created in 1853 to relocate parts of the black population who were driven out of the Queenstown area by the "white" farmland development. Contrary to the expectations of the colonial authorities, not all those affected were interested in independent agricultural activity in the new settlement area and thus got into the role of casual workers. Colonial officials saw these residents as the cause of developing overpopulation. From their European perspective, the idea arose that the black population of that region could be divided into two groups. These were "serious" farmers with voting rights in their region and, on the other hand, a supposedly unproductive population with very limited land use rights, who, according to the perception at the time, sought their livelihood by working on farms and in mines.

In 1879, on the upper reaches of the Great Kei River, areas where Thembu and Mfengu lived and which formed traditional tribal lands were combined into a new school district . The uprisings in Griqualand-Ost of 1879, the war against the Basotho in 1880 and 1881 and the unrest between 1880 and 1881 in the Transkeian Territories contributed to the previous efforts of the colonial authorities to create individual land ownership among the black rural population and providing farmland east of the Great Kei River for European immigrants had little success.

The so-called Barry Commission, headed by Jacob Dirk Barry, had examined the specifics and structures of land ownership in Natal and in the Cape Colony. After the report of the Commission on Native Laws and Customs ( Barry Commission for short ) was presented in 1883, the government became aware of the increasing acceptance problem that had developed from the practice of land surveying and the unfamiliar allocation of land with private property titles among the black population. Nevertheless, the commission pleaded for an offensive use of all possibilities in order to work towards the goal of a reorganization of the land law in the occupied territories with improved offers. In 1894 the provisions of the Glen Gray Act were introduced in four districts of the Transkei, the districts of Butterworth , Idutywa , Nqamakwe and Tsomo, and in 1898 in the Kentani district .

As a result of an administrative reorganization, a regional treasury department was formed in the Glen Gray District in 1895 . This enabled the government of the Cape Colony to view the Thembu as an isolated colonial problem without special legal regulations and to try out new methods of native administration . With this reform, the black residents were granted individual land ownership through a specially developed cadastral system . This was in contrast to the traditional tribal rules, according to which originally there was only communal land, the use of which by the tribal families had to be decided by their chiefs. Cecil John Rhodes, Minister for Native Affairs in the Cape Colony since 1893, saw this special zone as a test case with exemplary effects for the whole of Africa (“Bill for Africa”) and emphasized its contribution to “progressive civilization work” within his policy. The Glen Gray System served as a model for the gradual integration of the western areas of the Transkeian Territories into the administrative structures of the Cape Colony at that time.

Long-standing land surveying activities and their distribution plans in cooperation with the colonial authorities gave rise to protracted disputes about land use and livelihood, which continued as regional conflicts until around 1920. As early as 1894/1895, protests against tax policy and the established regional assemblies were characteristic of the underestimated acceptance of the new methods in the native administration .

Legislative consequences

  • The Glen Gray Amending Act ( Act No. 15/1899 ) modified previous regulations.
  • The Natives Land Act of 1913 also referred to previous experiences with the Glen Gray Act and reduced the opportunities for the black population to acquire land.
  • The Native Affairs Act ( Act No. 23/1920 ) grew out of the results of the 1905 report of the South African Native Affairs Commission and resulted in the creation of a nationwide system of tribal but government-appointed district councils. These councils were designed according to the requirements of the former Glen Gray Act .

literature

further reading

  • JJ Kelly: Act 25, of 1894, an Applied, and its Probable Consequences to the Natives of the District of Glen Gray . Lovedale 1895
  • Lucy Mair: Native Polices in Africa . G. Routledge, London, 1936 [1]
  • RJ Thompson, BM Nicholls: The Glen Gray Act: Forgotten dimensions in an old theme . In: South African Journal of Economic History, Volume 8 (1993), Issue 2, pp. 58-70

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lindsay Frederick Braun: The cadastre, 2008, p. 204
  2. ↑ Bax D. Nomvete: Foreword . In: Johann Kirsten, Johan van Zyl, Nick Vink: The Agricultural Democratisation of South Africa . Africa Institute for Policy Analysis and Economic Integration, Cape Town 1998 ISBN 1-86859-042-9 Former online version of the article
  3. ^ Lindsay Frederick Braun: The cadastre, 2008, p. 203
  4. ↑ Quoted in: Edgar Harry Brookes: The History of Native Policy in South Africa from 1830 to the Present Day . Pretoria, JL van Schaik, 1927, pp. 108-109
  5. ^ Basil Williams: Cecil Rhodes . (Makers of the nineteenth century). London, Constable and Company, 1921, p. 213
  6. ↑ Gottfried Wellmer: The historical development of the migrant work system . In: Francis Wilson, Gottfried Wellmer, Ulrich Weyl, Harold Wolpe et al .: Migrant work in southern Africa . A reader. Bonn 1976, p. 10
  7. ^ Howard Rogers: Native Administration in the Union of South Africa. being a brief survey of the organization, functions and activities of the Department of Native Affairs, etc. Bantu Studies , Vol. 6. Johannesburg 1933, p. 47
  8. ↑ Heinz Schroth: The Transkei territories, their formation and their development under the European influence . Bottrop, 1936, pp. 42-45
  9. ↑ The Story of Gold Recruiting Migrant Workers ( Memento from April 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) originally on www.newhistory.co.za (English)
  10. ↑ Website of the village of Lady Frere (English)
  11. ↑ a b The Glen Gray experiment ( Memento from May 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) originally on www.newhistory.co.za (English)
  12. ↑ Glen Gray Division. on www.sahistory.org.za (English)
  13. ↑ Schroth: The Transkei Territories , 1936, pp. 28-29
  14. ↑ George McCall Theal: History of South Africa since 1765 . Vol. 4, p. 48
  15. ↑ Lindsay Frederick Braun: The cadastre , 2008, p. 180 ff.
  16. ^ William Beinart, Colin Bundy: Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa: Politics & Popular Movements in the Transkei & Eastern Cape, 1890-1930 . In: Perspectives on Southern Africa . tape 40 . University of California Press, London 1987, ISBN 0-85255-012-X , pp. 141–142 (English, 326 pages, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  17. ↑ Lindsay Frederick Braun: The cadastre , 2008, pp. 180-181, 183
  18. ^ Liberation history timeline 1920-1929. on www.sahistory.org.za (English)