Native Life in South Africa Part 44

He can see no decadence of the vigour, the enterprise and the courage which, since the occupation of the Cape Peninsula by the early Dutch settlers, have resulted in the extension of European control and occupation to the limits now reached. Moreover, artificial restrictions of the occupation of land in the late Dutch Republics resulted in the evasion of the law by various forms of contract whereby native occupation of farms was effected, while at the same time advantage was taken of the opportunities thus afforded of fraudulent practices on the part of Europeans employed as agents or so-called trustees. . . .

If the design be to allow purchase by Natives in localities regarded as unsuitable for Europeans, sight is lost of the fact that usually the Native who desires to become a landed proprietor belongs to the civilized cla.s.s, and such localities offer to him no attraction.

Europeans are more and more entering into occupation of land regarded as set aside for Natives. Missionaries, traders and others are permitted to establish themselves and carry on the duties of their respective callings.

Towns.h.i.+ps spring up at the various seats of magistracy and Census Returns clearly show that such influx is steadily increasing in volume.

It is thus demonstrated that the idea of separate occupation of land by Natives, even in their own Reserves, is not maintained at the present time, nor can it be in the future.*

-- * 'Colonies and British Possessions -- Africa (Session 1905)', vol. lv. pp. 102-103.

But now we must conclude that the gallant Colonel has fallen a victim to the new reactionary spirit, for he has deserted Sir W. Beaumont, the Natal Commissioner, and taken up with the Northerners, a position diametrically opposed to the n.o.ble sentiments he then laid down.

The Cape Land Policy

The p.r.o.nounced inconsistency of the Cape representative on these Commissions is in harmony with the reaction which has set in as regards the Land Policy of the Cape. It is true that the Cape, so far, has been more liberal in the matter of the Franchise. And the very fact that some of the Cape voters' lists included some native names has had a restraining influence on the utterances of certain Cape members of Parliament who would otherwise have given expression to reactionary sentiments. But it is no less true that in later years the same native Franchise has been hypocritically used as a cloak to cover a mult.i.tude of political sins, such, for instance, as free trade in liquor among the Natives and the systematic robbery of native lands.

To my own personal knowledge, the Cape Government have on several occasions, arbitrarily, on the slightest pretext, or none whatever, confiscated lands that were awarded to native tribes by Imperial representatives, in the name of Queen Victoria, and parcelled them out to Europeans.

A striking instance of such rapacity on the part of successive Cape administrations appears on page 30 of the Minute by Sir William Beaumont, Chairman of the Lands Commission. Sir William shows how loyal black taxpayers in Griqualand West had been systematically robbed of Queen Victoria's gifts and driven from pillar to post.

Commission after Commission had been sent out to them at intervals of ten years, systematic spoliation and pillage following the visit of each commission. It has been my sorrow to be among those who witnessed the coming and going of some of these decennial commissions and the truculent att.i.tude of the Cape Government, who, trading on the people's ignorance, treated Queen Victoria's awards like so many sc.r.a.ps of paper, drove these tax-payers from their homes, and invited white men to occupy their territories.

This is what Sir William writes about the Commission of the last decade: --

== The case of these Natives calls for special consideration. They were promised that they would never be removed so long as they remained loyal, and in the end they were burnt out. There is a very strong feeling amongst them that there has been a want of faith towards them.

The subject was specially reported on by Mr. P. Dreyer, Civil Commissioner of Kimberley, on August 27, 1909.

He made specific recommendations, which appear to be quite sound, but do not appear to have been adopted.

Now, this is only with reference to Griqualand West. But similar acts of violence have marked the land-grabbing propensity of the Cape in Bechua.n.a.land, in Peddie and the Transkei, even during my lifetime.

The So-Called Native Areas

Turning to the evidence, we find that if we omit the depositions of Natal whites, of Missionaries and of Natives, the remaining witnesses -- a minority of the whole -- emphatically declared that the aborigines were not ent.i.tled to a square yard of their ancestral lands and that they should be tolerated only as servants. Those, at any rate, who thought that we were ent.i.tled to some breathing s.p.a.ce, were willing to concede certain little "reserves" in the centre of groups of white men's farms, into which black men and women could be herded like so many heads of cattle, rearing their offspring as best they could and preparing them for a life of serfdom on the surrounding farm properties.

They held it to be the duty of the parent serfs to hand over their children, as soon as they were fit, to the farmers who would work them out; and when age and infirmity had rendered them unfit for further service, they could be hustled back to the reserved pens, there to spend the evening of their lives in raising more young serfs for the rising white generation. The Commission's findings seem to have been influenced largely by the latter type of white witness, for all that they award us, in our ancestral South Africa, might be called human incubators considering the amount of s.p.a.ce.

A contemplation of the circ.u.mstances attending these selfish recommendations leads one to wonder whether the Commissioners suffered from the lack of a sense of humour or an undue excess of it.

In North and South America, for instance, we read that the slave-pens were erected and maintained by the farmers at their own cost.

That "the interest of the master demanded that he should direct the general social and moral life of the slave, and should provide especially for his physical well-being;" but the pens proposed by the South African Land Commission, on the other hand, are to be maintained entirely by the slaves, at their own cost, the farmer's only trouble being to come to the gate and whistle for labourers.

It is lawful in certain parts of South Africa for Natives to dispose of or "sell" their daughters to men, the purchase price being sometimes fixed by the Government. It is thus that white magistrates have at times condemned unfortunate black girls to cohabit with men they hated, provided the latter have paid the price; and having regard to the object for which the proposed native pens are to be set aside, the reader can picture to himself the coming commercial traffic in black girls within the enclosures of the said "native areas".

Several of the witnesses have made the statement that Natives are not making economic use of the land. As far as we have read, not one of such witnesses supported his point with figures. But most of those who expressed the contrary view -- that native lands are shockingly overcrowded -- have backed their statements with figures. Prominent among them, there was Mr. Adamson, the Natal Magistrate. In answer to further questions by Commissioner Wessels -- questions which this Report does not disclose -- the same witness also said: "I say the Location is crowded because there are too many Natives for the ground, which is very poor and precipitous.

It is only down towards the valley where they can do a little cultivation.

The population is 12,368."

Other magistrates and farmers gave similar evidence regarding their districts.

They included Mr. J. S. Smit, the Klerksdorp Magistrate, who incidentally exploded the stale old falsehood about Natives living on the labour of their wives. The Rev. J. L. Dube said inter alia: "It is a fact that none can deny that the white man has got the best land.

In the Free State you can go for miles without seeing anything; but if it had been native land there would have been an outcry, 'Look at this beautiful land, and the Kaffirs not cultivating it.'

Going to Johannesburg by the mail from here any day one can see waste land belonging to white people."

Mr. E. T. Stubbs, Commissioner of Louis Trichardt, said: "The density of the native population on reserves is 106 to 177 per square mile; on white farms only 28, and on Crown land 3 to the square mile."

Yet in the face of these and similar official figures, the Commission reiterates the unsupported allegation of prejudiced witnesses that "Natives are not making economic use of their land."

But on turning to the Census figures one sees at once how unfounded is the repeated charge. Take only one of the Provinces -- Cape Colony -- in which it is said the Natives hold (and therefore "waste") the most land.

Province of the Cape of Good Hope

Cape Colony is about 83 3/4 million morgen in extent. It is usually referred to as: --

(a) THE COLONY PROPER: 78,800,000 MORGEN, feeding 560,000 WHITES and 1,090,000 BLACKS, with their 1,603,625 cattle, 240,000 horses and 20 million sheep and goats; and

(b) THE TRANSKEIAN NATIVE TERRITORIES: 5,000,000 MORGEN, feeding 20,000 WHITES and 900,000 BLACKS, with their 1,111,700 cattle, 90,000 horses, 3 1/2 million sheep and goats, and more poultry and pigs than in the Colony Proper.

Surely, no further mathematical demonstration is needed to show on which side of the Kei there is a waste of land, if any.

But it is a maxim in South Africa that, except as mechanical contrivances, Natives do not count, and cattle in their possession are not live-stock; thus the districts in which they eke out an existence are so much derelict land. The Commission, therefore, propose the following alterations: --

The 20,000 whites in the Transkei must not be disturbed. A million morgen in the Transkei is set aside for them, and it shall be unlawful for the blacks to live there except as servants. On the other hand the million odd Natives in the Colony Proper must betake themselves to the remainder of the Transkei, with their cattle and other belongings.

A million morgen of Kalahari sand-dunes, worthless for farming purposes, and the small tribal communes near Queenstown and King Williamstown, are also set aside as native areas. And then the whole of Cape Colony (supposing the Commission's extraordinary recommendations be enforced) will balance itself as follows: --

(a) EUROPEAN AREAS: 76,392,503 MORGEN, feeding 560,000 WHITES, their 1,030,000 CATTLE, 180,300 HORSES AND 15 MILLION SHEEP AND GOATS.

(b) NATIVE AREAS: 7,356,590 MORGEN, feeding 1,500,000 BLACKS, with their 1,580,000 HEAD OF CATTLE, 154,630 HORSES AND 8 MILLION SHEEP AND GOATS.

At first sight it would appear that these awards allotted say 288 acres per white and 7 acres per black person; but, as the bulk of the English (a quarter of a million) live in towns and are not affected by this trouble, we may deduct the Urban districts and their white and black populations.

Then the Commission's allotments really work out at about 589.31 acres per Boer (man, woman or child) and only 10.3 acres per Native.

And even then, this would be by no means the limit of the disproportion.

Appendix VIII (Annexure I) of the same Report recommends future inroads by whites upon these attenuated native reservations, but, to the blacks, there is to be no territorial compensation from the Colony, which an adoption of all these recommendations would practically depopulate.

As things are at present, the black population of these areas is as much as 70 to 90 persons to the square mile. In density of population, some of these "rural" native districts are second only to Capetown, Durban, and Johannesburg -- South Africa's most populous centres.

Not one of the other South African "cities" can show a population of more than 20 to 30 persons to the square mile.

So that every individual inhabitant of a city occupies a larger s.p.a.ce than some of these native farmers can have for themselves, their livestock and agricultural pursuits. So says the Census Report (U.G. 32-'12), which is fully borne out by the writer's own observations in a travelling experience of more than ten years.

The average density of the rural population in white areas is about five to eight persons per square mile. In native areas the average is ten times that number, while the black belt along the Indian Ocean contains from 100 to 140 Natives per square mile (see Schedule F. and Tables XIII-XVI, of the Census Report).

Yet the Commission would saddle these congested native areas with additional populations from the Colony Proper and raise the density to something over 200 souls per square mile.

The density of cattle to the square mile in Cape Colony is 6.39 in white areas, and 61.15 in native areas (see U.G. 32h. 1912.

pp. 1227-1228). Adopt the Commission's Report and you will have in white areas 0.24 and in Native areas 163.26 cattle per square mile.

Is it fair or reasonable that the indigenes of an open country who pay taxation for the benefit of their rulers and not of themselves, should be forced to live the overcrowded lives of the Belgians without Belgium's sanitary arrangements, or the precautionary hygienic measures necessary in other thickly populated areas?

Is it natural that their cattle should be subjected to this starvation process, while the gra.s.sy tracts of their G.o.d-given territories are mainly untenanted and preserved as breeding grounds for venomous snakes and scorpions?

Has it come to this that the standard of our unfortunate country has sunk so low that dog-in-the-manger stories are now read in Parliamentary publications?

It is clear that under the proposed arrangement native cattle must starve and their owners with them. For it has come out in evidence that even now (while many Europeans hold large tracts of idle land) some of the blacks have not enough grazing for their stock.

But that little difficulty the Commission solves by proposing that Natives should be taught to give up cattle breeding, which alone stands between them and the required serfdom!