what was the purpose of the native land act of 1913

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What was the impact of the Native Land Act of 1913?

The Natives Land Act of 1913 deprived the majority of black South Africans of the right to productively own land for their economic wellbeing and sustainability. Just so, what were the social effects of the Native Land Act of 1913?

What does Natives Land Act stand for?

The Natives Land Act, 1913 (subsequently renamed Bantu Land Act, 1913 and Black Land Act, 1913; Act No. 27 of 1913) was an Act of the Parliament of South Africa that was aimed at regulating the acquisition of land.

What did the Native Land Act of 1765 do?

The act decreed that natives were not allowed to buy land from whites and vice versa. Exceptions had to be approved by the Governor-General. The native areas left initially totaled less than 10% of the entire land mass of the Union, which was later expanded to 13%. The Act further prohibited the practice of serfdom or sharecropping.

What is the purpose of the native land bill of Rights?

To make further provision as to the purchase and leasing of land by Natives and other Persons in the several parts of the Union and for other Persons in the several parts of the Union and for other purposes in connection with the ownership and occupation of Land by Natives and other Persons.

What was the purpose of the 1913 land Act?

Overview. The Natives Land Act of 1913 was the first major piece of segregation legislation passed by the Union Parliament. It was replaced in 1991. The act decreed that natives were not allowed to buy land from whites and vice versa.

What was the economic and social impact of the Natives Land Act of 1913?

Delving into this awakening, it seems that, 100 years ago, the Natives Land Act of 1913 created socio-economic injustice in terms of poverty and dispossession of land from black South Africans. The theme of socio-economic injustice and land enjoys the attention of several scholars in South Africa.

What did the Natives Land Act of 1913 in South Africa state?

The Natives' Land Act of 1913 defined less than one-tenth of South Africa as Black “reserves” and prohibited any purchase or lease of land by Blacks outside the reserves. The law also restricted the terms of tenure under which Blacks could live on white-owned farms.

How did the Land Act lead to apartheid?

The 1913 Land Act prohibited "black" people from buying or renting land in areas designated as "white". This legislation was one of the cornerstones of apartheid and paved the way for further legislation restricting the rights of black people and their ownership of land.

What was the impact of the Land Act?

According to the paragraph 'The impact of the Land Act', in this reference: "Perhaps the most visible impact of the Act was that it denied Africans access to land which they owned or had been leasing from White farmers. ".

What is the purpose of the Act No 27 of 1913?

Act to make further provision as to the purchase and leasing of Land by Natives and other Persons in the several parts of the Union and for other purposes in connection with the ownership and occupation of Land by Natives and other Persons. Citation. Act No. 27 of 1913. Enacted by. Parliament of South Africa. Royal assent. 16 June 1913. Commenced.

When was the Land Bill first read?

However, this changed dramatically after the first reading of the bill on 25 February.

What was the purpose of the 1913 Act?

The 1913 Act, while not the first act to dispossess Black South Africans, became the basis of subsequent land legislation and evictions that ensured the segregation and destitution of much of South Africa's population.

Why was Cape Province excluded from the Land Act?

There were also several exceptions to the Act. Cape province was initially excluded from the act as a result of the existing Black franchise rights, which were enshrined in the South Africa Act , and a few Black South Africans successfully petitioned for exceptions to the law. The Land Act of 1913, however, legally established the idea ...

What were the laws of the pre-apartheid era?

Pre-Apartheid Era Laws: Natives (or Black) Land Act No. 27 of 1913. Map showing the Bantustans in South Africa at the end of the apartheid period, before they were reincorporated into South Africa proper. Alistair Boddy-Evans is a teacher and African history scholar with more than 25 years of experience.

What happened to the land in South Africa in 1913?

Under the Black Land Act, which came into force 19 June 1913, Black South Africans were no longer be able to own, or even rent, land outside of designated reserves. These reserves not only amounted to just 7–8% of South Africa's land but were also less fertile than lands set aside for White owners.

What did Sol Plaatje write in the opening lines of Native Life in South Africa?

As Sol Plaatje wrote in the opening lines of Native Life in South Africa, “Awakening on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African Native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.”. The Natives Land Act was by no means the beginning of dispossession. White South Africans had already appropriated much ...

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The Native Lands Act of 1913 and supplementary legislation in 1936 harmonized these conflicting interests, setting aside about one-eighth of South African land for the some 4,000,000 Africans, while reserving the rest for about 1,250,000 whites.

history of Southern Africa

The Native Lands Act of 1913 and supplementary legislation in 1936 harmonized these conflicting interests, setting aside about one-eighth of South African land for the some 4,000,000 Africans, while reserving the rest for about 1,250,000 whites.

What was the Native Land Act?

The Natives Land Act (No. 27 of 1913) was passed to allocate only about 7% of arable land to Africans and leave the more fertile land for whites. This law incorporated territorial segregation into legislation for the first time since Union in 1910.

Why was sharecropping forbidden in the Transvaal?

According to debates in Parliament, the Act was passed in order to limit friction between White and Black, but Blacks maintained that its aim was to meet demands from White farmers for more agricultural land and force Blacks to work as labourers.

What was the Native Land Act of 1913?

The Natives Land Act (No. 27 of 1913) was passed to allocate only about 7% of arable land to Africans and leave the more fertile land for whites. This law incorporated territorial segregation into legislation for the first time since Union in 1910. One may also ask, how did the Native Land Act of 1913 impact on land distribution in South Africa? ...

How did the Native Land Act of 1913 affect land distribution in South Africa?

One may also ask, how did the Native Land Act of 1913 impact on land distribution in South Africa? The Act became law on 19 June 1913 limiting African land ownership to 7 percent and later 13 percent through the 1936 Native Trust and Land Act of South Africa. Once the law was passed, the apartheid government began the mass relocation ...

What was the Natives Land Act?

1.2 The ‘Natives Land Act’ was passed in June 1913 and is frequently described as the originating and definitional legislation in establishing the apparatus of segregation and apartheid and disappropriating South Africa’s black populations from land possession and ownership. It might be described as having mythological status in this regard, for, while not denying it had negative consequences, the in-depth historiography suggests something quite complex about the origins, content and effects of the Act. Equally or more consequential legislation had been passed earlier, the legislation itself came about because of different political purposes, its immediate effects were different in different places and in many were not as usually described, and its main negative effects occurred in the longer run and for other reasons.

What was the Land Act 3.4?

3.4 It was the provisions in the Land Act concerning tenancy that took on most importance in the period after 1913, and it is these and their effects which have been described in mythologised terms, with the rather different findings of academic research largely not having made much of an impact on popular understandings. This point will be further considered under the heading of post-text.

How did the Land Act become mythologised?

5.4 In the long run, i.e. now, the Act has become mythologised through being conflated with and becoming a covering term for all the other changes that had happened, as in the quotation above. And in turn, its resonance in this respect comes from a reliance on Plaatje’s account, such that discussions of the Land Act often start with a quotation from Plaatje’s book, used as the evidential basis for the argument that follows.

What was the purpose of the Beaumont Commission?

3.3 In more detail, people were defined as ‘native’ were prohibited from purchasing land outside the demarcated ‘scheduled native areas’; a commission (the Beaumont Commission) was to demarcate these; and this would be linked at a national level to the system of reserves already established in some parts of the country. However, although the Beaumont Commission met and made recommendations, the large increase in location lands that had been anticipated when the Act was drafted never happened, although other aspects of the legislation remained in force.

What was the purpose of the Glen Grey Act?

It was passed in the Cape Colony under the Premiership of Cecil John Rhodes, but was seen and intended to act as a template more widely across South Africa and in other settler colonies as well. It limited the land available to African peoples by demarcating locations in an area, specified the maximum amount of land that could be held, instituted a system of primogeniture, stopped mortgages, and inhibited if not entirely prevented land sales. The intention and effects were to create ‘native place’ and, when this was insufficient for its growing surplus population, to ensure that they entered a wage-labour market whilst still belonging to the ‘native place’.

What did the ordinances of the British colonies and Boer republics mean?

1.5 In addition, from early on, ordinances were passed in both British colonies and Boer republics which legislated that people ‘out of place’ from a particular legitimated land-holding had to have passes which allowed them to be legitimately so, or otherwise legalised punishment would follow. These points about the evolution and enforcement of a pass system to regulate labour in and out of place need to be factored into the land and labour relationship.

What did land and labour mean in South Africa?

For white people, land meant subsistence, livelihood and potentially wealth; labour meant that more land could be used for animals or crops; cheap labour meant that livelihood and wealth could be greater; constrained labour fettered to particular places meant compliance. Approaches which emphasise one or the other miss the point because, like horses and carriages, land and labour, labour and land, have each implied the other in this settler context.

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Prior to the act, most of these black farmers were tenants on white farms, ploughing a portion of land given to them, and giving up to 50% of the harvest to the landlord, to pay for their tenancy. Now the act prohibited them from hiring or buying land.

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Plaatje writes that the law “makes it illegal for natives to live on farms except as servants in the employ of Europeans”. It didn’t end there. Black people were also not allowed to live in a municipal area or own property in urban localities. “He can only live in town as a servant in the employ of a European.”

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Plaatje spent several months after the act came into effect travelling around on a bicycle, hearing and collecting stories from those newly evicted off the land. He recounts a case where a young couple, with a sick baby, were forced off the land. They hitched up their wagon and after two nights on the road, their baby died.

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A blue plaque in Johannesburg marks the site of an early Pass Office (The Heritage Portal)

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The late respected photographer Santu Mofokeng says this as a preface to his photographs: “We carry around within us images of tenant families or yokels as we sometimes refer to them. We think we know their plight: low wages, long working hours and inadequate working conditions to mention a few of the less contentious laments.

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A decade prior to this, the apartheid government sent in the bulldozers to Sophiatown, some 10km north-west of the Joburg city centre. By 1963 all that remained of this vibrant but often violent suburb were a few churches, a school and a house. A new white working-class suburb grew up from the rubble, called Triomf, meaning “triumph” in Afrikaans.

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Blacks were forced to give up more than their land and possessions – they gave up their freedom, to be enslaved for the next 81 years, until democracy dawned in 1994.

Summary

Overview

Social and Economic impact

Responses

Political ironies

Reflections

Bibliography

External links