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Africans and the Myth of Rural Retirement in South Africa, ca 1900–1950

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Abstract

The South African mining industry relied upon a massive African migrant workforce from the rural areas. Rural transformations in this migrant labor system form an important part of the story of developing capitalism in industrializing South Africa. Yet, recent historical studies on southern African migrant and rural wage labor have paid little attention to life adjustments made by the elderly and those ‘burned out’ by the mines and forced to leave formal wage employment in the urban areas. The South African segregationist state’s rhetoric implied that ‘retired’ Africans could find economic security in their designated rural reserves. Indeed, legislation sought to prohibit Africans who were not employed from remaining in the ‘white’ urban areas. By the 1930s, however, the reserves were rapidly deteriorating. Many elderly Africans could not retire and were forced to seek wage labor. This raises significant questions about how retirement came to be defined and experienced by Africans in South Africa during a critical period of dramatic economic decline in the 1930s and 40s, and what the underlying material circumstances of African South Africans were with regard to adaptations to employment and ageing-related life changes. In many cases, elderly Africans were forced to forgo retirement, and find wage labor, usually in the most poorly paid, least sought-after or dangerous fields of employment. This article thus seeks to illuminate critical generational dimensions of the impact of segregation and racism in South Africa prior to the formal articulation of Apartheid.

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Notes

  1. John Hays Hammond, The Autobiography of John Hays Hammond, Vol.1, Farrar and Rinehart Inc. (Murray Hill, New York, 1935) p. 304.

  2. See A. MacKinnon, ‘Land Labor and Cattle. The Political Economy of Zululand, c. 1930–50 (Ph.D., London, 1996) and evidence before the Native Economic Commission (NEC), 1930–32, South African Archives Depot, Pretoria, pp. 1996–2045.

  3. For the history of African migrant labor and the mines see Jeeves (1985), Crush et al. (1991), Lacey (1981) and Murray (1981).

  4. In the colonial South African context, I use the term African to denote the majority ethnic groups of ‘black’ Africans as opposed to whites (Afrikaners and those of British origin) as well as Indian (those who had their origins in the subcontinent of India) and ‘Coloureds’ those people perceived to be of ‘mixed-race’.

  5. For an example of this very widespread view see the South African Native Affairs Commission Report and Evidence, 1902–05 (Cape Town 1905) [SANAC] passim.

  6. See for example, Beinart (1991) and Chirwa (1993).

  7. See van der Horst (1971), Ferguson (1990) and Richardson and Marks (1984).

  8. For a discussion of definitions of retirement see Luborsky and LeBlanc (2003).

  9. This is consistent with the sorts of ides and perceptions associated with retirement given by informants and as argued elsewhere in this article. For the literal definition see Dent and Nyembezi (1991).

  10. For the nature of segregation see MacKinnon (2001) and Marks (1986).

  11. For the nature of the reserves and the creation of ‘homelands’ see MacKinnon (2004).

  12. See Report of Evidence of the [South African] Native Economic Commission (Union Government U.G. 22–’32, Pretoria 1932), [NEC] vol. 1, p. 1806 and see MacKinnon (2001), p. 572.

  13. See NEC passim and MacKinnon, Political Economy, chapters 4, 5 and 6.

  14. See for example Sagner (1998, 2000).

  15. For African work culture in pre-industrial South Africa see Atkins (1993), and Beinart (1982) esp. pp. 98–100 and for the nature of industrial time and work culture see Thompson (1967).

  16. For a broader discussion of this see Bernardi (1985).

  17. For transformations in African working lives see Atkins (1993).

  18. On one end of the spectrum, Oorlams, (Afrikaans for children as dependent workers) and ‘apprentices’ were drawn from the ranks of children under the age of 10 or 12; and ‘unfit’ elderly workers over the age of 50 or 60 were drawn from the other end Beinart (1993), Chirwa (1991).

  19. See Carton (2000).

  20. From McClendon (2002), p. 159.

  21. Sagner (2000), p. 542.

  22. See for example Krige (1950), chapters 5 and 8 and evidence in de B. Webb and Wright (2001), pp. 20–21, 230–233.

  23. See evidence before the Tomlinson Commission, (Pretoria 1952–55) and Murray (1981).

  24. The Summary Of The Report Of The Commission for the Socio-Economic Development of the Bantu Areas of Union of South Africa U.G. 61-’55, [SEPC] (Pretoria 1955) and evidence before the Tomlinson Commission, 1952–55.

  25. See Marks (2003).

  26. Tomlinson, SEPC, p. 28.

  27. See South African Archives, Pretoria Repository (SAP), Department of the Treasury, [TES] Vol. 2901, file 11/222, Vol. 2, Circular from Secretary for Native Affairs to Secretary of the Treasury, 28 Jan. 1948 and Office of the Controller of Revenue [KOG], Auditors Report on Native Pensions, 1948.

  28. Duncan Mills, p. 79.

  29. See SEPC report and MacKinnon Political Economy, p. 221.

  30. See Sagner, p. 530.

  31. See SAP, TES Vol. 2902, 11/222, Inspector of Native Labor, Hlabisa, Zululand, to Secretary for the Treasury, 30 Oct. 1953.

  32. From Sagner, p. 536.

  33. The legal term used by the South African state for people it perceived to be of ‘mixed race’ was ‘coloured’.

  34. NEC and SEPC.

  35. See SAP, Native Affairs Department files (NTS), Vol. 2211, file 379/1280, E. Lloyd, to Resident Magistrate, Lusikisiki, 7 Sept. 1936.

  36. NTS Vol. 2211, 379/1280, Part II, Chief Native Commissioner of Natal to Secretary of Native Affairs, 13 July 1936.

  37. See SAP, KOG , Vol. 645, AUD 547 C, Auditors Circular on Pensions, May 2 1947. and CAD TES 2901 11/222, vol. 12 Means income equivalents 1947.

  38. Indeed, as I have shown elsewhere African B owned cattle numbers grew substantially in the first half of the twentieth century. See MacKinnon (1991).

  39. SAP, NTS Dept. of Native Affairs, General Circular, No. 14 of 1944, 30 Aug. 1944.

  40. See SAP, TES 2902, 11/222, Inspector of Native Pensions report to the Chief Accountant, 27 Oct. 1955 and for the impact of ‘betterment’ on rural South Africa see MacKinnon (2003).

  41. See SAP, TES 2902, 11/222, Inspector of Native Pensions report to the Chief Accountant, 27 Oct. 1955.

  42. The Summary Of The Report Of The Commission for the Socio-Economic Development of the Bantu Areas of Union of South Africa U.G. 61-’55, [SEPC] (Pretoria 1955).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Sharon King and the organizers of the International Conference on Ageing and Social Change in Africa for allowing me to present my work, and for their insightful comments. I would also like to thank my esteemed colleagues, Dr. Patricia Campbell, Dr. Lisa Gezon and Dr. Elaine MacKinnon for their support of my work and thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

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  1. Department of History, University of West Georgia, 1601 Maple St., Carrollton, GA, 30118, USA

    Aran S. MacKinnon

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MacKinnon, A.S. Africans and the Myth of Rural Retirement in South Africa, ca 1900–1950. J Cross Cult Gerontol 23, 161–179 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-007-9048-0

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