The Historical Context and Legacy of the Natives Land Act of 1913

Abstract

The Natives Land Act of 1913 was a key example of the segregationist and racist legislation that fixed discriminatory foundations in South African law. We argue in this article that the Act did not take land away from African people directly, and that in the short term its impact was limited. Its most immediate effect was to undermine black tenants on white-owned land, but even here the consequences were mixed and slow to materialise. In many ways the 1913 Land Act was a holding operation and statement of intent about segregation on the land. These are some of the most difficult issues in understanding the Act and its legacy, in part because the Act itself tends to become subsumed into, and ascribed responsibility for, other historical processes: dispossession during the nineteenth century, and apartheid in the second half of the twentieth century. This article sets the Act and its consequences in historical context and, drawing on a number of case studies, points to regional and even local variations in its impact. Our analysis contests some of the conclusions in key books by Plaatje (in the 1910s) and Keegan (in the 1980s). We review some of the major discussions about the social forces behind the Act, assess its significance in destroying the African peasantry and shaping the system of migrant labour, question ideas about a bifurcated world of urban citizens and rural subjects, and conclude by outlining our view of some of its most enduring and destructive legacies. These include outcomes that were not specified in the original legislation, such as the cementing of traditional authorities in the African rural areas.