Chapter 4 Background to the Study
4.3 The System of Labour Tenancy
The system of labour tenancy has its roots in the late nineteenth century with the expansion of commercial agriculture in South Africa and specifically the Colony of Natal (McClendon, 2002). The system of labour tenancy initially grew out of the need that white land owners had for cheap labour, and the need that Africans had for access to grazing land (McClendon, 2002). In exchange for this labour, which in Natal was usually given for a period of six month at a time, black peasants could reside on white owned land in exchange for providing labour at certain times of the year. The African family was constructed as a patriarchal unit. The father, or numzane, was the head of the household and was the one person within the household who gained the most from the relationship with the white farm owners (McClendon, 2002). As labour tenants, the homestead would provide labour to the land
2 http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/bio_cou_710.pdf
owner as ‘rent’ for the area they occupied. The labour force would usually consist of the sons in the family, while the daughters often served as domestic helpers. The wife was responsible for the domestic household production and would only occasionally work for the land owner (McClendon, 2002). Thus, the whole system depended on the ability of the father to make his sons and daughters do the required chores that were expected of them.
The ‘rents’ that were provided primarily by the sons of the abanumzane were referred to as isithupa, which means ‘six months’ (McClendon, 2002). This follows the requirements that during the high season, homesteads were to provide labour for the duration of six months.
During the six-month “off” period, the labour tenants would either “rest” and look after their homestead or they would migrate to the cities to earn much needed cash (McClendon, 2002). In the cities, the young men of the family would earn money for tax payments, but they would also get the opportunity to buy clothes and utilities that were unavailable in the rural areas. Moreover, the wages they earned were high compared to what they got working isithupa. The wages that they earned working on the farm automatically went to their father (McClendon, 2002). Working in the urban areas meant that they had an opportunity of earning money for themselves, even though they were expected to send remittances back home. The money that the sons made in the city was also put forward towards lobola (bridewealth). As the income generated on the farms were too small to fund the bridewealth, this was an important factor contributing to the seasonal migration from the rural to the urban areas (McClendon, 2002).
The above mentioned system represented a compromise between black peasants and white landowners, who both more or less benefited from the arrangement (McClendon, 2002). On the one hand, the colonial powers limited the opportunities for Africans to acquire land for their homestead and cattle. Labour tenancy became an opportunity for Africans to gain access to arable and especially grazing land. On the other hand, the white landowners were in demand of a labour force which would work for next to nothing. The provision of land to Africans was the only way they could gain access to cheap labour.
The African peasantry was independent to some degree in that they would refuse to work for the farm owners for the whole year around (McClendon, 2002). It was crucial for their
own livelihood that they be given time to attend to their own production and livestock.
However, as time went by the power relationship between the tenants and the farm owners became increasingly skewed in favor of the latter. The labour tenant system developed into an interference in the organization and coherence of the homesteads. The results became evident in the tension that arose between the numzane and his dependants (McClendon, 2002). Rather than his sons being dependent of their father, it was now the other way around as the numzane became reliant on the work that his sons provided. When his sons did not return from the cities during the six months off, the rest of the family faced eviction when they failed to provide the labour that he had promised the landowner, and that was the basis of their tenure on the farm.
One of the main problems that commercial farmers faced in the first half of the twentieth century was a shortage of labour (Lipton, 1996). To counter this, farmers attempted to limit Africans’ access to land. To gain access to arable land, the African population was forced to work on commercial farms, and in return they were given a small plot of land. While the native reserves also provided labour to the white farmers, this was often too expensive. The farmers were competing with the mining sector to attract labour power, but without the necessary cash they fell short (Lipton, 1996). The importance of securing labour for agricultural production was increasingly recognized by the government. While the sugar and wattle industry relied on indentured labour from India, the majority of the agricultural sector employed labourers among the native South Africans (Lipton, 1996). Thus it became crucial to ensure a steady supply of this labour force. This was done by restricting their opportunities to take up work elsewhere, and by limiting their possibilities to acquire land for themselves.
In Natal, rent paying tenants and especially labour tenants were widespread, as described above. However, while labour tenants were preferable from the farm owner’s point of view, rent paying tenants had greater freedom to grow their own crop (Lipton, 1996). Further, they were able to accumulate more stock than labour tenants did. Rent paying tenants, or squatters as they were frequently referred to, had to pay a fee to the land owner to be allowed to stay on his land, and they were often subject to evictions. But on the bright side there was little to no interference in their agricultural production practices. As the working
environment for rent paying tenants became gradually more difficult, this system saw its replacement by the system of labour tenancy (Lipton, 1996).