Native Affairs

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For information on Native Affairs content please contact Rachel Louis via Tel : 0117171967 or email : rachel.louis@wits.ac.za or Cynthia Warren via Tel : 0117171931 or email : cynthia.warren@wits.ac.za

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    Annual reports by the Commissioner for Native Affairs for the years ended 30th June 1903-31st May 1910
    (Government Printing and Stationery Office, 1911) Transvaal. Native Affairs Department
    The Transvaal Native Affairs Department annual reports for the period 1902/1903 to 1909/1910 are mainly concerned with the aftermath of the Second Anglo- Boer War. The War caused upheavals in Black communities, and unauthorized locations sprang up. According to the 1903 report, unscrupulous individuals had led Black people to believe that farms captured from the Boers would be redistributed among Black people. The 1904 report states that Native Commissioners were responsible for resettling the Black communities, and makes mention of the fact that Black people did not want to return to their old domiciles. They wanted land on which to live independently. There was unrest on farms, which was quelled when farmers were issued with guns. Officers from the Native Affairs Dept. tried to improve relations between Europeans and Black people, with limited success. The 1905 report makes mention of the Native Affairs Commission’s report of 1904, which stated that the time had come for the lands dedicated and set apart as locations to be defined, delimited and reserved for Black people by means of legislation. The 1906 report deals with the shortage of Black labour on the mines. It touches on unscrupulous methods used to recruit labour and the issue of fair wages for Black labourers. The Transvaal Government appointed a special Commission to look into the shortage of unskilled labour on the mines. As a result of this, the Labour Importation Ordnance was passed. Labourers were imported from German West Africa and China. The Portuguese government would not allow labourers to be imported from Mozambique. This changed in 1909. The report for that year states that the Government of the Transvaal and the Province of Mozambique entered into a treaty regarding the employment and status of Mozambican labourers employed on Transvaal mines. All of the reports for the 10 year period also deal with the issues of taxation of Black people, education, administration of deceased estates, marriages, tribal matters, health issues on the mines, compensation due to Black people for mining accidents and also compensation due to them for losses suffered during the War. The 1910 report states that on 31st May 1910, the control and administration of Native affairs passed from the Transvaal authorities to the Executive Government under the Union.