Africana Library

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Author: search.filters.author.Van Onselen, CharlesHas files: Yes

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    Social and economic underpinnings of paternalism and violence on the maize farms of the south-western Transvaal, 1900-1950
    (1991-05) Van Onselen, Charles
    For the better part of five hundred years southern Africa has been witness to an epic struggle as a small invading minority of European origin, enjoying all the advantages of military might, literacy and access to superior technology, sought to conquer, dispossess, render subservient and then control members of the indigenous majority. This centuries-long struggle for mastery of the sub-continent has - as members of both the out-going and in-coming nationalists never cease to remind us - been marked by great hardship, endless blood-letting and countless corpses. And, as the white minority now silently laments its possible political eclipse by a black majority, it is perhaps an appropriate moment to reflect on how, during the course of this long and violent struggle, it failed to transform its physical strength into moral legitimacy. For, as Rousseau once observed in a different context but at a not dissimilar moment; 'The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty (1).
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    Race and class in the South African countryside: Cultural osmosis and social relations in the sharecropping economy of the south-western Transvaal, 1900-1950
    (1988-08) Van Onselen, Charles
    'Race relations' in the South African countryside have never made for a particularly pretty picture. Several recent studies, including, for example, a finely etched portrait of the notorious Abel Erasmus have served to remind us that the birth pangs of commercial agriculture in the Transvaal during the late 19th century were characterised by considerable violence between white landowners and black tenants (1). Nor did matters improve significantly over the half century that followed. In the course of an exceptionally sensitive study of black protest on the land during the late twenties it is suggested that: ' . . .fists, whips and guns were central in maintaining master-servant relationships on farms' (2). And, while writing what was the classic work of its genre in the mid-thirties, I.D. MacCrone was moved to comment on 'cases of violent physical treatment which are such a feature of the relations between white and black in country districts' (3).