A threat to property and lives: Black ‘crime’ and white ‘victims’ in Krugersdorp, 1887 to 1914
Date
1991-05
Authors
Dugmore, Charles
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
"Although he was helpless and defenceless, he decided to declare 'war'
against his persecutors. Without arms he
said, he was going to wage a relentless
struggle against the white man. He was
going to rob him, break into his stores,
burgle his houses, and make him
uncomfortable in every way possible". (1) A common perception amongst white residents in Krugersdorp
during the period 1837-1923, was that blacks were engaged in
a kind of low-key war against whites where newspapers
reported almost every other day, how a white storekeeper had been murdered and robbed, how a white girl had been brutally
raped, how gangs of 'Amalaita' were attacking white men in
the streets and how even the policemen were not invulnerable
to assaults at the hands of black criminals.
What this Paper intends to show is that Krugersdorp's white
residents saw hardened black criminals as a "threat to
property and lives", and while calling for more police, more
secure prisons and harsher sentences on such criminals,
developed a racist consciousness that turned all blacks into
"ascriptive criminals" who had to be separated from
whites in every possible sphere and 'incarcerated' into-mine
compounds, locations, separate hospitals, schools and halls
and into separate queues at market tables, railway ticket
offices and post offices, removed off the sidewalks and out
of parks. In the process,this Paper hopes also to demonstrate the
injustice of such a racist perception amongst white
residents, the different ways in which black criminal
statistics were inflated, the perceptions of black criminals
themselves, the views of black residents of Krugersdorp, and
finally, the minority voice amongst whites that responded
differently to black crime.
Rather than waste valuable space on a detailed "background"
to introduce this Paper, I have taken the liberty to include
a detailed survey of Krugersdorp within the text as a whole.
The Paper progresses roughly chronologically from 1887 to
1914.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented May, 1991
Keywords
Crime. South Africa. History