Land and politics in the Transvaal in the 1880s
Date
1972-04
Authors
Cornwall, R.
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Abstract
It is evident that the population of the South African Republic
did not constitute a single homogenous group, devoid of variation
in wealth, education and life-style. The diversity of Afrikaner
society has frequently been overlooked by historians however,
and the courses of social differentation completely ignored.
The State Archives at Pretoria do contain some enormous collections
of largely unused material however, which for all their superficial
dullness embody a vast amount of detailed and valuable data
relating to this very problem HAD one the time and equipment to
analyse in detail the information which is to be found in the
land-registers, estates, death notices and wills, there can be no
question but that the result would represent a most notable
contribution to the social and economic history of South Africa.
If in addition it were possible to collect the petitions, ballot
papers and voting list, many of them still extant then another
dimension could be superimposed. These would however, be projects
of vast size, and although they will, hopefully, be attempted in
the future, for the present we shall have to be satisfied with a
more modest harvest of information. There is no expectation that
however complete, the bare bones of statistical data will answer all of our questions. They can only be used to suggest the patterns
of life extending beyond the range of the livelier facts called
from volksraad minutes, newspapers, petitions, private correspondence
and reminiscences.
The major part of this paper will be concerned with the social
and economic diversity reflected in landownership and in particular
with its causes, general and local. No claim is made to completeness
in dealing with the origins of the phenomenon, and attention
is paid largely to that material which illustrates aspects of the
problem which have been previously neglected. Practical considerations
obviously restrict the scope of all research, and for the purposes of this paper most of the evidence relates to the
district of Wakkerstroom.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented October, 1972
Keywords
Right of property. South Africa, Local government. South Africa, Land use. Government policy. South Africa