Putting a plough to the ground: A history of tenant production on the Vereeniging Estates, 1896-1920

Abstract

The paper concerning tenant production on the Vereeniging Estates which follows this preamble, is extracted from a larger study dealing with the growth of capitalism in the agricultural heartland of South Africa. The introduction summarises my understanding of the way in which this small but significant part of rural South Africa - farmed by the small-holding, share-tenant cultivators and pastoralists of the Vereeniging Estates - was transformed by the forces of an all pervasive capitalism.