3 - Colonial Displacements and the Establishment of Native Purchase Areas

Summary

The previous chapter discussed the migration history of the Basotho community, their links with the Dutch Reformed Church missionaries, and also how they were generally viewed by colonial administrators as ‘progressive’ Africans compared with other indigenous communities. The major focus was on the Basotho activities on Erichsthal and Niekerk's Rust, their two farms in the Victoria and Ndanga Districts respectively. The 1930s, however, witnessed fundamental changes in Southern Rhodesia's land policy. The Land Apportionment Act (1930) effectively legalised the division of land to segregate the races, with productive land being reserved for white settlers, while Africans were crowded into reserves and the newly created Purchase Areas. Africans who occupied areas that were declared European Areas were ordered to vacate the land and move to reserves. However, most of them stayed on as ‘squatters’ on Crown land or white-owned farms. The creation of purchase areas became a concession Africans received for their loss of rights to purchase land anywhere else in the country. This change also affected those Africans such as the Basotho, who had owned land prior to 1925. The Basotho's two farms, Niekerk's Rust and Erichsthal, were declared to be in an area reserved for Europeans and the owners were asked to vacate their farms in 1932 and 1933 respectively. This chapter discusses the Basotho's experiences of the 1930s displacements and how, through the purchase of farms in the Dewure and Mungezi Purchase Areas, they established an enclave for themselves, reforging their entitlement strategies. The chapter also discusses the challenges that the Basotho faced in purchasing their farms and dealing with inheritance disputes involving land.

LAND ALIENATION AND THE BASOTHO's SETTLEMENT IN THE DEWURE AND MUNGEZI PURCHASE AREAS

From 1890 to 1923 Rhodesia was governed by the British South Africa Company, which obtained a charter from the British government in 1889. The charter gave the company the right to administer the colony for an initial period of twenty-five years, after which the charter could be renewed for ten-year periods. There was no serious challenge to the status quo until at the end of the first period in 1914. Although the charter was extended for a further ten years, increased opposition to the British South Africa Company led to the end of company rule in 1923, after which a settler regime, also referred to as the Responsible Government, took over.