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Economic Changes in South African Native Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

I. Schapera
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Extract

The native problem as it exists to-day in South Africa is not a phenomenon of recent growth. The issues which confront the country are the product of many decades of inter-racial contact and adjustment, during which Europeans and Natives have exercised a steadily growing influence upon each others' lives. Under the influence of European culture many of the Natives have abandoned their original tribal customs, and their social life is being reorganized on a new basis by the adoption of European habits and ideas. On the other hand, the presence of the Natives has so profoundly affected the social and economic development of the Europeans as to have become almost an integral part of the whole structure of civilization in South Africa. It is no longer possible for the two races to develop apart from each other. The future welfare of the country now depends upon the finding of some social and political system in which both may live together in close contact, without that increasing unrest and disturbance that seems to develop as the inevitable result of the lack of stability and unity in any society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , April 1928 , pp. 170 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1928

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References

page 171 note 1 In the preparation of this paper I have been greatly helped by a course of lectures on The Native Problem from the Economic Point of View, delivered at the University of Capetown in 1924 by Professor A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, who has kindly permitted me to draw upon my notes of these lectures.

page 171 note 2 Under the term ‘Kafir’ are generally included the AmaXosa, AmaMpondo, AmaMpondomisi, and AmaTembu of the Transkei (each of which groups is subdivided into a number of autonomous tribes), as well as the ‘Fingoes’ of the Ciskei, who are the fugitive remnants of tribes from Natal broken up during the great inter-tribal wars at the beginning of last century.

page 171 note 3 For descriptive accounts of these natives and their economic organization see Theal, G. M., Ethnography and Condition of South Africa before 1505Google Scholar; Kropf, A., Das Volk der Xosa-Kaffern; Report of the Commission of Native Laws and Customs (Cape Parliamentary Papers, G 4, '83)Google Scholar ; Fritsch, G., Die Eingeborenen SüdafrikasGoogle Scholar ; Richter, M., Die Wirtschaft der südafrikanischen Bantuneger.Google Scholar

page 177 note 1 The political aspect of contact is best summarized in Walker, E. A., A History of South AfricaGoogle Scholar . The economic aspect is dealt with to some extent by Brookes, E. H., A History of Native Policy in South AfricaGoogle Scholar , and Kingon, J. R. L., L'Éducation des Primitifs.Google Scholar