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The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society and the South African Natives' Land Act of 1913*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Brian Willan
Brian Willan
Affiliation:
S.O.A.S., University of London
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Extract

This article seeks to explain how and why the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society (A.P.S.) came to support the South African Natives' Land Act of 1913 when African political opinion in South Africa opposed it. The reasons for the Society's position are sought in its predisposition in favour of segregatory policies, but also in several other political considerations including, it is suggested, its need to retain the support of the imperial government in the interests of its campaign against the British South Africa Company. The A.P.S.'s attitude emerged in its handling of the South African Native National Congress's deputation to England in 1914, and in its dispute with one of the deputation's members – Sol Plaatje – who remained in the country until 1917. The dispute intensified with the publication of Plaatje's Native Life in South Africa, whilst the direction of the A.P.S.'s policy of support for the South African government came to be challenged from within by two of Plaatje's supporters on the A.P.S.'s Executive Committee. Eventually, relations between the A.P.S. and the S.A.N.N.C, were broken off completely, and Plaatje's two supporters were voted off the Society's Executive Committee. Opposition to the Society's position over the Natives' Land Act continued to be expressed, however, in a committee set up to carry on Plaatje's campaign after his return to South Africa. One of the effects of this, and of the Society's activities generally in relation to the Natives' Land Act, was to emphasize its degree of isolation from currents of opinion that might have provided a new base of support at a time when it particularly needed this.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 1979 , pp. 83 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 Papers of Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society, Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS Br. Emp. S22 G203. Unless otherwise specified, all subsequent file references are to these papers. I am grateful to Rhodes House for their permission to use these papers and for the helpfulness of the library staff in making them available to me.

2 Public Record Office, C.O. 417/629Google Scholar, 34975.

3 The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society was formed in 1910 when the two hitherto separate organizations were united; it is henceforth referred to in this article in abbreviated form as A.P.S.

4 Plaatje, S. T., Native Life in South Africa before and since the European War and the Boer Rebellion (London, 1916).Google Scholar

5 MSS Br. Emp. S22 G204, Memorial, to General Botha, 13 Nov. 1916Google Scholar, quoting resolution passed at Executive Committee meeting of the A.P.S., 3 Aug. 1916Google Scholar; Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigine's Friend, series v, vol. 6, no. 4 (Jan. 1917).Google Scholar

6 The Natives' Land Act is reproduced in full in Native Life, 46–51.Google Scholar

7 van der Horst, S. T., Native Labour in South Africa (London, 1942), 303.Google Scholar

8 For an account of the parliamentary debate, see Tatz, C. M., Shadow and Substance in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg, 1962), 17–22.Google Scholar

9 Native Life, chs. 14 and 15Google Scholar; Walshe, P., The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa (London, 1970), 44–52.Google Scholar

10 For the A.P.S.'s ineteenth-century background with special reference to Southern Africa, see Edgecombe, D. R., ‘The influence of the Aborigines’ Protection Society on British Policy towards Black African and Cape coloured affairs in South Africa, 1896–1910’ (Ph. D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1975Google Scholar); Whitehead, R., ‘The Aborigines’ Protection Society and the safeguarding of African interests in Rhodesia, 1889–1930’ (Ph.D thesis, Oxford University, 1975Google Scholar); Whitehead, R., ‘John Harris and the Chartered Company, 1910–1923Google Scholar’, in Collected Seminar Papers on the Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries, vol. 2 (University of York).

11 Harris, also ‘brought to the Society a crusading vigour reminiscent of the 1830sGoogle Scholar and the efficiency of one of the first professional humanitarians’: Whitehead, , ‘John Harris and the Chartered Company’, 29.Google Scholar

12 Whitehead, , Ph. D. thesis, ch. 3.Google Scholar

13 S22 G203, Harris, to Albright, P., ? April 1917.Google Scholar

14 For the origins of this ‘liberal segregationist’ school of thought see especially M. Legassick, ‘The rise of modern South African Liberalism: its assumptions and its social base’, paper for seminar on ‘Ideology and Social Structure in Twentieth Century South Africa’, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, ICS/72/2; and M. Legassick, ‘British hegemony and the origins of segregation in South Africa, 1901–1914’, paper for seminar on ‘Colonial Rule and Local Response in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, same place, COLR/73/8. ‘If liberalism had a defined political position at this time [1913]’, Legassick, notes, it was ‘to secure sufficient land to allow for the real implementation of segregation’ (‘Rise of modern South African Liberalism’, 3).Google Scholar

15 For typical statement from the A.P.S. of the dangers of ‘interference’, see S22 G203, Harris to Sir Winfrey, R., 22 Feb. 1917: ‘We have to be most careful in this matter [the Land Act] because, as you know, South African opinion is so over-sensitive and so easily irritated by action taken here on behalf of the natives that there is always considerable danger that this irritation will be directed against the natives and their real interests.’Google Scholar

16 For the imperial government's strategy in Southern Africa in this period, see especially Chanock, M., Unconsummated Union: Britain, Rhodesia, and South Africa, 1900–45 (Manchester, 1977).Google Scholar

17 S22 G2O3, Dube to A.P.S., 24 Oct. 1913. The fact that one of the A.P.S. committee members, R. C. Hawkin, was married to General Botha's sister may not have been entirely irrelevant to the A.P.S.'s attitude towards the South African government – particularly as Hawkin had already been informed of General Botha's disapproval of a project to set up a branch of the A.P.S. in South Africa if this was to have concerned itself with ‘native affairs’ in South Africa (State Archives, Pretoria, N.A. 4770/137/639, Botha, to Hawkin, , 11 Dec. 1913).Google Scholar

18 S19 D3/11, Harris, to Dube, , 18 May 1914Google Scholar. A similar plea had been directed previously to Msimang, H. S., Secretary of the Organizing Committee of the S.A.N.N.C., after it had become clear that the Congress was determined to proceed with the deputation anyway (822 G203 A.P.S. to Msimang, 2 Jan. 1914).Google Scholar

19 P.R.O., C.O. 551/64, 23292, A.P.S. to Colonial Office, 26 June 1914. The deputation's confidence in the good intentions of the A.P.S. was further undermined when, shortly after their arrival in England, they heard that Reuters had cabled a report to the South African newspapers to the effect that the A.P.S. had stated that the deputation had ‘made a mistake in coming to England’; S22 G203, Dube, to A.P.S., 1 July 1914, and Tsala ea Batho (Kimberley), 13 June 1914.Google Scholar

20 S22 G203, Deputation's Memorandum to the Colonial Secretary, 15 June 1914Google Scholar, quoted in Walshe, , Rise of African Nationalism, 50–1.Google Scholar

21 Union of South Africa, Correspondence Relating to the Natives' Land Act, 1913, Cd. 7508, (1914), 23Google Scholar. Dube's, statement was made in a petition to General Botha which was published in the Cape Argus, 14 Feb. 1914. The full paragraph in which the statement appears (which Harris chose to ignore) was as follows: ‘We make no protest against the principle of separation so far as it can be fairly and practically carried out. But we do not see how it is possible for this law to effect any greater separation between the races than obtains now. It is evident that the aim of this law is to compel service by taking away the means of independence and self-improvement. This compulsory service at reduced wages and high rents will not be separation, but an intermingling of the most injurious character of both races’.Google Scholar

22 S19 D3/15, Harris, to Unwin, J. Cobden Mrs, 25 Oct. 1916.Google Scholar

23 P.R.O., C.O. 551/67, 24531, A.P.S. to C.O., 6 July 1914.

24 S22 D4/4, Harcourt, L. (Colonial Secretary) to A.P.S., 11 July 1914.Google Scholar

25 P.R.O., C.O. 551/67, 23292, A.P.S. to C.O., 26 June 1914, enclosing letter to Dube. The anxiety of the A.P.S. not to cause any offence to the C.O. is evident in the fact that they sent them drafts of letters to Dube for approval, explaining that ‘our committee would deeply regret issuing any statement which might misrepresent the attitude of HMG upon this important issue’.

26 Walshe, , Rise of African Nationalism, 51Google Scholar. For similar reasons I would disagree with Chanock (Unconsummated Union, 98–9Google Scholar), who characterizes Harris as having ‘initially supported’ the delegation of 1914 and subsequently ‘turned his attention to reversing the society's stand on the South African Land Act’.

27 Plaatje, S. T., Abantu-Batho, 30 Sept. 1915Google Scholar, enclosure in S19 D4/8, Harris, to Solomon, G. Mrs, 26 Jan. 1916Google Scholar. In replying to the statements made by Plaatje, (Abantu-Batho, 9 Dec. 1915Google Scholar) Harris acknowledged that there were conditions and ‘requests’ attached to the loan, and that these included Plaatje's claim that ‘their return should take place on a certain date and by a certain steamer’; for a further account by Harris of the arrangements made, see also S22 G2O3, Harris, to Haigh, Dr, 12 Jan. 1917.Google Scholar

28 S19 D3/14, Harris, to Lambert, Henry (C.O.), 29 Aug. 1916.Google Scholar

29 S19 D3/12, Harris, to May, C., 13 Oct. 1914.Google Scholar

30 For this episode and its background, see Whitehead, , Ph.D. thesis, 138–41Google Scholar, and S19 D5/3, Harris, to Buxton, Travers, 10 Nov. 1914.Google Scholar

31 On 6 July 1914 all five Congress delegates had been persuaded to sign a document giving power of attorney to a firm of lawyers, Messrs Morgan Price and Co., to represent the interests of the African population of Rhodesia. As on other occasions the persuasive powers of the A.P.S. officials overcame the better judgment of at least one of the delegates. ‘As Mr Plaatje said at the time,’ a friend of his later recalled, ‘none of them were qualified to do this – neither being Natives of Rhodesia, nor possessing any mandate from the Natives of that country’ (S19 D3/8, Solomon, Mrs to Buxton, Travers, 29 March 1917).Google Scholar

32 S22 G185, Harris, to Morgan, , 10 Nov. 1914Google Scholar. At the beginning of December Harris wrote a further letter in the same vein: ‘To have so completely won over to our side in London and South Africa the Imperial Authorities is no small matter for the Society ….’; S22 G185, Harris, to Morgan, , 1 Dec. 1914.Google Scholar

33 Abantu-Batho, 30 Dec. 1915.Google Scholar

34 Native Life, ch. 18Google Scholar; Brotherhood Journal, vol. 18, Aug. 1914Google Scholar; for examples of reports of Brotherhood meetings addressed by Plaatje, see Northampton Daily Echo, 20 Dec. 1915Google Scholar; Leighton Buzzard Observer, 3 Aug. 1915Google Scholar. A full list of meetings addressed by Plaatje, (until 1916Google Scholar) appears in Native Life, 232–3.Google Scholar

35 S19 D3/11, Harris, to Solomon, G. Mrs, 14 June 1915.Google Scholar

36 Witwatersrand University archives, Plaatje/Molema papers, Plaatje, to Molema, Silas, 11 July 1920Google Scholar. I am grateful to Tim Couzens for providing me with a copy of this letter.

37 S19 D2/16, circular letter signed by Werner, Alice, 18 Sept. 1915Google Scholar. Alice Werner also advised and assisted Plaatje in writing Native Life; for details of her remarkable career, see obituary in The Times, 11 June 1935.Google Scholar

38 S19 D2/16, Travers Buxton to Spicer, Sir Albert, 21 Sept. 1915Google Scholar. Buxton sought also to dissuade Alice Werner from sending out any further appeals, and a long correspondence ensued. In the circular, Alice Werner said that Plaatje had asked her to try and raise funds to pay the printer who had undertaken to do Native Life, but it seems inconceivable that he can have seen the actual circular before it was sent out. Alice Werner was almost certainly misled not by Plaatje but by her own political ignorance and naivety.

39 Natal Archives, Pietermaritzburg, Colenso Collection, Box 63, Werner, Alice to Colenso, H., 18 Feb. 1916.Google Scholar

40 Ibid.

41 S19 D2/16, Travers Buxton to Mrs Solomon, , 8 Feb. 1916.Google Scholar

42 Quotations from Native Life, 21 and 206.Google Scholar

43 For examples of reviews, see Daily News, 12 July 1916Google Scholar; Birmingham Post, 2 July 1916Google Scholar; African World, 3 June 1916Google Scholar. Other reviews (of which extracts were reproduced in later editions on Native Life) appeared in the Yorkshire Observer, Glasgow Herald, New Statesman, South Africa and United Empire.

44 For example, ‘General Botha's Native Land Policy’, Journal of the African Society, xvi, October 1916Google Scholar; ‘White and Black in South Africa’, Manchester Guardian, 27 Dec. 1916Google Scholar; ‘General Botha – Statesman’, Fortnightly Review, CI, Jan.–June 1917Google Scholar. To one editor, Harris explained that he was keen for his piece to go in as soon as possible because he was ‘anxious to get the Native Affairs Dept. of S.A. to ask for permission to reproduce it’, adding that ‘we ought to give him a helping hand in carrying out this great policy’. Something of Harris's attitude is also conveyed in two alternative titles he proposed for one of his articles – ‘Botha's Greatest Adventure’, and ‘Botha – the Joshua of the Natives of S.A.’; S19 03/14 Harris to Moore, L., 28 June and 21 July 1916Google Scholar. In private letters, Harris was even less restrained in his comments on Plaatje's book.

45 Fortnightly Review, 660.Google Scholar

46 Harris, J. H., Dawn in Darkest Africa (London, 1912).Google Scholar

47 Evans, M., Black and White in South East Africa (London, 1910Google Scholar). A second edition was published in 1916.Google Scholar

48 S19 D3/12, Harris, to Fox, F. W., 15 Sept. 1914.Google Scholar

49 S22 G2O3, Harris, to the editor of The New Statesman, (/i) 7 Oct. 1916.Google Scholar

50 These letters are in S22 G203.

51 S22 G203, Harris, to Haigh, Dr., 15 Jan. 1917Google Scholar: ‘… Maurice Evans is of course the Maurice Evans, whose name is now of world-wide repute as a student of native questions. I have just received from him a letter which I value very much, and send you a copy of it. To have received the commendation of Maurice Evans for my article is no small matter, for, as I have said, his whole life has been devoted to the study of native problems’.

52 Journal of the African Society, xvi, October 1916.Google Scholar

53 Native Life of South Africa (2nd ed.), 356.Google Scholar

54 ‘Resolution against the Native Land Act 1913Google Scholar and the Report of the Native Land Commission’, SANNC conference, Pietermaritzburg, 2 Oct., 1916; enclosure in S22 G203, Thema, to Travers Buxton, 2 October 1916.Google Scholar

55 Quoted in Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Friend, series v, vol. 6, no. 4, Jan. 1917.Google Scholar

56 S19 D1/17, Buxton, to Evans, Maurice, n July 1916.Google Scholar

57 S22 G203, Harris, to Rev. Staines, H. Lenton, 21 Sept. 1916.Google Scholar

58 S22 G203, Dower, Edward (Secretary for Native Affairs) to A.P.S., 15 Dec 1916.Google Scholar

59 Harris had particular reason to be wary of Mrs Solomon's persistence and determination in upholding any cause she chose to make her own. In 1912, at the age of 68, she had been arrested whilst leading a suffragette delegation to the House of Commons and then spent a month in Holloway gaol; see obituaries in The Times, 3 July 1933Google Scholar and The Vote, 7 July 1933Google Scholar (Solomon Family Papers, South African Library, Cape Town). I am also grateful to the late Miss Solomon, D. D. (interview, Cape Town, July 1976)Google Scholar for her memories of her mother's dispute with the A.P.S.

60 Early in 1916 Harris did his best to dissuade Mrs Solomon from raising the question of the A.P.S.'s policy towards the Land Act and its handling of the SANNC deputation of 1914 on the grounds that it would ‘only produce a discussion that leads nowhere’. Subsequent developments – which did not work out quite as Harris hoped – may be followed in S19 D2/7, D2/16, D3/13, D4/7, and D4/8.

61 The occasion was the meeting of the executive committee in November 1916Google Scholar. For details of this episode, see correspondence between Buxton, Harris, and various, A.P.S. committee members in S19Google Scholar D2/17, D3/15 and D4/8; and Mrs Solomon's account of the meeting, ‘ Notes of an Unusual Episode’, in A.P.S. File, Cobden Unwin Papers, National Liberal Club Library, London. I am grateful to Ruth Edgecombe for information about this collection.

62 S22 G2O2, A.P.S. to Rev. Staines, Lenton, 21 Sept. 1916Google Scholar. Mrs Unwin did her best to get Plaatje into the conference but was narrowly outmanoeuvred by the A.P.S. secretaries (S19 D3/16, Buxton, to Unwin, Mrs, 24 Oct. 1916Google Scholar, and Buxton to Sir Buxton, T. F., 26 Oct. 1916).Google Scholar

63 For part of the text of Mrs Unwin's speech, see document headed ‘Conference called at the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society, October 1916 …’, in A.P.S. File, Cobden Unwin Papers.

64 S19 D2/17, Buxton, Travers to Brooks, E. Wright, 25 Oct. 1916.Google Scholar

65 S19 D3/15, Harris, to Unwin, Mrs Mrs, 25 Oct. 1916.Google Scholar

66 Colenso Collection, Box, 63, Werner, Alice to Colenso, H., 27 April 1917Google Scholar. There was possibly a further motive for getting rid of the two women: both opposed constitutional changes which would have given the society access to funds formerly belonging to the Anti-Slavery Society; Cobden Unwin Papers, Oke, A. to Unwin, Mrs 31 Mar. 1917.Google Scholar

67 File, A.P.S., Cobden Unwin Papers, ‘Statement’ by Mrs Unwin, April 1917Google Scholar; Natal Archives, Colenso Collection, Box 63, Werner, Alice to Colenso, H., 27 April 1917.Google Scholar

68 S22 G203, circular letter from Werner, Alice (secretary of the committee), 17 Feb. 1917Google Scholar; Plaatje himself spoke of the committee at a reception held for him in Kimberley shortly after returning to South Africa (‘Reception to Mr Sol. Plaatje, T.’, Diamond Fields Advertiser, 28 March 1917).Google Scholar

69 S22 G203, Alice Werner's circular letter.

70 S22 G203, Harris, to Clifford, Dr, 20 Feb. 1917Google Scholar. Harris expressed surprise at ‘a responsible Minister of the Crown like Sir Richard Winfrey’ becoming involved with the committee, and said he ‘did not see how it was possible for a Minister to take such an attitude in view of the obligations he has accepted’; see also Harris, to Winfrey, R. Sir, 22 Feb. 1917.Google Scholar

71 S22 G203, Werner's, Alice circular letter, 17 Feb. 1917.Google Scholar

72 S22 G203, A.P.S. to Wickstead, Rev. P. H., 17 Mar. 1917Google Scholar. Four days later Harris explained to W. P. Schreiner, the South African High Commissioner in London, that the Society did not propose to seek an interview with General Smuts since ‘our Committee has received favourable consideration from the Native Affairs Department of the Union for its representations on the subject of the Land Act’, and was ‘anxious in no way to embarrass him …’; S19 D3/16, Harris, to Schreiner, W. P., 21 Mar. 1917.Google Scholar

73 Cobden Unwin Papers, Solomon, Mrs to Chapman, J., undated a (probably June 1917).Google Scholar

74 Christian Commonwealth, 20 June 1917.Google Scholar

75 S22 G203, A.P.S. to General Smuts, 5 July 1917.Google Scholar

76 S22 G203, Harris, to Rubusana, W. B., 5 Mar. 1917.Google Scholar

77 S22 G203, Thema, to Buxton, , 2 Oct. 1916Google Scholar; Walshe, P., Rise of African Nationalism, 59–60.Google Scholar

78 Cobden Unwin Papers, Plaatje, to Unwin, Mrs, to July 1917.Google Scholar

79 Ibid.

80 Natal Archives, Colenso Collection, Box 63, Werner, Alice to Colenso, H., 23 February 1917Google Scholar, quoting opinion of J. B. W. Chapman.

81 P.R.O., C.O. 551/123, Hercules, F. E. M. to C.O., April 1919Google Scholar; African Telegraph, May–June 1919Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr Ian Duffield for directing me to this last reference.