Glen Grey before Cecil Rhodes: How a Crisis of Local Colonial Authority Led to the Glen Grey Act of 1894

Glen Grey before Cecil Rhodes: How a Crisis of Local Colonial Authority Led to the GlenGrey Act of 1894Author(s): Richard BouchSource: Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol.27, No. 1 (1993), pp. 1-24Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian Association of African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/485437 .

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Glen Grey before Cecil Rhodes: How a Crisis of Local Colonial Authority Led to the Glen Grey Act of 1894

Richard Bouch

Resume Cecil Rhodes est associe L la loi de Glen Grey, qui a influence l'etape finale de la politique du Cap concernant les agglomerations rurales africanes et a anticipe certains aspects des politiques sud africaines de segregation qui ont suivi. La loi a souvent ete interpretee et compromise comme une politique generale, alors que cet article la replace dans le contexte de la region oui elle a ete appliquie. La loi Glen Grey a etd radicalement remanide, rela- tivement l'administration coloniale et

' une attaque contre l'autorite du chef, pendant les quatre ans qui ont precede la loi. Autour de i88o, les

regions en question revglaient clairement les contradictions des politiques foncieres appliquies aux Africains de la region du Cap. La loi de Glen Grey le resultat de la conjoncture entre l'chec de la politique et de la gestion, le remaniement de la politique parlementaire du Cap, et la montee d'une constellation politico-economique autour de Cecil Rhodes et des interets agri- coles de l'Ouest du Cap.

Introduction The Glen Grey Act was enacted by the Parliament of the Cape Colony in 1894, during the second prime ministership of Cecil Rhodes. As politician, diamond magnate, and imperialist, Rhodes gained fame, respect, and notori- ety during and after his lifetime. Historians continue to be occupied by the difficulty of interpreting and disentangling his motives, an exercise most recently tackled by Robert Rotberg (1988). Not least, especially within South Africa, he is closely associated with the Glen Grey Act of 1894, a vital piece of legislation whose position in the evolution of South African segregationist policies is hotly debated in historical analyses. This article does not deal directly with the segregation debate, but instead contextualizes the Act within the limited geographical area of its own implementation, suggesting that the common practice of contextualizing it at the level of grand policy, although helpful, is not entirely adequate.

The Act was intended to meet several purposes: to put in place a land-tenure system based on small plots (4 morgen), I inheritable only on the basis of

I



2 CJAS/RCEA 27:I 1993

primogeniture, so that the bulk of the male population would take employment in the colony, spurred on by a labour tax payable in cash; an extension of previous efforts to limit the extension of African franchise rights by deny- ing Africans possession of land on the terms laid down in the franchise law; and the institution of limited self-government based on local councils (Edgecombe 1976; Rotberg 1988, 467-77; Thompson 1991, 2-5).

R. Edgecombe (1976, 89) identified the Act as the "main example" of end-of-century "implicit and explicit segregationist legislation" originating from the rise of the assertive and largely anti-African Afrikaner Bond as a key element in Cape politics and in the political alliance that brought Rhodes to power in 1890, emergent African political awareness, and the Cape Colony's hesitant but ongoing annexation of formerly autonomous African territories between the Kei river and Natal Colony. Subsequently, this helpful drawing- together of major contemporary issues in a single analysis became marginal- ised as historians' focus shifted to exploring deep-rooted economic and social imperatives in forming the South African past.

Colin Bundy (1979, 134-5) set the Act in the context of the Cape Colony's evolving offensive against squatter-peasants in the i88os and I89gos. M. Lacey (1981, 14-I5, 5 5-56, 31o note 8) was categoric in her identification of the Act as a key precursor of twentieth-century segregation: this view sharply exaggerates the historical importance of the Act, yet also claims it to have been an outgrowth and refinement of existing Cape land and administrative policy towards Africans and, simultaneously, an unprecedented device to force Africans to migrate into labour on the gold mines. In 1988 Rotberg moved towards a more balanced and less rigid synthesis when he wrote that in the early 189os Rhodes was consciously devising an African policy that would meet his major objectives of securing labour for industrial and agricultural development and of defining the socio-political framework within which the subordinate African population would be contained and managed. On this understanding, the Glen Grey Act was an "intermediate instrument" in the formulation of grand policy, affecting future segregation principally in the sense that it "gave the informal nineteenth-century reserve a secure and expanded footing" (Rotberg 1988, 467, 477). Most recently, R.J. Thompson (199I, 61-123) has proposed that the mining labour aspect of the Act has been very greatly over-emphasized, and that where labour was concerned, Rhodes was interested in little more than meeting the needs of Western Cape agriculture.

Although they diverge considerably in their interpretations of the pur- pose of the Glen Grey Act and its significance for future segregationist policies, all these writers incline towards the theme of grand policy by their tendency to construe "local" origins of the Act as requiring a colony-wide or even South Africa-wide frame of reference. This article does not contest the



3 Bouch: Glen Grey before Cecil Rhodes

necessity for a grand policy perspective on the Act, for unless that is done, the labour and franchise aspects defy explanation, but simply suggests that the legislation's immediately local origins have been largely overlooked - perhaps because of understandable but misfocused concentration on Rhodes himself. The point is that although Edgecombe alluded very briefly to the problems within Glen Grey itself (1976, 91), no one has yet properly explained what made Glen Grey, and not some other area, the specific thea- tre of operations for the application of an unusually restrictive tenure policy and a very limited experiment in local autonomy. At the core of what follows is the contention that major changes were on the drawing-board for Glen Grey anyway, irrespective of Cecil Rhodes, because the colonial administration of Glen Grey was under strain to the point of extremis.

Background, 1853-692 At the initiative of Governor Sir George Cathcart, Glen Grey originated in 1853 as a 25000ooo morgen rural "reserve" or "location" in the Eastern Cape Colony set aside for occupation by the western section of the Thembu people, numbering approximately 5 ooo to i6 ooo. 3 Although the terrain tended towards ruggedness, the location had considerable agricultural and pastoral potential: the soil was good and numerous streams watered the arable basins between the ridges and hills. Glen Grey's establishment was part of a frontier settlement, involving the creation of a new colonial district - Queenstown. The location was part of that district, most of whose remain- ing lands were reserved for white settler farmers. The number of whites in Glen Grey was always small, with fewer than a dozen administrators and traders at the start.

The institution of chieftainship among the western Thembu had been damaged by disruption and disunity during the Eighth Frontier War (1850-53). At its inception, Glen Grey contained four principal chieftainships, all under the colonially-contrived nominal paramountcy of Nonese, the mother of the late eastern Thembu paramount. In turn, the chiefs were placed under a "Thembu Agent," ex-missionary Joseph Warner, who exercised a broad but unspecific and undefined authority on behalf of the government in Cape Town.

Neither Warner nor the chiefs knew the precise boundaries of their respective authorities, a situation complicated by Warner's tendency to interfere in the administration of justice. His interference soon spread. It is worth noting in this regard that Sir George Cathcart did not intend further expansion of colonial authority into still autonomous African territories. Nevertheless, the placement of officials such as Warner and his successors in sensitive frontier areas confirmed a device employed by Governor Smith in British Kaffraria in the late 1840s. It provided the training ground for the



4 CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

class of pro-colonial frontier agents who spearheaded the growth of what D. Schreuder (1980, I6) has called the Cape Colony's "covert or informal empire" beyond the Kei river after the receipt of self-government in 1872 (see Saunders 1978; Schreuder 1980, 31).

In March I856, Warner proposed that the government should pay stipends to chiefs who remained on good terms with the Cape authorities. A stipendiary system had existed in British Kaffraria since i855, introduced as one of Governor Cathcart's methods of weakening chiefly authority. Warner intended the stipends to be a substitute for chiefly income derived from fines, as in British Kaffraria. He also believed that the stipends would encourage (or buy) goodwill.

The stipendiary arrangement was implemented and coupled to an administrative device unique to Glen Grey: the ranking of chiefs into two classes as Warner thought fit. Ranking was a major interference with the surviving elements of the traditional basis of chieftainship, opening the way for manipu- lation. However, it is important to note that the colonial government itself had virtually neither will nor intention to modify arrangements within Glen Grey: the changes that took place during this period were overwhelmingly products of local circumstances and were prompted by local authorities. Cape Town simply assumed that those people knew what they were doing. This outlook continued for several decades and smoothed the way for the Glen Grey Act.

Warner had scored something of a coup, successfully inserting a shifting foundation under the Glen Grey leaders. For example, Manel, a first-class chief under Warner's ranking, was really only a minor sub-chief under Nonese. Petrus Mahonga, erstwhile headman of the White Kei mission station, became a second-class chief under Warner's superintendence, although he had no claim to chiefly standing. His advancement resulted from his assistance to Warner in maintaining order during the great Xhosa cattle-kill- ing of 185 6-57, which spilled over into the south of Glen Grey. 4 Thus ranking added a key new dimension to the original British Kaffrarian stipendiary system. The combination of the two provided the local government representatives considerable ability to redefine leadership among the Glen Grey Thembu.

Economic change accelerated during the next few years. By the mid I86os some thirty ploughs were in use, and wool growing was becoming more common. Sheep and cattle were rapidly accumulated as migrant workers brought them home. Because of the development of groupings and interests based on new forms of economic activity and wealth, the society of Glen Grey experi- enced a rapid buildup of tensions and economic stratification. One of the most obvious early consequences was the departure, in 1865, of four chiefs of lesser influence. They settled to the east, outside the colony, in what became




Emigrant Thembuland. Approximately one-third of the common people accompanied them.

Sir Philip Wodehouse, then governor of the Cape Colony, had known that emigration was on the cards and had encouraged it in the hope that the entire population of Glen Grey could be relocated as a buffer between the colony and the Gcaleka power under Sarhili. 5 Deeply disappointed at the incom- pleteness of the emigration, Wodehouse ordered what amounted to the abo- lition of chieftainship among colonial Africans (which meant, effectively, in Glen Grey). This drastic and certainly unworkable decision was not carried through because the government lacked the massive coercive powers and financial resources that were required to implement it. Nonetheless, the initial (and only) attempt to enforce it badly startled the chiefs and caused major protests.

It is argued elsewhere that several senior chiefs responded to the suddenly intensified pressures by asking for quitrent farms on individual tenure within Glen Grey, on which they could settle with their followers and nurse the institution of chieftainship in secure isolation (Bouch 199o, 136-40). Almost three decades of struggle then commenced as chiefs, people, and colonial authorities manoeuvred to define authority systems and land tenure administration, two issues at the core of the later Glen Grey Act.

The chiefs' requests were honoured to a minimal extent, and it appears likely that such solicitations encouraged the government to grant farms under individual tenure to wealthy commoners as a means of undermining chiefly autonomy and creating a new class of loyal men. From 1867, this policy was implemented firmly, making 1867 a year of utmost importance in the history of Glen Grey. This point has been overlooked in the past; yet it largely resolves one of the (many) issues that have bedevilled analyses of the Glen Grey Act, namely the point at which policy-makers accepted individual tenure as a means of stabilizing the Glen Grey district. The official decision to grant individual title to chosen commoners was related to an established preference for individual tenure in Cape land policy towards Afri- cans, in contrast with the preference for trusteeship evinced in Natal and the South African Republic. Cape authorities thought of individual tenure as a way of bringing peace to the war-torn colony by securing loyalty, eroding traditional structures of chieftainship, and weaning Africans away from their system of community life (Ally 1985, 62-66). Charles Brownlee, Secretary for Native Affairs from 1872 to 1878, was personally committed to replacing communal with individual tenure and introducing control by magistrates. The ministries of the early 1870s supported him in these goals and thought of them as permanent dimensions of policy (Master 1966, 3-4).

Decisions were taken in 1867 to grant seven farms of roughly i ooo morgen each. All the recipients were chiefs or headmen, but in some cases their



6 CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

status was derived from government instead of tradition. Further individual grants were made soon afterwards, bringing the total to about twenty (Map I).

Early in 1869, just when the policy of granting individual farms to chosen men was in high favour, Edward Judge was appointed to the Queenstown magistracy and civil commissionership. His incumbency witnessed criti- cally important developments in the subordination of Glen Grey to colonial rule.

The Decade of Administrative Systems-making, 1869-78 After Warner and Wodehouse, Judge was the third official in the short history of colonial Glen Grey who believed that he could shape the location to his will, and he made a greater impact than either. The tenuous equilibrium that existed in 1853 disintegrated. Colonial power over indigenous communities, said Governor Cathcart in the I85os, should be visibly exercised by the magistrates; Judge agreed, but devised his own support system for exercising that authority. It was a creation in which he took pride; but eventually his successor, John Hemming, reaped a whirlwind of rebellion which Judge had helped to stir up.

Even so, the responsibility cannot all be laid at Judge's door. He was not involved in the principal events leading to the War of Ngcayecibi (Ninth Frontier War or Gcaleka-Ngqika War) which erupted in 1877 and spilled over into Glen Grey. The late 187os and early i88os were a deeply troubled time for relationships between the colonial power and Africans in the Eastern Cape generally, and the trials afflicting Glen Grey were part of that experience.

Judge believed unequivocally in the policy of granting individual farms to chosen men; however, because he was determined to eradicate chieftainship, he worked to impose more direct control throughout the location. Gradual incorporation of Glen Grey into the colonial economy had been pro- ceeding throughout the i86os for reasons that included young men migrat- ing out to work to earn livestock and/or cash, and the rise of nearby Queens- town as a major wool-marketing centre that attracted many Thembu to keep sheep and sell wool (Bouch 199o, 152-5 3). Judge saw signs of prosperity, such as increasing wool sales and use of ploughs, which convinced him that Glen Grey could pay a hut tax which would maintain his proposed system of administration and augment the state coffers. 6 A hut tax was imposed in 1869, and in May I87o, Governor Wodehouse appointed a commission to investigate the affairs of Glen Grey and to consider the establishment of a new magistracy to assist the overworked Queenstown magistrate in oversee- ing the location. Judge was the principal commissioner.

Although the argument so far presented has indicated the existence of a




MAP

Farm grants to individuals under the 1867 policy are shown.

1

GCINA

6

HALA ,.- 1.Klaas Mahekiso

4,,' 2.Mpangele 9 3.Jantje Mhlebe 7 10 11 4.Piet David 5.Klaas Makas 6. Lumko 7. Maangeni 2 8.Daniet Stuurman 9.Samuel Sigeni 13 NDUNGWANA 10.

Malgas-'Possibly one person-

11. Songa-sources inconsistent 12.Nonese 16 8ootwR. 13.Hermanus Mahonga 14.Petrus Mahonga 17 18 15.Kulu -r 16.Ze nzite 17.Joseph Ndarala 18.Benjamin Ndarala 19. Msheshwe 20.Peter Maphasa 20 TSHATSHU

Approximate localities allocated to principal chieftainships shown in capital letters.

Ot. Ke i R.

MAP 1: Glen Grey in the 1850s and 1860s.



8 CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

veiled confrontation between the people of Glen Grey and the colonial

power, it has not been possible to assess the temperature of such discontent. The 1870 Commission provides such an opportunity. In a remarkably candid

analysis, the commissioners sensed and confessed to a deep undercurrent of

antagonism. Commenting on methods by which officials obtained informa-

tion, they admitted:

It is, in truth, nothing but a system of espionage in the working of which it is impossible but that the least reliable men should obtain the most power and influence.... We can hardly account for the extreme dislike and distrust of our Government which the Tambookies [sic: Thembu] now manifest without attributing it in great measure to the agents employed in carrying out our purposes. 7

Irreconcilable perceptions jostle in these words. Although the commissioners recognized that goodwill would never be won by devious means, their mandate and role as colonial officials prevented them from meeting popular wishes. Even if the information provided to officials had been accu- rate and balanced, permanent clashes of interest developed between the

people's desire to be left alone and the rulers' wish to make them pay their

way in the colonial economy and to destroy all possibility that they might again pose a military threat. In this great shadow over communication and

understanding, no effective compromise could be found. To counter hostility toward the government, the commissioners pro-

posed to replace the "system of espionage" with a system under which salaried headmen, responsible to a magistrate, were in charge of surveyed farms. They recommended that the entire location, except the individual title farms, be divided into blocks of 12 000 to 16000 ooo morgen, and that these be subdivided into surveyed farms of roughly 2 000 morgen each. Communal tenure would remain in force on these farms, which would cover all of the location except the quitrent private farms already granted. Senior headmen on the large blocks, and headmen on the farms, would be responsible for

reporting all entries into the location and for other matters of general administration. The commissioners believed that this way of enforcing control would be accepted by the people, particularly if use was made of headmen recognized by the people themselves. 8 In 1870, the survey of the farms commenced and the northern half of the location was placed under the new magistracy of Wodehouse.

The magisterial reshuffle impacted minimally on Glen Grey. Far more significant as motors of change were two further factors: a hidden agenda within the 1870 Commission's report for limiting access to land in Glen Grey, and the unpopularity of the administrative system which replaced the




"system of espionage." The last chance to stabilize matters in the location in a manner acceptable to many of its people was to be found during this period, but the depth of discontent was not well understood and administrative

changes were made which did not address issues of popular sensitivity. The 1870 Commission proposed a hidden agenda for restricting African

access to land. Although the initial lead in its formulation appears to have

originated from the government rather than from the commissioners, they refined a single suggestion from higher authority into a strategy which would actually be implemented in the mid I88os, when government atti- tudes towards Africans had hardened due to the frontier conflicts of 1877-78 and 188o-8i and the difficulty of obtaining sufficient labour for capital works, notably railway construction.

The hidden agenda entailed extending white settlement into the location. In connection with the establishment of the new magistracy, the government had suggested dividing Glen Grey into two sections by a block of white-owned farms. The commissioners thought this measure impractic- able and certain to arouse hostility, but agreed with the principle of white

settlement, apparently mainly in the interests of military security. More-

over, controlling the location by way of survey and salaried headmen would enable the authorities to prevent the construction of new homesteads. Thus:

It would be in the Magistrate's power, by the gradual removal of kraals from other farms to the deserted spots, to cause whole farms to become vacant in any part of the Location where it might appear most desirable to locate Europeans. 9

Formulation of this hidden agenda probably owed much to Judge, who did not believe that rural locations like Glen Grey should continue to exist. In a candid moment a few years later, he said that the locations system ought to be ended by granting individual title to the "best men," so forcing all the others out to work. Io It is important to note the gradual development of an administrators' mindset concerning Glen Grey from as far back as 1870: the final Glen Grey Act was rooted in established thinking about minimalist land requirements, labour supply, and justifications for coercion.

As civil commissioner and magistrate, Judge was uniquely well-placed to act the part of the influential man on the spot. This officer, who believed that the 1870 Commission had not reached a final resolution of the future of Glen Grey, had the responsibility of implementing its recommendations in the most densely populated section of the location. From a purely administrative point of view, he conducted his task well. Tension between his personal opinions and the state of government policy, however, spoiled any chance for the system to reconcile the people of Glen Grey to colonial power.

By the beginning of 1871, the location had been divided and headmen



IO CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

appointed to each farm. The Tshatshu chief Gungubele, by this time the only traditional leader whose authority still approximated to old-style chieftain-

ship, was especially irked at the way in which Judge appointed headmen to the blocks and farms. Wisely, governor Wodehouse had stressed the desir-

ability of using headmen whom the people already acknowledged. Judge knew in his heart that what remained of the traditional leadership group should be won over if possible, but often let his authoritarianism assume control. The conflict of perceptions appears in his testimony to the Commis- sion on Native Laws and Customs:

Sir J.D.Barry: Where did you select him [the senior headmen] from?

Judge: From amongst the people themselves. I took the best man I could find liv-

ing in the locality. If a man of good blood was to be found I was only too glad to

employ him, if possible. I I

Judge's choice of senior headmen for the blocks included at least six men who were not true chiefs or of chiefly lineage. 12 All headmen, senior and

junior, were responsible to Judge for matters of routine administration. In this facet of the new system, the vagueness of the division of authority between the Cape Town government and its local representatives was appar- ent. Having sanctioned the survey and the headman system, the government again behaved as it had before 1867 and stepped back from this distant Afri- can location on the eastern frontier. It would not be involved further: Judge had authored the system, and Judge should now make it work.

In his enthusiasm, Judge had assumed a greater degree of government interest than actually prevailed. As K. Shillington argues about this period,

A major concern of "native policy," was still to safeguard the security of the colony and the property of the colonists by retaining African loyalty in the face of white expansion and at the same time ensure that the high level of control and supervision which this entailed would not be a burden on the white taxpayer (Shillington 1985, 179).

Soon enough, Judge complained that staffing shortages, lack of time, and

long distances prevented him from administering Glen Grey closely. His

hope was that the headman system would "induce the natives to govern themselves." ' 3 To that end he prepared a set of regulations requiring headmen to enforce laws, assist the police, and facilitate the best use of grazing and arable land. 14

Despite Judge's repeated requests, the government refused to give the force of law to his regulations. Because these rules could not be enforced by any authority beyond his own, his efforts to increase the people's accountability to the colonial administration did not work well. He soon found that the headmen did not always co-operate. Some were dismissed for inattention to their duties. 5



i i Bouch: Glen Grey before Cecil Rhodes

Walter Stanford, a future secretary for native affairs, held a supervisory position in southern Glen Grey at this time. He realized that the most immediate impact of the new system lay in its circumvention of the chiefs and its potential to weaken the accountability of the headmen to their communities. In 1875 he wrote:

This system works well. ... The headmen value the authority given them, and soon become jealous of any interference on the part of the chief, and as their

power is derived solely from us, they are thoroughly under our control and when

necessary a headman may be removed from his office without danger of raising those feelings of discontent amongst the people which might have been the case in dealing with a chief. 1 6

On such grounds, officials deemed the new system a success, despite ambivalent conduct by the headmen. Yet Stanford and Judge failed to per- ceive that the system and the hut tax made the common people acutely aware of the intrusion of the alien colonial power into Glen Grey.

The commissioners of I870 were committed to reducing chiefly power. "There seems to be no doubt," they noted, "that the acceptance of title deeds to land by a native chief goes a long way towards destroying his influence over his people." 17 Judge's regulations for the management of the location excluded chiefs from all jurisdiction. Recognizing, though, that chiefly pres- tige would have to be acknowledged for some time, he advocated paying salaries to all chiefs:

I am not alone in thinking that the granting of subsidies to the Chiefs is one of the wisest measures that have yet been adopted in our native policy, and it is not

only wise but just that, having taken from them the right they formerly possessed of "eating up" their people, we should give them some compensation. 8

His concessions stopped there, but even he perceived that Gungubele required careful handling. Years later, Judge wrote in his reminiscences:

He quite honestly ... held himself to be a Chief by Divine right. He was popular with his people and had a large following. He was a gentleman withal and I took a great liking to him. 9

Judge had recognized that the Tshatshu chief could not be unduly con- strained. Provided that Gungubele did not exercise jurisdiction in criminal matters, Judge allowed him to maintain the authority and functions of a chief. 20 Yet Gungubele had been seriously offended by Judge's deliberate appointment of headmen to the newly surveyed blocks in I87 1 without con- sulting him. The magistrate's behaviour caused consternation amongst Gungubele's people, and meetings were held at the chief's homestead. 21

Judge himself had noted the reality of discontent as early as 1870. The



12 CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

new system had been proposed as a way of neutralizing that discontent by giving the people a local leadership which they could respect; however, the reality was that nothing much had improved. The crisis was beyond administrative resolution: rather, indeed, the schemes implemented in subsequent years were a significant part of the problem. Seven years after the 1870 Com- mission, on the eve of the War of Ngcayecibi, the missionary J.P. Bertram corroborated the commissioners' original analysis, drawing on his experience in Queenstown and elsewhere:

At present much of the information obtained by the Magistrates connected with their [the Africans'] management is got from spies; and the people are managed upon that information. There is never anything like public feeling arrived at. 22

Vexed commoners responded by excluding headmen from community life. Such behaviour by the mass of the population catered to their desire to remain aloof from colonial interference; but it also deepened the misunderstanding between rulers and ruled. Testifying before the same commission as Reverend Bertram, a Glen Grey headman who was a Mfengu by birth and owned land on individual tenure disclosed how effectively he and his colleagues could be excluded from the wider community. He admitted his inability to say whether there was talk of war in the location or not, just at the time when the discontent of 1877 was coming to a crisis: "I am in the position of a white man although I am black in colour, and I do not feel able to say what it will be." 23

Thus misinformation, misunderstanding, and resentment still pervaded the relationship between rulers and ruled. Furthermore, the cracks in the wall of trust and co-operation ran across each other, as there were limits to the extent to which some headmen were prepared to be the willing creatures of government.

On the individual grant farms, too, a deeply unsatisfactory situation obtained. There, remnants of old chiefly lineages, and also the colonially created ones like Mahonga's, could, if they wished, capitalize on rental income from a virtually captive resident constituency; yet such chiefs were unable to provide sufficient arable land, grazing, and stock for their followers (Bouch 1990, 155-56).

Against such a background, the War of Ngcayecibi erupted in 1877. Vio- lence again scarred the eastern reaches of the colony, penetrating far into the Transkei and also into Glen Grey, sweeping the last determined leaders of the old order, most notably Gungubele, into rebellion and destruction.

The immediate causes of Gungubele's rebellion have been thoroughly examined elsewhere (Spicer 1978; Bouch 199O) and need not be revisited. The predisposing causes were the Judge system and a shortage of land for the



I3 Bouch: Glen Grey before Cecil Rhodes

MAP

Indwe coal

mines

GUBA

MACUBENI

MKAPUSI

S o NDONGA

Gwatyu, excised after Gungubele's rebelli on (1878).

49 Excised in 1879?- LANTE reason unknown.

Granted to 1W railway company,

1882.

Sold to whites after MACIBINI pt forced evictions, 1886-87. •o

.o a

GUBA etc: Fertile basins involved in population removals and resettlements.

Gt.Kei

R

MAP 2: Reduction of the area of Glen Grey, 1878 -1887



14 CJAS/RCEA27:I 1993

Tshatshu. Gungubele's great cause of complaint, said his loyalist cousin Mati, after fighting ended in February 1878, was that the government ignored him when it appointed headmen over his people. Missionaries corroborated Mati's testimony. 24

With Gungubele's humiliation, the way was open for an unprecedented and unchallengeable entrenchment of colonial rule over Glen Grey. Loss of land was a predictable consequence of unsuccessful rebellion, and in this instance it opened the gates to a flood tide of administrative, demographic, and economic change. Glen Grey ceased to exist in its original mould, in terms both of Thembu semi-autonomy and of geographical boundaries. Gungubele's land, the Gwatyu, was excised and added to the white farming district of Queenstown (Map 2).

Denouement In May 1879, the remainder of the location became a separate magisterial district under C.H. Driver. Individual tenure quitrent farms would hence- forth fall under the Locations Acts, so that their resident populations were under direct colonial control. 2 5 Thus even landowning "chiefs" found their hold over their tenants undermined, reducing their role to that of high-class tax collectors.

Magistrate Driver claimed that long-term economic prospects were good despite the setback of serious drought. Wheat was being planted more exten- sively and "the people are going in eagerly for irrigation." 26 Yet the real pic- ture was considerably worse than Driver was willing to acknowledge. He himself admitted in 1879 that the only vacant land in Glen Grey was io ooo unwatered acres near the Bengu basin, which adjacent homesteads used for grazing; furthermore the people, dependent on their wool for income to pay hut tax and house duty, requested extra time in which to pay. 27 Wheat growing benefited the few with reasonable land resources, but many were denied an opportunity to graze their stock on winter stubble from maize crops (Wagenaar 1988, 348). Poverty increased sharply, exacerbated by drought, and in 1878, Glen Grey men were working on the railways for two shillings per day without rations - conditions which they successfully resisted previously (Purkis 1978, 411). Judge's successor, John Hemming, commented in 1882 that the density of habitation "necessitated a larger and better cultiva- tion of the soil and a desire for the more modern appliances of labour as aids to agriculture" and also wrote, "they are turning their attention to the growth of peas, beans, and fruit trees - in fact all that is saleable." 28 He appears to have been oblivious to the irreconcilability of his observations, for if indeed a stimulus was given to the variety and quantity of food crops, it was not merely for local consumption. Diversification was a survival strategy to produce marketable produce throughout the year, raising cash to pay




taxes and avoiding labour service in the colony. 29 Stratification and impov- erishment were so embedded in some parts of the location, that even the Queenstown Farmers' Association, no ally of Africans, was shocked when it conducted an investigation in 1884 probing the causes of stock theft. It discovered the following in the Macibini basin:

On the first farm of ordinary size your committee found 8 kraals [homesteads], consisting of 62 huts, 50o men, 7 I women and 179 children ... only 2 bags of

grain on the whole was found; there were 256 head horned cattle and I 683 sheep and goats. On the next farm there are 17 huts, 15 men, 12 women, 79 cattle and 120o sheep and goats - about I ooo of which are owned by the headman. 30 o

Gungubele's defeat was by no means the end of violence. In i88o, a large pro- portion of the Emigrant Thembu and Mpondomise rose in rebellion in protest against the gradual extension of colonial administrative authority into their territories (Saunders 1976). The rebellion was supported by people from

thirty-five of the northerly Glen Grey farms, although many other people in the same vicinity thought it prudent to remain outwardly loyal. 3' From Mount Arthur mission station in the north of Glen Grey, Joseph Warner's minister son Ebenezer expressed the opinion that the number of rebels might have been higher still, save for church intervention. 32 The psychological effect of the upheavals of 1877-78 and I88o was profound. Economic devel-

opment received a major setback, as better-off people realized they were not safe:

Previous to the outbreak of 1878, a number of ... natives had erected comfort- able cottages. . ... These cottages, with other little improvements, were des-

troyed, and have never been rebuilt, the people taking to the old fashioned round hut. The same thing has happened lately in another part of the district. ... 33

A ray of light in the situation, however, was that land from which the rebels came was not confiscated. It remained part of Glen Grey, probably thanks to the paradox that most rebels believed that confiscation was inevitable and so did not return home at once. Instead, they trickled home once they realized that the land remained part of the location. 34 But land was scarce, and at the end of 1884, a new magistrate, the coldly competent H.A. Jenner, 35 con- ceded that Glen Grey was overcrowded. 36 The imperfect statistics available indicate that the resident population was well on the way to reaching 40 000, which represents at least a doubling of the original population of 1853. 37

During 1882, a series of forced removals occurred when the government granted some Glen Grey farms to the Indwe and Imvani Railway Company, which was to construct a rail link to the Indwe coal mine. The farms were



16 CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

cleared of their occupants. The people were resettled within Glen Grey, on the same amount of land they previously occupied, but a further 25 ooo morgen of land had been excised from the location and the resettled communities were partially broken up. 38

The Glen Grey Act Nearly all this background and situation-shaping has been overlooked in studies of the genesis of the Glen Grey Act. It is suggested here that the Act becomes more comprehensible once we recognize that Cecil Rhodes had a ready-made crisis handed to him: one which he astutely exploited for political and economic advantage. It is true that the Afrikaner Bond representatives in Parliament created an agitation about Glen Grey land which attracted Rhodes' attention to the location, but to concentrate almost exclu- sively on such external factors obscures the fact that the crucial impulses towards reviewing Glen Grey tenure came from within the location - from its own legitimate occupants. And their motives are perfectly understandable, once the location's turbulent history is taken into account: they all desired security following a time of massive instability. The reason why these impulses towards tenure changes led towards the Glen Grey Act is that the i88os saw a conjuncture between the internal crisis in Glen Grey, the reshaping of Cape parliamentary politics as the Afrikaner Bond emerged, and the rise of a well-financed politico-economic constellation around Rhodes, De Beers, and rapidly-capitalizing Western Cape agriculture. No such causal linkages had existed previously.

Both the Scanlen (188I-I884) and the Upington (1884-1886) ministries were catering for the desire of the Afrikaner Bond party to possess as much Thembu land as possible, and as will be shown below, some of the strongest pressure on the Glen Grey Thembu was orchestrated by the Bond representative for Queenstown and the Secretary for Native Affairs in Upington's government (Davenport 1966, 84-90).

The events dated from May 1881, when magistrate Driver proposed that ex-rebels who had been, as he put it, temporarily allowed to return, should either be allowed to rebuild their homesteads and settle permanently where they were, or be placed elsewhere in Glen Grey. His preference was for relocation, which he claimed could be done without injustice, because sufficient space existed to absorb the ex-rebels. Of considerable importance, in the light of future developments, was his further observation that vacated land could be placed at government disposal for white settlement. 39 Although Driver's proposals were probably independently generated, they fulfilled the hidden agenda of the 1870 Commission and encouraged the administrators' mindset commented on earlier.

The idea of moving people out of Glen Grey gained further momentum in



I7 Bouch: Glen Grey before Cecil Rhodes

1883 when Driver recommended land grants within the location for nine men who had rendered valuable service to the colonial authorities over a

period of years. If accepted, this proposal would have revived the 1867 policy which Judge and Hemming had also upheld; instead, however, the Native Affairs Department responded by asking whether the men would accept land in the Transkei, at Tsolo, or Qumbu. The Department was under double

pressures just then: at a local level the Afrikaner Bond was maintaining its demands for Glen Grey expropriation, while at the level of high policy the

Cape government's gradual extension of hegemony into the Transkei region was temporarily stalled and under reconsideration (Saunders 1978, Io9-I8). Eastward migration from Glen Grey could meet both exigencies, especially because the Transkeian situation required placing a buffer of Africans with colonial sympathies between the southern Transkei and the Mpondo - which meant the Tsolo and Qumbu region. However, the applicants for title were decidedly unenthusiastic and Driver wrote, "they appear very anxious indeed to have title to the land they now occupy." 40 Three months later, Driver renewed his request:

I bring this matter to your notice with an earnest desire that you will favourably consider it, and take steps to have these men liberally rewarded by grants of land in such localities in the district as will not interfere with the rights of other natives. 41

Anxiety about government intentions was certainly widespread among the class which had been the linchpin of Judge's system of administration. Bet- ter-off people insisted on receiving individual title, aware of the growing pressure on land and a desire for protection with the full force of legitimate authority and ownership. Late in 1884, eleven headmen submitted a memo- rial for titles, as they anticipated forceful removal to Tsolo or Qumbu and had ceased improving their properties. 42 But while Driver wanted to

encourage what he called the "better class" with land titles, the government pursued its broader goals. Driver, whose vision of Glen Grey was roughly patterned on Judge's scheme, was replaced by Jenner, who was amenable to the government's preparedness to use harsh measures. 43 The headmen continued to press for titles well into 1885 and it was no doubt on their behalf, as much as anyone's, that the newly formed Thembu Association 44 wrote in December 1884 that the confiscation of improved farms for the railway line "has considerably shaken the confidence of the people in the security of their position and consequently a great check has been given to all progress in the location." 45 By 1884 land shortage had become an acutely sensitive matter in the location. Despite protests against the railway cession, the government declined to reverse its action; meetings then took place, and further repre- sentations were made to the authorities. 46



I8 CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

M.J. du Plessis, Afrikaner Bond parliamentary representative for Queens- town, successfully moved in 1885 that the people of Glen Grey should be relocated at Qumbu or elsewhere. Parliament accepted an amendment by the conservative-liberal J. Rose Innes to the effect that any who moved from Glen Grey should "consist of those who may be willing wholly to abandon their present locations and to remove over the Kei" (Wagenaar 1988, 201). This saved the consciences of the legislators, but it was virtually impossible to ensure that such sentiments would be respected by the authorities on the spot. In fact, the government had received powers of direct coercion, different to any legalized authority it had previously possessed.

This time, the key man on the spot was John Frost, a very prominent Queenstown farmer who had commanded troops during the Gungubele ris- ing. He was a hard man and has been accused of a pliant political morality (Rotberg 1988, 375, 450). To him was given the responsibility for moving all Thembu who wished to go. The contemporary historian George Theal, recognized today as an apologist for white domination, glossed over Frost's methods and was anxious to demonstrate that no force was used either in persuading people to move or in physically removing them. Recently, however, Russell Ally and Ella Wagenaar have backed up claims made at the time that Frost's methods verged on force because he threatened dispossession if the people did not move (Ally 1985, 115-17; Wagenaar 1988, 202). Magistrate Jenner was criticized for associating himself with Frost's methods and although he emphatically denied that pressure had been employed, the burden of evidence is not in his favour. 47

Vacant land at Tsolo and Qumbu was reserved for the people of Glen Grey while Frost went to work. His goal appears to have been to clear an area in central Glen Grey, adjoining the new white village of Lady Frere, for white farm settlement. He met the headmen on 7 September 1885 and found them opposed to moving. Nonetheless a number of "heads of families" (homestead heads?) sent people to examine the land being offered, and they reported favourably. i8o families then moved. 48 The people who went away had lived in various parts of Glen Grey and their departure opened up pock- ets of vacant land which the authorities attempted to consolidate by relocat- ing some i5o families. Theal claimed that Frost told the people in advance that this would happen, but even if Theal was correct, the proposal to relocate people was still met by indignant refusal and objections from Africans resident in Glen Grey, traders, and other members of the white Queenstown community. Objections were triggered by the proposal to relocate people within Glen Grey but soon focused on the issue of leaving Glen Grey at all. Frost blamed this "agitation" on missionaries and traders. One of the results of the crisis was a marked increase in the politicization of Glen Grey, in which the ability of headmen to register even mild protest against




government actions was broken, and the schooled elite rose to prominence in organizations like the Thembu Association.

Late in November 1885, Frost was reinforced by the Secretary for Native Affairs, the Bondsman Jacobus de Wet, who addressed a large meeting at Lady Frere and explained, as Theal chose to express matters, "the unreason- ableness of the claims made by the agitators." 49 De Wet said that provided the Glen Grey people remained loyal to the government, they would not be forced to leave. But the sting in his words lay in his endorsement of Frost's methods, for he reminded the people that they lacked legal tenured rights, lived in Glen Grey at the pleasure of the government and could be moved at any time. He suggested that if the people wanted title, they should consult among themselves and inform the government of their desire (Wagenaar 1988, o203).

Following these events, the Wesleyan church became openly involved, with Ebenezer Warner as champion of the people being uprooted. 5s When Jenner summoned a meeting to deal with relocations, the people refused to leave their farms. Force was necessary, and a detachment of the Cape Mounted Rifles demolished the huts belonging to people who refused to move. Resistance then faded away and nine farms were vacated, the occupants being settled in other areas of the location. The evacuated land was divided into twenty-eight small farms and sold, seemingly all to whites, in September 1886 and January 1887. Jenner acknowledged the intensity of African feeling: "It is only owing to the decisive action taken by the Govern- ment before the sale of the farms in September I886 that I have had little or no trouble in removing the people from the farms now sold." 5 1

Small wonder, then, that security became the paramount concern of the people of Glen Grey! In March 1889, the residents of five local mission stations submitted petitions through Ebenezer Warner, requesting individual title to their lands. Perusal of the resultant official documentation makes plain that here lies the short-term impulse to new legislation governing Glen Grey tenure. The native affairs department agreed to the request and survey proceeded. Then, in August I889, Jenner suggested that people dwell- ing in the vicinity of these mission stations might also desire title. In response, the government indicated that no reason existed why individual tenure should be restricted to mission stations: after all, individual tenure had been in force in other rural African locations for many years. This kind of response by the authorities reveals the danger of attributing Glen Grey's troubles mainly to white demands for the land. The native affairs department was under pressure from the Afrikaner Bond, but was not about to comply unconditionally, and was well aware that individual tenure had been at the heart of the previous 1867 and I87I systems in Glen Grey as well. Jenner was instructed to poll the inhabitants of Glen Grey in order to assess



20 CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

their desire for title, and he reported an ambivalent state of affairs with roughly one-third of the people in favour. 52 Given Jenner's authoritarian tendencies, he may well have overestimated the number of people in favour, but it is also true that additional applications for title were forwarded during 189o.

No fixed policy existed to guide such matters: in his memorandum of late 1890, the Commissioner of Crown Lands and Public Works, W. Hammond- Tooke, was clear that in any survey the native affairs department and sur- veyor-general would have to work on the basis that the people were not all in agreement, and that at the level of grand policy, "the principle is yet to be definitely decided of extending individual tenure unreservedly to all classes of natives." He believed that land would have to be specially set apart for people who did not want title - which of course would engender another round of relocation. 5 3

The conjuncture of pressures and interests now moved towards its culmi- nation. Cecil Rhodes became prime minister in 1890, dependent on his Afri- kaner Bond backbenchers to retain his power. The Afrikaner Bond organiza- tion in the districts of Queenstown, Wodehouse, and Albert (all adjoining or near to Glen Grey) had not desisted from its 1884-85 effort to secure Glen Grey for white farmers, and periodically raised the issue in Parliament - for example, in 1889, 189o, and 1891. But these initiatives bore no immediate fruit. In 189o Parliament instructed the government to enquire into Glen Grey land tenure; however, not until April 1892 was the enquiry established, under the name of the Glen Grey Commission.

John Frost was one of the commissioners. He and his two colleagues heard evidence from all ranges of black and white opinion and discovered themselves afloat on an ocean of contradictory information and perceptions. White opinion diverged hugely, ranging from the Afrikaner Bond's land hun- ger to the merchants of Queenstown and several insightful traders and farmers, who wanted to retain their business but also had the integrity to take a moral stand in favour of majority black opinion, which opposed title. The more prosperous Africans feared losing their land and therefore desired title, while majority opinion in the location gradually crystallized around the idea of a so-called "tribal title" which would retain communal tenure and secure the occupants on the land for all time (Thompson 1991, 89). Nonetheless, the commissioners finally reported that a majority of people wanted individual tenure - something that Frost, after his previous experience in Glen Grey, must have laboured at persuading himself was true. Indeed, the commissioners even made a passing admission that more people than they expected might refuse individual title. 5 4

In view of the chaos of conflicting African perceptions of government motives and intentions, and of the colossal damage that the previous history



2z Bouch: Glen Grey before Cecil Rhodes

of Glen Grey had done to the people's relations with the colonial power, the most impartial commission in the world could not have accurately determined people's desires. Frost's previous record suggests most strongly that he was biased and intolerant of opposition, and he was certainly not sympathetic to Glen Grey's continuation as a region that shielded a large African population from the demands of the labour market. The commission on which he served noted that individual title would prevent sufficient land being available to descendants, so that they would be compelled to take employment. 55 To crown everything, Frost became secretary for native affairs in Rhodes' second ministry in May 1893. Speaking in Parliament, he said that the people of Glen Grey "were almost unanimously in favour of individual title" - which, as Richard Thompson remarks, "he knew was not the case" (1991, 92). And Frost continued:

So long as the location existed and individual responsibility was removed from the shoulders of the native, there would be difficulties connected with the labour markets.... His idea was that if the native had not the location to fall back upon, he would settle in the country and become merged with the population. 5 6

On the strength of such arguments, Frost moved in the same debate that legislation be created to institute individual tenure throughout Glen Grey. The motion provoked extensive debate, but was struck off the order paper because the parliamentary session was drawing to a close. Nonetheless, the final impetus for Glen Grey legislation had been given.

For reasons that are not fully clear, but probably had much to do with the prime minister's pressing need to repair rifts in the Bond-dependent political alliance that had brought him to power in 189o (Thompson 1991, 96-10o4) and with the fact that since Frost's motion he "had assumed the mantle of czar for African affairs" by personally taking over most of the powers of the secretary for native affairs (Rotberg 1988, 468; Saunders 1978, 140), the initiative in drafting a Glen Grey bill then passed into the hands of Rhodes and his personal secretary, W.H. Milton. The causal conjuncture was then com- plete, in position to produce an unusually far-reaching piece of African affairs legislation that also placated Rhodes' Bond backbenchers with a tepid possibility that Glen Grey land might one day be offered for sale to whites, 57 and appeased liberal parliamentary opposition by promoting limited local self-government.

Conclusion The genesis of the Glen Grey Act cannot be fully understood unless it is placed within the context of factors external and internal to the district itself. Overwhelmingly, analysis has considered external factors and the



22 CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

level of a grand policy, real or alleged, with ramifications at least as wide as the entire Cape Colony and in some analyses, as wide as greater South Africa.

However, such perspectives are not adequate. A unique conjuncture of factors external and internal to Glen Grey, some of shorter and others of longer time depth, produced the Act. Here, it has been shown that a tenure and control crisis in Glen Grey had been developing for several decades. As analysts are still quite divergent in their views about what sections of the economy Rhodes may have desired to supply with labour, claims that the Act was primarily a device to meet the labour demands of agriculture and/or industry are to be questioned. The legislation was a reflection of, first, the breakdown of nineteenth-century Cape locations policy (including the strong interventionism in African society and economics manifested by many frontier officials) and the consequent urgency of change; and second, Rhodes' delicate political situation which demanded the creation of a working alliance of disparate elements.

Notes

I. I morgen = 2.I 16 acres. 2. Space allows only the briefest discussion of this period formative though it was (Bouch

1990, 113-143). 3. No reliable statistics exist, but see CPP (Cape Parliamentary Papers), G 6-'58, Report

of the Government Agent... 4-5. 4. CPP, G 6-'58, I-5. 5. Note that ideas of obtaining Glen Grey for white occupation played an entirely subor-

dinate role here: the emigration was only considered desirable at the level of grand policy. Throughout the history of Glen Grey, activists wishing to displace all the African population were consistently unsuccessful.

6. Judge papers BCSoo B76, I5o (University of Cape Town). 7. Judge papers BCSoo B14, paragraph 21. 8. CPP, G 12-'87, Blue Book on Native Affairs, 22-23; Judge papers BCSoo BI4, para-

graphs 23-26. 9. CPP, G 12-'87, 22-23.

Io. CPP, G 1-'77, Commission ... upon Colonial Defence, 70-7 .

I I. CPP, G 4-'83, Commission on Native Laws and Customs, evidence 184. 12. CO 3 186, civil commissioner of Queenstown (CCQ) to Colonial Secretary (CO), 9 Sep-

tember 1871; CO 3199, CCQ to CO, 13 February and 19 October 1872 (Cape Archives). 13. NA 172, CCQ to secretary for native affairs (SNA), 17 January 1874 (Cape Archives). 14. CPP, G 4-'83, 334-7. IS. CO 3199, CCQ to CO, 20 July 1872.

i6. CPP, G 16-'76, Blue Book on Native Affairs, 86. 17. Judge papers, BCSoo BI4, paragraph 34. I8. CO 3186, CCQ to CO, I8 January I871. 19. Judge papers BCSoo B76, 178-9. Quotation from 179. 20. Judge papers BCSoo B76, 178-8I. Quotation from i8I. 21. CO 3186, CCQ to CO, I3 May I87I. 22. CPP, G I-'77, 204.




23. CPP, G I-'77, 207. 24. Hemming papers, digest of evidence in the Gungubele rebellion, 12-I3 (Rhodes Uni-

versity); Periodical Accounts Relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren, 31: 39.

25. Queenstown Free Press 8 and 20o December I88 , I3 June I882; NA I83, CCQ to SNA, 24 September i88o; CPP, G 4-'83, Appendix E 352; NA 2oo, F. Evens to CCQ, I April 1884.

26. CPP, G 13-'8o, Blue Book on Native Affairs, 183. 27. I/LDF 5/1/1/1, magistrate of Glen Grey (RMGG) to SNA, 18 July and 27 September

1879 (Cape Archives). 28. CPP, G 8-'83, Blue Book on Native Affairs, I3. 29. I have interpreted Hemming's comment in a different manner to Bundy (1979, 77) who

presented it as evidence of improved techniques designed to meet increasing market demand by selling a range of surplus products over subsistence needs.

30. CO 1266, "Natives on the Border & Stock Stealing," report enclosed with J.E. Burnes to T. Upington, 13 November 1884.

31. CPP, G 20-'81, Blue Book on Native Affairs, 124; CPP, G 4-'83, evidence 334. 32. MMS box 314, file Queenstown i88o-i88i, E.J. Warner to Wesleyan Missionary Soci-

ety, 26 December 1881 (SOAS, London University). 33. CPP, G 20-'81, 124. 34. I/LDF 5/1/1/1, RMGG to CO, 3 December i88o and RMGG to SNA, 20 May 1881. 35. Jenner made a career in the police force and reached senior rank, but health consider-

ations made him switch to the civil service in I884. His police career probably encouraged the quick decisiveness and impatience which he also manifested in Glen Grey: Cape of Good Hope Civil Service List, 1890, 202.

36. CPP, G 12-'87, Blue Book on Native Affairs, 24. 37. CPP, G 42-'96, Census ... 1875, Part II, (I878), 27-8; CPP, G 6-'92, Census... 189g,

I8-I9, 28-9. 38. I/LDF 5/1/1/1, RMGG to SNA, 27 March 1883; Wagenaar 1988, 199. 39. i/LDF 5/I/I/i, RMGG to SNA, 20 May 1881. 40. I/LDF 5/1/1/1, RMGG to SNA, 27 March 1883. 41. I/LDF 5/1/1/1, RMGG to SNA, 12 August 1883. 42. I/LDF 5/1/1/2, RMGG to SNA, 15 November 1884. 43. Jenner was more sympathetic to government thinking than Driver, though there is no

proof that Driver was deliberately transferred, or Jenner appointed, for that reason. 44. This was one of the first political organizations in Glen Grey and was created to con-

front the colonial electoral and political system (Odendaal 1984, io). 45. NA I99, undated letter from Tembu Association to RMLF, under cover of RMLF to

USNA, 22 December 1884; I/LDF 5/1/1/2, RMGG to commissioner of crown lands and public works, 4 June 1885.

46. I/LDF 5/1/1/1, RMGG to SNA, 30 May 1884. 47. CPP, G 5-'86, Blue Book on Native Affairs, I8-I9; Wagenaar 1988, 203. 48. CPP, G 5-'86, 19. 49. CPP, G 12-'87, 25. 50. CPP, G 12-'87, 25-26; Wagenaar 1988, 203-4. 5 i. CPP, G 12-'87, 26, 27 (Jenner); CPP, G 6-'88, Blue Book on Native Affairs, 14. 52. NA 2I5, memorandum by W. Hammond-Tooke, 12 November 189o. 53. NA 2I5, memorandum by W. Hammond-Tooke, 12 November I89o. 54. CPP, A 3-'92, Commission... into Tenure of Land in Glen Grey District, 5 and passim. 55. CPP, A 3-'92, 5.



24 CJAS / RCEA 27:I 1993

56. Cape of Good Hope Debates of the House of Assembly (June-September 1893), 172-7 3 57. This was achieved by empowering the colonial governor to determine the allocation of

land; in practice it worked to the benefit of the Africans.

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with Special Reference to the Glen Grey Act, c.I894-I927." MA thesis, Rhodes University.

Bouch, R. 199o. "The Colonization of Queenstown (Eastern Cape) and its Hinterland, 1852-1886." Ph.D. thesis, London University.

Bundy, C. 1979. The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry. London: Heinemann.

Davenport, T. 1966. The Afrikaner Bond (1880-o9q1).

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Edgecombe, R. 1976. "The Glen Grey Act: Local Origins of an Abortive 'Bill for Africa'," In Studies in Local History. edited by J. Benyon et al. Cape Town: Oxford.

Lacey, M. 198 . Working for Boroko: The Origins of a Coercive Labour System in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan.

Master, V. 1966. "Colonial Control in Thembuland, and Resistance to it, 1872-1885." MA thesis, University of Cape Town.

Odendaal, A. 1984. Vukani Bantu! The Beginnings of Black Protest Politics in South Africa to 191 2. Cape Town and Johannesburg: David Philip.

Purkis, A.J. 1978. "The Politics, Capital and Labour of Railway-building in the Cape Colony, 1870-1885." Ph.D. thesis, Oxford University.

Rotberg, R. 1988. The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power. Johannesburg: Southern.

Saunders, C. 1976. "The Transkeian Rebellion of 1880-I88 i: A Case-study of Transke- ian Resistance to White Control." South African Historical Journal 8: 32-39.

- . 1978. The Annexation of the Transkeian Territories. Pretoria: Government Printer.

Schreuder, D. 1980. The Scramble for Southern Africa, 1877-1895. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press.

Shillington, K. 1985. The Colonization of the Southern Tswana, 1870-1900. Johannes- burg: Ravan.

Spicer, M. 1978. "The War of Ngcayecibi 1877-8." MA thesis, Rhodes University. Thompson, R.J. 1991. "Cecil Rhodes, the Glen Grey Act, and the Labour Question in

the Politics of the Cape Colony." MA thesis, Rhodes University. Wagenaar, E. 1988. "A History of the Thembu and their Relationship with the Cape,

185 o- 1900oo." Ph.D. thesis, Rhodes University.



Documents

Glen Grey before Cecil Rhodes: How a Crisis of Local Colonial Authority Led to the Glen Grey Act of 1894