The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/ Available through a partnership with Scroll down to read the article. South Africa and the Nation State A. J. Christopher Department of Geography, University of Port Elizabeth. The political development of Africa in the nations are based largely on linguistic and at 1960s has suggested that secession has not been times on historic affinities. Consequently the particularly successful.1 Some seven or more political advance of the African nations within secession movements have attempted to es- South Africa towards separate independence is tablish separate states within the last twelve a process which has reached the point of no years; they have for various reasons been un- return.6 All the states have the fact of statehood successful, but several movements are still within clearly defined boundaries and a govern- extant and model insurgent states exist in ment, composed of executive and legislative, several parts of Africa,2 Generally, however, responsible for that territory. Even the external the state as inherited from the colonial powers trappings of sovereignty in the form of flags has been recognised by most African leaders as and anthems have been achieved.7 However being the unit of sovereignty in the new Africa the creation of an identifiable nationhood may and attempts to upset frontiers have received be more difficult.8 the almost universal disapproval of African The creation of the new states poses a num- leaders. The inherited state nevertheless is ber of important questions in political geog- usually bound together by few ties of language, raphy.9 The state-idea may be fostered as it religion or nationhood, and often has little is elsewhere in Africa, but only half the Africans more than a common colonial experience to living within the borders of South Africa live share. Consequently the state idea has had to within the areas demarcated as the new nation- *• * be carefully fostered and a nation built.3 states. The areas occupied by the nation and Amongst this background of the development by the state are clearly not coincident and prob- of nation-state concepts of Africa, it is all the lems of identity and territorial claims are likely more remarkable that a major secession move- to be confused. In addition the national areas. ment has received so little attention.4 For, the as at present defined, are not integral units, as Republic of South Africa has found wanting they have many exclaves separated from the the state-idea as applied to its diverse peoples, main body of the nation either by other Afri- and so has sought a new concept. The present can states or by intervening land occupied by government has evolved the concept of 'multi- non-Africans.10 Consequently some rationali- nationalism' whereby the various African tribes sation of national boundaries would be desir- or nations within South Africa are being en- able, but the boundaries have been remarkably couraged to develop their own national con- static compared with those in Rhodesia,11 and sciousness and their own state-idea.5 Such resistance to the enlargement of the African 23 area is likely to be strong amongst the European a series of major wars were driven back to the population. Kei River in 1847 and a series of rural 'loca- It is therefore desirable to examine the origins tions' were established for those who remained of these states in the nineteenth and twentieth in the Ciskei. The remaining land was open centuries and trace the relationship between the for European colonisation. Finally in 1877 the national states being created and the nation they Transkei was annexed to the Cape, but little are intended to serve. The recent advance of it was thrown open to European settlement (1963-71) of all the states to internal self- and most of it became a virtual protectorate. government has highlighted their problems, Thus the Xhosa were left in two clearly defined while the 1970 census of South Africa has for areas. the first time provided a detailed geographical The other African nations were not so for- analysis of the African population in its different tunate. The Orange Free State, Transvaal and national groups instead of national totals.12 It Natal had been dominated at some stage in the is probable that in the formative years of the period 1815-40 either by the Zulu monarchy or 1970s the census will be used in defining by the Matabele or by both. In many places the national areas and aspirations.13 As in the case pre-existing population had been systematically of all ethnic statistics the census will probably decimated. The defeat of both the Zulu and be used cartographically to show different Matabele by the emigrant farmers from the things.14 The maps presented in this paper have Cape resulted in increased stability within these been produced by calculating the percentage of areas. It was therefore largely the remnants of the total population belonging to each of the the tribes which occupied the areas, who African nations. The European, Coloured and emerged from hiding when European control Asian peoples have been grouped together for was imposed. There was therefore little resis- # *- the purpose as non-Africans. The present tance to this control, and few large blocks of method was considered to be impartial with land outside Zululand and Lesotho were set regard to the African national groups and no aside for African occupation. account is given of the non-Africans whose All the South African states and colonies mutual problems are for the time-being outside in the nineteenth century embarked upon a the discussion of secession movements. policy of territorial segregation between Africans and non-Africans. The Cape left the Transkei HISTORICAL SURVEY as a protectorate and the Ciskei with well de- Contact between the Europeans and Africans fined African rural areas. The Orange Free in South Africa began about the year 1736 State regarded Lesotho as the 'location' for its along the line of the Fish River.15 The Euro- African population, although a couple of other »••» peans were cattle farmers, who in seeking new small areas were set aside for groups who found pasturage ventured further and further from favour with the Orange Free State government. Cape Town until they came into contact with Natal deliberately established a series of rural the Xhosa. Contact, in the form of mutual locations, where tribal society could survive, border raids effectively halted further European but spaced them so that anti-European and African expansion for over a hundred federations would be difficult to form. In the years. The Fish River became traditionally the Transvaal, small areas were set aside but formal boundary line between African and non-African rural locations were only established in 1907 at peoples, although substantial numbers of Afri- British insistence. cans settled peacefully west of the river. In 1913 the Native Land Act sought to stabil- European expansion continued northwards ise the African area of the country by recog- but was spectacularly accelerated in the 1830s nising the locations established prior to that date and 1840s in a major movement from the Cape and preventing its extension. Furthermore (the Great Trek), which resulted in Europeans Africans in Natal ceased to be able to purchase settling throughout most of the Transvaal, land outside the locations. Africans had never Orange Free State and Natal. The European been able to purchase land on an individual colonists by treaty and conquest acquired vast basis in the Transvaal and Orange Free State. tracts of land for settlement and effectively Some 9 200 000 ha were scheduled as African. confined tribal Africans to restricted portions. In 1936 this state of affairs was recognised as In the eastern Cape Province the Xhosa through unsatisfactory, particularly in the Transvaal, 24 and the Native Trust and Land Act 1936 in the non-African sector, and where possible provided for an additional 6 200 000 ha of satellite towns within the African national areas European land to be made available for African have been established.18 In rural areas the so- occupation, Africans in the Cape were further called 'black-spots' — African owned land in not allowed to buy land outside the African European areas — are being removed and their scheduled or released areas. Slight modifications occupants are being transferred to land adja- have taken place since 1936, but as yet the total cent to the existing African area. Some 469 released area has not been transferred to African separate parcels of land covering 155 000 ha use. are involved. In this manner the government In 1955 the Tomlinson Commission urged a has sought to reduce the number of future concerted policy of economic development,16 exclaves of the African states, and consolidate This allied with the need to consider the politi- the European character of the remainder of the cal future of the African resulted in the Govern- country. ment embarking upon a policy of creating separate African states (Table I). Thus in THE STATE AND THE NATION 1963 the Transkei became internally self-govern- In considering the concept of the African ing, and in the following nine years all the re- nation in South Africa certain broad divisions maining African national areas have followed occur. Some nations have remained reasonably suit and await the final step of independence. compact, particulary in the south and west, The economic problems of national development while others have been scattered as a result of are great and have been examined elsewhere,17 wars in the period 1815-50, Most, however, Table I possess a zone which mav be regarded as a core region from which a national identity may be EXTENT OF THE AFRICAN NATION — STATES 1970 fostered, although in the case of the nations inhabiting the Transvaal this may be compara- State Dominant Area (ha) No.