A Most Promising Weed a History of Tobacco Farming and Labor in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890‒1945

AFR69 Labor History Steven C. Rubert “Tobacco from its beginning has been more than a crop; it has been rather a Rubert crucible in which the diverse ingredients were mingled which brought . Southern Rhodesia into being.” —E. P. Thompson, THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS Thousands of African men, women, and children worked on European- owned tobacco farms in colonial Zimbabwe from 1890 to 1945. Con- trary to some commonly held notions, these people were not mere bystanders as European capitalism penetrated into Zimbabwe, but helped to shape the work and the living conditions they encountered as they entered wage employment. Steven Rubert’s fine study draws on a rich variety of sources to il- a most promising weed luminate the lives of these workers. First he provides a brief history of tobacco growing in Zimbabwe, then examines the capitalization and a most promising weed physical layout of tobacco farms, the labor process on those farms, and the daily and seasonal forms of discipline European farmers de- veloped in their attempts to control the lives of their African workers. The central focus of the study is the organization of workers’ com- pounds, the social relationships there, and the labor of women and children, paid and unpaid. Rubert’s findings indicate the beginnings of HISTORY OF TOBACCO FARMING AND LABOR a moral economy on the tobacco farms prior to 1945. A Steven C. Rubert is Associate Professor of History at Oregon State University. Ohio University Center for International Studies Monographs in International Studies Africa Series, No. 69 ISBN 0-89680-203-5 IN COLONIAL ZIMBABWE, 1890–1945 OHIO Cover design by Chiquita Babb ,!7IA8J6-iacadc! A Most Promising Weed This series of publications on Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia is designed to present significant research, translation, and opin- ion to area specialists and to a wide community of persons interested in world affairs. The editor seeks manuscripts of quality on any sub- ject and can generally make a decision regarding publication within three months of receipt of the original work. Production methods generally permit a work to appear within one year of acceptance. The editor works closely with authors to produce a high quality book. The series appears in a paperback format and is distributed world- wide. For more information, contact the executive editor at Ohio Uni- versity Press, Scott Quadrangle, University Terrace, Athens, Ohio 45701. Executive editor: Gillian Berchowitz AREA CONSULTANTS Africa: Diane Ciekawy Latin America: Thomas Walker Southeast Asia: William H. Frederick The Monographs in International Studies series is published for the Center for International Studies by the Ohio University Press. The views expressed in individual monographs are those of the authors and should not be considered to represent the policies or beliefs of the Center for International Studies, the Ohio University Press, or Ohio University. A Most Promising Weed A History of Tobacco Farming and Labor in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890‒1945 Steven C. Rubert Ohio University Center for International Studies Monographs in International Studies Africa Series No. 69 Athens © 1998 by the Center for International Studies Ohio University Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved The books in the Center for International Studies Monograph Series are printed on acid-free paper ∞™ 03 02 01 00 99 98 54321 All photographs are reproduced by courtesy of the National Archives of Zimbabwe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rubert, Steven C., 1947‒ A most promising weed : a history of tobacco farming and labor in colonial Zimbabwe, 1890‒1945 / Steven C. Rubert. p. cm. — (Monographs in international studies. Africa series : no. 69) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-89680-203-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Tobacco workers—Zimbabwe—History. 2. Tobacco industry —Zimbabwe—History. I. Title. II. Series HD8039.T62Z557 1998 338.1'7371'096891—dc21 98-19136 CIP Contents List of Illustrations, vii List of Tables, viii Preface, ix Acknowledgments, xv 1: A Most Promising Weed, 1 2: Salisbury Lends a Hand, 21 3: Farms and Farmers, 42 4: Making the Grade, 59 5: Labor and Discipline, 89 6: The Life of the Compound, 123 7: Quick and Nimble Fingers, 148 8: Toward a Moral Economy, 166 Conclusion, 187 Notes, 193 Bibliography, 224 Index, 245 v Illustrations Maps 1. Lomagundi and Mazoe Districts, 1900‒45 11 2. Southern Rhodesia’s Tobacco Growing Region 17 3. Labor Migration Routes 19 Photographs E. H. South at the entrance to Southern Rhodesia’s first flue-curing tobacco barn, 1903 4 Tobacco farm, 1926 47 Old-style farm house 50 Southern Rhodesia’s first brick flue-curing tobacco barn, Darwendale, 1908 52 Portelet Tobacco Estate, tobacco barns, 1926 52 Sandanga, sledge made from triangle of three logs 63 Tying tobacco 64 Cart used for “water planting” 66 Breaking virgin soil for tobacco, mid 1920s 71 Plowing 71 Harrowing tobacco lands, 1912 72 Tobacco seed beds near Sinoia, 1912 74 Pulling tobacco seedlings for planting, mid 1920s 76 Transplanting tobacco into fields, 1912 76 Harvesting tobacco, 1905 80 vii viii / Illustrations Workers bringing tied tobacco to barns, mid 1920s 82 Rough grading 83 Grading and baling tobacco, mid 1920s 83 Sewing canvas around bales of cured tobacco, 1912 88 Dispatching bales of tobacco to Salisbury, mid 1920s 88 Planting tobacco, 1912 91 Dr. Charles Jarron Sketchley’s tobacco fields, laborers’ compound, and barn, 1908 128 Tables 1. African Wage Labor in Southern Rhodesia x 2. Southern Rhodesian Virginia Tobacco Yields, 1917‒45 7 3. Tobacco Acreage, Lomagundi and Mazoe Districts, 1925‒45 14 4. Ulere Motor Transport System, 1938‒45 38 5. Waltondale Farm Operating Expenses, 1939/40 56 6. Agricultural Wages, 1900‒42 99 7. Prices for Trade Goods in Bindura 102 Preface In his seminal study of the lives of working people in England, E. P. Thompson admonished historians to rescue the “casual- ties of history...from the enormous condescension of pos- terity.”1 His work challenged historians to look at those ordinary people in societies around the world who daily la- bored to produce wealth from which they rarely benefited. Few historical studies of labor in colonial Africa published be- fore the early 1990s took up this challenge. Even in those in- stances when labor was the primary focus of a study authors generally examined either colonial administrators’ efforts to mobilize indigenous labor or the formation of labor organiza- tions. Still, these works served an important purpose by help- ing to clarify questions concerning both the means by which European capitalism penetrated Africa and the new forms that capitalist relations took in Africa. Nevertheless, by choosing to focus on those processes they largely ignored the direct experiences of African peoples who spent parts, or in some cases the entirety, of their lives as domestic servants, miners, rail- way workers, or farm laborers.2 Frederick Cooper succinctly analyzed this problem when he wrote that those scholars rarely asked “what people do when they work, why they do it, and how workers and managers alike try to shape the pace, in- tensity, and quality of what gets done.”3 Many earlier historians of Southern Rhodesia also regularly ix x / Preface failed to mention the conditions of labor experienced by tens of thousands of African workers.4 Notable exceptions to this tendency have been the works of Charles van Onselen and Ian Phimister.5 Together, these two historians demonstrated that labor history can be more than a concern with numbers of laborers, where they originated, and what legal and extralegal mechanisms were utilized to get them to the mines. In partic- ular, van Onselen’s Chibaro: African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1933 is acknowledged by Africanists as a land- mark study that illuminated the lives of male mine laborers. The publication of that study so successfully stimulated addi- tional research on the mining industry in Southern Rhodesia and southern Africa, if not all regions of Africa, that mine labor became one of the primary models for investigating the development of capitalist relations in Africa. Indeed, until recently the influence of Chibaro on the writ- ing of African labor history was so great that other forms of labor in the southern Africa region were often overlooked. One result of this exclusionary trend has been that the lives of thousands of African men, women, and children who lived and worked on European-owned commercial farms in Southern Rhodesia during the period from 1890 to 1945 have been vir- tually ignored. Table 1 provides an idea of just how many people’s work experiences are being overlooked: TABLE 1 African Wage Labor in Southern Rhodesia6 Year Mining Work Other Than Mining 1914 35,946 45,064 1925 39,644 107,561 1930 45,226 111,561 1935 77,383 127,239 1939 83,590 158,567 1943 78,590 232,112 Preface / xi As these numbers indicate, a majority of African peoples who were employed for wages in Southern Rhodesia during the first half of the twentieth century were employed at jobs other than mining. A large percentage worked on European farms. Except for the few materials published by Phimister, and introductory comments in two other works, however, there has not been a comprehensive evaluation of the work experiences of farm laborers in Southern Rhodesia during the period preceding the end of World War II.7 This study begins filling that void by examining the work, living conditions, and socioeconomic relationships of African laborers on tobacco farms in Southern Rhodesia. Special at- tention is given to the Lomagundi and Mazoe districts of Mashonaland, two of the principal tobacco-producing areas in Southern Rhodesia.8 Tobacco farms present a unique environ- ment for a historical study of ordinary Africans who entered the wage economy.

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