Lasting Legacies Contemporary Struggles and Historical Dispossession in South Africa

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Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

APARTHEID RECKONING

Robin L. Turner

“ wakening on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African native found himself, not actu- ally a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.”1 This opening passage from Solomon Plaatje’s A classic Native Life in South Africa underscores the importance of land to well-being and belonging. State- led and state-sanctioned dispossession causes suffering and signals political exclusion, rendering the dispossessed denizens who are subject to the state but not full members of the polity. Highlighting the adverse effects of the Natives Land Act of 1913 in its unsuccessful plea for repeal of that act and greater recognition of native rights, Native Life evocatively describes the impoverishment, illness, and premature death caused by the expulsion of black people from putatively white places and draws attention to prior state “land grabbing” in what became South Africa.2 Following the incorporation of Thaba Nchu into the Orange Free State, successive governments “confiscated all the land not yet surveyed,” created legal barriers to black land acquisition, and then stopped granting the exemptions through which some had secured land title in 1900, thereby ensuring that many black people lacked state-recognized rights to land and could not obtain them.3 State-led and state-sanctioned racialized dispossession in present-day South Africa began before 1913, as this example highlights, and continued long thereafter.4 White supremacist governments further racialized the national territory for most of the twentieth century, circumscribing black property rights and displacing millions of people. Contending that twenty-first-century natural resource use and land rights conflicts are haunted by the long shadow of historical dispossession, this article examines the relationship between this past and the present in the South African interior. Focusing on the regions that now encompass the Mapungubwe National Park and Cultural Landscape in Limpopo province and the Madikwe Game Reserve in the North West province, I describe recent land and natural resource struggles and detail the dispossession and partial displacement of black people from these regions (see fig. 1). These changes

This article draws from research funded by Butler University and Uni- 2. Ibid. On suffering, see chaps. 4– 5; on land grabbing, see 72. versity of California, Berkeley Institute for International Studies and 3. Ibid., 72. Center for African Studies. I thank Kemmone Moagi, Joseph Pelanyane, and Thuso Ramolongo for their research assistance and Anne-Maria B. 4. In fact, “land dispossession had largely taken place before the Natives Makhulu and Gillian Hart for their thoughtful comments on earlier ver- Land Act of 1913” (Beinart and Delius, “Historical Context and Legacy,” sions of this article. 669).

1. Plaatje, Native Life in South Africa, 7.

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Figure 1. The Madikwe and Mapungubwe Regions, South Africa

facilitated enduring transformations of the rural legal event, I discuss key moments in the formal, terrain and political economy as well as adversely de jure seizure of black-held land and trace the affecting black denizens, producing constellations slower, uneven process through which many black of interests that not only render full restoration people were effectively dispossessed, losing de of lost land unlikely but also hinder dispossessed facto control over the land in these places.6 The people’s efforts to gain greater access to and nineteenth-century refusal to recognize long- control over land and other natural resources. resident peoples’ property rights to the lands Looking beyond what Cheryl Walker terms a where they lived, farmed, hunted, and traded “ ‘master narrative’ of loss and restoration” focused laid the foundation for diminution of their access on providing redress for apartheid forced remov- to — “ability to derive benefits from” — these lands als, this article delineates how black landholders and natural resources, and for the subsequent dis- in the Mapungubwe and Madikwe regions were placement of many black denizens.7 The history dispossessed over the course of the nineteenth of racialized dispossession extends beyond the and twentieth centuries and attends to subsequent post – Native Land Act land losses for which South land-use change.5 Conceptualizing dispossession Africans are constitutionally entitled to redress.8 as an extended, uneven, contested process of los- Analysis of recent struggles in the Madikwe ing control over a resource rather than a singular and Mapungubwe regions illustrates the endur-

5. Walker, Landmarked, 12. minology,” 3). I thank Gillian Hart for clarifying those dispossessed after June 20, 1913, are en- my approach to dispossession. titled to restitution. The Restitution of Land 6. “Holding and possession both mean that one Rights Amendment Act of 2014 reopened the has control of the piece of land or resource. . . . 7. Ribot and Peluso, “A Theory of Access,” 153. land claim process until June 30, 2019, but did These terms connote nothing about whether 8. The Restitution of Land Act of 1994 and the not alter these provisions. that person has a legal right to hold or possess 1996 constitution contain provisions that only that resource” (Bruce, “A Review of Tenure Ter-

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Robin L. Turner • Contemporary Struggles and Historical Dispossession in South Africa 277

ing effects of dispossession. Large expanses of Struggling over Land and Natural Resources public and privately held land in these regions Centering on past, present, and future property are now devoted to nature conservation and tour- rights and natural resource use, contemporary ism. However, the coerced displacement of black struggles in the Mapungubwe and Madikwe re- people from Mapungubwe and Madikwe was not gions show how past dispossession continues to directly intertwined with the expansion of the shape present struggles. The Machete land claim, nature conservation estate or its depopulation as Vele colliery, and Barokologadi land claim con- in the better-known Kruger National Park, Kala- flicts described in this section illuminate the un- hari Gemsbok National Park, Hluhluwe-Umfolozi even terrain on which South Africans now contend Game Reserve, and St. Lucia Wetland Park cases.9 for rights to and influence over valued rural ter- Showing that displacement facilitated the estab- ritory and highlight the barriers to reversing his- lishment of conservation areas in Madikwe and torical dispossession. Recognition of the losses suf- Mapungubwe nevertheless, I contend that these fered by Machete and Barokologadi people did not changes now structure current land-use debates enable either to secure full access to and control to the disadvantage of the dispossessed. Situating over the land they once held. These cases suggest its analysis of twenty-first-century land and natural that public policies intended to redress segrega- use conflicts, attending to longer, place-specific tion and apartheid-era land loss grant the dispos- histories of racialized dispossession, and focusing sessed and their descendants a venue in which to on land-use change rather than memory or social articulate historical injury and to make claims on differentiation, this article makes a distinctive con- the state but do not alter the dominant under- tribution to scholarship on the South African past standings, land-use patterns, and constellations of and present.10 interests that favor present rights holders. The next section discusses contemporary land and natural resource use struggles in the Ma- Nature and Heritage Threatened? pungubwe and Madikwe regions. Based on field Mining and Land Restitution in Mapungubwe research carried out in 2005, 2006, 2010, 2011, Situated in northernmost Limpopo province at and 2015, the narratives draw from interviews with the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe Riv- current and former residents of these places, land ers and first settled between one million to 250 claimants, government officials, businesspeople, thousand BCE, the Mapungubwe region was the and conservation advocates, and from public and locus of a sophisticated civilization between 900 privately held records, media coverage, and other and 1290 CE. Rediscovered in 1932 – 33, ancient documents. The subsequent section delves into Mapungubwe garnered renewed attention as a the specific histories of these regions. Informed by symbol of Africa’s rich past and potential future, historical scholarship on the succession of polities exemplified in these comments by then president in which present-day Mapungubwe and Madikwe Thabo Mbeki: were situated between 1830 and 1994, I trace the In 1932 an Afrikaner prospector named Van dispossession and gradual displacement of black Graan approached a strange-looking outcrop in landholders from these regions, consider the land the Limpopo valley known as Mapungubwe Hill, changes occurring in the aftermath of disposses- in the area where the borders of South Africa, sion, and analyze their political economic effects.11 Botswana and Zimbabwe meet. Mapungubwe Hill held great mysterious power over the local people

9. See, for example, Carruthers, The Kruger sion predates 1913 but focuses on twentieth- 11. Research by Johan Bergh, Friedrich Braun, National Park, and Ramutsindela, “The Per- century displacement and postapartheid Peter Delius, Harvey M. Feinberg, Maanda Mu- fect Way,” on Kruger Park; Ellis, “The ≠Kho- land reforms. See, for example, James, Gain- laudzi, Stanley Trapido, and Roger Wagner was mani Sand Land Claim,” on Kalahari Gemsbok; ing Ground; Zenker, “New Law against an Old particularly helpful in teasing out differences Brooks, “Images of ‘Wild Africa,’ ” on Hluhluwe; State”; Ramutsindela, “The Enduring Spatial between the territory over which polities as- and Walker, Landmarked, on St. Lucia. Legacy of the Natives Land Act”; Walker et al., serted authority and that which the polities ac- Land, Memory, Reconstruction, and Justice; and tually controlled, occupied, and used. 10. Most contemporary South African land Walker, Landmarked. scholarship acknowledges that disposses-

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Figure 2: The Limpopo-Shashe Confluence Region

who always turned their backs on it when outsid- pungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area across ers attempted to discuss it. . . . I think we will all the confluence region in South Africa, Botswana, agree that much still needs to be learned about and Zimbabwe.13 Khoisan rock art and material the full significance of Mapungubwe, her civili- remnants of ancient Mapungubwe are presented zation and her technological advancement. . . . and preserved at the national park and scattered The source of our power comes not only from our well beyond its borders. present, but from our past.12 Conflict has roiled Mapungubwe for the last The Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape was desig- several years as two land restitution claims and a nated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003. proposed coal mine brought the region’s future The Mapungubwe region now encompasses into question. Seeking redress for post – June 1913 numerous nature and cultural heritage tourism, displacement, land claims by Machete and Tshi- game farming and ranching, and commercial ag- vula people could displace current land rights riculture enterprises, the Mapungubwe National holders and had the potential to produce a shift Park and Cultural Heritage Landscape, and the away from conservation tourism and commercial immense De Beers Venetia diamond mine (see agriculture if the settlement resulted in transfer of fig. 2). Providing an anchor point for nature and unrestricted title to the claimants. The proposed cultural heritage tourism since its establishment colliery was seen by its opponents as a threat to re- in 1998, the Mapungubwe National Park expanded gional biodiversity, cultural heritage, agriculture, from three farms in 2001 to 19,800 hectares of and tourism. Both developments spurred mobiliza- land in two large sections in 2008, as South Afri- tion within and beyond the Mapungubwe region, can National Parks and the Peace Parks Founda- with current landowners and land users opposing tion worked toward establishing the Greater Ma- the land claim while the anti – coal mine campaign

12. Thabo Mbeki, “Statement at the National .pdf. Also see Schoeman and Pikirayi, “Re- 13. Bernard van Lente, Mapungubwe Park Man- Research and Technology Foresight Launch,” patriating More Than Mapungubwe Human ager, interview by the author, January 10, 2006; March 23, 2000, Unisa Online, www.unisa.ac.za Remains.” South African National Parks (SANParks), “Ma- /contents/colleges/docs/tm2000/tm032300 pungubwe National Park Management Plan.”

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Robin L. Turner • Contemporary Struggles and Historical Dispossession in South Africa 279

brought together claimants, farmers, tourism busi- the Machete and Tshivhula had chosen to leave the nesspeople, and conservationists. Discussing the region, and that current politics rather than his- land claim and colliery in turn, I consider the dif- torical facts were driving the commission’s valida- fering constellations of interests arising from past tion of much of the Machete claim.16 One person dispossession and present land use and describe with strong ties to the region since 1965 told me, how contending parties have used heritage, histori- “They [the Tshivula] were advised by the lawyers cal connection to the land, and their productive or as to what to claim. . . . The majority of the people sustainable resource management as resources in voluntarily left the area because of drought in the these struggles. 1930s. The Limpopo River was dry, and there were Initially filed in 1998, the Machete and Tshi- few wells. People came looking at Mapungubwe be- vula collective land restitution claims first became cause they’ve heard that there was gold. But many public on July 7, 2006, when the Commission on moved because it was impossible to survive, so it Restitution of Land Rights gave notice of these was voluntary removal.”17 claims and two others to large expanses of north- Partly a strategic response by those seeking ern Limpopo land.14 The properties listed in these to retain state-recognized rights and access to re- overlapping claims included part of Mapungubwe gional resources, counterclaims opposing Mapun- National Park and nearby farms targeted for park gubwe land claims also reflect widely held interpre- inclusion, part of the De Beers – owned Venetia tations of South Africa’s past that conflate the loss Limpopo Nature Reserve and Venetia diamond of formal land rights and effective dispossession: mine, and portions of several properties then used people use and exert control over land to which for farming, game ranching, and tourism. Two they do not hold title, as discussed in the introduc- years after gazetting these claims, the regional tion. South African land claim commissions and commission issued a report that deemed the Ma- courts have validated numerous restitution claims chete claim largely valid and dismissed the overlap- involving untitled “beneficial occupiers” dis- ping portions of the Tshivhula claim. Stating that placed after the Natives Land Act of 1913.18 In the the Machete had possessed “indigenous owner- Mapungubwe region, as subsequent sections de- ship rights” to fifty-six farms from which they had tail, nineteenth-century white settler polities with- been gradually dispossessed over several decades, held state-recognized property rights from black the 2008 report called for “a detailed feasibility re- landholders in the nineteenth century but did not search study” of restoration.15 fully control their putative territory; most black The Mapungubwe land claim brought the denizens were not fully dispossessed before the contrasting perspectives and interests of current twentieth century. landowners, land users, and dispossessed people The struggle over the Mapungubwe restitu- to the surface. Many landowners and land users re- tion claim has been waged mostly behind closed sponded to the Machete and Tshivhula land claims doors for nearly a decade. Although those with with skepticism. Since the land on which the claim- valid land claims are entitled to restitution, grant- ants and their ancestors lived, farmed, grazed live- ing the Machete claimants even restricted title pre- stock, and buried their dead is now immensely serving the conservation status of claimed farms valuable, some dismissed the claims as ill-founded in the national park and Venetia Limpopo Nature resource grabs that misrepresent regional history. Reserve, a far more likely outcome than convey- Skeptics asserted that black denizens of Mapun- ance of unrestricted property rights, would be gubwe had lost land rights long before 1913, that extraordinarily expensive, as would purchase of

14. General Notice in Terms of the Restitution 16. Informal interactions in 2005, 2006, and 17. E. O. M. Hanish, interview by the author, of Land Rights Act, 1994 (Act 22 of 1994), Notice 2011; E. O. M. Hanish, interview by the author, Limpopo province, January 16, 2006. 879, July 7, 2006. Limpopo province, January 16, 2006; Mapun- 18. See Hall, “Reconciling the Past, Present, and gubwe landowner, interview by the author, 15. Commission on Restitution of Land Rights, Future,” 22, and Mostert, “Change through Ju- Limpopo province, January 27, 2006; and Huff- “Acceptance Report,” 12 and 29. risprudence,” 61 – 79. man, “Historical Archaeology of the Mapun- gubwe Area.”

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comparable land or other equitable redress.19 “It is date the Mapungubwe National Park and create an agreement which will probably cost billions,” as the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conser- then land commissioner Tele Mapoto said in 2009, vation Area. The commission has granted permis- without noting that the national government has sion for South African National Parks to acquire never fully funded restitution.20 farms along the periphery of Mapungubwe Na- Research to date suggests that only model tional Park, but the agency has not pursued this claims — those involving the forced removal of strategy.24 Reasoning that “it still doesn’t make a group at a well-defined point in time — and sense to buy land when you might lose it,” as an model claimants — those possessing strong, po- agency executive commented, South African Na- litically savvy leadership and the appearance of tional Parks has instead prioritized reaching con- unity — have secured relatively swift, somewhat tractual agreements with private landowners to satisfactory settlements.21 Subject to coerced dis- incorporate their land into the national park and placement over an extended period of time and seeking a similar agreement with the Machete.25 now spatially dispersed, the Machete are not The claimants, landowners, and land users were model claimants and have not managed to present still negotiating with a shifting set of land claim a united front.22 With little progress toward settle- commissioners and officials in 2015. ment evident in the late 2000s beyond the acquisi- As 2008 drew to a close, word spread that tion of three farms, a small contingent of claim- Coal of Africa Limited (CoAL) sought to mine ants moved to Den Staat, a commission-purchased coal in the Mapungubwe region.26 The proposed property situated between Mapungubwe National mine, the Vele Colliery, would be built on an 8,662 Park and a commercial irrigated farm.23 Disrupt- hectare area along the Limpopo River located ing a pending partnership between the Machete about 7 kilometers east of Mapungubwe National claimant organization and the neighboring com- Park’s western boundary and 27 kilometers away mercial farm, the claimant settlers began growing from Mapungubwe Hill.27 CoAL sought to extract tomatoes and harvesting wildlife despite their lack up to 5 million tons of coal each year through un- of a title deed, of capital to repair the degraded in- derground and opencast (strip) mining for at least frastructure left behind by the prior owner, and of thirty years, removing and processing large quan- support from the commission or other claimants. tities of soil. The colliery also would extract up Most Machete claimants did not relocate to Den to 5,000 cubic meters per day from the Limpopo Staat, instead continuing to lobby for resolution of River and aquifer. CoAL submitted an application their claim with little success. for mining rights to the Department of Mineral Failure to resolve the Machete claim has not Resources in November 2008 and began pursu- only frustrated claimants but also affected land- ing other required authorizations after company owners and land users who must secure commis- representatives met with municipal, provincial, sion permission for sale, lease, or development of and national officials and a few landowners.28 The claimed properties, impeding efforts to consoli- department then ordered the company to submit

19. A 2007 Memorandum of Agreement be- employees and Tshivula claimant, interviews 25. SANParks official, interview by the author, tween the Ministry of Agriculture and Land by the author, Limpopo province, July 25, 27, 28, Gauteng province, August 15, 2011. Affairs and the Ministry of Environmental Af- and 31, 2011; Machete claimants, restitution of- 26. I use “CoAL” in all references in the main fairs and Tourism, adopted as national policy ficial, and Mapungubwe landowner, interviews text to Coal of Africa Limited, the Limpopo in 2008, states that the conservation status by the author, Gauteng province, August 2 and Coal Company (Pty) Ltd., and other subsidiar- of claimed land and protected areas must be 3, 2011, and November 1, 2015. ies CoAL has created for its mining operations maintained. See Ramutsindela and Shabangu, 23. Four people involved in Mapungubwe land in South Africa’s Limpopo province. “Conditioned by Neoliberalism,” 451 – 52. management, restitution, and conservation, in- 27. Limpopo Coal Company, “Vele Colliery Proj- 20. Tempelhoff, “Mapungubwe’s Future in Doubt.” terviews by the author, Limpopo province, Au- ect Environmental Management Programme gust 1 and 2, 2011, and Gauteng province, Au- 21. James, Gaining Ground; Walker, Land- [EMP].” gust 15 and 16, 2011. marked; and Robins and van der Waal, “ ‘Model 28. Limpopo Coal Company, “Vele Colliery Proj- Tribes’ and Iconic Conservationists.” 24. Three SANParks officials, interviews by the ect EMP Annexure N.” author, Gauteng province, August 15 and 16, 22. Machete claimants, interview by the author, 2011. Limpopo province, January 25, 2006; SANParks

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Robin L. Turner • Contemporary Struggles and Historical Dispossession in South Africa 281 a scoping report, an environmental management evident from the moment word began to spread. plan, and an environmental impact assessment. As Alex Schoeman, a South African archaeolo- Mineral extraction is governed by numerous gist and former Mapungubwe resident, said, “I acts, regulations, and formal procedures in South heard over Christmas. They [CoAL] were granted Africa, as elsewhere.29 Officially, if not in practice, rights over the holdings. It came out of the blue companies must jump several official hurdles to es- completely. . . . My first thought was ‘Hell, no! This tablish a new mine, obtaining a variety of licenses, has to be a mistake.’ In the end it was true.”31 The permits, and impact assessments from different Endangered Wildlife Trust and the Association of government agencies including the Department of Southern African Professional Archaeologists each Mineral Resources and other less powerful agen- submitted critical comments on the scoping report cies. The Vele Colliery struggle was waged concur- in January 2009. The South African Heritage Re- rently in government agencies, in the courts, and sources Agency, the Department of Environmental among various local, national, and global publics. Affairs, and the Peace Parks Foundation expressed CoAL initially made steady progress by focus- concern regarding the mine’s potential adverse ef- ing on the relatively supportive national Depart- fects on regional natural and heritage resources ment of Mineral Resources and limiting its interac- in multiple venues. Mapungubwe land claimants, tions with likely opponents. CoAL representatives landowners, and land users expressed opposition had informal discussions and meetings with inter- to the mine at the first open public meeting in ested and affected parties between January and April 2009, detailing an array of overlapping con- November 2008 but did not contact prominent cerns regarding heritage, biodiversity, farming, Mapungubwe landowner Paul Hatty, who owned and tourism. a tourist lodge less than 10 kilometers away from The conflict entered a new stage when the the proposed mine, chaired the Mapungubwe Na- Department of Mineral Resources issued a min- tional Park Committee for several years, and led ing license for the Vele Colliery in January 2010. the Limpopo Valley Conservancy. CoAL also made Local activists then formed the Mapungubwe Ac- no direct contact with the Department of Environ- tion Group to campaign against the mine and cre- mental Affairs and the South African Heritage ated the Save Mapungubwe Coalition with six es- Resources Agency, which have statutory responsi- tablished nonprofit organizations: the Association bility for the Mapungubwe National Park and Cul- of Southern African Professional Archaeologists, tural Landscape UNESCO World Heritage Site. BirdLife South Africa, the Endangered Wildlife The meeting with these agencies and CoAL took Trust, the Peace Parks Foundation, Wilderness place only eight days before the January 31, 2009, Foundation South Africa, and the World Wide deadline for comments on the Vele Colliery scop- Fund for Nature South Africa. ing report, which was subsequently extended to The Mapungubwe Action Group brought February 16. Several of the parties most interested together a disparate group of people united prin- and affected by the proposed mine thus had little cipally by their opposition to the proposed mine: opportunity to participate in the early stages of farmers, farm managers, and tourism business- the approval process. “I believe the mine thought people, Machete land claimants, Vhangona cul- they could get away with stealth. They tried to do it tural activists, and shareholders in the Northern under cover. That is what has increased the ire of Tuli Game Reserve, situated across the Limpopo those against the mine,” Hatty commented.30 in Botswana (see fig. 2).32 Mapungubwe Action Opposition to the proposed Vele Colliery was Group activists continuously highlighted the sym-

29. Relevant legislation includes the Mineral 31. Maria H. (Alex) Schoeman, interview by the Wilson Sigwavhulimu, interview by the author, and Petroleum Resources Development Act author, Gauteng province, August 3, 2011. Limpopo province, January 16, 2006; Thirabeli of 2002, the Natural Environmental Manage- Robert Rakhadani and Fhavhadziawa Thomas 32. One of several groups claiming ancestral ment Act of 1998, and the National Heritage Nephawe, interview by the author, Limpopo ties to ancient Mapungubwe, Vhangona activ- Resources Act of 1999. province, July 30, 2011; and Schoeman and Piki- ists have supported cultural heritage and bio- rayi, “Repatriating More Than Mapungubwe 30. Paul Hatty, interview by the author, diversity conservation in the region and sought Human Remains.” Gauteng province, August 2, 2011. to participate in decision making. Ratshalingwa

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bolic, affective, and material threats posed by the activities but did not achieve its ultimate objective. Vele Colliery on television, film, websites, and The Department of Water Affairs and the Depart- other media while specifying the mine’s potential ment of Environmental Affairs issued the requisite adverse effects in interactions with decision mak- licenses and authorizations in 2011, and the miners. “Our national heritage is being put at risk. . . . ister of water affairs then lifted the water license ‘You bestow the Order of Mapungubwe. How can suspension in 2012 without hearings on the Save you allow the place after which so prestigious an Mapungubwe Coalition appeal.36 The September award is named to be destroyed?,’ ” said land claim 2011 announcement that CoAL, South African leader Lucas Machete in a National Geographic arti- National Parks, and the Department of Environ- cle.33 “This is very short-term thinking. . . . Mining mental Affairs had agreed to work together to is for 30 or 40 years. Tourism is forever,” a white conserve the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape af- landowner told me.34 “We would not allow anyone firmed that CoAL had secured sufficient support to come and destroy the heritage that will be there from national decision makers to proceed. The for a ‘project’ that will last 25 to 30 years . . . just for Save Mapungubwe Coalition has focused on dam- financial gain. We would never in our life let down age control since 2011, seeking to protect the land- the expectations of our ancestors,” said a Vhan- scape first through direct negotiations with CoAL gona Cultural Movement leader.35 and then through the Vele Colliery Environmental The Save Mapungubwe Coalition partners Monitoring Committee.37 The Vele colliery began led the bureaucratic and legal struggle against the operating in 2012 but its long-term prospects are mine. Coalition members appealed the issuance uncertain, as the coal is of lower-than-expected of mining rights and the environmental manage- quality. CoAL suspended mine operations and laid ment program approval appeal in 2010, seeking off workers in 2013 but has indicated that opera- immediate suspension of the mining right, chal- tions should resume in 2016.38 lenging the process through which these approv- Recent struggles in Mapungubwe demon- als were granted, and elaborating upon the mine’s strate the pressing need to more fully reckon with substantial adverse effects. In August 2010, shortly the material and discursive legacies of South Afri- after the coalition sought urgent interdicts, the De- ca’s past in its postapartheid present. In each case, partment of Environmental Affairs ordered CoAL activists pressured government officials to not only to cease several construction activities begun with- acknowledge black and indigenous peoples’ long out prior environmental authorization and the De- history in the region but also prioritize redress- partment of Water Affairs ordered CoAL to “cease ing dispossession and protecting heritage in land all unlawful water use immediately.” rights and natural resource use decisions. Machete The Mapungubwe Action Group Save Ma- claimants used elders’ knowledge of burial sites pungubwe Coalition campaign garnered inter- and other markers of past residence to buttress as- national media coverage, motivated UNESCO sertions that they had previously possessed land inspection visits and expressions of concern, and rights, while anticolliery activists accentuated the led to a months-long suspension of construction heritage, conservation, and long-term economic

33. Marshall, “Ancient African Citadel Threat- 37. Save Mapungubwe Coalition, “Media mine. However, some Mapungubwe National ened by Mining Venture.” Statement: The Save Mapungubwe Coalition Parks employees assisted with antimine activ- Withdraws from the Memorandum of Un- ism behind the scenes. 34. Nick Hilterman, interview by the author, derstanding with Coal of Africa Limited, and Gauteng province, July 22, 2011. 38. See Ryan, “Retrenchments Follow,” and Joins the Environmental Monitoring Com- Dick, “Coal of Africa’s Half a Billion-Dollar 35. Ratshalingwa Wilson Sigwavhulimu, inter- mittee for the Vele Colliery,” December 7, Baby.” view by the author, Limpopo province, July 30, 2012, www.ewt.org.za/media/2012/Save%20 2011. Mapungubwe%20Coalition%20Statement %207%20Dec%202012.pdf.2012. South African 36. CoAL petitioned the minister to allow the National Parks is a parastatal organization that water- use license to remain in full effect in Au- took no public stance on the proposed mine, gust 2011, and Save Mapungubwe submitted and its policies prevented most staff from pub- arguments against the lifting of the license in licly expressing their views about the proposed September 2011.

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value of Mapungubwe to the region, nation, and that the Barokologadi had not owned Melorane, by world.39 These mobilizations succeeded in secur- asserting their present state-recognized property ing recognition but failed to accomplish their ob- rights, and by highlighting their improvements to jectives. Confronted with cultural heritage and the land and their formal and less formal interac- dispossession on the one hand and biodiversity, tions with decision makers throughout the claim tourism, and mining on the other, national de- negotiations. Madikwe lessee Barry York chal- cision makers appeared to prioritize high-value lenged the validity of the Barokologadi claim, as- present and future land uses over redressing past serting in court and in other venues that he had dispossession. laboriously transformed a degraded farm into the successful Sebele game hunting and cattle farming Conservation versus Restoration: operation on the understanding that he could pur- The Barokologadi Campaign chase the land. The baruakgomo also lobbied heav- The Barokologadi restitution struggle illustrates ily to retain use of and secure title to the leased how post-dispossession land-use change has in- properties as the North West Parks and Tour- fluenced property rights and natural resource de- ism Board pressed to maintain the integrity of bates in the Madikwe region. The collective land Madikwe Game Reserve. restitution claim T. Z. Molwantwa filed on behalf Relying on the discursive erasure of past of the Barokologadi ba ga Maotwe on July 2, 1995, dispossession and the prioritization of present marked the beginning of an extended struggle land uses for persuasive efficacy, restoration op- over land rights, land use, and appropriate redress. ponents met with success at first. The provincial This was a model claim with model claimants in State Land Disposal Committee officials moved many respects. Forcibly removed from Melorane in to transfer title to Barry York and the baruakgomo 1949 – 50, with a politically astute, well-networked even though no transfers on land subject to pub- leader who mobilized well-off urban Barokologadi lished restitution claims are supposed to be pro- and those residing in former Bophuthatswana, cessed; restitution officials intervened to halt the Barokologadi claimants presented a united front transfers.41 Regional Land Claims Commission despite internal divisions.40 Land-use change pre- initially accepted opponents’ framing of the claim sented a substantial barrier to redress, neverthe- as well, characterizing a settlement offer in which less, as the place that the Barokologadi called the claimants would have gained title to Sebele Melorane now comprised a large section of farm but not to land inside Madikwe Game Re- Madikwe Game Reserve, a nature conservation serve as “a clear upgrading of the rights from Ben- and tourism site, and several properties leased to eficial Occupation to Ownership Rights” in 2003 baruakgomo (black emerging farmers) and other correspondence.42 The Barokologadi Land Claims individuals. Committee consistently rejected these arguments Contention over the Barokologadi claim cen- and sought restoration of Melorane throughout tered on the appropriate form and scope of res- their prolonged negotiations with the Commis- titution: restoration, compensation, or alternate sion on Restitution of Land Rights, the North land. Affected land users opposed restoration and West Parks and Tourism Board, and other parties sought to retain the claimed land by emphasizing from 1999 onward, using pickets and presenta-

39. Several contemporary ethnocultural com- cussed in Turner, “Land Restitution, Traditional terview by the author, Gauteng province, Feb- munities, including the Lemba, Vhangona, Leadership, and Belonging.” ruary 8 and March 13, 2006; North West Parks and Twamamba, have asserted ancestral ties and Tourism Board employee, interview by the 41. Comprising representatives from several to the ancient Mapungubwe civilization. See author, Gauteng province, March 21, 2006. government departments, the State Land Dis- Schoeman et al., “Repatriating More Than posal Committee was supposed to track and 42. Regional land commissioner for Gauteng Mapungubwe Human Remains,” and Nienaber ratify land allocations. Two participants in and North West province correspondence to et al., “Reburial of the Mapungubwe Human land restitution negotiations and one affected Louise du Plessis, legal representative of the Remains.” party, interviews by the author, Gauteng and Barokologadi claimants, February 14, 2003. 40. Collective identity conflicts intertwined North West provinces, July 5, July 6, and August with the Barokologadi’s forced removal are dis- 25, 2005; Tsholofelo Zebulon Molwantwa, in-

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tions at national and provincial land summits to had few of the promised development funds and draw attention to their cause. was still enmeshed in comanagement negotiations The Barokologadi claimants achieved a par- with the Parks and Tourism Board in mid-2010.45 tial victory in 2007, securing the first state recogni- Despite the slow implementation of the settle- tion of these people as rights-bearing titleholders ment, however, the CPA had raised about 300,000 to Melorane in their history. That year, the Baro- rand from its members, secured a National Devel- kologadi Communal Property Association (CPA), opment Agency grant, partnered with a business the North West Parks and Tourism Board, the development company, formed a joint venture Commission for Restitution of Land Rights, and with a local farmer, and started a livestock project other government departments signed a binding on lands outside Madikwe Game Reserve by that agreement stating the Barokologadi CPA would point.46 Continuing to work toward their vision for receive title to all of the claimed properties, that the restored land, the Barokologadi had managed the land inside Madikwe Game Reserve would re- to obtain title to all but one farm, secure partial main a protected part of that reserve, and that the implementation of the comanagement agreement, reserve land would be managed through a coman- raise more than 25 million rand in project funding agement agreement. The agreement also stated from three national departments, and recruit in- that the claimants would receive financial compen- vestors to underwrite leisure tourism developments sation “for the loss of enjoyment, use, and occupa- on their land by October 2015.47 State-recognized tion of the claimed land falling within Madikwe property rights now facilitate Barokologadi initia- Game Reserve” and that the CPA would receive tives to use the restored land. restitution grants, planning grants, and financial Public policies intended to redress segrega- aid to support development of the restored land.43 tion and apartheid-era dispossession grant the dis- The Barokologadi settlement marked both a de- possessed and their descendants a venue in which parture from and a consolidation of past disposses- to articulate historical injury and to make claims sion: decision makers limited Barokologadi access on the state but do not alter dominant understand- to and control over Madikwe Game Reserve but ings, land-use patterns, and constellations of inter- recognized and compensated them for this loss. ests that favor present rights holders. Land and “We have to make sure that we use the land resource use struggles are deeply intertwined with appropriately so that it can benefit everybody. . . . conceptions of property, productivity, and value Now that we have won the land we have to prepare that disadvantage claimants.48 The ill-founded how we are going to use it,” T. Z. Molwantwa told presumption that nonwhite peoples did not own me, as the likely scope of the settlement became land before white settlement disadvantages dispos- clear.44 Granted restricted title to a portion of sessed people in contemporary resource struggles Madikwe Game Reserve and unfettered title to the as does Barokologadi and Machete people’s lack remainder of Melorane, the CPA decided to create of property title prior to displacement, itself a con- commercial agricultural and tourism enterprises stitutive element of their dispossession. The com- rather than attempt to settle their dispersed mem- mon view that collective land holding and resource bership on the restored land. The Barokologadi management are less productive than individual CPA had secured title to most of Melorane but private enterprise and less sustainable than state

43. Commission on Restitution of Land Rights, 46. Interviews by the author, Gauteng and 48. See Ramutsindela and Shabangu, “Condi- Settlement agreement. North West provinces: T. Z. Molwantwa, tioned by Neoliberalism,” on how neoliberal June 22, 2010; Amos Setou, June 29, 2010; and conservation affects restitution claims to pro- 44. T. Z. Molwantwa, interview by the author, Mmusi Moses Maotwe, July 25, 2010. tected lands. The Machete and Barokologadi Gauteng province, February 2, 2006. cases differ from the Makuleke claim discussed 47. Interviews by the author, North West prov- 45. The comanagement agreement was final- in that article in that each involve land outside ince, October 22 and 27, 2015. ized later in 2010 and has been partially imple- protected areas. mented, while negotiations over the amount the Parks Board will pay the CPA to lease its land inside Madikwe game reserve continue.

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nature conservation also tilt the discursive terrain Consequential Claims, Gradual Dispossession against claimants.49 Regional landowners and land Settler State Land Claims users deployed these arguments in struggle, as Preceded by more than a century of turbulence in seen in Barry York’s emphasis on his investment in which conflict among Tswana chieftaincies, raid- and improvements to the land, and in the rhetori- ing by Mzilikazi’s expansionist Ndebele kingdom, cal weight parks and tourism parastatal agencies and the movement of Griqua, Kora, and white place on the public interest in conservation. people through the territory led to displacement Implying that land claimants would be and greater centralization among the surviving poorer land stewards, these dominant discourses African polities, the formal dispossession of black force land claimants seeking unfettered property people in present-day Limpopo and North West rights to demonstrate their readiness to maintain provinces began when white Afrikaans-speaking and improve restored land. Perceived incapacity to settlers (Voortrekkers) asserted ownership of the meet that standard then provides a rationale for territory after the 1837 defeat of Mzilikazi by Afri- state decision makers to confer restricted rights can and Afrikaner forces.51 The small fragmented on “successful” claimants or to defer settlement Voortrekker settlements controlled only a small indefinitely, as in the Machete case. Perpetuating portion of the territory at the time. However, the disadvantage, these practices and discourses not Voortrekkers secured British assent to the dispos- only subject claimants to standards the direct and session of black denizens in 1852 through the Sand indirect beneficiaries of their dispossession were River Convention in which British government for- never asked to meet — as discussed in the next mally recognized the independence of the Trek- section — but also disregard both the adverse ef- kers who had migrated north of the Vaal River and fects of displacement on dispossessed people’s repudiated its previous agreements with black resi- resources and the substantial state resources di- dents. Shortly thereafter, the fractured Voortrek- rected to beneficiaries. As T. Z. Molwantwa com- ker communities created a new polity later named mented, “Some farms that were taken away from the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (the South African the white farmers have become unproductive. I Republic) and proclaimed their ownership of and said, who is to blame? Because the people were authority over the territory north of the Vaal River forcibly removed, and their skill was destroyed, and south of the Limpopo River. Deliberately dis- and the young generation should take over, but regarding black people’s land rights and effective there is no skill. So you can’t blame us. The govern- control over much of the territory, these Voortrek- ment should have trained the young ones because ker land claims initiated the formation of a new they saw that the land was going back to its rightful property rights regime and laid the foundation for owners.”50 twenty-first-century land struggles. The next section describes the gradual dis- The 1837 and 1852 Voortrekker land claims possession of black denizens of Madikwe and were more “notional” than real at first.52 White Mapungubwe. Detailing the state-led and state- settlers did not control most of the land and ex- sanctioned processes through which black land- isted in complex relationship to several larger and holders in these places were deprived of formal longer resident African communities. The north- property rights and then effectively dispossessed ernmost settlement of Zoutpansberg was situated while state resources were directed toward white within a “disturbed but crowded African world” settlers, I then consider subsequent land-use comprised of nearby Venda, Pedi, Lobedu, and change and the state’s role within it. Langa polities and the powerful Ndebele and Gaza in the periphery, for example.53 Centered in the Zoutpan Mountains and encompassing the Ma-

49. “Tragedy of the Commons” concisely artic- 50. T. Z. Molwantwa, interview by the author, 52. The phrase “notional ownership” is drawn ulates the perceived weaknesses of collective Gauteng province, February 2, 2006. from Delius, The Land Belongs to Us, 130. landholding. See Hardin, “Tragedy of the Com- 51. Wright, “Turbulent Times.” 53. Wagner, “Zoutpansberg,” 321. mons.” C.f. Ostrom, Governing the Commons.

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pungubwe region, Zoutpansberg “depended on problems in need of resolution,” as Lindsay Braun the acquiescence, and even collaboration, of Afri- writes.60 can neighbors.”54 Conflict within and among the The republic generously distributed this Zoutpansbergers and the Venda led to the dissolu- ostensibly empty land, allowing each white male tion of the settlement in 1867, and few white people trekker to claim two large farms for eventual settled on lands north of the Zoutpan before 1914, registration and inspection by state officials and nearly fifty years later.55 The other Voortrekker using land grants to fund its operations and pay settlements shifted back and forth between work- its officials while setting aside only small portions ing with, relying upon, and fighting nearby black of the territory for black denizens.61 An 1886 act and mixed-race communities from their founding declared the Zoutpansberg to be government through the late 1870s.56 land and provided for the allocation of farms to The South African Republic’s enormous ter- white adult males who would ensure the land was ritorial claim was immensely consequential despite “beneficially occupied” — a condition rarely satis- its initially fictive nature, for its “notional owner- fied or enforced.62 Twenty-eight percent of South ship” discursively emptied the territory.57 Both a African Republic territory had been allocated to bundle of rights and a social relation, “property is white people and companies by 1860, 56 percent by distinguished from mere momentary possession 1890, and 66.9 percent by 1911. White people and or longer-term access by virtue of being recog- companies registered titles throughout the South nized by others, through enforcement by society African Republic but rarely settled in the two or the state, and by custom, convention or law,” northernmost districts, which accounted for only as Christian Lund writes.58 But whose recognition, 5 percent of white residents in 1873.63 Nor did white enforcement, customs, or laws matter? While ac- claimants quickly settle in lands controlled by pow- cess to, ownership of, and control over land and erful African polities. Most claimants to Pedi land people were fundamentally contested between the quickly sold their newly acquired land to compa- 1830s and the 1880s, white settler recognition, con- nies, speculators, or land agents, for example.64 ventions, and laws eventually became hegemonic. State land grants facilitated land speculation and Determined to create a white supremacist polity enabled well-positioned officials to accumulate allowing “No equality of Coloureds with Whites large landholdings but did not quickly increase the either in Church or state,” as their 1856 constitu- state’s effective control over territory.65 tion stated, these settlers consistently refused to The South African Republic’s notional own- formally recognize black, Khoisan, and mixed-race ership placed new burdens on black denizens, obli- people’s property rights and land tenure systems, gating most who wanted to retain state-sanctioned instead treating nonwhites as rightless land dwell- access to the land on which they lived, farmed, and ers.59 “In this imaginary environment, lands lay hunted to purchase it from the republic or from open for disposal by the state, and extant occupa- white titleholders or to work for those owners.66 tion and land use rarely figured except as onerous Black land purchase was impeded by republic poli-

54. Ibid., 321. 60. Braun, “Spatial Institutionalisation and the 65. Christopher, “Official Land Disposal Poli- Settler State,” 151. cies”; Braun, “Spatial Institutionalisation and 55. See ibid., and Mulaudzi, “ ‘U Shuma Bulasi.’ ” the Settler State”; Delius, The Land Belongs to 61. Bergh, “(To) Reserve to the Native Tribes”; 56. Etherington et al., “From Colonial Hegemo- Us; Trapido, “Aspects in the Transition from Braun, “Spatial Institutionalisation and the Set- nies to Imperial Conquest.” Slavery to Serfdom”; and Trapido, “Reflections tler State”; Delius, The Land Belongs to Us; and on Land, Office, and Wealth.” 57. Delius, The Land Belongs to Us, 130. Trapido, “Aspects in the Transition from Slavery to Serfdom.” 66. Etherington et al., “From Colonial Hege- 58. Lund, “Negotiating Property Institutions,” monies to Imperial Conquest,” 338. Voortrek- 12 – 13. 62. Mulaudzi, “ ‘U Shuma Bulasi.’ ” kers occasionally granted lands to African allies 59. Following Wegerif et al. (Still Searching for 63. Wagner, “Zoutpansberg,” and Mulaudzi, “ ‘U such as Moiloa I of the Bahurutshe in present- Security, iii.), I use farm dweller to refer to “any Shuma Bulasi.’ ” day North West province. See Manson and person, other than the owner, who is living on Mbenga, Land, Chiefs, Mining, 21 – 22. 64. Braun, “Spatial Institutionalisation and the a farm.” Settler State,” 160.

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cies such as Volksraad Resolution 181 of June 18, trustees in 1904, 591 properties in 1913, and 867 1855, which explicitly excluded “coloured people” properties in 1936, the year in which the state took from burghership and declared that “no person control of trust lands.70 who is not recognized as a broker shall have the Most black residents of the Transvaal neither right to possess immovable property.”67 The state lived in a powerful African polity nor managed refused to register black land purchases except to secure state-recognized land rights through through white trustees until the Tsewu v. Registrar a grant or a trustee, however. These denizens’ of Deeds decision of 1905 mandated it do so. continued residence gradually became depen- The transfer of the South African Republic dent on white titleholders. Rather than summar- to British administration and its subsequent incor- ily expelling black dwellers or farming the lands poration into the Union of South Africa in 1909 themselves, many white landowners and private as the Transvaal province was followed by gradual companies instead engaged in “native farming,” consolidation of state control over the land the re- generating income by charging black occupants public had seized and redistributed. The Natives cash, labor, or in-kind rent. Stanley Trapido ar- Land Act of 1913, the Natives Land and Trust Act gues, “The major source of profit from agriculture of 1936, and a long series of other proclamations, . . . lay in the various forms of rent paid by African ordinances, and acts racialized the national ter- producers who had often been the cultivators of ritory, allocating a small portion for black settle- the land prior to its seizure by Afrikaner settlers.”71 ment while raising the already substantial barriers Immensely profitable for white landowners, these to land acquisition and making it increasingly dif- practices contributed to the impoverishment of ficult for black people to reside on putatively white black Transvaalers. land without working for white landowners. Trying to retain access to land in this hostile Dispossession and Displacement context, black people employed diverse strategies in Madikwe and Mapungubwe to slow or limit dispossession, reclaim lost lands, The five contemporary communities with the and secure formal property rights. Nineteenth- strongest ties to Madikwe — the Balete ba Lek- century leaders Sekhukhune and Nyabela ag- gophung, Bahurutshe ba ga Suping, Baphalane gressively challenged claims to Pedi and Ndebele ba Sesobe, Barokologadi ba ga Maotwe, and Bat- lands, filing formal petitions and disputing title lokwa boo kgosi ba ga Matlapeng — each relocated while their followers remained resident until mili- multiple times during the nineteenth century, tary defeats left them unable to protect much of moving back and forth across the Marico and Lim- their territory after the 1870s.68 Active participants popo Rivers during Mzilikazi’s reign.72 The Baro- in the South African War, some black communi- kologadi settled at Melorane and the Baphalane at ties in the Western Transvaal reclaimed former Vleischfontein in the present-day Madikwe Game territory by force, gains that were reversed by the Reserve before 1884 while the Balete, Bahurutshe, British shortly after the war ended in 1902.69 Other and Batlokwa settled in the surrounding area.73 black residents circumvented race-based property Machete and Tshivhula people also settled in restrictions by purchasing farms through white the Mapungubwe region well before the turn of missionaries and other trustees. Black Transvaal- the twentieth century, with the Machete residing ers held title to 118 farms or farm portions through near the Limpopo-Shashe River confluence and

67. Eybers, Select Constitutional Documents, “South African Territorial Segregation,” 51. “The Tribes of Marico District”; Ellenberger, 362. “History of the Ba-Ga-Malete”; and Ellenberger, 71. Delius, The Land Belongs to Us, 350. Also see “History of the Batlokwa.” 68. See Braun, “Spatial Institutionalisation and Mulaudzi, “ ‘U Shuma Bulasi.’ ” the Settler State,” and Delius, The Land Belongs 73. See Gillespie, Vleeschfontein an African Vil- 72. The present collective identities of these to Us. lage, 10, and South Africa General branch, “Re- groups were forged through complex interac- moval of the natives on the farm Rooderand 69. Mbenga, Land, Chiefs, Mining, 42 – 62. tions with multiple peoples and polities. See No. 117KP, District Marico,” letter to the Under- Turner, “Land Restitution, Traditional Leader- 70. Bergh and Feinberg, “Trusteeship and Black secretary (Development), February 8, 1950, in ship, and Belonging”; Breutz, “The Tribes of Land Ownership,” 180, and Feinberg and Horn, the author’s possession. Rustenburg and Pilanesberg Districts”; Breutz,

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the Tshivhula based farther south near the Zout- the remaining Baphalane.79 The Bahurutshe ba pan Mountains.74 Distance from larger and more ga Suping, Balete ba Lekgophung, and Batlokwa powerful black polities and the absence of white boo kgosi ba ga Matlapeng each avoided collective settlers allowed Machete leaders to exert authority displacement, securing title to the farms and farm over much of northern Mapungubwe, even though portions where they lived in the late nineteenth both the Venda and the Tshivhula contend the Ma- and early twentieth centuries.80 The South African chete were a subject group.75 Mulaudzi attributes government later designated these places for black the lack of state-proclaimed black locations in the settlement and then declared these lands part of region to this perception, writing, “[Denizens] Bophuthatswana. were erroneously assumed by the state to be under Black denizens of Mapungubwe were for- the [Venda] Mphephu chiefdom.”76 Reflecting mally dispossessed upon the creation of the South these unresolved disputes, the Tshivhula included African Republic in the mid-nineteenth century, Machete land in their restitution claim even as the and neither that polity nor its successors allocated Machete independently sought restitution. any land for black settlement in the region. Condi- Settler and state land seizures directly af- tions changed little for several decades, however, fected the Madikwe and Mapungubwe regions, as whites were slow to claim and occupy land in first rendering black denizens formally landless this remote region. Despite the surveying of the and then facilitating the individual and collec- Mapungubwe region in the 1860s and allocation tive displacement of many people. Most Madikwe of at least eleven farms between 1870 and 1886, the land remained putatively white after the Voortrek- region was perceived to be entirely without white kers’ nineteenth-century assertion of ownership. occupants in 1906.81 The 1912 Land Settlement Act Resident since at least 1872, the Barokologadi and 1914 extension of rail service to the town of ba ga Maotwe place tried but failed to purchase Musina increased white landholding and settle- Melorane and were deemed rent payers while ment, principally by poor “ ‘pap and game’ farm- Melorane was labeled a “black spot” in 1836 and ers” who couldn’t afford to buy elsewhere, relied sold to three white brothers in 1838.77 The Zeerust heavily on hunting, and struggled with indebted- native commissioner then secured the forcible ness despite repeated government forgiveness of removal of the Barokologadi in 1950. Jesuit mis- their loans.82 White absentee ownership remained sionaries purchased the Vleischfontein farm on high throughout most of the twentieth century, which the Baphalane ba Sesobe had long resided as the following statistics indicate: only 16.5 per- from the white trader Auguste Greite in 1883 – 84.78 cent of blacks in the northern Zoutpansberg lived After conflict arose between Africanist Baphalane on locations in 1905; only twenty-seven of eighty and church authorities regarding the annual rent farms slated for inclusion in the proposed Dongola payment of a portion of each harvest and other is- Wild Life Sanctuary in Mapungubwe had resident sues, Catholic officials closed the Vleischfontein owners in the mid-1940s; and about 90 percent of mission station in the late 1940s and then sought farms around Musina lacked white occupants in and eventually secured the forcible eviction of the mid-1980s.83 Lack of state-recognized property

74. See Mulaudzi, “ ‘U Shuma Bulasi,’ ” and Bon- 2006; South Africa General branch, “Removal the Batlokwa did so before 1953. See Breutz, ner et al., “A Synthesis of the Recent History of of the natives on the farm Rooderand No. 117KP, “The Tribes of Marico District,” 76 – 77, 213, and Mapungubwe,” 5. District Marico,” letter to the Undersecretary Breutz, “The Tribes of Rustenburg and Pilanes- (Development), February 8, 1950, in the au- berg Districts,” 376. 75. Compare Huffman, “Historical Archaeology thor’s possession. of the Mapungubwe Area”; Mamadi, “History 81. Huffman, “Historical Archaeology of the of the Sebola (Tshivhula) People”; Mulaudzi, “ ‘U 78. See Ryan, “Achievement of the Jesuit Order Mapungubwe Area,” 52, and Mulaudzi, “ ‘U Shuma Bulasi’ ”; Nemudzivhadi, “Tshivhula Tsa in South Africa,” 256, and Gillespie, Vleeschfon- Shuma Bulasi,’ ” 107. Matshokotike”; Ralushai, “Preliminary Report”; tein an African Village, 8, 10. 82. Mulaudzi, “ ‘U Shuma Bulasi,’ ” 111 – 24. and Van Warmelo, “Mmathšêtê.” 79. Gillespie, Vleeschfontein an African Village, 83. Ibid., 212, and chap. 3; Carruthers, “The Don- 76. Mulaudzi, “ ‘U Shuma Bulasi,’ ” 215. 83 – 88. gola Wild Life Sanctuary,” 92; and Mbongwa, 77. T. Z. Molwantwa, interview by the author, 80. The Bahurutshe purchased property in “South Africa.” Krugersdorp, Gauteng province, February 8, 1892 and 1894, the Balete did so in 1906, and

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Robin L. Turner • Contemporary Struggles and Historical Dispossession in South Africa 289 rights made black residents vulnerable to expul- touristic transformations of Madikwe and Mapun- sion nevertheless. gubwe, changes that made full restoration of lost Most long-resident black denizens of Ma- lands highly improbable. First converted into com- pungubwe were eventually displaced, not through mercial irrigated farms and cattle ranches, large collective forced removals but through the state- portions of these regions then were transformed sanctioned imposition of increasingly adverse con- into nature tourism destinations, game farms, and ditions. Taking advantage of race-based policies game ranches in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. State allowing at-will evictions, restricting livestock, im- officials and policies played a role in the trans- posing labor requirements, and then ending labor formation of both regions. In the Madikwe case, tenancy, many landowners either evicted black the apartheid government expropriated twenty- residents or enforced rules that made it difficult to eight agricultural farms and the Vleischfontein remain when their presence was no longer desired. mission station, and then transferred title to the In the Machete case, elders attribute the disband- Bophuthatswana government as part of its effort ing of their settlement to a farmer who prohibited to consolidate that notoriously fragmented bantu- hunting and ordered them to reduce the number stan. The Bophuthatswana government used most of livestock, conditions that led the then chief and of the transferred land to create the Madikwe other community members to leave the farm.84 Game Reserve while leasing the remaining land to Born at Machete in 1914, Jim Mulaudzi recounted Barry York and to baruakgomo, the black commer- leaving the village with his parents as a child be- cial farmers. cause white people came to occupy the area. “They In the Mapungubwe case, state policies first didn’t give us a place to settle, so we decided to subsidized white agriculture and then encouraged go around to the farms. Some went to Zimbabwe a shift away from it. Through the 1980s, Mapun- and Botswana.”85 Another longtime resident, who gubwe landowners not only received the assistance was born in the 1940s, highlighted how the simple and market protections to which all white farmers presence of white people could spur movement. were entitled but also benefited from generous Asserting that his father and forefathers were born farmer assistance programs meant to prevent “ter- and buried in Mapungubwe, Saul Sematla told me, rorist” incursions from Zimbabwe and Botswana “Our fathers ran away because they were scared of by supporting farmers who lived within 10 kilome- the whites. They went somewhere where there were ters (later extended to 50 kilometers) of the bor- no whites. As time goes on, the whites came where der. Border programs granted living allowances; they are.”86 Displacement led to the fragmenta- land and livestock purchase assistance; feed, trans- tion of the Machete and Tshivhula communities portation, and borehole subsidies; and low or no- as some individuals, families, and small groups interest loans. moved to different farms while others who could The government reversed course in the 1990s not secure farm employment or found it “unbear- with apartheid’s demise, abolishing the border as- able” moved to black townships on the outskirts of sistance programs, reducing agricultural subsidies Musina or Alldays or to more distant places.87 and trade barriers, and highlighting Mapungubwe as a symbol of South Africa’s rich past while part- Transformations: nering with the DeBeers Corporation to establish Land- Use Change in Mapungubwe and Madikwe the Mapungubwe National Park. Coinciding with The state-led and state-sanctioned dispossession a dramatic increase in international tourist travel and displacement of long-resident black people to South Africa, these changes encouraged many created the conditions for the agricultural and landowners to shift fully or partially from agricul-

84. Nemudzivhadi, “Tshivula Tsa Matshoko- 86. Saul Sematla, interview by the author, Lim- tike,” 15. popo province, July 27, 2011.

85. Jim Mulaudzi, interview by the author, Lim- 87. Nemudzivhadi, “Tshivula Tsa Matshokotike,” popo province, January 25, 2005. 15.

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