AFRICANS IN CAPE TOWN: STATE POLICY AND AFRICANS IN CAPE TOWN: STATE POLICY AND POPULAR RESISTANCE, 1936-73 B Kinkead-Weekes Thesis Presented for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of History UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN December, 1992 The financial assistance of the Institute for Research Development towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed in this work, or conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not to be attributed to the Institute for Research Development. ABSTRACT This local history focusses on Cape Town's black African population, tracing the development of regional 'Native' (later "Bantu') policy, as well as the escalating organised resistance which arose in response. The study relies as far as possible on archival sources to disaggregate these themes. On this basis, it provides a detailed analysis of the evolution of policy with regard to influx control, squatter control and residential segregation in the local context. Escalating resistance is discussed in a similarly-nuanced manner, focussing particularly on mounting tensions between the pagmatic 'united frontists' of the Communist Party and the progressive wing of the local ANC, and 'principled' political opponents to the left and the right. Considerable continuity in 'Native Policy' is revealed over what used to be seen as the great divide of 1948, when segregation was supposed suddenly to have given way to something qualitatively different named apartheid. The regionally-specific policy of 'Coloured Labour Preference' is shown to have been, in practice, nothing but empty rhetoric employed in a failed attempt to justify a cruel policy aimed at safeguarding the racial exclusivity of the franchise, while at the same time providing cheap and tractable labour. The thesis calls into question a common assumption that class-concepts best explain changing patterns of resistance in the urban areas of South Africa. Ideological and strategic tensions, irreducible to class- differences, are shown to have played a significant role in retarding the struggle for national liberation. ABBREVIATIONS (phonetically-pronounced abbreviations are not capitalised) AB Advisory Board Add NC Additional Native Commissioner AG Attorney-General AGM annualgeneralmeeting ANC AfricanNationalCongress APP AfricanProgressiveParty Ass NC Assistant Native Commissioner AYL AfricanYouthLeague BAAB Bantu Affairs Administration Board BAC BantuAffairsCommittee BALC BantuAffairsLiaisonCommittee CA CivicAssociation CAC CapeAfrican Congress CBC ChiefBantuAffairsCommissioner CC CityCouncil CCI CapeChamberofIndustries CDC Cape Divisional Council CLP ColouredLabourPreference COD (South African) Congress of Democrats COP CongressofthePeople CP (South African) Communist Party CPA CapeProvincialAdministration CPC ColouredPeoples'Congress CPLCLWC' Cape Peninsula Local Committee on Labour in the Western Cape CPIDAMA CapePeninsulaInter-denominational African Ministers' Association CPMA CapeProvinceMunicipal Association CTMWA Cape Town Municipal Wo.:rkers' Association CWABVA Cape Western Advisory Boards and Vigilance Associations DC Detective Constable DCI Divisional Criminal Investigating Dep Deputy EC Eastern Cape FCI Federated Chambers of Industry Fedsaw Federation of South African Women GN Government Notice JC Joint Council LCC Labour Consultative Committee (formerly Labour Co-ordinatingCommittee)LP LiberalParty MK Umkhonto we Sizwe MM Mayor'sMinutes MNA MinisterofNativeAffairs NAC NativeAffairsCommittee NASC Native Affairs Sub-committee NC Native Commissioner NCC NativeCentralCommittee NCWSA National Council of Women of South Africa NEUM Non-European Unity Movement NEUF Non-European United Front NHC National Housing Commission NLL National Liberation League PAC Pan-Africanist Congress PM PrimeMinister PS Provincial Secretary RA Ratepayers'Association SAAU South African Agricultural Union Sabra South African Bureau forRacial Affairs Sacpo South African Coloured People's Organisation SAIRR South African Instituteof Race Relations SAP South African Police SAR & H South African Railways and Harbours sec secretary SNA Secretary for Native Affairs Soya Sons (later Society) of Young Africa TAC Technical Advisory Committee TC TownClerk UAC Urban Areas Commissioner UCT University of Cape Town UL University of London UME United Municipal Executive UD (University of Oxford UP United Party US University of Stellenbosch UW University of the Witwatersrand UY UniversityofYork VC Vigilance Committee WCCLNA Western Cape Committee for Local Native Administration WP Western Province WPBCMA WesternProvince Brickand Clay Manufacturers' Association WPJVA Western Province Joint Vigilance Association CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I 1: PRE-WAR LABOUR CONTROL AND SEGREGATIONISM, 1936-9 1 The Pre-warPreferenceforMigrantLabour 3 Ratepayers' Pressure for Segregation and Influx Control 13 The 1938 Census of Africans 26 The'ClosedCity':Proclamation105of1939 32. NOTES 40 2: NON-COLLABORATIONISM, ANTI-COMMUNISM AND POLITICAL 51 PRAGMATISM, 1936-9 Non-Collaborationism: the 'Boycottists' of the Ultra-Left 52 The ANC: Western Cape versus Western Province 56 TheAttemptedRevivalofCongress 66 NOTES 73 3: POLICY-DEVELOPMENT DURING AND FOLLOWING THE WAR, 81 1939-48 TheCaudwellandSlarkeReports 82 Native Registration, Efflux Control & Harsher Policing 97 Residential Segregation and the Wartime Housing Crisis 110 The 'Location Site' Controversy 116 NOTES 125 4: THE GROWING STRENGTH OF THE ANTI-SEGREGATIONIST 139 'UNITED FRONT', 1939-48 The National Liberation League and Resistance in Langa 140 The 1942 'Native Representative' Election 154 The Western Province Joint Vigilance Association 166 The Anti-Pass Campaign, 1944-6 173 The 1947 Beerhall Riot 183 Anti-Curfew Agitation versus Non-Collaboration 189 NOTES 198 5: THE APARTHEID SOLUTION, 1948-54 217 Renewed Agreement on 'Native' Housing & Squatter Control 219 Sabra and the WCCLNA 227 The 'Practical Difficulties' of Influx Control 239 TheSystemofLabourBureaux 245 The Weeding Out of 'Illegals' 252 NOTES 256 6: DISUNITY AND INCREASING DESPERATION: RESISTANCE, 269 1948-54 The Furore over Parliamentary 'Native Representation' 270 Defiance and its Detractors 275 Agitation against Removals and Influx Controls 287 FurtherDevelopmentsinLangaLocation 295 NOTES 7: COMPROMISE AND CONTROL, 1955-9 313 Capitalists and Coloured Labour Preference 316 RefiningtheSystemofInfluxControl 319 Removals from the Northern and CDC Areas to Nyanga 330 Clearance of the CC Area, and the Growth of Guguletu 335 NOTES 347 8: MULTI-RACIALISM AND THE AFRICANIST CHALLENGE, 1955-60 357 The Congress of the PeopleCampaign 358 TheCampaignagainstPassesforWomen 364 The Rise of Africaniqm 375 The 1960 Anti-Pass Campaign 385 NOTES 398 9: THE CRUSHING OF ORGANISED RESISTANCE, 1961-5 409 TheAftermathoftheUnrest 409 The May 1961 Stay-Away 413 TheAdventofUndergroundArmies:MKandPoqo 418 The AYL and the Campaign of Non-Cooperation 424 The Rise of Conservatism following the Clamp-Down 438 NOTES 443 10: 'GRAND APARTHEID AND LOCAL INTERESTS, 1960-5 457 TheClearanceof'BlackSpots' 458 Influx Control: the City Council and its Liberal Critics 464 'Resettlement' and the 'Homelands' Policy 476 TheContinuedDemandforMigrantLabour 486 NOTES 500 11: THE SHIFT TOWARDS CENTRAL CONTROL, 1966-73 511 Labour: Quota, Shortage, andContinued Compromise 513 TheRetentionofSection10 528 TheSlowProgressoftheResettlementPolicy 532 Local 'Bantu Administrators' Battle the Continuing Influx538 The Establishment of the Peninsula BAAB 546 NOTES 549 CONCLUSION 560 NOTES 571 BIBLIOGRAPHY 572 SKETCH MAP OF MUNICIPAL AND DIVISIONAL COUNCIL AREAS 602 SKETCH MAP SHOWING ADJOINING LOCAL AUTHORITY AREAS 603 APPENDIX: REVIEW OF STUDIES BY GOLDIN AND MUTHIEN 7305 INTRODUCTION This thesis is the sequel to an earlier dissertation which traced the development of state policy towards Africans in Cape Town up to 1936, and began to document organised resistance during that early period.' The present study thus begins where the previous one left off, with the emergence of the coherent and codified 'Native Policy' enshrined in the 'Hertzog Laws' of the mid-1930s. Initial interest in this research developed as part of a move towards urban historical studies which developed during the late 1970s. In Cape Town at that time, growing confrontation between the state and local Africans focussed attention sharply on the related issues of policy and resistance. Silk and Cole have documented the intensifying victimisation of local Africans from the mid- 1970s, through administrative action including pass-raids, squatterclearance operations and mass removals; as well as the answering movement towards open insurrection.2 In its investigation of the history of these phenomena, this thesis makes use of a growing body of historicallyoriented work on both the implementation of policy and the development of resistance in Cape Town. This includes studies by Humphries, Posel, Van der Westhuizen and UCT's Saldru on Coloured Labour Preference, Elias on housing policy, Kingwill on the ANC, Lodge on the PAC, Karon on Sacpo, Schreiner on the ANC Women's League, and Alexander on non-collaboration. Also relevant are such micro-studies as Swart's thesis on Windermere and Sayers' work on Retreat. Methodologically, these works range from a mainstream reliance on primary research of varying depth and intensity, to Sayers' more extensive use of interviews on the one hand, and the orientation towards participant observation of Silk and Alexander on the other.2 Two doctoral theses, one