History of the dispossession of the rights in land of pastoral indigenous communities in the cape colony from 1652 to 1910 (original) (raw)
Related papers
History of the dispossession of the rights in land of pastoral indigenous communities
Fundamina, 2019
The pastoral indigenous communities living in southern Africa at the start of the colonial period were the first to be dispossessed of their rights in land. They had exercised these rights in terms of their customary law systems for centuries before the arrival of non-indigenous settlers in 1652. During the nineteenth century, the final acts of dispossession of land took place in terms of racially discriminatory legislation and administrative actions, just like the dispossession of land that took place after 19 June 1913. However, the descendants of these communities are unable to claim restoration of their rights in land in terms of the constitutional land reform programme. This contribution identifies the customary law rights in land of these communities and compares such rights with the rights that non-indigenous settlers had in the land used as grazing on loan places. This comparison shows that the rights in land used as grazing of non-indigenous settlers and pastoral indigenous communities were in essence the same. However, from 1813 the colonial government implemented legislation in the Cape Colony that created big disparities with regard to rights in land between them. In this contribution, it is argued that colonial dispossession of land from pastoral indigenous communities should be rectified by adopting legislation in terms of section 25(8) of the Constitution that will enable the descendants of these communities to claim restoration of their ancestral land.
2017
This article examines the legislation of the apartheid era. It illustrates the unlawful land dispossession suffered by indigenous people of South Africa. To remedy the injustices of the past, the courts have recognised indigenous laws to ensure that retribution and restoration of rights occur to address the atrocities and consequences of forceful land dispossession, prior to democracy. The methodology utilised is a desktop study. The results of the study illustrates the historical disadvantages of indigenous land owners and the role of legislation to address it. The discussion concerning land rights of indigenous land owners aims to illustrate the fact that although there is progression of the realisation of land rights, there are areas of improvement within a procedural policy and legislative framework. This article addresses the blast of the past apartheid laws and the progressive changes to the current laws to protect indigenous land owners rights from a proceduralist perspective.
South African Land Restitution, White Claimants and the Fateful Frontier of Former KwaNdebele
Journal of Southern African Studies
South African land restitution, through which the post-apartheid state compensates victims of racial land dispossession, has been intimately linked to former homelands: prototypical rural claims are those of communities that lost their rights in land when being forcibly relocated to reserves, and they now aspire to return to their former homes and lands from their despised 'homelands'. However, white farmers, who were also dispossessed (although usually compensated) by the apartheid state in its endeavour to consolidate existing homelands, have lodged restitution claims as well. While the Land Claims Court has principally admitted such restitution claims and ruled upon the merits of individual cases, state bureaucrats, legal activists, and other members of the public have categorically questioned and challenged such claims to land rights by whites. Focusing on white land claimaints affected by the consolidation of former KwaNdebele, this article investigates the contested field of moral entitlements emerging from divergent discourses about the true victims and beneficiaries of apartheid. It pays particular attention to land claims pertaining to the western frontier of KwaNdebele-the wider Rust de Winter area, which used to be white farmland expropriated in the mid-1980s for consolidation (which never occurred) and currently vegetates as largely neglected no-man's-(state-)land under multiple land claims. Being the point of reference for state officials, former white farmers, Ndebele traditionalists, local residents, and other citizens and subjects, this homeland frontier is hence analysed as a fateful zone of contestation, in which the terms of a new South African moral community are negotiated.
From land dispossession to land restitution: European land rights in South Africa
Settler Colonial Studies, 2016
Behind every colonial and imperial project laid a persistent constellation of ideas in which rights, obligations and duties were specified to justify colonialism and establish ownership of land. This constellation of ideas provided the reasons for European expansionism, in addition to forming part of the ideological practices of the land-centred settler colonial project of founding new political orders. In this article, I explore the ideologies of land appropriation in colonial South Africa, paying particular attention to the idea of 'empty land' and 'trusteeship'. As well as attending to this partly neglected aspect of South Africa's colonial history, I argue that land restitution today continues to be informed by norms that were used to justify occupation and the appropriation of lands inhabited by indigenous peoples.
The legacies of the Natives Land Act of 1913
Scriptura, 2014
Looking back at the century since the promulgation of the Natives Land Act, it could be argued that it shaped the trajectories of most South Africans' lives. It expelled black people from the land into crowded reserves and formed the cornerstone of the migrant labour system through which accumulation of wealth in white-owned mines, farms and factories followed. Far from unravelling this history of dispossession, the land reform process has merely dabbled at its edges while the inequalities it set in place have in some ways been further aggravated since 1994. Four legacies of the Act are identified: the material legacy of poverty and inequality in the divided countryside but also the displaced legacy of urban poverty and inequality; the social and spiritual legacy of division, invisibility and failed reconciliation; and a political legacy of legal pluralism and dualistic governance that denotes zones of tradition or custom, distinct from the rest of the country. In this context, the church needs to reflect, not only on its mixed involvement in dispossession and resistance to it in the past, but also on its role in dismantling the structures of poverty and inequality, social and spiritual division, invisibility and dualistic governance.
Exploring the Intricacies of Land Tenure in Pastoral Areas: Issues for Policy and Law Reform
2007
The report; “Pastoralism on the Margin”3 doubts whether the upsurge of development interest in pastoralism will result in any concentrate deliverables to meet pastoralists’ needs, despite the huge sums of money devoted to this end. This is so because the material base of pastoralism in the four countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda has been thoroughly eroded, the erosion being an act not in isolation but in tandem with climatic change, conflict, disease, drought, and famine. Markakis, the author of the report analyzes contemporary issues pertinent to pastoralism with varying degrees of detail and content. In the first instance, he acknowledges that pastoralism is a culture, way of life, and the ancient mode of mobile livestock production in the rangelands of Eastern Africa and the Horn. He notes that this culture, form of production, and way of life has reached a critical point due to the effects of colonialism and independence struggles, balancing conservation and pastoralism (often pastoralism loses out), politics, conflict, belated recognition, dispossession of land and the promotion of agriculture. My task in this paper is to review, discuss, and point issues relating to land tenure in this report and their relevance to policy and legal reform in Uganda. The fundamental argument on land tenure in this report is that pastoral production is determined by land-use patterns which in turn determine whether the herders are mobile or not; elaborated under four major issues: • Land is a factor that is not controlled by pastoralists; since no system of land tenure recognizes pastoral rights; existing land law does not recognize or understand pastoral tenure. • Changes that stifle pastoral rights in land originate from the external; • There is no political will to deal with pastoral land tenure issues since they are a minority. • Plans to grant pastoral land rights seem to be in inertia and gender issue ought to be tackled through. we have little understanding of such dynamics in pastoral societies. In conclusion, I will make arguments for land policy and law reform to address pastoral concerns by stating the major steps, or issues and imperatives that are pertinent to government, private sector and civil society organizations.
Aboriginal servitudes and the Land Transfer Act 1952
16 Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, 1986
The thesis of this article is that there exist two systems of land tenure in New Zealand as a matter of law, each independent of the other. In consequence, "aboriginal servitudes" (fishing rights, homage to urupa-burial grounds-flora collection, etc.) continue to affect land throughout the country, irrespective of the indefeasibility of title under the Land Transfer Act. The doctrine of aboriginal title is taken to its logical extent, albeit novel and judicially untested.