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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Criminality and Conflict in Rural Stellenbosch, South Africa, 1870-1900
Author:Scully, Pamela F.ISNI
Year:1989
Periodical:The Journal of African History
Volume:30
Issue:2
Pages:289-300
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:labour relations
offences
agricultural history
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Economics and Trade
Labor and Employment
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/183069
Abstract:This article examines how notions of domination and reciprocity were played out in the winegrowing district of Stellenbosch, South Africa, in the last three decades of the 19th century. Stellenbosch farmers had to confront, for the first time since emancipation, the implications of the proletarianization of the underclass of the Western Cape. In the context of an expanding economy and diversified labour market, labourers left, or threatened to leave, farm employment. Farmers now recognized that the control and power which they had exercised over labourers was a matter of open conflict. The criminal records of the Resident Magistrate provide the lens through which the article examines the changing dynamics of labour relations on the farms in Stellenbosch between 1870 and 1900. A comparative perspective helps to inform the analysis of the meaning of theft, arson and assault in rural Stellenbosch. For a time labourers were able to exploit a measure of leverage against the farmers, but this was not to last, and by the early 1900s the tide had again turned in favour of the dominant class. Notes, ref.
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