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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | Company Town, Company Estate: Pilgrim's Rest, 1910-1932 |
| Authors: | Bonner, Philip Shapiro, Karin A. |
| Year: | 1993 |
| Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
| Volume: | 19 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Period: | June |
| Pages: | 171-200 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | miners economic history gold mining large farms towns History and Exploration Labor and Employment Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Economics and Trade |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637342 |
| Abstract: | Transvaal Gold Mining Estates, Limited (TGME), which controlled most of gold mining in and around Pilgrim's Rest in the eastern Transvaal, South Africa, faced intense competition for labour from the Witwatersrand. To secure a stable and compliant workforce, TGME established a company town for its white workers and, more notably, a company estate for its black labour force. It transformed the African population living on its farms into rent-paying tenants, who were also obliged to furnish fixed amounts of labour to TGME's mines. By creating a company estate and relying on chiefly authority to ensure its black labour supply, TGME reinforced noncapitalist relations of production. The interlocking structures of company town and company estate provided one of the most effective solutions yet devised by smaller mining ventures to offset the economic dominance of the Rand's large mining houses. The relative harmony of interest that existed between TGME and its black worker/tenants could only survive while company earnings remained high - roughly from 1900 to 1918. When profits fell away after World War I, so did the conditions for a mutually accepted agreement between Pilgrim's Rest mine owners and their African employees. Notes, ref., sum. |
