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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Flowing Eye: Water Management in the Upper Kuruman Valley, South Africa, c. 1800-1962 |
Author: | Jacobs, Nancy |
Year: | 1996 |
Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
Volume: | 37 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 237-260 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | race relations irrigation Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment History and Exploration Ethnic and Race Relations Development and Technology Politics and Government |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/183185 |
Abstract: | This paper considers the intensification of agriculture along racial lines in South Africa by looking at the history of the 'Eye' of Kuruman, a large spring in the semi-arid region on the border of Northern Cape and North-West Provinces. The Eye of Kuruman was originally used as a water hole by Tswana herders. Irrigation, introduced by representatives of the London Missionary Society, was not widely practised until a subsistence crisis during the 1850s. However, households continued to operate with the logic of extensive production, fitting irrigation into the pre-existing system. In 1885, the British annexed the region as part of the Crown Colony of British Bechuanaland. They demarcated African reserves at springs and in river valleys, and grazing lands were opened for white settlement. The upper Kuruman valley was designated a Crown reserve and the Eye became a town site. In the 20th century under Union government, use of the Eye intensified, and access to the valley became segregated by race. After 1918 the municipality of Kuruman operated a modern irrigation project, and in 1919, evicted black cultivators living at the Eye. Blacks continued to live and garden at Seodin, five miles downstream, until the policy of apartheid mandated their removal in 1962. Notes, ref., sum. |