The Land Clearances at Pilgrim's Rest

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Periodical article

Title:	The Land Clearances at Pilgrim's Rest
Author:	Mabin, Alan
Year:	1987
Periodical:	Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:	13
Issue:	3
Period:	April
Pages:	400-416
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	segregation Politics and Government Ethnic and Race Relations Law, Human Rights and Violence
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636389
Abstract:	Despite the volume of material dealing with forced removals in South Africa, there is little known about the innumerable relocations of people from company-owned land in the Transvaal. This paper focuses on a specific case, namely on the people who came, over a long period, to live on a large area of land in the Pilgrim's Rest district of the eastern Transvaal owned by Transvaal Gold Mining Estates Limited (TGME). Access to land on the farms owned by TGME came over time to depend on an acceptance of a labour tenancy system. The struggle over the occupation and use of TGME's land endured for many decades, and ended with the final expulsion of the people in 1972. Although legal provisions, courts and the power of the State were all beyond the control of the people affected, this article shows that the story of these people is by no means simply one of the 'apartheid State' bulldozing its hapless victims into an inevitable submission. Notes, ref.