Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | 'To Make Them Serve': The 1871 Transvaal Commission on African Labour as a Source for Agrarian History |
Author: | Bergh, Johan S. |
Year: | 2002 |
Periodical: | History in Africa |
Volume: | 29 |
Pages: | 39-61 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | South Africa Transvaal |
Subjects: | agricultural history historical sources History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Labor and Employment Ethnic and Race Relations Politics and Government Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment colonialism |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172158 |
Abstract: | In the past twenty to twenty-five years valuable contributions have been made to southern African agrarian history. However, there are still themes, regions and periods that need attention, one of these being the central districts of the Transvaal before the industrial revolution. In this regard a little-known source which may contribute to the knowledge of the pre-industrial history of the Transvaal, South Africa, and which will be published by J.S.Bergh and F. Morton as an annotated source publication, should be taken note of. This is the 1871 Commission on African Labour in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR). The documents of the 1871 Commission contain a wealth of information on various aspects of agrarian history and need to be carefully researched and contextualized. Since they have only been used by a few historians, none of whom write agrarian history, they can make a significant contribution to the knowledge of pre-industrial agrarian history in areas of dense white settlement in the Transvaal. By using the documents of the 1871 Commission with other little-used sources, such as documents of the Hermannsburg and Berlin Mission societies, farm register books and published field work reports of anthropologists, an important new understanding of the processes and trends involved in pre-industrial agrarian history may be reached. Notes, ref. |