Native Land Act

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The Natives Land Act was an Act by the South African legislature in 1913 that was aimed at regulating the acquisition of land by "natives". The Act formed an important part of the system of Aparthied and is of importance for both legal and historic reasons.

1 Overview of the Act
2 Impact of Act
3 Political Irony
4 Footnotes
5 External links

[edit] Overview of the Act

The Natives Land Act of 1913 was the first major piece of segregation legislation passed by the Union Parliament, and remained a cornerstone of Apartheid until the 1990's when it was replaced by the current policy of land restitution.

It was instituted as a part of the policy of segregation adopted by the South African Party, under the leadership of Gen Louis Botha. It was intended to regulate the ownership and acquisition of land by blacks throughout the four provinces of the Union. Previously the provinces had various limitations on ownership by blacks, however the new Union government was required to consolidate various areas of the law. The Act represented the colonial mentality of the time, but one must be cautious in regarding it as being of the same supremest intention as other apartheid laws such as the Separation of Amenities Act. This is particularly important when considering the presence of discriminatory land laws in the individual provinces prior to the passing of the Act as well as that the Act was introduced after the Native Affair Commission (A Commission of Enquiry under the chairmanship of Sir Geofrey Lagden running between 1903 and 1905 and subsequently being generally referred to simply as the Lagden Commission) recommended the passage of an Act of Parliament of its nature. The Government did not however implement all of the Commissions recommendations, and provided far less land than the Commission indicated would be necessary for sustainable separate development to take place. It is unlikely that even if the state had allocated more land that sustainable separate development would have taken place as the roots of the problem do not lie in the land issue.

The Act was amended in 1936 to restrict land ownership in the Cape Province, which had been for franchise reasons excluded from the the initial act.^[1]

[edit] Impact of Act

The Act created a system of land tenure that deprived the majority of South Africa's inhabitants of the right to own land which had major socio-economic reprecussions. Had the Supreme Court not rendered the Acts application void for a few years it also would have disenfranchised all "natives" in the Cape Colony, which was effected in 1936.

The Land Restitution process adopted by the post-apartheid South African governmentonly allows land claims arising from deprivations after the commencement of this Act in 1914, and on present projections the process may only be complete by 2014).

Under the act, blacks were severely restricted in the ownership of land, at that stage a mere 7% of the country, although this amount was eventually increased marginally.

The land set aside for "natives" under the Act formed the basis for the Buntustan policy adopted later by Verwoed.

[edit] Political Irony

A fair amount of political irony surrounds the Act:

The minister at the time of its introduction J.W Sauer was a Cape Liberal opposed disenfranchisement of blacks. He did however advocate for "seperate residential areas for Whites and Natives" in the Parliamentary debate on the bill.
The newly established ANC demanded the Act be repealed. The basis of their complaint was not however based on fundamental grounds relating to segregation but rather the "severe restrictions and subsequent hardships" that the act would bring about
John Tengo Jabavu, a prominent "educated African" welcomed the Act, whilst Merriman and Schriener opposed the Act on principal. ^[2]

A fair analysis therefore concludes that the Act in retrospect was a severe self-inflicted wound on South Africa and that it was the start of a long road of modern oppression, however that was not at the outset of the Act its intention, further that the full repercussions of the Act were not fully understood until it was too late, and the tide of White Supremacy had reached its full height.