On May 8, 1913, South Africa’s Native Affairs Minister announced a ban on the recruitment of migrant workers from areas north of latitude 22 degrees south. This development not only marked a major shift from previous practice whereby South African businesses—especially the Transvaal mine owners and farmers—imported workers with very little involvement of the government. It also meant that employers were prohibited from recruiting in places from which they had previously obtained large numbers of workers, such as the British colonies of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (Malawi), and the northern part of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. Why did the South African government decide to prohibit so-called “tropical natives” from entering the country at this juncture? How did government officials enforce the ban? How did employers, who had enjoyed several years of unrestricted access to migrant workers, respond to the ban? How did those from the restricted territories seeking employment respond to the new dispensation? As part of a broader discussion of criminality and punishment in Africa, this article attempts to answer these questions, while shedding light on related contemporary iteration of similar themes, via an examination of the impact of the 1913 ban on illegal migration across the Zimbabwe-South Africa border.
Drawing on research at the British Library (London), the National Archives of South Africa (Pretoria), and the National Archives of Zimbabwe (Harare), this article reveals that by 1933—when the South African government lifted the ban—the country had witnessed increased illegal migration from Southern Rhodesia compared to numbers previous to the ban. Although the search for better-paying jobs along with other factors might have compelled people to move from Southern Rhodesia to South Africa, it is most likely that the upsurge of illegal migration between the two countries in this period was largely a result of multi-sited contestations over the enforcement of the ban. By attempting to stop regular migration streams that had existed at least since the late nineteenth century throughout the subregion (e.g., Harries 1994), the ban inadvertently encouraged the expansion of unofficial channels of cross-border mobility and the creation of new illicit movements. Furthermore, inconsistencies and contradictions among government officials militated against smooth enforcement of the ban, while work-seeking migrants from Southern Rhodesia and other restricted areas deployed various strategies to evade the ban, often with the assistance of licensed and unlicensed labor recruiters working on behalf of South African mine owners and farmers, who also resisted the ban.
By arguing that contestations over South Africa’s 1913 ban of migrant workers from “tropical areas” fueled illegal migration in this region, this study engages two debates, which feature prominently in contemporary academic and policy discussions of migration and migration criminalization in Southern Africa and other regions of the world. The first debate centers on the notion that illegal migration is a result of conditions of insecurity (such as unemployment, low wages, and civil wars), which compel migrants to move from one country to another (Andersson 2014; Betts 2013; Solomon 2003; McDonald & Crush 2002; Gaidzanwa 1999). The second argument, a key part of growing anti-immigration sentiment in Europe, the United States, and other regions, is that illegal migration thrives because receiving countries fail to secure their borders (Lavenex 2001; Guerette & Clarke 2005; Toktas & Selimoglu 2012).
Both contentions resonate with a widely-held view that Africa’s borders are porous and therefore amenable to illegal crossing (Griffiths 1996; Mechlinski 2010). In South Africa, this view is common among critics of the post-apartheid government, who argue that the African National Congress (ANC) has failed to secure the country’s borders. Top among such critics are leaders of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), who castigate the ANC for taking a soft approach to border security by withdrawing the military from the country’s border patrol units.1 Also, there is a mistaken assumption that, in Southern Africa as a whole, illegal migration emerged with the end of colonial and apartheid rule in the region. On this, John Oucho says, “during much of the colonial period the national boundaries [in Southern Africa] were not as rigidly observed as they became after independence, which implies that illegal migration was then an irrelevant concept” (Oucho 2006:47). While these arguments may be powerful in driving a certain political agenda, they reflect a somewhat skewed understanding of the historical dynamics of illegal migration in Southern Africa.
This article contends that historical patterns of mobility in the subregion offer useful pointers to understanding current debates about migration and its criminalization in South Africa. It also makes the point that distinguishing factors that push people to move out of one country to another and those that force or encourage travelers to cross international boundaries without following official channels facilitates the understanding of the complexities involved in cases of illegal migration wherever this practice exists. As such, it appears that while low wages and other sources of insecurity in colonial Zimbabwe may indeed have compelled many people to consider moving to South Africa, such factors did not cause migrants to use unofficial channels in crossing the border. Rather, South Africa’s ill-conceived ban imposed numerous barriers, rendering it difficult for those seeking work to cross between the two countries through the legal and/or formal channels. This approach thus calls for much closer analysis of the role that measures of migration control play in promoting, rather than inhibiting, illegal migration.
The 1913 prohibition is a fascinating theme with which to explore these issues. To provide a historical framework for understanding the ban, this study first explores the political debates over the mortality of “tropical natives,” which took center stage in the first Parliament of the Union of South Africa. Delving deeper into the politics of migration control in pre-apartheid South Africa, it then examines the contradictions and inconsistencies among government officials tasked with enforcing the ban. The next section looks at how mine owners and farmers challenged the criminalization of migration in the subregion by protesting the prohibition. This is followed by a discussion of “prohibited” immigrants’ strategies for evading the ban. The study then looks at how the prohibition ended, before concluding the article with a brief discussion of the theoretical and contemporary relevance of the 1913 ban on African immigrants in South Africa.
Playing Politics? South Africa’s Controversial Ban on “Tropical” Migrants
When the Minister of Native Affairs announced the moratorium on the recruitment of migrants from areas north of latitude 22 degrees south, he argued that the mortality rate among people working on the Transvaal mines was so high that “should it continue at that rate, it would be little less than murder.”2 While this statement gives the impression that the primary objective of the ban was to curb the mortality rate of migrant workers from the restricted areas, available evidence suggests that the government made its decision in an attempt to deal with a political battle that had been at the center of debates in the House of Assembly for almost three years. The political contestations around this issue began on November 8, 1910—barely six months after the formation of the Union of South Africa—when Henry William Sampson, an opposition Member of Parliament (MP), asked whether the government was aware of reports showing that some thirty thousand migrant workers had perished in the Witwatersrand Mines between 1904 and 1909. Emphasizing that all but five thousand deaths were caused by unhealthy working conditions on the mines, Sampson further asked what steps the government intended to take to avoid further deaths in the mining industry. In response to Sampson, Henry Burton, Minister for Native Affairs, said the government was aware that the conditions under which miners worked needed improvement and was working on regulations to ensure the improvement of mine workers’ health. Burton further observed that the government was planning to appoint a Medical Inspector to oversee workers’ health provisions in the mining industry, and that it had commissioned research for the development of a dust-laying device that would help prevent miners’ phthisis, one of the conditions contributing to the death of migrant workers.3
Three months later, the opposition MPs raised this issue again during another debate in Parliament, causing Burton to state that the government had called the attention of the mining companies “to this awful death rate, and had impressed upon them the necessity of seeing that as far as possible conditions should be changed in order to reduce this death rate, and to ascertain what really was the cause of it.”4 However, the Minister made it clear that the government had no immediate plans to take charge of the recruitment of foreign workers, and he assured the House that the Witwatersrand Native Labor Association (WNLA)—the recruiting arm of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines—was making every effort to determine the actual cause of miners’ deaths and was committed to dealing with the matter. During the ensuing debate, opposition MP Frances Drummond Chaplin proposed that if the Government did not have the means to reduce the mortality of “tropical workers” (see Packard 1993), in the shortest possible time, Parliament should consider stopping their importation. Chaplin’s proposal garnered the support of several other opposition MPs, among them Frederic Hugh Creswell, who argued that the ruling party was not taking action on the issue because it relied heavily on advice and financial support of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines. Creswell went ahead to castigate the recruitment and employment of unskilled workers in the Witwatersrand mining industry as a “slave system,” adding, “He who sups with the devil must have a long spoon.”5
After several months of debate, Creswell formally proposed a motion on May 14, 1912, for Parliament to reduce the mortality of mine workers by “prohibiting the entry into the Union of natives recruited in territories situated north of 22nd degree of south latitude.”6 However, representatives of the ruling party—who constituted the majority in the House—voted against the motion, thereby prolonging the “fight” over migrant workers’ welfare. For another year, Creswell and other opposition MPs raised the issue in almost every parliamentary session, sometimes leading to heated debates that degenerated to personal attacks.7 When Jacobus Wilhelmus Sauer, who succeeded Burton as Minister for Native Affairs in November 1912, announced the ban on May 8, 1913, it was clear that the move was not part of a carefully considered policy decision. Given that the announcement of the ban came almost three years after the South African Parliament first began debating the issue of mine workers’ mortality, it was not unreasonable to expect the Minister to outline a clear framework to guide its implementation. However, Sauer, in spite of opposition demands, refused to reveal the law and explain the enforcement strategy the government intended to use to achieve the ban’s objectives.
On May 14, 1913—barely a week after the ban’s announcement—Creswell asked Sauer to explain how he was going to ensure the WNLA would adhere to the ban. In addition to raising this question, the MP argued that the country’s northern borders were wide and porous, that people from areas north of latitude 22 degrees south did not look different from other Africans, and that it was possible for such persons to move into areas south of latitude 22 degrees south so they could be “legally” engaged for work on the Rand. Rather than allowing Sauer to answer Creswell’s question, Henry Burton (now Minister of Railways and Harbours) intervened, saying the question was “a little ungracious.” He further argued that mine owners understood the government’s position and were committed to ensuring that “there would be no more recruiting of this sort.”8 While it is probable that Sauer and other cabinet ministers genuinely failed to develop a strategy to tackle the challenges, it is also likely that they announced the ban out of political expediency, without considering how to enforce it. For the opposition, Sauer’s failure to provide such important information meant that the ruling party was hesitant to act against the will of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines. On this point, Creswell remarked, “when interests conflicted, the Government did not seem to care very much about scrupulously working up to their own pledges.”9
After a further push by opposition MPs, Sauer revealed that the government planned to use the Immigrants Regulation Act, which would take effect on August 1, 1913, as the legal basis for implementing the ban. Among other things, the 1913 immigration law stipulated that any person wishing to enter the Union of South Africa may be required to submit to a medical exam or undergo any other examination deemed necessary by the Minister of Immigration and Asiatic Affairs.10 In line with this decision, Sauer announced, on May 23, 1913, that:
Natives domiciled north of Latitude 22 degrees south who entered the Union subsequent to August 1st 1913 can be declared prohibited immigrants if they are unable to read and write any European language to the satisfaction of an immigration officer, or fall under any other of the classes of individuals referred to in section 4 of the Immigrants Regulation Act. Once declared a PI a tropical native must either leave the Union or obtain from the Minister a temporary permit….11
As such, instead of first addressing Creswell’s fundamental points, the South African government chose to move ahead with the implementation of the ban. Had the primary objective been to genuinely address the mortality rate of migrant workers, Sauer and his government colleagues would likely have developed a better strategy than a poorly conceived prohibition.
Problematic Enforcement of the Ban
Not long after the announcement of the ban, controversies and contestations surrounding its implementation began to emerge. There was confusion about whether the ban applied only to the employment of northern migrants on the Witwatersrand gold mines or to their employment in other parts of the country as well. Although the Minister of Native Affairs did not address this point when he announced the ban, it soon emerged that various government officials believed the prohibition to be only applicable to the Transvaal gold mines. In November 1913, the Director of Native Labor stated that if colonial officials in Mozambique did not want to bear the costs of repatriating Mozambicans prohibited from working in South Africa, such persons “shall be allowed to obtain employment in the Transvaal, provided that they shall not be employed on any Mines or Works.”12 The Secretary for Native Affairs expressed a similar understanding in his response to one labor agent’s request for permission to recruit tropical workers for the Rand mines. Communicating the Minister’s decision not to grant the request, the Secretary observed that “tropical natives” would not be attested for work on the mines, but “Government will not offer objection to their employment on the Tin Mines in the Waterberg District.”13
Despite issuing statements which gave the impression that the South African government had a clear position, the two officials clashed in May 1914, when the Secretary for Native Affairs questioned the Director’s decision to approve the employment of more than 300 “tropical natives” at the Hlobane Colliery in Natal. In justifying his decision, the Director argued that the controversial policy allowed him to exercise discretion in giving permissions for such people to work in certain areas outside the Witwatersrand where the climatic conditions were regarded to be more favorable to them and where he was satisfied that adequate medical attention was available.14 This, however, did not help to conceal the contradictions and inconsistencies of the government’s handling of the ban.
When, in 1916, the Southern Rhodesian authorities raised concerns about the continued employment of Zimbabweans in the Natal Coal Mines, the Director of Native Labor argued that the laws that governed the employment of northern migrants in the Transvaal were not in force in Natal and other provinces of South Africa.15 However, when Southern Rhodesia’s Chief Native Commissioner asked the same question two years later, the Director of Native Labor said; “this Regulation applies to the whole of the Union.”16 In addition, he created more confusion by suggesting that the ban had nothing to do with the mortality rate of migrant workers. Whereas, on May 8, 1913, Sauer had emphasized that the high mortality was the reason for the ban, the Director had this to say five years later:
The policy of the Union as understood by me since 1913 and as understood by executive officers of the NAD has been to eliminate the profit which could be made by the people who engaged in the recruitment of Tropical Natives. By the elimination of the incentive it was hoped to do away with the illicit practices that took place on our borders and which had for their objective the introduction of Tropical Natives in order that certain people might make money out of them.17
Although it is not unusual for people to change their minds on certain issues or contradict themselves, the confusion that such inconsistencies generated negatively affected the implementation of the ban. Commenting on this, one official in the country’s border with Southern Rhodesia said, “various instructions on the subject [of tropical natives] have from time to time been issued with the result that the position has become rather confusing both to myself and to those authorized to employ such natives.”18
As the government struggled to enforce the ban, the Prime Minister’s office issued Government Notice No. 1693 of December 24, 1918, which made it a punishable offense, under the Native Labor Act of 1911, for labor agents to recruit workers from restricted areas. In a follow-up circular to various government officials in the northern Transvaal, the Director of Native Labor stressed that,
the recruitment of natives domiciled in North and South Rhodesia by Labour Agents is definitely prohibited… but it will be observed that this prohibition has not been extended to holders of employers’ recruiting licenses, so that the employment of such labour as voluntarily filters through is permissive on approved local mines but cannot be extended to the Witwatersrand Gold Mines.19
In addition to recapitulating the debate about whether or not the ban applied to Rand mines only, the circular further complicated matters. In seeking to prohibit the recruitment of “tropical natives” by labor agents while permitting employers to engage the same class of migrants who entered the country on their own, the government created a difficult position for itself. It was not easy for pass officers and other state officials to distinguish between migrant workers recruited on the other side of the border and those who entered South Africa on their own. As such, when employers’ agents took recruits for attestation with the Native Affairs Department authorities—in line with the concerned Government Notice—they often argued that such workers came into the country without any assistance from recruiters. It was only on rare occasions when officials interviewed workers they apprehended that they learned how migrants got to various destinations in South Africa.20
Apart from the inconsistencies and confusion that characterized the implementation of the ban from the onset, certain individuals took legal action to combat specific aspects of the new prohibition. In response to a legal challenge by a labor agent named W.P. de Villiers, a judge in the Louis Trichardt Magistrates’ Court ruled, on December 19, 1923, that Paragraph 10 of Government Notice No. 1693 of December 1918 contradicted the 1911 Native Labor Act, and it was therefore ultra vires (meaning it was beyond the powers delegated to government). The judgment came after de Villiers challenged his conviction for allegedly contravening Section 4 of the 1911 Native Labor Act as read with the concerned Government Notice. In rendering the decision in Rex vs. de Villiers, the judge found that the Native Labor Act was more suited to regulate the recruitment of African workers for employment in South Africa than the 1913 Immigrants Regulation Act. He further pointed out that unlike the latter, which was formulated with Indian migrants in mind (see Peberdy 2009; Klotz 2013), the Native Labor Act was meant to regulate the recruitment and employment of the “aboriginal tribes or races of Africa.” In line with this finding, the court held that the law did not distinguish between “local” and “foreign” Africans, adding that Section 23 (1) of the said Act actually “contemplate[d] that recruiting of natives will take place outside the Union.” Furthermore, the court held it untenable that the intention of the law was to prohibit the recruitment of Africans outside the Union, as there was “no provision similar to the one which expressly gives the Governor-General the power to prohibit the recruiting of natives within the Union for employment outside the Union?”21
In a development that revealed more contradictions among South African government officials, the Secretary for Native Affairs dismissed the judgement as a non-binding interpretation of the law and urged officials in his department to continue with enforcement. Expressing similar sentiments, the Transvaal and Pietersburg Divisions of the South African Police department argued that the judgment should be appealed because it rendered the law enforcement agents powerless in dealing with “prohibited migrants” from areas north of 22 degrees south. In particular, the District Commander for Pietersburg wrote, “the WNLA have an office in Louis Trichardt and while this judgement stands good, thousands of natives will be imported into the Union from Rhodesia.”22
Following Rex vs. de Villiers it became difficult to practically regulate the entry and employment of tropical workers in South Africa. Although the ban was still in place, immigration officers, the police, and Native Affairs Department officials received contradictory instructions on how to handle migrants from Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and Mozambique who entered South Africa with or without the assistance of labor agents. In a move that infuriated senior police officers, the Public Prosecutor at the Louis Trichardt Magistrates’ Court declined to prosecute several labor agents arrested for recruiting “tropical natives,” citing Rex vs. de Villiers. Complaining about this scenario, an official in the Native Affairs Department wrote “I have now arrived at a dead end and am unable to proceed against any Labour Agent who may recruit Rhodesian Native Labour….”23 While pass officers gave permission to some migrants from restricted areas to find work, they had others arrested and jailed for entering the country without permits. Instead of deporting the migrants they arrested, however, South African officials often issued passes after the migrants paid fines or served jail terms.
In the confusion that ensued, illegal migration across the Southern Rhodesia-South Africa border increased dramatically. In 1925, the Minister for Mines and Public Works in Southern Rhodesia observed that there was “a fairly steady stream of natives from north of the Limpopo River proceeding to the Transvaal.”24 While it is possible that this was an exaggeration by an official from a territory wanting to prevent loss of labor, reports that came from South Africa around the same time point toward the same conclusion. For example, in 1926, the Sub-Native Commissioner for Louis Trichardt pointed out that 95 percent of migrants from Southern Rhodesia and “British Central Africa” in general entered the Transvaal without passes. Similarly, the Director of Native Labor noted that large numbers of migrants were entering South Africa clandestinely from Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland.25 This was surely inevitable, given the manner in which South African employers responded to the ban.
Contesting the Ban: South African Employers’ Responses
Rather than passively accepting the new prohibition, South African businesses deployed a combination of cautious engagement and adaptive resistance, the latter characterized by the subtle encouragement of clandestine migration. Among mine owners and farmers in the Transvaal region, who relied on migrant workers they considered less expensive and more dependable than locals, resistance was particularly pronounced. To better understand the Transvaal response, it is important not to overlook the fact that negotiations between mine owners and the Union government began soon after the first Parliamentary debate over the migrant miner mortality. As opposition MPs and other sections of the South African society called for the banning of so-called “tropical natives,” the Transvaal Chamber of Mines successfully lobbied for government support in creating the South African Institute for Medical Research (SAIMR) in 1912. As part of the agreement between the government and the Transvaal Chamber of Mines, the initial research agenda of the SAIMR staff focused on pneumoconiosis, nutrition, and other infectious, protozoa, and helminthic diseases, which were believed to be the main health challenges facing the mining industry (Murray 1963). As such, when the ban was announced, the Transvaal Chamber of Mines and the WNLA did not publicly contest the government’s position. Instead, they decided to continue investing in medical research, while simultaneously lobbying for the lifting of the ban.
On May 20, 1913—barely two weeks after the ban’s announcement—the WNLA sent a report to the Director of Native Labor, providing details of the mortality among tropical workers employed on different mines from January 1912 to April 1913. The report outlined some of the measures that mining companies had started implementing in a bid to reduce the mortality of migrant workers, such as conducting medical exams on all “tropical natives” and imposing a four-week acclimatization period prior to deployment underground. The WNLA’s objective in producing the report was to convince the government that it was committed to playing a role in finding a solution.26
During the first month of implementation, the secretary of the WNLA argued that the mortality of concerned migrants was on a downward trajectory. It observed that lower mortality was the result of the mining companies’ compliance with the government’s recommendations on systematic inoculation of workers from restricted areas and the repatriation of those found unfit for employment on the mines. While noting that the mortality for the month of August 1913 was at 17.16 per 1000 per annum, the WNLA claimed that this was the lowest rate on record. To substantiate its argument, the WNLA produced a detailed mortality analysis for each and every one of its affiliate mining companies for the period January to August 1913.27 The reason for compiling such a detailed analysis was to show the government that the Association was leaving no stone unturned in its bid to address the cause of death among concerned migrant workers. The WNLA also wanted to show that the situation was already improving.
Over the subsequent four years, the WNLA took several additional steps to demonstrate that mining companies were addressing government concerns about northern migrants’ health. Having already built a hospital at the WNLA compound in Johannesburg, the Association hired Allen Percival Watkins, a physician with extensive experience working in tropical areas, to fill the position of Assistant Medical Officer. Watkins and WNLA Chief Medical Officer A.I. Girdwood made several recommendations for the improvement of workers’ health on the mines. For example, regarding housing, they suggested that mining companies accommodate workers “in Compound rooms built on the cubic system with individual bunks for each native with plenty of cubic space.”28 Over and above the medical officers’ recommendations, the WNLA encouraged mining companies to construct on-site clinics they referred to as “native hospitals” as well as changing houses to be used by workers from restricted areas. They also instructed mining companies to make sure that such workers were properly dressed when they moved from the changing houses to their rooms. In addition to that, the WNLA threatened to stop allocating migrant workers to mines with consistently high mortality rates.29
In 1917, the Transvaal Chamber of Mines intensified its efforts to regain permission to recruit from restricted areas by making a proposal for the government to allow the WNLA to recruit about two thousand migrants from Malawi and Mozambique to be inoculated with a pneumonia vaccine developed by Dr. Spencer Lister, who was a Research Bacteriologist at the SAIMR. In making this proposal, the Chamber of Mines stressed that the anti-pneumococcal prophylactic, which functioned both as a preventative and as a curative measure, had proved to be so effective that pneumonia was almost non-existent in mines where it had been used. They also emphasized that their request was for a limited and controlled lifting of the ban to allow for a medical experiment with no more than two thousand migrants. The Chamber made its request strategically, for the country was facing severe labor shortages due to the recruitment of local Africans to fight in the First World War. After extensive debates over this issue, the Prime Minister agreed to lift the ban temporarily to allow the experiment with the pneumonia vaccine to proceed. The Justice Department gave a nod to the proposal as permissible under the 1913 Immigrants Regulation Act. Although the Medical Officer in the Government Labor Bureau rejected the proposal as being too risky, the Director of the SAIMR, the Medical Officer in the Native Affairs Department, and the Chairman of the Miners’ Phthisis Medical Bureau, as well as the two medical officers in the WNLA, all supported the idea. In spite of what appears to have been an overwhelming support for the proposal, opposition MPs objected and the Prime Minister withdrew his support.30 While some sections of the mining community criticized the opposition parties for dismissing the proposal, the Transvaal Chamber of Mines held its fire. Instead, it chose to continue engaging with the government’s recommendations in a bid to have the ban lifted.
Outside the organizational framework of the Chamber or the WNLA, however, mining companies devised ways of continuing to employ workers from north of latitude 22 degrees south. Individual mines employed “prohibited migrants” who were illegally smuggled by unlicensed recruiters, often called “touts” or “runners,” who operated in the border districts (Bulpin 1954; Murray 1995; Mavhunga 2007). Some mine owners recruited indirectly from the restricted regions by giving batches of stamped contract forms to former employees when they returned to Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, or Mozambique. Such people proceeded to hand over the documents to prospective new migrants who then completed the forms and pretended to be employees. These prospective workers then used the fraudulent contract documents to obtain passes as if they were returning to previously-held jobs in South Africa. As the Sub-Native Commissioner for Louis Trichardt observed in 1926, this was a common practice among employers in the mining industry.31 They adopted a double-sided approach in a bid to lower labor costs.
Similarly, South African farmers responded with a mixture of diplomacy and deception. In an attempt to encourage the government to allow them to continue employing migrants from Southern Rhodesia and other restricted areas, individual farmers and farmers’ groups approached various offices with petitions. For example, in October 1919, a group of farmers teamed up with labor agents, contractors, and ordinary residents and sent a petition to the Minister of Native Affairs. The petition read:
The conditions governing Labour Agents’ and Employers’ recruiting licenses at present in force do not give satisfaction and are regarded as unfair and unjust, and the manner in which they are carried out in practice is illogical… Before these restrictions were imposed, such natives at the end of their period of labour were permitted to return to their homes by whatever route they liked and how they liked. The result was that they chose the route by which they entered the country… We urgently submit that freedom of contract should be restored, and that the restrictive conditions should be cancelled and abolished.32
Given that the moratorium placed on labor recruiting affected a wide spectrum of the South African society, it was possible for such alliances of convenience to be formed. But what makes this petition interesting is that its authors presented themselves as being unfairly treated by officials in the Native Affairs Department. They alleged that the allocation of prohibited migrants who entered the country clandestinely was skewed in favor of the WNLA. They thus urged the government to either deport all such migrants or alternatively to allow the migrants the freedom to choose where they worked and for whom.
In the same vein, hundreds of farmers producing fruits, vegetables, tobacco, and cotton in northern Transvaal came together to form the Low Veld Farmers Association, in order to pressure the government regarding permission to recruit migrant workers from northern areas. In September 1924, the organization sent a delegation to the Prime Minister, hoping to convince him to allow them to recruit migrant workers from Southern Rhodesia. In a follow-up to the Secretary for Native Affairs, the Low Veld Farmers Association’s secretary argued that an acute shortage of labor in the Transvaal compelled them to act. He stressed, “Farmers wish to take advantage of the early rains for planting cotton, etc., and are held up for want of labour.”33 In response to critics who argued that the Transvaal farmers, like mine owners, preferred to employ foreigners ahead of locals who demanded higher wages and better conditions of work, the Low Veld Farmers Association devised a creative rebuttal. They invoked the debate over migrant workers’ health, arguing that African workers from within the Union of South Africa were unsuitable for the low veld, “as the majority would come from non-malarial areas into an area which is malarial,” adding “we have attempted to employ such natives in the past with bad results to the health of such natives.”34 In arguing that workers from south of latitude 22 degrees south were susceptible to malaria in the low veld region, the association deployed a similar epidemiological rhetoric to that which informed the ban on tropical workers on the Transvaal gold mines.
As was the case with mining owners, farmers also obtained workers from restricted areas through clandestine means. This became more pronounced after the issuance of Government Notice No. 1693 of December 1918, which banned active recruitment by farmers’ agents and introduced a merit-based approval system for farmers to receive migrant workers from the Native Affairs Department. In response to the new dispensation, several farmers engaged so-called “domestic servants” who functioned informally as labor touts and runners. Since such people were not legally labor agents, they were also not bound by registration requirements such as recruitment permits. Given that they could not recruit openly, they were forced to operate illicitly and with rudimentary tools. The primary strategy they employed was to offer cash, clothes, and various goods to induce work-seeking migrants to go to specific farms.35 While this practice was common among farmers who failed to obtain permits to employ prohibited migrants who “voluntarily filtered” into the country, approved employers often went beyond the terms of their permits. For example, after being listed as approved employers, some farmers engaged touts who targeted slum areas of Johannesburg, which had become major destinations for northern migrants in search of employment.36
Migrant Workers’ Evasion of the Ban
Amid the controversies, inconsistencies, and contestations that engulfed the implementation of South Africa’s ban on northern workers, migrants from Southern Rhodesia and other areas continued to enter the country. Given that Southern Rhodesian authorities welcomed South Africa’s ban and tried to use it to prevent African workers—especially those imported from Nyasaland and Mozambique—from leaving the British colony, migrants deployed various strategies to evade measures of migration control and move to the Union of South Africa without permission. For example, when colonial authorities in Southern Rhodesia halted the issuing of passes for South Africa, citing the ban and supposed health risks in the Transvaal mines, potential migrants resorted to seeking passes for the mining areas in the southern districts of the country. Thus, instead of applying for permits that would enable them to buy train tickets for South Africa, migrants sought passes for places such as Gwanda, Bulilima-Mangwe, and Plumtree. In these areas, job seekers targeted mines such as West Nicholson and Jessie (in Gwanda) as well as Legion and Antelope (in Matobo), where they worked for varying lengths of time before illicitly traversing the border. In light of this, the years 1914 to 1917 witnessed a major increase in the number of applicants for passes to go to areas along the Southern Rhodesia-South Africa border.37
Knowing very well that the administration had instructed railway officials not to issue tickets to travelers without valid passes, many migrants walked from different departure points to the border. In this respect, migrants often followed what police officers characterized as “devious paths,” which avoided the towns and European settlements where the police were usually stationed. Often times, migrants’ routes passed through networks of African villages where travelers would rest and/or replenish supplies. Experienced travelers who knew the routes and the location of resting places usually led the way.38 In this manner, migrants did not simply succeed in dodging the official systems of migration control, but they also developed important social networks upon which future generations of border jumpers would depend.
When Southern Rhodesian authorities stopped issuing passes to the border districts around 1917, the routes and strategies of border jumpers shifted accordingly. As Southern Rhodesia’s Chief Native Commissioner observed, the refusal of passes for South Africa had “the result that Natives intending to go to the Transvaal were diverted to use illegal means of crossing the Limpopo River.”39 Given that there were no restrictions on migration to the British protectorate of Bechuanaland (Botswana), it became a common practice for migrants from Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and other “northern” territories to obtain passes for Francistown (in Bechaunaland), from which they proceeded to South Africa [see map below]. While some migrants bribed villagers in Bechuanaland who falsely testified that the concerned individuals were from their communities so they could obtain identity documents to use when traveling to South Africa, others worked in Bechuanaland for as long as it took them to be listed on tax registers. Being in possession of Bechuanaland tax receipts allowed them to buy train tickets for South Africa, as if they were originally from Bechuanaland.40 Migrants from Southern Rhodesia’s eastern districts such as Chipinga (now Chipinge) and Melsetter (Chimanimani) deployed a similar strategy by crossing into Mozambique, where they obtained identity documents as if they were “Portuguese natives” before proceeding to South Africa.41
Prohibited migrants also enlisted the services of labor recruiters (both licensed and unlicensed), touts, and runners, who smuggled them across the border. In spite of the ban, and partly because of it, South African recruiters operated clandestinely in Southern Rhodesia. Given that the WNLA could not legally recruit migrants from north of latitude 22 degrees south, independent recruiters became the major suppliers of “tropical natives” in the Transvaal and other parts of South Africa. Taking advantage of the migrants’ ability to assume fake identities, labor agents often engaged border people, who coached migrants on what to say when they were confronted by South African authorities. When they took migrants for attestation, recruiters often mixed northern migrants with those originating south of latitude 22 degrees south, and selected those from unrestricted areas to speak on behalf of the group when questioned by authorities. As part of the strategy to misrepresent information, recruiters sometimes urged northern migrants to destroy their registration certificates and obtain fraudulent replacements, or simply to lie to state officials by stating that they had lost their original identity documents.42 In this manner, recruiters not only made creative use of historical, linguistic, and cultural identities that transcended colonial borders in the region, but they also deployed their cognizance of the ignorance of South African authorities to their advantage.
Illegal migrants’ main routes from Southern Rhodesia to South Africa. Map drawn by Jeffrey Levy. Reproduced with permission.
Opening the “Floodgates”: The Lifting of the Ban
In another development, which supports the view that the announcement of the ban was motivated more by the politics of labor control than a desire to reduce worker mortality, the debates over this issue took a major twist following the modification of the labor agreement between South Africa and Mozambique. Through what came to be known as the Mozambique Convention of September 11, 1928, the government of South Africa conceded to a Portuguese request to reduce the number of Mozambican migrants employed in South Africa in any given year. While the Convention’s effect on agriculture and other sectors of the South African economy remained unclear, the number of Mozambicans that mining companies could officially employ in any given year was reduced from 100,000 to fewer than 80,000.43 Given that Mozambique was a major source of cheap labor for South African businesses, mining companies argued that a 20 percent reduction in labor supply from that colony placed their operations in danger because they were forbidden from employing workers from north of latitude 22 degrees south. This development, therefore, bolstered calls for the relaxation of labor recruitment policies in general, and especially the removal of the ban on northern workers.
After further lobbying and additional debates in and outside the House of Assembly, the South African government yielded to the appeals of the mining companies. Instead of removing the ban completely, however, the Prime Minister returned to the original proposal made by the Transvaal Chamber of Mines in 1917. On October 21, 1933, the South African government granted the Transvaal Chamber of Mines the permission to employ two thousand workers from north of latitude 22 degrees south. While emphasizing that the lifting of the ban was just an experimental measure intended to assess if health conditions were now suitable for the employment of tropical workers, the Prime Minister instructed the Department of Public Health to ensure that the experiment was undertaken under conditions that were not injurious to migrant health. He also stressed the point that “the importation of Native labourers outside the Union is permitted on condition that all available Native labourers in the Union who desire employment on the mines and are suitable, are employed.”44 Nevertheless, in spite of the official rhetoric about the ban being partial and temporary, the Prime Minister effectively opened the way for the Transvaal mining companies, farmers, and other South African businesses to employ job seekers from Southern Rhodesia and other areas north of latitude 22 degrees south. While this development went a long way toward addressing the labor supply shortages in South Africa, it created more opportunities for migrants from Southern Rhodesia to enter the country clandestinely.
Barely a year after obtaining government permission to engage two thousand northern workers on an experimental basis, the Transvaal Chamber of Mines successfully negotiated two separate arrangements that allowed the WNLA to import two thousand workers from Nyasaland and ten thousand from Northern Rhodesia annually. In order to facilitate these arrangements, the WNLA also obtained permission to establish recruiting depots in these colonies. In return, the Association pledged not to engage migrants who independently traveled from Nyasaland or Northern Rhodesia to South Africa (Paton 1995). However, these arrangements did not involve Southern Rhodesia, which continued to restrict migration to South Africa.
Conclusion
Owing in part to the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy over the past two decades, illegal migration has again become a salient feature of the contemporary Zimbabwe-South Africa border culture (see for example Bolt 2015; Tshabalala 2017). As such, illegal migration has also become one of the commonly discussed topics in everyday interactions in the two countries. However, many people do not know much about the history of this phenomenon, because the dominant narrative in Southern Africa holds that illegal migration only became an issue of concern in the region when South Africa allegedly relaxed its border control measures at the end of apartheid rule. While it might be true that the post-1990s period witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of illegal migrants who arrived in South Africa from Zimbabwe, this does not mean that illegal migration in this region is a recent phenomenon. As shown in this discussion, illegal migration from Zimbabwe to South Africa today has a much longer and more complex history than is often recognized.
Furthermore, by arguing that South Africa’s 1913 ban of migrant workers from its northern neighbors created an environment for illegal migration to thrive, this article also seeks to go beyond seeing this phenomenon as only a result of poverty, unemployment, low wages, wars, and other factors that compel people to move from one country to another. As Michel Foucault (1995) argued, the existence of a legal prohibition on any human activity almost always creates a field of illegal practices. Similarly, the foregoing discussion has argued that the upsurge of illegal migration across the Zimbabwe-South Africa border in this period was mainly a result of the ban on a migration stream that had prevailed for decades. More significantly, this article reveals that the chaotic rollout of the ban—as a migration policy framework—along with the contestations that it triggered, was a key factor in encouraging and promoting illegal migration in the subregion.
Notes 1. For more information on this, see Democratic Alliance, “Sealing Our Borders A Democratic Alliance Proposal to Tackle Cross-Border Crime and Illegal Immigration,” accessed on March 26, 2012, http://www.da.org.za/docs/606/Sealing%20Our%20Borders_document.pdf. See also, “Parts of SA-Zim Border Stolen,” July 24, 2009, accessed March 26, 2012, http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Parts-of-SA-Zim-border-stolen-20090724.
2. British Library, here after cited as [BL] C.S.D.252. Union of South Africa House of Assembly Debates, May 8, 1913.
3. BL C.S.D.252 Union of South Africa House of Assembly Debates, November 8, 1910.
4. BL C.S.D.252 Union of South Africa House of Assembly Debates, February 10, 1911.
5. Ibid.
6. BL C.S.D.252 Union of South Africa House of Assembly Debates, May 14, 1912.
7. BL C.S.D.252 Union of South Africa House of Assembly Debates, May 8, 1913; May 13, 1913; May 14, 1913.
8. BL C.S.D.252 Union of South Africa House of Assembly Debates, May 14, 1913.
9. BL C.S.D.252 Union of South Africa House of Assembly Debates, May 14, 1913.
10. Section 4.1 of the Immigrants Regulation Act described some of the conditions under which a person could be declared a prohibited immigrant as follows: any person or class of persons deemed by the Minister on economic grounds or on account of standards or habit of life to be unsuited to the requirements of the Union or any particular Province thereof; any person who was unable by reason of deficient education to read and write any European language to the satisfaction of immigration officers; any person who was deemed likely to become a public charge by reasons of infirmity of mind or body, or because he did not possess sufficient means to support himself and dependents he was going to take with him into the Union.
11. National Archives of South Africa, here after cited as [NASA] GNLB 123/950/13/D240. An Extract of the Speech by Minister of Native Affairs, May 23, 1913.
12. NASA GNLB 30/3260/11/240. Director of Native Labor, to the Portuguese Curator, Johannesburg, November 7, 1913.
13. NASA GNLB 30/3260/11/240 Part 2. Secretary for Native Affairs, Pretoria, to Hendrick Mentz, Pietersburg, November 14, 1913.
14. NASA GNLB 123/1950/13/240. Director of Native Labor, Johannesburg to Secretary for Native Affairs, Cape Town, May 30, 1914.
15. National Archives of Zimbabwe, here after cited as [NAZ] N3/22/4 vol 2. The Director of Native Labor, Johannesburg was quoted in a report by the Superintendent of Natives, Fort Victoria, after his visit to the Transvaal, September 17, 1917.
16. NASA GNLB123 1950/13/D240. Notes of a Conference held at Pietersburg on Tuesday September 10, 1918 for the Purpose of Discussing the Best Means of Giving Effect to the Instructions of the Union Government that the Introduction of Tropical Natives should as far as Possible Cease, and of Over-coming, if Possible, the Difficulties Experienced with Casual and Clandestine Immigrants from Rhodesia.
17. Ibid. See also, NAZ N3/22/4 vol.1. Employment of Southern Rhodesia Natives in the Union of South Africa (1914-1923)
18. NASA GNLB123 1950/13/D240. Notes of a Conference held at Pietersburg on September 10, 1918.
19. NASA GNLB 120 1950/13/240. Acting Director of Native Labor, Johannesburg, to NCs and Sub-NCs for Louis Trichardt, Pietersburg, Sibasa, etc., January 6, 1919. Emphasis mine.
20. NASA GNLB 120 1950/13/240. January 6, 1919.
21. NASA NTS 2061/107/280. Rex vs W.P. de Villiers, December 19, 1923.
22. NASA NTS 2061/107/280. Rex vs W.P. de Villiers, December 19, 1923.
23. NASA GNLB 122/1950/13/240. Sub-Native Commissioner, Louis Trichardt, to Director of Native Labor, Johannesburg, September 4, 1924.
24. NAZ S480/83. Statement by HON. H. U. Moffat (Minister of Mines and Public Works) Regarding Emigration of Rhodesian Natives into the Union, November 16, 1925.
25. NASA GNLB 120/1950/13/240. Sub-Native Commissioner, Louis Trichardt, to Director of Native Labor, Johannesburg, May 26, 1926.
26. NASA GNLB 30/3260/11/240 Part 2. Memorandum: Mortality From Disease Amongst Tropical Natives Employed on Mines (Members of the Witwatersrand Native Labor Association only) in the Proclaimed Labor Districts of the Transvaal.
27. GNLB 30/3260/11/240. Secretary WNLA, to Director of Native Labor, September 5, 1913.
28. NASA GNLB 30/3260/11/240 Part 2. Memorandum: Mortality From Disease Amongst Tropical Natives Employed on Mines.
29. NASA GNLB 30/3260/11/240 Part 2. Memorandum: Mortality From Disease Amongst Tropical Natives Employed on Mines.
30. NASA NTS 2062/112/280. Director of Native Labor, Johannesburg, to Secretary for Native Affairs, Pretoria, July 18, 1917. See also NASA NTS 2062/112/280 (Part 2). The Prime Minister’s Office, Cape Town, to President of the Chamber of Mines, Johannesburg, April 10, 1918.
31. NASA GNLB 122/1950/13/240. Sub-Native Commissioner, Louis Trichardt, to Secretary for Native Affairs, Pretoria, February 11, 1926.
32. NASA GNLB 123 1950/13/D240. Petition for Removal of Restrictions in Conditions Governing Labour Agents’ and Employers’ Recruiting Licenses.
33. NASA GNLB 122/1950/13/240. Secretary Low Veld Farmers Association, Nelspruit, to Secretary for Native Affairs, Pretoria, October 1, 1924.
34. NASA GNLB 122/1950/13/240. Secretary Low Veld Farmers Association, Nelspruit, to Secretary for Native Affairs, Pretoria, October 1, 1924.
35. NASA NTS 2062/112/280. Director of Native Labor, Johannesburg, to Secretary for Native Affairs, Pretoria, July 16, 1925.
36. NASA GNLB 122/1950/13/240. Director of Native Labor, Johannesburg, to Sub-Native Commissioner, Louis Trichardt, July 24, 1924.
37. NAZ N3/22/4 Chief Native Commissioner, Salisbury to Secretary, Department of the Administrator, Salisbury, October 11, 1917.
38. NAZ AOH/46. Amon Makufa Mlambo, interview with Dawson Munjeri, Rhodesdale, December 13, 1978.
39. NAZ S138/203. Secretary, Rhodesia Chamber of Mines, to Chief Native Commissioner, Salisbury, September 2, 1925.
40. NAZ S138/203. F.D. Roscoe, Matopos, to Secretary for Mines and Works, July 14, 1925.
41. NASA GNLB 122/1950/13/240. Native Sub-commissioner, Krugersdorp, to Director of Native Labor, Johannesburg, December 30, 1924.
42. NAZ N3/22/4 “Illicit Recruiting of Native Labour- Rhodesia, Transvaal, Portuguese Territory: A Draft Dispatch by the Chief Native Commissioner for Submission to the South African High Commissioner, February 7, 1916.
43. NASA NTS 2117/225 280. The Mozambique Convention.
44. NASA NTS 2138/249/280. Secretary for the Prime Minister, Cape Town, to the President of the Chamber of Mines, Johannesburg, October 21, 1933.
