Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T10:12:07.377Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Kafir Time’: Preindustrial Temporal Concepts and Labour Discipline in Nineteenth Century Colonial Natal*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Keletso E. Atkins
Keletso E. Atkins
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article attempts to understand in substantive terms the nature of black proletarianization in Natal, South Africa. This is undertaken by moving beyond arid explanations of outside agencies to focus on some of the underlying cultural premises that ordered the day-to-day activities of northern Nguni communities. This article examines their temporal perceptions, exploring within the colonial context the shift from peasant to industrial time, and showing the central role mission churches played in the transition process.

Two important disclosures emerge as a result of this study. First, it conclusively demonstrates the existence of a rich history of nineteenth century African labour action (where until now the overwhelming assumption among historians has been that no such activity existed), much of which was related to the struggle over the definition of time. Secondly, it presents a more balanced picture of the migrant worker. One finds groups of labourers who continued to adhere to old attachments, while others adapted in a rather remarkable fashion to the conditions of the industrial workplace. Most striking of all, is that both were capable of dictating the terms of labour, whether they involved demands for the lunar month or the halfholiday and Sabbath rest day.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , July 1988 , pp. 229 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

References

1 Thompson, E. P., ‘Time, work-discipline, and industrial capitalism’, Past and Present, xxxviii (1967), 56–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 ‘Labour’, Natal Witness (hereafter, NW), 11 December 1846.Google Scholar

3 Callaway, Henry, The Religious System of the AmaZulu (Cape Town, 1970)Google Scholar, Bryant, A. T., The Zulu People As They Were Before the White Man (Pietermaritzburg, 1949), 251–2.Google Scholar

4 Leslie, David, Among the Zulu and the AmaTongas (New York, 1969), 394–6;Google ScholarBryant, The Zulu People, 254–6;Google ScholarKrige, Eileen, The Social System of the Zulus (Pietermaritzburg, 1962), 412.Google Scholar

5 Bryant, The Zulu People, 254–6; Callaway, The Religious System, 393–9;Google ScholarSamuelson, R. C. A., Long, Long Ago (Durban, 1929), 304.Google Scholar

6 Testimony of Mpatshana ka Sodondo, in Webb, C. and Wright, J. (eds), The Stuart Archives (Pietermaritzburg, 1982), III, 301.Google Scholar

7 ‘Contracts with Native Labourers’, NW, 6 November 1846.Google Scholar

8 Rivett, Alfred, Ten Years Work in Natal (London, 1890), 22.Google Scholar

9 ‘Strike Among the Kafir Mail Carriers’, Natal Mercury (hereafter, NM), 14 January 1858.Google Scholar

10 ‘Monthly Native Servants’, NM, 25 April 1896.Google Scholar

11 Posselt, C. W., The Zulu Companion Offered to the Natal Colonist to Facilitate Intercourse with the Natives (Pietermaritzburg, 1850), 3.Google Scholar

12 Barter, Charles, The Dorp and the Veld (London, 1852), 223–4.Google Scholar

13 Cole, D. T., ‘Fanagalo and the Bantu languages in South Africa’, African Studies, xii, 1 (03 1953), 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Faye, Carl, Zulu References for Interpreters and Students (Pietermaritzburg, 1923), 52.Google Scholar

15 Bryant, The Zulu People, 249–51.Google Scholar

16 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (hereafter, ABC): 15.4, V.10. Kilbon, Charles to Smith, Judson, 21 July 1884;Google Scholar Extracts from the Journal of Rev. Dr Callaway, Henry, Mission Field (I October 1859), 37.Google Scholar

17 Posselt, The Zulu Companion, 8.Google ScholarDohne, J. L. translates umNyaka as ‘Literally-a space of a year; = civil year, a period of a year’: A Zulu-Kafir Dictionary (Cape Town, 1857), 251.Google Scholar

18 Secretary for Native Affairs, Natal, File 1/3/18. Annual Report for the County of Alexandra, 14 January 1868; Russell, George, The History of Old Durban and Reminiscences of an Emigrant of 1850 (Durban, 1899), 104.Google Scholar

19 Hall, Edward, The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time (New York, 1984), 3–4.Google Scholar

20 Nyembezi, C. L. S., Zulu Proverbs (Johannesburg, 1963), 113.Google Scholar

21 Berglund, Axel-Ivar, Zulu Thought-Patterns and Symbolism (Sweden, 1976), 276–8, 286 and 364;Google ScholarJenkinson, Thomas B., AmaZulu: The Zulus Their Past History, Manners, Customs, and Language (New York, 1969), 30; ABC: 15.4, V. 5,Google ScholarTyler, Josiah to Anderson, Rufus, 14 February 1853.Google Scholar

22 Captain Ludlow, Walter R., Zululand and Cetewayo (London, 1882), 99.Google Scholar

23 Richardson, Peter, ‘The Natal sugar industry in the nineteenth century’, inBeinart, W. et al. , Putting a Plough to the Ground (Johannesburg, 1986), 136–7.Google Scholar

24 ‘A description of the farm Compensation’, by Morewood, Edmund, Durban, , 1853, in Hattersley, Alan (ed), The Natalians (Pietermaritzburg, 1940), 89–91.Google Scholar

25 ‘Labour’, NM, 13 June 1856.Google Scholar

26 ‘Mr Babbs's letter’, NM, October 1855.Google Scholar

27 ‘Labour’, NM, 13 June 1856.Google Scholar

28 Tinker, Hugh, A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830–1920 (New York, 1974), 27.Google Scholar

29 ‘Labour’, NM, 13 June 1856.Google Scholar

30 ‘A visit to Springfield’, NM, 27 June 1855.Google Scholar

31 Lead Article, NM, 21 September 1855.Google Scholar

32 ‘The Labour question’, NM, 5 October 1855.Google Scholar

33 ‘Sugar planting in Natal’, Natal Times and Mercantile and Agricultural Gazette, November 1852; Resident Magistrate Report Inanda Division, 1880, in Blue Book for the Colony of Natal (Pietermaritzburg, 1880), Section JJ, 101.Google Scholar

34 Russell, The History of Old Durban, 128–9.Google Scholar

35 Hutchins, Robert L. (ed.), Statutes of Natal, 1845–1899, 11 (Pietermaritzburg, 1901).Google Scholar

36 Mason, G. H., Zululand: A Mission Tour (London, 1862), 24;CrossRefGoogle ScholarColenso, J. W., Ten Weeks in Natal (Cambridge, 1855), 256–7; Henry Callaway's Journal, 37.Google Scholar

37 Hall, The Dance of Life, 7.Google Scholar

38 Le Goff, Jacques, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages (Chicago, 1980), 48.Google Scholar

39 Russell, The History of Old Durban, 130.Google Scholar

40 Samuelson, Long, Long Ago, 45–6 and 413–19;Google Scholar testimony of ka Mpukane, Lunguza, in Stuart Archives, 1, 322; Nyembezi, Zulu Proverbs, 60.Google Scholar

41 Russell, The History of Old Durban, 495.Google Scholar

42 ‘Time’, NM, 7 February 1854; ‘Uniformity of time’, NM, 17 March 1853; Russell, The History of Old Durban, 436.Google Scholar

43 Mitford, Bertram, Through the Zulu Country: Its Battlefields and Its People (London, 1883), 148.Google Scholar

44 Russell, The History of Old Durban, 495.Google Scholar

45 For a wider discussion of the ‘week’ see Zerubavel, Eviatar, The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week (New York, 1985).Google Scholar

46 Bryant, The Zulu People, 256.Google Scholar

47 ‘Coolie masters and Kafir servants’, Natal Colonists, 7 January 1873.Google Scholar

48 Methodist Missionary Society: File 317. Extracts from the Journal of Reverend Joseph Jackson, 7 January 1861. As Lunguza ka Mpukane stated, ‘There was no such thing as Sunday or a day of rest in Zululand. We worked any and every day. We knew nothing of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc. We heard of all this in Natal. It was incumbent on every man to work every day. Should he not work he would be asked who told him not to work’; in Stuart Archives, 1, 339.Google Scholar

49 See, for example, ‘Togt Kafirs again’, NM, 11 June 1881.Google Scholar

50 United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (hereafter, USPG): Baugh, Walter to Hawkins, E., 8 May 1859.Google Scholar

51 USPG: Report of Robinson, D. E., Missionary at Durban, 30 June 1873.Google Scholar

52 Apart from a small electrical plant laid down in the Market Square in 1886, oil continued to be the universal method of lighting until the late 'nineties. See for example, McIntyre, John, ‘From settlement to city’, in Macmillan, Allister (ed.), Durban Past and Present (Durban, 1936), 51.Google Scholar

53 USPG: Baugh, Walter to Hawkins, E., 10 October 1860.Google Scholar

54 Russell, The History of Old Durban, 128–9;Google ScholarRobinson, John, A Life in South Africa (London, 1900), 188–9.Google Scholar

55 Ingram, J. Forsyth, The Colony of Natal (London, 1895), 91;Google ScholarMcIntyre, ‘From settlement to city’, 51.Google Scholar

56 Russell, The History of Old Durban, 286.Google Scholar

57 Life at Natal a Hundred Years Ago, by a Lady (Cape Town, 1972), 78 and 127.Google Scholar

58 Natal Advertiser (hereafter, NA), 9 May 1893.Google Scholar

59 ‘Labour demands’, NW, 26 November 1895.Google Scholar

60 ‘Native work on Saturday: Lower Court decision quashed’, NA, 15 April 1899.Google Scholar

61 ‘Native labour: employers taking action’, NM, 11 July 1902.Google Scholar

62 Russell, The History of Old Durban, 495.Google Scholar

63 For a broader discussion of this problem see Atkins, Keletso E., ‘The cultural origins of an African work ethic and practices, unpublished Ph.D., University of Wisconsin- Madison, 1986, ch. 6.Google Scholar

64 Mayer, Philip, Townsmen or Tribesmen Conservatism and the Process of Urbanization in a South African City (Cape Town, 1971), 160 and 163–4.Google Scholar