Pre-apartheid discriminatory legislation (1910-36)

Question 1

1911 Mines and Works Act and 1911 Natives’ Labor Regulation Act

Answer 1

• Mines and Works Act: excluded Africans from most skilled jobs in the mines, which were reserved for white people.
• Natives’ Labor Regulation Act: set down working conditions for Africans. They were to be recruited in rural areas, fingerprinted and issued with pass books, which gave them permission to enter their areas of work. This was one of the Acts known as the pass laws.

Question 2

1913 Natives Land Act

Answer 2

• Restricted African ownership of land to seven percent of South Africa. The government argued this figure was equivalent to African land holdings before the whites occupied the hinterland.
• Many Africans were now forced to work for white farmers – or leave to work under the temporary contracts in the mines and cities. This was necessary because the homelands such as Zululand was Transkei soon became overcrowded.
• Most of the land Africans were allowed to keep was of the poorest quality – the land white people had not taken.

Question 3

1923 Natives (Urban Areas) Act

Answer 3

• Africans should remain in cities only to administer to the needs of the white inhabitants, for example, as domestic servants.
• Africans employed in industry or mining were expected to live in townships specially built for them on the outskirts of the cities, and to leave when their contract ended.

Question 4

Industrial Conciliation Act 1924

Answer 4

• Restricted the right of Africans to organize themselves into trade unions and negotiate their terms of employment. They were given no rights as employees.

Question 5

1927 Native Administration Act

Answer 5

• Set up the Department of Native Affairs, or Native Affairs Department (NAD), to control all matter relating to Africans.
• They were thereby separated in law from all other South Africans, and had no civic rights outside this structure.

Question 6

1936 Native Trust and Land Act

Answer 6

• Extended the amount of tribal reserves to 13.6% of the total from the original 7% in the 1913 Native Land Act. Africans were not allowed to buy any land outside the tribal reserves.

Question 7

Representation of the Natives Act 1936

Answer 7

• Approximately 10,000 Africans had been able to vote in the Cape on the same basis as white people (in other words, if they owned sufficient property, they could vote). This Act removed such rights. Africans were effectively disenfranchised and were treated as foreigners with no rights of permanent residence outside the designated tribal reserves.
• African leaders in the Cape – about 4000 – were allowed to vote for four white representatives to the Senate. A native Representative Council was created of six white officials, four nominated and twelve elected Africans to represent the views of Cape Africans in Parliament.