Chibaro: African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900-1933 [1 ed.] 9780902818880, 0902818880

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Chibaro

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Charles van Onselen

African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia 1900-1933

Pluto He Press

First paperback edition 1980 First published 1976 by Pluto Press Limited, Unit 10, Spencer Court, 7 Chalcot Road, London NW1 8LH Copyright © Pluto Press 1976

ISBN 0 902818 96 1 paperback Maps by Ruth Tarling Cover photograph from National Archives of Rhodesia: Selukwe Gold Mining Compound, 1898 Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Burn Limited, Trowbridge & Esher

Contents

Preface / 7 Abbreviations / 8

Glossary / 9 ,

1. The Growth and Development of the Rhodesian Mining Industry 1900-1933 / 11 ~ Pre-Colonial Mining / 11 Nineteenth Century Expansion and Development in South-Central

Africa / 12 The Era of Speculative Capitalism 1890-1903 / 14 Reconstruction and the Basis of Modern Industry 1903-1911 / 17 Consolidation and Development of the Industry 1912-1933 / 29

2. Conditions in the Mine Compounds / 34 Compound Accommodation / 34 Hospitals and Change Houses / 39 Food Supplies / 40 Supplementing Mine Rations / 45

Death and Disease / 48 | Medical Care and Attention / 57 Compensation / 60

| State Intervention and Conditions in the Compounds / 63 3. | Labour Mobilisation in a Colonial Political Economy Part 1: The Dominance of Forced Labour 1900-1912 / 74 The Speculative Era 1898-1903 / 75. Reconstruction and the Triumph of Chibaro 1903-1912 / 91

4. Labour Mobilisation in a Colonial Political Economy Part 2: The Harvest of Centre and Periphery 1912-1933 / 115

5. The Compound System / 128 Origins of the Compound System in Southern Africa / 128 Physical Features of the Rhodesian Compound System / 133 The Compound Staff / 136 Functions of the Compound System / 141

6. Social Control in the Compounds / 158 Meat as the Motivator of Productivity in the Labour Force / 159 Pushing for Proletarianisation: the Credit System / 161 Drugs and the Black Worker: Labour Stabilisation and Productivity / 166

Sex in the Service of Industry and the State / 174 Education and Religion in the Service of Industry / 182 Recreation: Defusing Class Consciousness / 186

7. Ideologies and Organisation / 195 The Ethnic, Dance and Mutual Aid Societies /{ 198

The Church of the Watch Tower in the Compounds / 204 The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union / 209 Black Miners and Strike Action against Employers, 1900-1933 / 218

8. Worker Responses in a Labour Coercive Economy / 227 Labour Markets in the Regional Economic System { 227 African Resistance within the Compounds / 237 Appendix / 245 Bibliography / 255

Index / 323 : References / 262

Maps 1. Distribution of Principal Mines and Towns in Southern Rhodesia, 1900-1933 / 16 2. Major Labour Migration Routes in Southern Rhodesia, 1900-1933 / 238

Tables A. Exports of Southern Rhodesia, 1924-1940 / 31 B. Comparative Statement of Mortality amongst Africans Employed on Mines in Southern Rhodesia, 1906-1933 / 50 C. Monthly Wages of African Miners in Selected Occupations as quoted

: in Four Rhodesian Mining Districts during 1900-1902 / 93 | D. Contribution of the R.N.L.B. to the Black Labour Supply of the Rhodesian Mining Industry between 1906 and 1925 / 114

Preface

As much as any other, scholarly structures have financial foundations. This book, which started as a D.Phil. thesis at Oxford, is no exception. The fact that the original research was financed by, amongst others, the British Council, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (London), St.Antony’s College, the Beit Trust and the R.B.Hagart Trust is further evidence of the fact that there is no simple relationship between base and superstructure. Outside of those in London, at least two of these institutions will be affronted by the mode of analysis adopted in

this study and anxious to distance themselves from its findings. As a general principle it can be assumed that those with strongest ties to mining capital would wish to distance themselves most.

I hope this work also has some intellectual foundations and the last thing that I would like to do is to distance myself from those. Dan O’Meara, Sholto Cross and especially Tim Couzens, have always encouraged me in the pursuit of ideas. The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, and particularly Shula Marks and her seminar, have provided me with a valuable forum and been a constant source of stimulation. My greatest debt, however, is to four other friends. Ian Phimister has been most generous with his time and helped me in a hundred practical ways. Belinda Bozzoli has been unfailingly enthusiastic about my rfesearch, and indirectly, I have benefited considerably from her knowledge of capitalist ideologies. It has also been my good fortune to have had Martin Legassick as a concerned and constructive critic of my work.

Not only has he always sharpened my intellectual curiosity with his mastery of comparative insight, but he has helped me to be more rigor-

ous than I might otherwise have been. Few people can have a richer sociological imagination, or a greater understanding of South African history than Stanley Trapido. I have been in the privileged position of being able to benefit from these attributes for several years. If there is anything exciting in this study, then it is perhaps because a little of his intellectual magic has rubbed off on it.

Abbreviations

A.N.C. / Assistant Native Commissioner Annex / Annexure BS.A.Co / British South Africa Company B.S.A.P. / British South Africa Police Chief Sec. / Chief Secretary, B.S.A.Co.

C.LD. / Criminal Investigation Department C.N.C, / Chief Native Commissioner C.O. / Colonial Office Dept. of Admin. / Department of the Administrator Det Sgt. / Detective Sergeant Div. / Division D.Phil. / Doctor of Philosophy thesis Exec.Co. / Executive Council H.H. / His Honour, The Administrator H.M.S.O. / Her Majesty’s Stationery Office I.C.U. / Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union

I.N.C. / Inspector of Native Compounds

Leg.Co. / Legislative Council M.A. / Master of Arts thesis M.L.A. / Member of the Legislative Assembly M.P. / Member of Parliament MSS.Brit.Emp. / Manuscript, British Empire Series, r.H. N.A.R. / National Archives of Rhodesia, Salisbury N.C. / Native Commissioner Ph.D. / Doctor of Philosophy thesis

P.R.O. / Public Record Office, London , R.C.M. / Rhodesia Chamber of Mines, Bulawayo

R.H. / Rhodes House, Oxford ,

R.N.L.B. / Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau S.A. / South Africa S.R. / Southern Rhodesia Sup. / Superintendent Univ. / University W.N.L.A. / Witwatersrand Native Labour Association

Glossary

Boma / administrative centre capitao / Gang foreman or “Boss Boy’ chamwario / lover chibaro / slave or forced labour. See also p.99n. chitando / a labourer’s hut dagga / marijuana or cannabis fanakalo / the industrial vernacular of south and central Africa. Literally ‘do it like this’ indaba / meeting induna / headman machechapansi / scurvy. Literally ‘the one that gets you down quickly’ mahure / prostitutes qilika / a hallucinogenic drug. See also Chapter 6, n.61 rapoko / millet sjambok / a leather whip also known as chikote tshwala / beer

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1. The Growth and Development of the Rhodesian Mining Industry 1900-1933 There is no Rand here. There is the gravest doubt about depths. Most of the things are small. The average is low. But all about _ the country individuals are making it pay. — Sir Percy FitzPatrick, 1907

Pre-Colonial Mining

For at least six centuries, reef mining has been practised in the area between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers. It is probable that by as early as 1000 aD Muslims on the east coast of Africa were trading

gold with the inhabitants of the region. Certainly by the time the Portuguese established themselves on the east coast at Sofala in 1505, tribesmen, some of them the forefathers of the modern Shona-speaking

peoples, were mining gold over an extensive area of what are now the territories of Rhodesia and Mozambique. And it was this gold that contributed to the development of some of central Africa’s most influential pre-colonial states, amongst them the kingdom centred on the famed site of Zimbabwe until it was abandoned in the sixteenth

century. ! The indigenous peoples of the territory used a variety of tech-

niques to obtain the mineral. In the north-eastern region the method was -alluvial gold-washing in the Angwa, Mazoe and Ruenya rivers. Elsewhere pits, sometimes extending to depths of 80 and 100 feet,

were sunk and from them rock was extracted, then ground and finally washed for its gold content.

The mining of the ‘ancients’ was both skilled and extensive. Frequently only the more profitable seams were worked, leaving untouched the veins of lower-grade ore. So competent were these early

miners at detecting gold-bearing reef that virtually no large-scale prospecting was necessary during the first twenty years of capitalintensive mining in Rhodesia:1 white ‘prospectors’ seeking mineral deposits were simply guided to ancient workings by local Africans. Virtually all the modern mines of Rhodesia were sited on such old

workings.’ ,

The Growth of the Rhodesian Mining Industry 1900-1933 / 11

Minerals other than gold were also mined by the early inhabitants,

but it was gold, carefully packed in quills and exchanged for goods with east-coast traders, that was most valued. Both the mining practices and the trading routes established by these peoples persisted well into the colonial period. At the turn of the twentieth century, Africans in Mashonaland were still paying their taxes in gold: a practice to which the Salisbury Chamber of Mines took exception, since it placed ‘the European at a great disadvantage’ * (The real objection was that it

provided Africans with an independent source of income and thus inhibited the labour supply which the tax was designed to produce.*)

And in 1902 the Bulawayo Chronicle noted in an editorial that, ‘Natives carrying their small stores of gold in quills and little bits of braided leather are a common sight, winding their way to Tete.” In the pre-colonial era the trade was first with Muslims and then,

from the sixteenth century onwards, with the Portuguese or their intermediaries. The more detailed documentary evidence as to the nature and extent of mining in the region dates back to the latter period when the area was visited by Portuguese explorers and priests such as De Barros, dos Santos and da Silviera.*

From these early accounts it is apparent that the Portuguese not only traded gold but also did a limited amount of mining themselves: when they did mine, however, they were forced to share some of the proceeds with the Monomatapa, or ‘King’, and on occasion consider-

able conflict resulted. But it is clear from early accounts that the Portuguese never over-rated the extent of the gold resources in the hinterland. The decline in the power of the Monomatapa, combined with the

gradual reduction in the gold trade during the sixteenth century, possibly confirmed the Portuguese in their modest assessment of the

gold and inhibited them from involving themselves too greatly in mining. In the 1890s an obsérver noted that African ‘tradition handed down from their fathers tends to prove that the Portuguese were never sufficiently energetic themselves to conduct mining works.’’ So the myth

so widely believed by later Europeans that this part of Africa was an

Eldorado, or the Land of Ophir, cannot really be traced to the Portuguese so much as to the nineteenth century and the era of imperial expansion. Nineteenth Century Expansion and Development in South-Central Africa

In large measure, the myth can be attributed to the reports of hunters such as Henry Hartley who travelled widely through the area in 12 / Chibaro

the nineteenth century, and especially to the accounts of the German explorer Karl Mauch who visited the region in 1867.8 Mauch’s exagger-

ated reports of the mineral wealth to be found north of the Limpopo river attracted the attention of the British and South African investing public at precisely the time that they were becoming aware of the prospects and profits of the newly-discovered Griqualand diamond fields:

and this resulted in the formation and flotation of the London and Limpopo Mining Company and the South African Gold Fields Exploration Company on the London market in 1868.

Capital did not really begin to flow northwards until after gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in 1886. Men who had made their fortunes in Kimberley, amongst them Cecil Rhodes, now turned their attention to gold mining, and after a period of complex financial manoeuvring, a group of large companies, including Rhodes’s Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa Ltd, came to control the deep level mining industry, and to earn substantial profits.° In the late 1880s the financial ambitions of capitalists combined with crosscurrents of imperial expansion to produce a stream of con-

cession-hunters who descended upon the ruler of the most powerful tribe in the trans-Limpopo area — Lobengula of the Ndebele. For several years Lobengula had succeeded in keeping financial opportunists at bay. In the late 1880s, however, the king had to contend not only with the pressures of concession-hunters but also with serious political problems*” which made him more vulnerable than in previous

years. Among the most powerful of the negotiators that besieged. the royal kraal was Charles Rudd, backed by the substantial resources of Rhodes. Where Rudd could not convince the king he succeeded in deceiving him,” and on 30 October 1888 Lobengula finally acquiesced to

the ‘Rudd Concession’.

The Rudd party gained full and exclusive access to the mineral resources of the territory, and the right to exploit them in any manner they deemed fit. What Rhodes had in mind however was not mining alone, but imperial expansion. Largely on the strength of the concession,

he obtained a royal charter for his British South Africa Company (B.S.A.CO) on 29 October 1889.

By late 1890 the specially recruited ‘pioneer column’ had established itself in Mashonaland, and the officers of the B.s.4.co had set about extending control over the newly acquired territory which they believed would expand into a second Witwatersrand.

The Growth of the Rhodesian Mining Industry 1900-1933 / 13

The Era of Speculative Capitalism 1890-1903

But the first ten years of the new colony’s existence were punctu-

ated by a series of political and military disasters. In particular, the hoped-for ‘Second Rand’ failed to materialise and the history of the mining industry between 1890 and 1903 is a story of the fluctuating fortunes of speculative capital.}*

When they entered Rhodesia in 1890 the settlers took care to establish themselves in Mashonaland, an area relatively isolated from the powerful Ndebele and inhabited by the less militaristic Shona-speaking peoples. Mashonaland, however, was not well endowed with mineral resources, the bulk of the gold deposits being located to the south in Matabeleland; this meant that the settlers had to content themselves with land speculation, prospecting and mining relatively small reefs. Mine-owners also found an additional problem in obtaining and stabilising a Shona work force. Ndebele raiding parties sent to extract tribute from Shona communities terrified local Africans and severely disrupted both farm and mine labour supplies. The permanent solution to this impasse had to wait until the military power of the Ndebele was broken by the Matabele War in 1893. This war produced substantial advantages for the B.s.A.co and the mine-owners, for not only did it open access to the richer gold resources of Matabeleland but it facilitated control over the labour supply by removing the threat of Ndebele raids.” The mining industry now seemed set for substantial uninterrupted progress. It received a boost in 1893 when the first two larger mines, the Cotopaxi and the Dickens, were opened in the Fort Victoria district,

and Leander Starr Jameson, Administrator for the B.S.A.co in the colony, with at least one eye on the stock markets telegraphed London: ‘Everywhere new finds are occurring daily. Crushings everywhere successful. Wonderful developments in every district. Reefs certainly improve as depth increases.”** Bolstered with such ‘evidence’ the period between 1893 and 1895 saw the flotation of a number of new companies — a trend encouraged by the B.s.A.co which held a 50 per cent share in

all mining ventures. With the Ndebele defeated and Matabeleland ‘open’, land and mineral-claim speculation accelerated rapidly. In 1895, the B.S.A.co’s shares changed hands at £8 17s 6d on the newly-opened Bulawayo stock exchange. The increases in share prices of London-based companies, however, had a very different significance for the Shona and Ndebele communities. The appropriation of African land and stock, the suppression

of the alluvial gold trade, the tax demands of the B.S.A.co and the labour requirements of farmers and miners were producing a level of 14 / Chibaro

resentment that had already reached danger point when natural disaster — an outbreak of cattle disease — precipitated a second African revolt in 1896-97. This time resistance from both Shona and Ndebele communities was furious and prolonged.?* In particular Africans showed their

shafts.*® _

detestation of the mining industry by throwing the bodies of white miners, prospectors and their foreign black labourers down mine The protracted revolt in any case caused the suspension of all

mining activity in the colony and the cost of suppressing it contributed to a marked change in the fortunes of the mining companies. By 1898 shares, such as those of the Rhodesian Exploration and Development Co, which at the height of the 1895 boom were selling at £18, could be

bought at £4 and those of B.s.A.co had dropped from £8 17s 6d to £2 15s 0d.2’

The high price of the shares had indeed largely reflected the hope

of a ‘Second Rand’ rather than the results of gold production,** and some companies, aware of this, took steps immediately after the revolt to bring mines such as the Dunraven, Geelong and Selukwe to the crushing stage as rapidly as possible.*® On balance, however, the country re-

mained the preserve of speculative capital and the mining companies produced promises rather than gold. In 1898 the lack of real development prompted the Rhodesia Herald pointedly to suggest in its editorial that: ‘The capitalist should be encouraged, but only as a mining and industrial factor — not as a speculator pure and simple’. During the first ten years of the industry’s existence the lack of a stabilised labour force, shortages of skilled manpower and machinery, inadequate fuel supplies and the absence of a cheap rail linkage with the

more developed south could all partly account for the failure of the ‘Second Rand’ to materialise.?* But the outbreak of the South African War in 1899 and the subsequent disruption of rail transport, of machinery and mining supplies, was really the last major excuse that could be used to justify to shareholders the slow growth in production and the absence of profits. Mining companies derived income throughout this period from a variety of subsidiary activities, the most important of which were rentcollecting (either from African tenant farmers or from settlers occupying urban business premises), land speculation or trading, but this income could not hide the basic unprofitability of companies supposedly engaged in mining.”? It became increasingly apparent to capitalists that the Rhodesian gold fields were not nearly as profitable as the resuscitated Witwatersrand mines. This, coupled with the problem of obtaining an adequate supply of cheap labour, made investors increasingly cauThe Growth of the Rhodesian Mining Industry 1900-1933 / 15

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peeteeineeattceitns teatro tenceren Heston ERRORS SR DR Aan BE RAG SRR RRR Eee Se ee Teiates cone ° poem nneee aeentee Rae Sos ee ee eC ne

SS TET ole ff SSE) Ee Sons ey EROS eNO RONSER IER SSeD DUBNA NE SRO SN i annem Aupemeasaaniet Se SO er

peter Sat a ge ate sete to ae Tt ee matetataty hate arent age ete te ae Nifeteetatatetatetaretateatetstetitetatetatetstet pare seseatstaererey ae sreticormronatatcteleenarerstetatstalatn ot statetetgtctatatens, latyceta’otseitahitatat otal we iaspreieras oat et atatpraneratet Cardiolectet seri teense

Sinan tars na, same CREE eR eOIEeT REO REN SRR Paints SRE ee re ene at ee Se sesnoceets Between 1900 and 1912, when the African death rate on the

mines was highest, the industry offered no compensation whatever to workers not engaged on R.N.L.B. contracts.

From 1890 to 1904 the mining industry was not even legally required to register the death of black workers, though the mere act of registration would probably not in itself have helped to reduce a death

rate that was probably as high as 10 per cent per annum. In 1904 a compound inspector noted that the lack of necessity to pay compensation probably accounted for the magnitude of the accident rate, and suggested that 60 / Chibaro

A liability to compensation, say not exceeding £50 for each individual, would not be a great drain on the resources of a Mining Company while

it might make their employees even more careful with regard to explosives.216

The mining industry did not see death in the same way, and was extremely reluctant to pay any compensation. After the Valley mine disaster of 1906, the administration had the greatest difficulty in getting the company to make an ex-gratia payment to the relatives of the 73 black miners. A reluctant management eventually paid relatives compensation of £150 when it seemed that the administration might sue for payment.*?? In the wake of this disaster, the administration unsuccessfully urged the Chamber of Mines to introduce a scale of compensatory payments.?* Before 1912, R.N.L.B. contract workers were in a slightly better position than other miners as far as compensation was concerned. They received £3 for partial disablement and £5 for total disablement, and the relatives of a deceased worker were entitled to £5 — the equivalent of perhaps two months’ wages. The enormous death rate acted as a powerful deterrent to local Africans against employment on the Rhodesian mines, and the 1910-11 Native Affairs Committee recognised that this resistance could be partly

overcome by the introduction of compensation. The administration accepted the recommendations of the committee, and in 1912 an ordinance was passed extending to all workers the same scale of compensation which applied to R.N.L.B. workers. This ordinance, however, did not unduly tax the resources of the industry, since it contained some very notable qualifications. It excluded compensation for black workers

attached to sub-contractors, and these were often the workers most exposed to the hazards of the industry. Furthermore the Secretary for Mines made it clear that while he was agreeable to compensation being

paid for death or injury due to accident, he was of the opinion that ‘compensation for death from disease will prove a hardship.’**® Deaths

from accidents accounted for only 10 per cent of all black deaths on mines — disease being responsible for the other 90 per cent.

The maximum compensation rates of £5 remained in force until 1922. Then, since black workers were excluded from the provision of the Workmens’ Compensation Ordinance No.20 of 1922, the legislative council took steps to improve their rate of compensation: Ordinance No.15 of 1922 made provision for compensation of £1 to £10 for permanent partial incapacity, £10 to £25 for permanent total incapacity, and £10 for death. The families of a deceased worker could then look forward to compensation equivalent to three or four months’ wages. Conditions in the Mine Compounds / 61

This increase was not unopposed by members of the industry, and more especially by the most under-capitalised sector — the small workers.?”° There were others in the legislative council, such as W.M.Leggate (later Colonial Secretary), who felt that the £10 payment for death should not

to that.’2?1

be automatic since ‘death would be considered a windfall in some instances, and he did not think that the government should lend itself The £10 ‘windfall’ remained constant for eight years, until in 1930

another member of the legislative assembly, Captain Bertin, pointed out that the amount of compensation that is payable to a native’s family if he is killed by accident, or to the native himself if he is totally incapacitated, is an absolutely trifling sum — a ridiculous sum.222

Since Africans were again excluded from the Workmens’ Compensation Ordinance No.17 of 1930, compensation for black workers was raised separately. Permanent partial incapacity was to be compensated for by a payment of £2 to £15, permanent total incapacity from £15 to £50 and death by a £20 payment — six months of a worker’s income.

The existence of legislation did not even then guarantee automatic payment of compensatory awards to black workers. In many cases they were extracted with great difficulty from even the largest mines;??* in other cases the sum paid was so small as to be of no use at all to the worker. One worker, paid £3 in compensation for an amputated leg in 1918, was faced with a rail fare of £3 7s 6d to get home to Nyasaland, and a food bill for the journey of 15s.??* Right up to 1935, it was only the largest mines who regularly paid compensation at all.??° Between 1900 and 1933 over 30,000 black workers lost their lives in the Rhodesian mines. Of these deaths, 27,000 were attributable to disease and 3,000 to accidents. Since deaths from disease (even diseases specifically associated with mining, such as phthisis)??* were excluded from compensation legislation, 3,000 families would in theory be expected to be eligible for death benefits of up to £20; that is, ten per cent of all fatalities entitled families to compensation. But when it is remembered that no deaths were legally registered before 1904, and that of the 3,000 fatalities nearly 900 were registered in the years between 1906 and 1911 when no compensation legislation existed for non-R.N.L.B. workers, this figure must be considerably reduced. Furthermore, since it was usually only the larger mines that bothered to pay compensation at all, the figure was really lower still. Working on the exceptionally generous assumption that the mines paid £20 for each death (the rate introduced in 1930) on seven per cent of all fatalities (30,000) between

62 / Chibaro |

1900 and 1933, compensation would have cost the industry just £42,000,

or less than £2,000 per year. Death cost an industry which produced £89 million worth of gold between 1900 and 1934 very little indeed.

State Intervention and Conditions in the Compounds

If, as has been shown, conditions in the Rhodesian mine compounds and the health of the black workers reflected the profitability constraints of low-grade ore mining — fundamental constraints which remained constant — the relative improvements in housing, diet and death rates cannot be attributed solely to the dynamic of the mining companies themselves. Indeed, judging from their consistent opposition

to the majority of reforms, it is unlikely that the mining companies would of their own volition have improved the living conditions of the black workers in any substantial way. For the causes of these gradual improvements one has therefore to look beyond the confines of the industry itself; though the nature, pace and extent of the improvements were governed by forces derived from within the industry. It is necessary in the first place to appreciate that mine owners in Rhodesia never had entirely free access to their labour supplies, many

of their workers coming from adjacent British colonies in. central Africa. This, together with the fact that Rhodesia itself was a British

protectorate before 1923, meant that the mining industry operated within a colonial nexus and that it was subject to a variety of pressures from the Colonial Office in London.”*7 Even after 1923, the mining industry had to operate within a regional economic system where. the Colonial Office exercised considerable power and influence. During reconstruction, the B.s.A.co as the company-government of Rhodesia had particularly good reason for attempting to shake off the hold of the Colonial Office, since it urgently required an expanding supply of cheap labour without the burden of heavy indirect expenditure on African workers. The Colonial Office was not entirely unsympathetic to these needs but it would not allow the company to operate at the expense of a more important priority — the reconstruction of the more profitable Witwatersrand mines under the Milner regime. Basically the Colonial Office was anxious to ensure that such supplies of cheap labour as there were within the regional economic system would go to South Africa. In an attempt to counteract this, the B.s.A.co sought to develop an independent labour policy; but In such independent diplomacy they inevitably came off worse. Their efforts to pursue a distinctive policy fitted ill with the Colonial Office view

of Southern Rhodesia in particular as an integral part of a greater South Africa.228

Conditions in the Mine Compounds / 63

The Colonial Office was thus in a strong bargaining position and could use the lever of large-scale access to labour supplies to extract improvements in the conditions of compounds from the Rhodesian mining industry.??°

So the B.s.A.co found itself acting as mediator between the demands of the Colonial Office and the needs of the Rhodesian mining industry.?*° As a mediator, however, it hardly constituted a disinterested

third party, and in its position as company-government it was ideally placed to ensure that the demands of the Colonial Office did not seriously jeopardise the profits of the industry in which it had a substantial share. The particular way in which the B.s.A.co balanced these differing

demands can be seen by tracing the passage of labour legislation in Rhodesia, and examining the role of the compound inspectors and courts.

As the limits of profitable mining in Rhodesia became more apparent from 1900 onwards, so those closely associated with the industry realised that long-term profitability could only be guaranteed with ad-

equate supplies of cheap labour. India and China were amongst the countries from which the mining industry hoped to obtain labour, and to provide the safeguards demanded by foreign governments before

they would allow indentured labour to be recruited for Rhodesian mines?*? the Immigration Ordinance of 1901 was passed. However, Rhodesia never did gain access to large numbers of Asian indentured labourers,”*? and by the time that the London stock market collapsed in 1903, it was clear that she would have to compete for labour supplies within the southern African regional economic system. For the mining industry this competition could not have come at a more inopportune time. In the midst of a serious financial crisis, the Rhodesian mine owners had to compete with the growing labour demands of the resusci-

tated Witwatersrand mines; and to make matters worse, the northern supply area of Nyasaland had chosen 1903 to pass African labour legislation designed to protect its own labour supplies.7** Faced with a labour crisis, the B.s.A.co passed the Mines and Works Regulations of 1905 to make provision for mine hospitals and accommodation standards in the compounds. Neither the 1901 nor the 1905 legislation however did much to improve the conditions of black workers, since they were usually inadequately enforced. The truly shocking extent of the death rate only became more widely known after 1904, when all deaths of black workers had to be legally registered. They came under the scrutiny of the House

of Commons in 1908,?4 and these revelations too came at a bad time 64 /{ Chibaro

for the mining industry. In Britain, the Tory government had lost the 1906 election on the issue of ‘Chinese slavery’, a scandal which jeopardised the supply of cheap labour for the Rand mines. Consequently, there was an increase in pressure on labour supplies within the regional economic system, and settlers in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia again became anxious to protect their own sources. Partly it was this concern to protect their own supplies of labour that caused the Nyasaland and North Eastern Rhodesian administrations to draw disapprov-

ing attention to the conditions in the Rhodesian mine compounds

during 1907-08.7° |

The criticism of the North Eastern Rhodesian authorities did not unduly concern the Rhodesian administration or mining industry, since the R.N.L.B. already held a virtual recruiting monopoly in the territory,

and in any event the area was already under the jurisdiction of the B.S.A.CO. The criticism of the Colonial Office and the Nyasaland administration, however, was less easy to deal with; especially at a time when there had been such a marked increase in the number of workers drawn from Nyasaland.?** Thus, after a conference on ‘native labour’ in 1907,

the Salisbury and Rhodesia chambers of mines urged the government to enforce labour legislation more rigorously. They did not consider that new legislation was necessary;7%7 but the Medical Director con-

sidered that new minimum standards of feeding and housing were required, and the administration responded to new pressures by introducing the Mines and Minerals Ordinances of 1907 and 1908.

The gradual enforcement of the 1908 legislation did produce an overall reduction in the death rate in the compounds; but deaths from scurvy and pneumonia remained high. Meanwhile, competition for labour within the regional economic system also remained at a high level. In October 1909 Nyasaland planters held the biggest-ever settler meeting in the colony and demanded that all recruiting for Southern Rhodesia be stopped;?* and their administration’ responded by passing the Employment of Natives Ordinance, which attempted to halt the southwards flow of labour to the mines.?*® By 1912-13 the settler farming population of Northern Rhodesia was exercising similar pressure to protect its labour supplies from the ravenous demands of the south.?*° A senior official from the Nyasaland Native Affairs Department again visited Rhodesia to probe compound conditions in 1910,?** and in 1913 officials from Northern Rhodesia were involved in an enquiry into the

death rate of workers drawn from their territory.?*? } Step by step the B.s.A.co adjusted to these continued threats and pressures. In 1910 a committee appointed to examine scurvy and pneumonia deaths found the 1908 legislation on feeding and accommodation Conditions in the Mine Compounds / 65

to be inadequate, and further regulations were promulgated in 1911 and 1912. The 1913 enquiry into the death rate of workers from Northern Rhodesia contributed to the promulgation of Government Notice Number 447 of 1914, which enforced fortnightly medical inspections in the

compounds and made legal provision for one rest day in seven for black miners. By the end of the reconstruction period most of the basic legislation which protected the welfare of compound inhabitants had

been passed. Legislation on food and housing remained unamended throughout the rest of the period under review, and compensation rates received minor adjustments in 1922 and 1930. There are two particularly striking features about the passage of

labour legislation in Rhodesia during this time. The first is that it was competition for labour supplies within the regional economic system that helped trigger the legislative mechanisms for the reform of con-

ditions in the compounds. The plantation economies of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland could not offer Africans wages to compete with the more developed southern mining economies;?** so the weaker northern administrations used the excuse of the high death rate in the

southern mining economies to protect their own labour supplies and reduce migration to Rhodesia and South Africa. It was in order to counteract these pressures and guarantee their own expanding labour requirements that the B.s.A.co promulgated legislation which would ultimately produce a reduction in the death rates in the mines. It is of considerable significance that the bulk of Rhodesian legislation affecting conditions in the compounds was passed during the years when labour was in shortest supply; after 1914 when there was a rapid expansion in ‘voluntary’ G.e. non-R.N.L.B.) labour?** few new demands were made of the mining companies. The second feature is that the B.s.A.co administration was able so

to stagger improvements that they kept closely in harmony with the emerging profitability of the mining industry during reconstruction. Thus the Medical Director geared the food rations to what he considered to be the capacity of the industry to sustain expenditure; and the Secretary for Mines refused to consider compensation for disease since it would cause ‘hardship’ to the mining companies. The B.S.A.co was only willing to legislate for reform in the compounds to an extent which did not jeopardise the profits of the mining industry. Thus when

at the end of the reconstruction period, the B.S.A.co was becoming alarmed at the costs of the reforms initiated between 1908 and 1912, the Secretary for Mines opposed the introduction of a compulsory rest

day for black miners, and warned his fellow executive officers in Rhodesia in 1914 that ‘we must be careful or we will shut down the 66 { Chibaro

mining industry altogether.‘ In the boardroom of the Chartered Company in London this message was clearly understood, and when the

Colonial Office looked for further reforms in the same year, the Secretary to the B.s.A.Co spelt out the message to Whitehall as well

Sir William Milton adds that the mining industry has been pushed somewhat strenuously lately by administrative action of various kinds,

and that he deprecates further steps in this direction at the present moment,?46

With a declining death rate and expanding labour supplies after reconstruction, a more suitable ‘moment’ for further reform never occurred between 1914 and 1933.

The basic function of labour legislation was to reduce the death rate to a level where it would not jeopardise labour supplies, without threatening the profitability of the industry by requiring an unacceptably high level of indirect expenditure on compound inhabitants. Administering these laws required officials who could negotiate with employers and balance the delicate requirements of profits and protection. In the first instance, this task fell to the compound inspectors. The first compound inspectors were appointed in 1900 when the

mining industry and the B.s.A.co hoped to obtain indentured Indian labour for the mines. These inspectors, attached to the department of Native Affairs, had no legal powers and could make little contribution towards improving conditions for black workers. At the start of the programme of reconstruction, however, they did receive minor powers, and by 1903 the Administrator, anxious to attract labour, gave a glowing account of the situation: At every centre where mining operations are carried on the Administration has Officers, with all necessary powers, civil, police and judicial. Labourers’ compounds at all working mines are systematically and regularly inspected by Government Officers appointed for the purpose and no opportunity is lost of endeavouring to ascertain and provide for the wants of the labourers.247

In practice most opportunities were lost.

As the magnitude of the death rate became apparent to other northern administrations in 1907-08, so too it became clear that the numbers and powers of the inspectors would have to be increased; and the Mines and Minerals Ordinance of 1907 made provision for this. Even wider powers were granted to compound inspectors by Government Notice number 85 of 1909, but the death rates still remained too high. The 1910 enquiry into scurvy and pneumonia suggested that the inspectors would make a more substantial contribution to the reduction Conditions in the Mine Compounds / 67

of the death rate if they were placed under the control of the medical department rather than the department of mines. This move still did not produce satisfaction, and the 1910-11 Native Affairs Committee of Enquiry complained again of the powerlessness of compound inspectors.?*8 Finally the Native Labour Regulations Ordinance of 1911 once more slightly increased the powers of the compound inspectors. By the end of the reconstruction period in 1912, the inspection staff consisted of a medical inspector, five full-time and one part-time compound inspectors. As the death rate slowly declined to the point where it was considered ‘normal’ for the industry in 1925, so the number of compound inspectors declined. The full-time staff of six that protected the interests of 34,000 black workers in 1912 had been re-

duced to two by 1926, although the labour force had increased to 41,000. By 1931 when the onset of the depression increased the labour supply, there was only one full-time compound inspector to protect the

interests of 35,000 workers.?*°

The task of the relatively small staff of inspectors was not made easier by the great distances they had to cover. In 1907 a single division could be as large as 300 square miles and had to be covered by mule transport. Even at times when staff numbers were at their greatest, inspectors openly acknowledged that distance prevented them from visiting all the compounds in their division.?°° The inspectorate never had the staff to enable constant and systematic supervision, and once the death rate had dropped to a point where labour supplies were no longer seriously threatened the decline was rapid. By 1917, the system was working retrospectively — that is, in many cases mines were inspected only once there had already been a sharp increase in mortality rates :?°*

while there were sufficient numbers of workers migrating to the Rhodesian mines, prevention was not considered to be better than cure. Distances and shortages of staff were not the only deficiencies in the system. Many of the men appointed compound inspectors seem to have been of doubtful calibre. When the system was at its most devel-

oped in 1913, the Medical Director admitted that ‘it has weaknesses more especially as regards the personality and general proficiency of the Compound Inspectors.’*°? Long periods away from home and low salaries did not make compound inspecting an attractive career, and in later years inspectors were simply seconded to the department for two year periods of service. The compound inspectors’ task — trying to protect the interests of black workers without hazarding the profits of white employers — was a difficult one, and it is small wonder that the office attracted the hostility

and suspicion of both parties. Black miners could not have been too 68 / Chibaro

enthusiastic about confiding in inspectors who would sometimes use their messengers to arrest deserters,?5* or who could not speak to them in their own language.?°* And when after 1911 inspectors could fine workers for breaches of discipline,?*> sometimes doubled as tax collectors,?°* or at other times turned out to be policemen appointed as acting compound inspectors,”°>’ trust was further eroded.

For their part, employers were often less than keen to show inspectors around the compound. One compound inspector for instance noted that ‘a little passive resistance has been shown here and there where expenditure has been involved, as was to be expected of business men.’°® Mine owners also used their considerable authority over their

black workers to ensure that they did not complain. At Wankie, the , management fired any black miners who complained to the inspectors,?°® and at many other mines workers were afraid to complain for fear of retaliation.?* The extent of white managerial power, the legal powerlessness of compound inspectors, and the desire of the administration to protect the industry meant that in practice the interests of the mine owners usually took precedence over those of the workers.

The task of the compound inspector was almost always that of exhorting reluctant managers to improve the conditions of their black workers — a task of ‘moral suasion’ as a committee of enquiry put it in 1910.76? The unwritten law of inspection was that the regulations must only be enforced after the profitability and capitalisation of the mine had been carefully considered.*? Thus it was by no means uncommon

for a compound inspector to report that ‘funds were decidedly short and I could not see my way clear to enforce the regulations until matters

improve.’ Even if mines were profitable inspectors were usually able to do no more than make verbal requests for change. When the death rate at particular mines reached ‘unacceptable’ levels, more senior administration officials would put pressure on the mine owner. If all else failed, labour supplies drawn from the R.N.L.B. could be withheld from the mines, but this was only reluctantly agreed to by the administration, particularly if the mine happened to be one of the largest producers in the colony.?** The more junior officers simply had to continue to rely on ‘moral suasion’, or if pushed to settle matters in what they realised was an ‘extra judicial’ manner.?** Not until all other avenues had been explored unsuccessfully could a compound inspector push for a prosecution — and even then not always successfully.

Appeals for prosecutions were never readily agreed to by senior officers of the B.s.A.co, and this was particularly so in the years when Conditions in the Mine Compounds / 69

compound inspectors were under the control of the Secretary for Mines

— the years before 1910 when the death rate was at its highest. The Medical Director looked back and explained: It was the practice formerly I know to refer all proposed prosecutions first to the Secretary for Mines, the consequence being that the Secretary for Mines was more or less an adjudicator on the regulations, and when a prosecution was threatened he was at once bombarded with letters of explanation and promises of reform from the mine authorities — explanations and promises which rightly should have been offered to a magistrate — the result being that hardly any prosecutions were instituted, and the proper administration of the regulations was practically a dead letter.2#6

Even well into the 1920s, however, the decision on whether or not to prosecute a mine owner for a breach of the labour regulations could take as long as nine months.?®

The attitude of the mine owners and courts can be illustrated from their approach to the issue of workers’ wages. From the very earliest years of the industry it was not uncommon for mine owners, especially small workers whose ventures were speculative, to withhold part or all of their black workers’ wages. ‘In effect an employer paid his

boys if his enterprise turned out profitable, and in the contrary event the boys got nothing.”®* With the proliferation of small under-capitalised mines during periods when the price of gold rose there were a con-

siderable number of cases of non-payment of wages every year: the practice was widespread enough for it to form a constant public scandal

in the more sophisticated parts of settler society. The Chief Native Commissioner drew attention to it in his annual published reports of. 1914, 1915, 1922 and 1934; in 1914 it was the subject of an entire edi-

torial in the Rhodesia Herald, and in 1926 it warranted a full scale debate in the Legislative Assembly. Before the Native Labour Regulations Amendment Ordinance of 1915, the courts offered no legal machinery through which black miners could make preferential claims on the estate of an insolvent mine owner. Thereafter, black workers with sufficient legal insight, confidence and

cash could engage a solicitor to sue for the wages due to them; but in practice there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that black workers

benefited from this possibility on a meaningful scale. | Since compound inspectors spent much of their time in attempting to reach settlements out of court, cases involving the withholding of wages were frequently not heard by magistrates at all.2°° For black workers this was not necessarily unfortunate, since magistrates were extremely reluctant to pass sentences on mine owners anyway: it was common practice for magistrates to postpone sentencing until the em70 { Chibaro

ployer had been given time in which to pay his workers.?”° And since the initiation of prosecution itself was subject to lengthy delays, workers could wait as long as two years to recover wages due to them.?”1

When sentences were passed they were frequently lenient. Fines in 1914-15 ranged from five shillings to two pounds, and they were no heavier in later years. When in 1923 the owner of the Atlanta mine was finally prosecuted after a nine-month delay for owing wages of between £3 and £8 totalling over £1,000, he was fined 2s on each of 122 counts or sentenced to a total of 14 days with hard labour.?”* The lenient sentencing by magistrates was recognised by the government, which was of the opinion that it could not ‘force the Magistrates to administer the law by departmental decree .. .”27°

The same story was to be found in cases where diet regulations had been contravened. Compound inspectors would first issue a series of warnings; the administration would then reluctantly consider prosecution, and finally the magistrate would pass a lenient sentence. During the same year that a commission was investigating the high death rate from scurvy, a mine manager whose workers had developed the disease was fined £5. “The Magistrate in his summing up took into con-

sideration that the natives themselves did not complain and that they acknowledged that a diet of mealie meal was adequate.’’* Five years later, in 1915, a manager who for three months had Kept his workers on a diet of mealie meal and salt also warranted a fine of only £5.?7° Indeed, mine owners who were fined £5 had reason to feel mildly dissatisfied since smaller fines of 10s were by no means uncommon,?”¢ and the manager of the Bilah mine in 1913 had come to terms with justice by paying a fine of 1s,.?7?

Legislation designed around the minimum standards to maintain health, the inadequacies of the system of compound inspection, and the lenient sentencing of magistrates, thus made possible the most brutal

exploitation of black workers. When a serious outbreak of disease swept through the compound at Wankie colliery in 1918, the Medical Director correctly suggested that ‘the failures here are the failures of the system rather than of the individual.’*7* Only two years earlier at the Gondia mine, the failings of the system had also shown themselves. The Gondia mine, a small copper mine which employed about 150 black miners, was opened in the Sinoia district in 1913. It had an adequate supply of fresh water which made possible a mine garden, and fresh vegetables could also be purchased from Indian traders in the vicinity of the mine.?”? The health returns submitted by the mine authorities to the inspector of compounds office revealed no need for regular inspection, and until May 1916 the compound was never inspected. Conditions in the Mine Compounds / 71

Nothing serious was revealed by the May 1916 visit, but in August of the same year seven of the mine’s black workers employed through the R.N.L.B. suffered so seriously from scurvy that they had to be repatriated.?®° This drew the attention of the administration, and a

compound inspector was again sent to visit the mine. Amongst the compound inhabitants he found clear signs of scurvy, and he issued a warning to the management. The compound inspector further noted the

sporadic nature of the meat ration, but dismissed a complaint by the workers of an inadequate diet of mealie meal as being ‘frivolous’.28* A month later, however, the R.N.L.B. made the less frivolous discovery that

the Gondia mine had had 20 deaths since February, and it decided to discontinue labour supplies to the mine. Neglect on this scale was worthy of prosecution, and on the 9th February 1917 the manager and a white miner in charge of a charcoal contract appeared in the Sinoia magistrates court. By this time over a dozen more workers had died and others were carried into the court on stretchers in order to give their evidence.?*? The magistrate sentenced the accused, Morris and Anderson, to the maximum fine permissible under the regulations — £35 — despite the fact that there was much public sympathy for the two men.?** Morris and Anderson appealed but Senior Judge Hopley in confirming their sentence stated: The most cruel neglect and mismanagement has taken place. Over a dozen wretched natives have died and others have apparently lost their health. No help was afforded to the poor wretches, no medical assistance or comforts or even decent diet, as far as I can see to save expense, to

avoid spending a few hundred pounds; and the perpetrators of these things escape with a fine of £35 in all.284

The apparent inadequacies of the system were pointed out by Hopley to the Administrator, Chaplin, who then ordered an enquiry into the affair by the Chief Magistrate of Salisbury, E.A.L.Brailsford. He found that responsibility lay with the compound inspection system as run by the Department of Public Health.?*> But neither Chaplin nor the Attorney General were of the opinion that the legislation was in-

adequate for its purpose, and they informed the B.s.4.co in London accordingly.?** Chaplin took the view that the case was ‘exceptional’, and further told the representative of the British government in Salisbury

that I do not consider that the circumstances in connection with this case indicate that the present system is at fault either as regards the adequacy of inspections or the number of inspectors employed.?8?

The system thus continued to operate as before: the number of inspec-

tors continued to drop, legislation remained unamended and in the 72, | Chibaro

years after 1917 there were still hundreds of scurvy cases annually and scores of deaths from the disease. In the very real sense that the system was designed to keep indirect expenditure on African workers to a minimum, and reduce deaths to a ‘tolerable’ limit, Chaplin was correct in

his contention that it was ‘adequate’. . What is more, the Rhodesian mining industry, like other industrialising systems, appeared to see its treatment of its employees in an entirely benevolent light, developing ‘entrepreneurial’ and ‘managerial’ ideologies to justify the conditions in the compounds. Thus despite the appalling conditions in the compounds during the early years before 1912 and the gross inadequacies in later years up to 1933, mine owners would emphasise the ‘benefits’ they gave to black workers in the form of food, housing and hospital treatment. This favourite myth was articulated thus by the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines: ‘the food and accommodation provided [at the mines] is vastly better than the natives have been accustomed to at their own kraals.’?®* This, the board-andlodging myth, was also often used to rationalise the low wages paid to black workers, and the Secretary of the B.s.A.co believed in 1900 that ‘current wages paid to natives in Rhodesia, with food and medical care provided, compare favourably with European standards.’?*°

Conditions in the Mine Compounds / 73

3. Labour Mobilisation in a Colonial Political Economy Part 1 The Dominance of Forced Labour 1900-1912 I do not believe in individual authority, that is to say, not anything approaching slavery; but I certainly think to be slaves of the State, if you will allow the term, is the best thing for the development of the black races of Rhodesia. — Rhodesian mine owner in evidence to the South African Native Affairs Commission of 1903-05.

It is already clear that the Rhodesian mining industry was confronted with serious problems in attempting to meet its most basic requirement — a large supply of cheap labour. In the most general terms

possible these problems derived from the functioning of the industry itself, from economic conditions within Rhodesia, and the situation of the colony’s premier industry within a regional economic system that embraced southern Africa. The limitations of the industry produced features which, prima facie, were incapable of attracting labour. The curtailment of indirect expenditure made for miserable conditions in the compounds, and Africans were aware of these, and took steps to avoid them if possible. In addition, cash wages declined steadily after the start of reconstruc-

tion in 1903, and this can have made no contribution to attracting African labour. Sunilarly, there were impediments to the mobilisation of cheap labour which flowed from economic circumstances within the colony.

The most obvious of these was the inability of the industry to get a supply of local labour as long as the indigenous peasantry sold large quantities of produce to the mine compounds, and thus had a relatively independent source of cash income. This paradox of development was at its most marked between 1900 and 1912 — that is at exactly the period when the need for cheap labour in the industry was at its greatest. In addition to these problems, the industry was confronted with the fact that it was forced to operate within a regional economic system

dominated by a larger, more profitable and more powerful industry. With the exception of the three years between 1899 and 1901, when production on the Witwatersrand gold mines was severely disrupted 74 / Chibaro

by the South African War, Rhodesian mines were consistently faced with competition from mines in the Transvaal, which could not only hold out relatively more attractive labour conditions but which could also offer higher cash wages. The Rhodesian industry was thus faced with the task first of procuring workers at lower wages, and then of re-

south. :

taining the services of men who were constantly tempted to move The Speculative Era 1898-1903

The period after the African revolt of 1896-97 and before the collapse of the London market for Rhodesian mining stock in April 1903 represents a particularly complex half-decade in the history of the industry. From the heady speculative boom of 1895 the fortunes of the industry and the B.s.A.co had slumped to a state of depression by 1898:

what the industry required to demonstrate above all in the years immediately following was solid development work in the mines themselves, rather than partially satisfactory returns from rent, trading or property speculation. ‘Tangible progress in mining, however, required the services of an increasing number of semi-skilled and unskilled black workers. This requirement was particularly difficult to meet at a time when the local peasantry was benefiting from increased cash earnings derived from the

sale of agricultural produce to the new markets in the colony. The resultant shortage of labour in the face of the need for rapid development produced consistent upward pressure on African wages between 1898 and 1903.1 The cash to pay for this increasing wage bill had to be raised on the London market through the largely speculative mining companies. The Rhodesian Land and Mine Owners’ Association was

aware of the trend in African wages and its cause: 7 In fact the constant insufficiency [of black workers] at the mines has caused a natural, but, from some points of view regrettable, competition for their services. If one mine invents some special inducement, others on learning it are bound to follow. Rates of wages have thus gradually increased... .?

Yet although the industry was dominated by speculative capital, the five-year period also saw the gradual realisation that Rhodesia did not constitute the ‘Second Rand’. From 1901 onwards in particular,

mine managers came to perceive the need for a more realistic cost structure aligned with yields from low-grade ore mining. Central to this objective was the need not merely to hold African wages, but to reduce them. Thus, between 1899 and 1902, sections of the industry and the B.S.A.CO made progressively more determined bids to control ‘market Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 75

forces’, although, because of the need to demonstrate development to the London market and the shortage of labour, these efforts were largely unsuccessful.®

From the growing realisation of the limited. profitability of the Rhodesian mines, the lack of success in effecting wage reductions and the continued shortage of cheap local labour there grew more radical attempts to meet the labour requirements of the industry. These were directed at the importation of cheaper immigrant labour either from abroad, or from the perimeters of the regional economic system where the peasantry did not have a growing cash income. Such cheap immigrant labour would achieve the dual objective of reducing costs through under-cutting the relatively expensive local labour, and bridging the labour needs of the industry during a period when it lacked an indigen-

ous proletariat. |

From a complex web of pragmatism and planning, policy and practice, there evolved two broad ‘schemes’ for the mobilisation of cheap labour which mine owners thought would solve the labour needs of the industry between 1898 and 1903. The plans were by no means mutually exclusive and it was certainly possible for elements of the two to co-exist, but in general they tended to be distinct. On the one hand there were those in the industry who favoured the establishment of a stabilised African labour force resident on the mines with their wives and children — this might be termed the ‘proletarian school’. On the other hand, and opposed to this, was a second group of mining indus-

trialists who wanted single men to be employed on a contract basis, while still attached to families in the rural areas — the ‘migrant school’.

Rhodes, who had been responsible for the introduction of the Mfengu community of South Africa into the colony after the revolt, had modelled his agreement with them on the Glen-Grey Act of the Cape,* hoping that this would increase the supply of labour for the mines — but his hope was largely disappointed. In the wake of Rhodes’ initial plan

for the Mfengu he had hoped that the Mfengu would either work in the mines themselves or that they would ‘take the place of natives [local

Africans] who would be free to work on the mines’,> members of the ‘migrant school’ pressed for the introduction of a Glen-Grey-type act in Rhodesia, and between 1900 and.1901, prominent mining men of the day, such as Colonel Heyman and Major Heany, pressed for legislation, supplemented with increased taxation, to supply more local migrant labour.®

At the same time, other mining men elsewhere in the colony were

pressing for a more stabilised labour force.? In November 1900 the Salisbury Chamber of Mines by a unanimous resolution considered the 76 | Chibaro

possibility of ‘not only introducing natives themselves for the purposes of working on the mines but their wives and children, so as to induce them to settle in the country permanently.’”® The ‘proletarian school’ was thus not without a significant number of supporters. While the profitability of the industry had yet to be determined with certainty, and while labour was in short supply, both parties continued to advocate their own solutions. The most serious and public conflict occurred at the Rhodesian

Chamber of Mines annual meeting in 1902, which was attended by members of both schools of thought. The retiring President of the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines, Phillip Wrey, used his presidential address to elaborate on a lengthy and complex scheme which would provide a resident and stabilised labour force of Africans on the mines. His scheme would create a massive co-operative farming scheme owned by the mines, designed to undercut the growing number of peasant pro-

ducers and reduce food costs through the elimination of the middle man. This was to be supplemented by a system of night schools on the mines and the provision of land for African families to settle there.°® Although Wrey’s schemes were complicated and unlikely to produce a fully developed proletariat in the form he advocated, they aroused

the antagonism of members of the ‘migrant school’. | Since Wrey’s address formed part of the annual report it required seconding by another member of the meeting — in this case C.T. Holland. Normally this procedure was a formality, but Holland took the opportunity to ‘record his emphatic protest at these views.’!° Colonel Heyman, a more prominent member of the ‘migrant school’ and keen supporter of a Glen-Grey act, also made his protest known publicly.11 And nor

did the matter end there: a

At a meeting of the Executive Committee held shortly after the annual - meeting, the views expressed by Mr Wrey on the native question in his Presidential address were unanimously condemned as not representing the opinion of the executive .. .12

The executive took the further precaution of demanding to see future presidential addresses in advance, and Wrey resigned from his newlyelected position as Vice President of the Chamber. While the merits, problems and prospects of the different methods

of labour mobilisation were being debated throughout Rhodesia the industry continued to function, albeit in a spasmodic fashion.* In practice, the labour needs of the mines were being met in a variety of ways, some at least of which drew on elements of the plans of both the ‘proletarian’ and ‘migrant’ schools of thought. While these practical acLabour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 77

tivities were not consciously derived from the long-term plans of either school — indeed many of them were pragmatic responses to a condition of urgency — they contained within them features of labour mobilisation which were to become permanent characteristics of the mining industry in later years.

One source of unskilled labour for the mines between 1899 and 1901 was the Labour Board of Southern Rhodesia. Formed in 1899 with the assistance of the B.s.A.co, the Labour Board helped supply the needs of the mines at a particularly difficult time. The Bulawayo branch

of the Board, for example, supplied Matabeleland mines with over 6,000 workers in the last six months of 1899. These supplies, although fluctuating seasonally, and unreliable in the quality of worker they pro-

vided, did assist in keeping mines with the most acute shortages in production.

In general, however, the Labour Board of Southern Rhodesia proved to be only a partial success since it was confronted with a num-

ber of difficulties, one of the most serious of which was the almost universal tendency of its workers to desert. Of the 8,429 workers ‘engaged’ by the Board in Matabeleland between October 1900 and March 1901, 2,160 deserted — a figure which reflected the fact that much of the labour recruited within the country was forced."* Since mine managers

were not exempted from paying capitation fees on workers who deserted, the Board was a last resort for those employers who were short of labour, and less than popular with members of the industry. The management at the Surprise mine explained why it was reluctant to pay capitation fees due to the Board: of the total boys despatched from Bulawayo, 22.8% deserted before reaching the mine. Of those who duly arrived 66.6% deserted before working an average of 14 days. Of the small balance left, 40% are in hospital sick.14

* ‘The argument of the thinking man in the City is this: “You have in Rhodesia say ten mines trying to produce gold and pay dividends. Notwithstanding the great sacrifices made by the various development or non-producing companies not one of these ten milling companies has been able to run for twelve months without having to hang up the whole or some part of their stamps for want of labour to keep the mill going, and development ahead of the mill. ... show me that the labour can be obtained and then we will see about the capital.” ’ Rhodesian Times, 15 March 1901. For an even more specific statement of the labour needs of a producing mine, see P.R.0., c.0.417/387, ‘Memorandum by the Council of the Rhodesian Land and Mine Owners’ Association on Labour for Rhodesia’, 25 November 1903.

78 / Chibaro

Other workers whom the Board had managed to recruit without force also tended to desert, since they were paid less than ‘independent’ (i.e.

non-recruited) labour.?> This lower wage rate for Board workers stemmed from the policy of mine managers to try to recoup the initial

miner. —

capital outlay on a capitation fee from the earnings of the African

Besides desertion, there were other problems which hampered the functioning of the Labour Board. The Board’s supply of African labour was seasonal, and this, coupled with managerial reluctance to employ potential deserters, meant that it occasionally had large numbers of its men unemployed.** Further, in its attempts to find workers less prone

to desertion, the Board had to look for labour further afield and this was not only an expensive procedure, but not always a solution; for workers drawn from South Africa, where Africans were paid relatively more, also refused to accept Rhodesian wage rates and deserted.*”

Perhaps the most serious difficulty to face the branches of the Labour Board in Salisbury and Rhodesia, however, was provincial rivalry for labour supplies.1® While the northern province of Mashona-

land, with its generally less well capitalised, smaller companies, had access to the numerically preponderant Shona communities, the larger and wealthier Matabeleland companies had to make do with the smaller Ndebele communities. In practice this meant that there were relatively higher wages in Matabeleland and this ensured a general southward movement of African labour. Under normal circumstances the Mashonaland mining industry actually benefited from this southward flow of labour in the regional economic system. In 1899 the Mashonaland industry pointed out to the Administrator of Matabeleland that: As regards outside supplies Mashonaland is also better situated, the _ whole of the Trans-Zambesi supplies in coming South to Matabeleland having to pass through Mashonaland. In the same way Natives coming from Portuguese territory would have to pass through Mashonaland on

the route to the South West Province.19 :

So neither its access to the larger number of Africans resident in the province, nor its abundance of passing migrant labour presented the Mashonaland industry with an overt stimulus for co-operation with the Matabeleland industry. Instead, mutual resentment grew as the Matabeleland (Bulawayo) branch of the Labour Board made greater demands on labour supplies which were largely drawn from the northern province.”° The situation led to ‘animosity and bitterness”! between the provinces and by June 1901 the Board was forced to split on a provLabour Mobilisation: Part 1 /-79

incial basis.?* For this and other reasons, the Board was disbanded in October of 1901. Even though the Labour Board of Rhodesia had supplied the in-

dustry to the best of its abilities, the never-ending demand for cheap black labour to replace the deserters seemed insatiable, and the activities of the Board, which virtually relied on forced labour, had to be supplemented by other means.

In the country districts of Mashonaland native commissioners, with the aid of their ‘native messengers’, forced Africans to undertake work in the mining industry.?* To ensure that the reluctant workers stayed in the mine compounds, the Chief Native Commissioner authorised government ‘native police’ to live there and prevent desertions.** This ‘collection of labour’, as the euphemism of the day had it, yielded quantities of labour far greater than the capacity of the Labour Board, and since it did not involve the expense of a capitation fee it was more popular with mine managers. While in the twelve months before 1901 the Labour Board in Mashonaland ‘engaged’ 2,000 workers, the native commissioners in the same period sent 29,000 Africans to work on the

mines.?® Here too, however, the major disadvantage of the system proved to be the high number of desertions at a time when the industry lacked the ‘benefits’ of the pass system. This system of forced labour yielded large quantities of unskilled labour between 1898 and October

of 1901 before the Secretary of State for the Colonies put a stop to the practice by ordering that native commissioners should be neither

directly nor indirectly involved in labour recruitment.*¢ | Forced labour, supplied either through the native commissioners

or the Labour Board, was wasteful. Members of the industry were aware of this and pointed to the absence of a Pass Law to control desertions;?? as early as 1899 a prospective member of the legislative

council had urged that it be ‘a crime for any nigger to be without a certificate, and the punishment would be three months work at the mines free.’?® When the Secretary of State ended the supplying of forced

labour by the native commissioners in 1901, and losses of unskilled labour through desertion could no longer be simply replaced by new supplies from the rural areas, the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines drafted a Pass Law for the administration.*® This came into effect in 1902 and did much to prevent desertions and control the flow of unskilled labour

after 1904.2° Until the introduction of the Pass Law, however, large mines involved in spasmodic production between 1898 and 1902 were forced by mass-scale desertions to look beyond the confines of the regional economic system for labour supplies.

80 / Chibaro |

Late in 1900, the Labour Board engaged the services of a labour recruiter whom they sent to the Red Sea area to report on the possibility of recruiting labour, and early in 1901 a party of labourers comprising Abyssinians, Somalis, Arabs, Shamis, and Indians was illegally shipped from Djibouti to Beira in Mozambique. It soon became clear however that the workers were displaying a more independent spirit than had been expected, and when the labourers arrived in Salisbury and were faced with the poor accommodation and inadequate food of the day, a hundred workers promptly deserted and others created ‘a disturbance’.*1 On their way to the mine — Bonsor, one of the most unpopular in Rhodesia*? — some of the Somali workers

decided to do as hundreds of Africans bound for the Bonsor before them had done, and deserted.** The remainder of the group refused to consider underground work at the mine, which probably had the worst accident rate in the country, and were sent to work on road construction. Here too they were considered ‘unsuitable’ — not only because it was claimed that they did less work than local Africans but because they showed ‘little or no respect for white gangers’.**

The experiment was not entirely a failure, however, either from the point of view of the industry, or from that of some of the specially recruited workers. Some of those who deserted made their way back to Aden where they spread tales about the Rhodesian mines, which bedevilled later B.s.A.co attempts to recruit labour there. Of the Somalis, at least one, and perhaps more, went into business in-Rhodesia.*® For the mining industry better news came from the Surprise mine where a mixed group of Arabs, Abyssinians and Somalis had been sent. While the Somalis were considered ‘useless’, the Abyssinians were more promising and of the Arabs 61 per cent were working underground and appeared “to make good mine boys, the majority proving almost equal to Shangaans in the daily footage drilled."** The manager thus felt that, despite the fect that their food cost twice as much as ‘native food’, they could be of considerable use to the industry as semi-skilled workers. It

was largely on the basis of this report that other mines, particularly those with poor labour records, were willing to consider the further indenturing of Arab workers: notably the top five in the unpopularity poll for local labour - the Globe & Phoenix, Beatrice, Surprise, Ayrshire and Bonsor mines.37 The first of two further groups of Arabs recruited by the B.s.A.co accordingly arrived at the Globe & Phoenix mine in late October 1901.

No sooner had they arrived, however, than they decided to refuse to undertake underground work and.to demand better food rations — demands which simply mirrored African grievances on the mine at the Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 81

same time. The manager of the mine, Piper, felt that ‘force [was] the only thing possible’,** but to the annoyance of the administration and mine management alike it was found that the imported Arab workers were not covered by the Masters and Servants Ordinance and thus, un-

like African workers, their breach of contract did not constitute a criminal offence,®* and the authorities were left only with the possibility

of instituting civil action for damages against them. The Arabs demonstrated remarkable cohesion in their collective bargaining, and two weeks after their arrival at the mine were still showing a united front in their demands for wages, suitable surface work, and rations that included meat daily, coffee, sugar and tobacco. By the 12 November only four Arabs were working underground and others had started to desert from the mine. The experiment was obviously less than successful and the remaining workers were put to work on railway construction — work which many of them also refused to undertake and which led to even more desertions.*°

Arabs in Aden, meanwhile, were proving most reluctant to consider work in Rhodesia after what they had heard from deserters from the earlier parties, and those that did agree to go went ‘with the feeling that they can die but once and that they were in Allah’s hands.’**

Once at the Rhodesian mines, however, the members of the second group too showed less resignation to their fate and they did not leave all the bargaining that needed to be done to Allah. Of those sent to the Ayrshire mine over 40 per cent refused to consider underground work, and when those workers who were sent to the Beatrice mine did not receive the meat ration they felt entitled to, 21 promptly deserted.*? Despite the harsh sentences imposed by the courts,** the Arab workers continued to desert, and untrammelled by the operation of a Pass Law, at least some of the deserters did as many Africans had done before them, and bargained for more favourable conditions of employment at other mines.** With the failure of the experiment with Arab labour, the majority of the workers were sent back to Aden. The experiences with the Arabs demonstrate several special features of the mining industry during the pre-reconstruction period. First, they reveal certain legal loopholes in the system which the administration of the time was quick to recognise: not only were the foreign workers exempt from the controls of the Masters and Servants Ordi-

nance, but the desertion of the Arab workers vividly illustrated the need for a Pass Law which could restrict the bargaining power of a labour force that was too mobile. Second, the experiment demonstrated some of the limitations of a recruitment system which offered the lowest possible wages — limi82 / Chibaro

tations which were to manifest themselves again in the operation of the Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau over the succeeding years. Without compulsion, such a system was capable of attracting only the very poor,

the weak and the starving — many of the workers recruited in Aden came from an area where locusts had destroyed crops and where there was famine;** and, hardly surprisingly, some of them were reported to be less interested in the money to be made from underground work than in having sufficient to eat,** while others were considered to be ‘physically incapable of doing the work’.*” Third, the grievances so clearly and persistently articulated by the

Arab and Somali workers mirrored the most serious inadequacies in mine conditions of the period. By far the most common problems with the imported workers was their insistence that standards of food and accommodation were inadequate.

Fourth, the attempt to use Arab labour demonstrated a serious misperception on the part of the industry. Hugh Marshall Hole, the B.S.A.CO agent sent to Aden, put it well when he wrote to Milton stating

that ‘it will be many years before the average South African miner can be educated to regard the Arabs as something different from the ordinary kaffer.’*® Mine managers, in other words, could not cope with the defiance and resistance shown by workers who had not directly experienced the traumatic effect of colonialism in south-central Africa. On all the mines the ‘insolence’ and ‘insubordination’ of the Arabs proved too difficult for white miners who were used to handling African labour

whose experience had bred a healthy fear of, and respect for, their power.

In other attempts to solve the unskilled labour problem during the uncertain years of the speculative period, members of the mining in-

dustry flirted at different times with ideas of obtaining West Indian, English, Italian, Indian or Chinese labour. Most of these schemes were discounted either because of the costs involved or because it was felt that it would be impossible to prevent a European working class from organising in the midst of colonised black people;** so only the non-European groups such as the Indian and Chinese were seriously considered.

Many supported the idea of introducing Chinese labour, though some misgivings were expressed as to whether the Chinese would take any more readily than the Somalis and Arabs to being ordered about by white miners.5° As Major Maurice Heany, one of the leading advocates of Chinese labour, made clear: The Chinaman, if he comes, must come as a hewer of wood and drawer

Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 83

of water — as nearly a beast of burden as is possible to make the human animal into — and when his task is done he must go.51

Other interests, however did not want the ‘Chinaman’ to come at all. Merchants and traders believed that they would not get sufficient access to the workers housed in the proposed closed compounds, that the Chinese would eventually set up in trade in opposition to them, or that they would form a less lucrative market than African workers who spent their money within the country. Even stronger and more influential opposition came from within the chartered company itself, when Rhodes personally informed the directors of the B.s.A.co that, except as a very last resort, he was opposed to the idea.*?

Faced with these reservations inside and outside the company,

the administration made few practical attempts to implement the scheme. By 1903 indeed the Administrator hoped that a more subtle variation of it would solve the problem: he reasoned that if Chinese labour was procured by the larger and more powerful Transvaal mining industry, as was being proposed at the time, this would relieve pressure on labour supplies within the regional economic system and leave more Africans available for Rhodesian mines.** The hopes that still lingered in the industry for the introduction of Chinese labour must have been finally dispelled by 1904 when Val Gielgud of the R.N.L.B, visited the Rand. He found that the costs would be prohibitive to Rhodesia, since One Chinaman for three years costs about £25 to land and return to his own country including the cost of equipping compounds for him on the mine, while one native costs £5 a year to obtain on the mines.54

The Rhodesian Land and Mine Owners’ Association and the Rhodesian administration now began to consider another source of

cheap, unskilled, non-European labour — India.™ | But this idea too was doomed, for during the first few years of the twentieth century the Indian Government was far more resistant than it had been in the nineteenth to allowing indentured labour to leave the country and work in settler-dominated societies. In 1902 Lord Curzon and his colleagues had opposed the idea that Indian workers should be allowed to emigrate to German East Africa, and in 1903 he turned down the Rhodesian request too. Curzon’s decision showed insight into the nature of labour con-

trol and discipline in settler economies and an awareness of the fact that Asian workers would not be able to avoid the privations of class, particularly in a country where class and colour overlapped. In reject84 / Chibaro

ing the request he specifically drew attention to a paragraph in a previous despatch which he felt was of particular relevance to the territory under the control of the B.s.A.co: The pioneers of colonial enterprises are naturally and necessarily master-

ful men — not very squeamish or tender hearted: it is probable that

for the control of Africans sterner measures than are needed for Indians are absolutely necessary; and there is always a risk that the

distinction of the two races may not be recognised when both are labouring

side by side and that the similarity of colour may be held to justify similarity of treatment, and may obscure the fact that the native Indian and the Native African stand on entirely different levels. 5¢

The suggestion that this applied equally to German East Africa and Rhodesia was not well received by the directors of the B.s.A.co, who

politely refuted the charge. Curzon’s firm denial, however, ended the , speculation about Indian labour for the Rhodesian mines.

The collapse of the Labour Board, the end of forced labour provided by the native commissioners, the failure of the experiment with Arab and Somali labour and the endless delays experienced in attempting to obtain other immigrant labour led the Rhodesian mining industry into yet another futile and desperate attempt to procure labour.

As early as 1900 the Chairman of the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines had realised the danger which the competition of the Rand mines offered to the mines in his province, and looked forward to an understanding “between the local and Transvaal industries, that the Rhodesian boys should not be engaged by the agents of the latter’.5” With the re-opening of the Transvaal mines after the Boer War, the Rhodesian mines were faced with renewed and even stronger competition from the Rand, so the Rhodesian authorities tried to safeguard their labour supplies through the modus vivendi agreement of 1901,

in terms of which the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (W.N.L.A.) agreed not to recruit in Rhodesia, Ngamiland, or Zambezia,

and, in return for exclusive recruiting rights in Portuguese East Africa, to supply 121 per cent of the workers recruited there to Rhodesia.®*

But the written agreement did not square with economic reality.

Because of the consistent shortage of African labour faced by the Rand industry after it re-opened, and the higher wages which w.N.L.A. recruits received, not a single labourer, let alone 124 per cent of those recruited, was sent to Rhodesia.®® The W.N.L.A. simply pointed to the fact that none of those recruited were anxious to work in Rhodesia —

a fact which, given the differing wage structures, was very probably Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 85

true. The modus vivendi thus joined the other unsuccessful schemes of the speculative era. The desperate search for unskilled labour during the pre-recon-

struction years revealed a growing need for workers who did physically demanding but simple tasks underground, such as tramming or lashing. The successfully producing mine, however, also used Africans

in a variety of jobs which did require more skill. Underground, the most important of the more skilled workers were the ‘drill boys’ who prepared the holes for the blasting explosives. On the surface, the range of more complex tasks was even greater, and a large mine required drill sharpeners, blacksmith’s strikers, carpenter’s assistants, engine cleaners, ‘mill boys’ and zinc cutters for cyanide processing. The mobilisation of semi-skilled labour was thus a distinct problem of labour recruitment between 1898 and 1903. The first significant feature of this mobilisation, as in the case of the mobilisation of unskilled labour, was the fact that between 1899 and 1903 there were consistent rises in cash wages. Rising wages meant that black workers would become aware of the possibility of an improved standard of living and thus be more attracted by employment in the Rhodesian mining industry. It also meant that between 1899 and 1903 the industry had a greater capacity to sustain a stabilised labour force than at any other time during the period being studied.®° The second feature to be noted is the fact that between 1899 and 1901 the Witwatersrand mining industry was severely disrupted by the South African War, and the Rhodesian mines, for the only period in their history, were relatively free from competition from their more

powerful southern neighbour. Thus the predominant tendency for labour to move south in the regional economic system was temporarily stopped and labour had no real need to proceed beyond the Limpopo. In fact, for a brief period, African miners from the southern extremities

of the regional economic system (the Transkei, Orange Free State, Bechuanaland and Basutoland) were even forced to seek cash in labour markets in the north and Rhodesia became for African mine workers temporarily the centre of the regional economic system.

Long before the South African War, Africans from central Africa were aware of the relatively higher wages that could be earned at the centre of the system — in the Kimberley diamond mines or, later, in Johannesburg. When the Rhodesian mining industry started to develop more rapidly after the prolonged revolt of the 1890s it did not change the flow of labour migrants but merely provided a new stop for

workers on the journey south. In 1898 the manager of the Morven

. 86 / Chibaro

mine, plagued by desertions, complained to the administration that natives ... simply utilise our mine for a sort of half-way house where they can rest and obtain food for a few days before proceeding to the Transvaal, whither they are tempted by the promise of higher wages than

are paid on these fields . . .61 |

Between 1899 and 1901 however workers from Northeru Rhodesia, Nyasaland or Mozambique did not employ this tactic because the South African labour market was temporarily closed. For the same reason black workers from the southern part of the system were forced to consider work in Rhodesia for the duration of the war. Thus in the Gwanda region (and to a lesser extent other mining

areas) the labour force between 1899 and 1903 was composed of workers.drawn from central and South Africa. The proportions drawn from these territories were roughly equal in the Gwanda division during 1903. Africans drawn from central African territories included 5 per

cent ‘Nyambaans’ (Mozambique), 7 per cent ‘locals’ (Shona and Ndebele), 15 per cent “Zambezis’ (Northern Rhodesia) and 27 per cent “Portuguese Shangaans’ (Mozambique). Workers drawn from regions within greater South Africa included 6 per cent Zulu and Xhosa, 6 per

cent Bavenda, 10 per cent Basuto and 24 per cent ‘Transvaal Shangaans’.®? The presence of numbers of workers. from south of the

Limpopo was also reported in the twelve months after March 1901, and there is no doubt that some came to Rhodesia as early as 1900.* So great was the influx from the south that an optimistic President of the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines claimed that it was not at all certain that the colony would come off second best in future competition for Jabour with the Rand. In 1902 Phillip Wrey told his colleagues in the industry that ‘time alone can prove which mining centre the native will finally make up his mind to adopt as his labour market.’®

In fact the rising wages in Rhodesia and the change in labour migration patterns during this period threatened serious disruption within the entire regional economy. Because of the relative attraction of Rhodesian mines, especially to the semi-skilled Shangaan ‘drill boys’, the industry earned the resentment and suspicion of both the Mozambique authorities and the Transvaal industry — in 1902, 55 per cent of all workers in the Matabeleland mines were Shangaans, most of

them from Mozambique.* ,

The authorities in Mozambique had good reason to resent the rising wages in Rhodesia between 1899 and 1901 — indeed they had good reason to resent the payment of any wages at all. The Mozambique Company, which managed a few small mines and rubber plantations in

the western region of the colony, operated with a publicly acknowlLabour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 87

edged policy of forced labour, demanding six months’ annual service from all Africans living in its territories. And elsewhere in Mozambique

the authorities required two months’ work from every adult African male.°?

The pressures of forced labour produced a flow into Rhodesia of

Africans, especially from the border regions, anxious to escape the attentions of the Portuguese authorities.** In addition, rising wages in Rhodesia exerted an upward pressure on that part of the Mozambique economy which did operate with ‘free’ wage labour — a fact which the Governor General of the territory complained about.®® The diminution of its own supply of forced labour, coupled with the fact that, in the absence of an agreement with Rhodesia, the colony received no direct remuneration from the westward flow of labour, combined to produce

a ban on recruitment of labour in Mozambique between 1899 and 1901.7° After the signing of the modus vivendi in late 1901, however, the Portuguese authorities did derive income from the workers it supplied to W.N.L.A. giving them an even greater reason for opposing illegal recruitment for Rhodesia or clandestine emigration.” Between 1899 and 1901 the situation in Rhodesia also earned the suspicion of the Witwatersrand mining industry, whose owners viewed with dismay the rising wages in Rhodesia and the build-up of the much

sought-after Shangaan labour force. These increases in wage rates threatened the long-term labour supplies of the Witwatersrand at a time when it was making plans for a programme of post-war African wage reductions. Both indirect pressure exerted by the Witwatersrand industry and the more direct pressure from the Mozambique authorities may have contributed to the attempted wage reductions.on the Rhodesian mines in late 1901. The Shangaan workers who moved to Rhodesia after 1899 settled on a number of mines in the country, but they particularly favoured the Selukwe and southern Matabeleland districts. In general, they moved to the area of the colony which had the largest mines, and the province which offered the highest wages.’ Within these regions they again systematically sought out the best-paying mines. In the Selukwe district, the Tebekwe mine was especially favoured by workers who had previously worked on the Rand. In 1900 Shangaans there were reported to be earning as much as £4-£5 per month” — well over the average wage of £2 10s Od to £3 for skilled ‘drill boys’ at the

time. During 1902-03 the number of Shangaan workers settled with their families on the property increased again. They were encouraged by a further rise in the standard of living at the Tebekwe, as a result of the company policy of allowing the cultivation of small gardens, and 88 / Chibaro

offering free issues of rations not only to workers but also to their wives

and families." The mine also had a school, which much enhanced its capacity to retain a stabilised labour force. In Matabeleland the Shangaan workers favoured the mines of the Gwanda region. In November 1901 an enthusiastic Inspector of Compounds reported of Gwanda I doubt whether there is another district in Rhodesia which has such a steady and good class of labour supply as the Gwanda, especially the Geelong, Jessie and West Nicholson.75

All three of these mines, but more especially the Geelong and the West

Nicholson, had Shangaan workers and their families settle on their properties in considerable numbers. In March 1902 it was reported that these families ‘showed no intention of leaving or returning to their own country.’’® Here again the ability of these mines to attract an increasingly stable labour force was related to higher cash incomes. Not only

did the mines offer the higher wages common to Matabeleland,” but they also operated another scheme to raise cash income: the majority of workers at the Geelong, West Nicholson and Jessie mines, became eligible after two months’ service for a cash ration allowance which varied between ninepence and two shillings per day.”* This allowance no doubt made it easier to sustain a family in these mine compounds.

While the stabilisation process was most advanced at the mines offering the highest incomes, gangs of Shangaans who had previously worked on the Rand were also earning higher incomes at other mines and working for lengthy periods. In the Selukwe district, even the unpopular Bonsor mine had Shangaan workers who had been there for two years by late 1900. The Giant mine had the services of sixty ‘of the best Rand boys’ who later moved to the Globe & Phoenix mine where

they earned £3-£4 per month.”

This process of stabilisation would no doubt have gone further had the richer Matabeleland mines showed a greater capacity to absorb the influx of semi-skilled Shangaan workers. The Shangaan workers, for their part, knew their market value, and their insistence on employment only at the best labour markets produced a strange phenomenon,

at a time when the industry was nominally suffering from a ‘labour shortage’ and turning to China and India to solve its ‘labour problems’:

in October of 1901, forty or fifty workers were camped outside the Geelong mine waiting for a vacancy to arise.*° By January 1902 the number had increased to 100.8! Equally, during the experiment with Arab labour in 1901, it was reported that small gangs of Shangaan workers could not obtain employment and were ‘compelled to roam Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 89

ineffectually from one district to another.’*? What the industry was suffering, in short, was not a ‘shortage of labour’, but a shortage of

cheap labour. ,

While wages in Rhodesia were rising neither the Shangaans who had established themselves there with their families, nor the large gangs of long-term single workers, showed any sign of leaving — not even after the Rand mines had re-opened in 1902. Right up until March 1903, the month before the collapse of the Rhodesian industry, workers were still

coming into Rhodesia, and pockets of Shangaan families and workers remained up to 1904 and 1905. The start of the exodus of Shangaans from Rhodesia coincided with the collapse of 1903; and between April and August of that year there were also consistent reports from Shangaans that the Portuguese

authorities were no longer allowing their fellow tribesmen to enter Rhodesia but sending them to the Rand.®* It is possible that the Portuguese authorities for one set of reasons, and the agents of W.N.L.A.

for another, took the opportunity of insisting on a more rigorous implementation of their already established modus vivendi.

While some of this movement to South Africa was probably achieved by coercion within Mozambique, the movement to the Rand by Shangaans from within Rhodesia was more freely undertaken. Be-

fore May 1903 there had already been cases of Shangaans in the Transvaal writing to Shangaan workers in Rhodesia telling them of higher wages and better food in the south.** While cash wages in Rhodesia were rising there was little reaction, but after the April collapse re-assessment was swift and the exodus rapid. W.N.L.A. agents were particularly active in the region to the south of Gwanda — that is in the area that had previously boasted Rhodesia’s

best semi-skilled workers. A month after the Rhodesian industry collapsed semi-skilled workers were becoming so scarce in Gwanda that Shangaans were having to teach surface workers how to use drills. By

July it was noted that Shangaan ‘drill boys’ were becoming ‘quite scarce’®* and by November of 1903 the most popular mine of all, the Geelong, was having to make use of a labour recruiter.®” Nor was the outflow of Shangaan labour restricted to the Gwanda

region, although it was especially well sited for those who wished to make the move to South Africa. At the Morven mine in the Bulawayo district the number of Shangaan workers dropped from ninety-four to sixty in the course of four weeks during July 1903. And the changing pattern of migration began to affect other groups of workers, such as the Bavenda who had come to Rhodesia from the Northern Transvaal and no longer found it profitable to do so.** Nor did the Rhodesian in-

90 / Chibaro

dustry ever again have the number of workers from Basutoland, the Transkei and Bechuanaland that it did in the years before 1903.

The Rhodesian authorities had long been warned that a programme of wage reductions would lose the industry the services of its prized Shangaan workers. When the 1901 wage reductions were contemplated Chief Native Commissioner Taylor had commented: Whilst fully admitting that mine boys enjoy a more than liberal wage, a general reduction of that wage would only act as an incentive to Shangaans to seek work elsewhere, these natives being attracted to this country by the inducement of a liberal wage, and their aid contributing more satisfactorily both in numbers and efficiency than the local or any other class of labour, cannot be dispensed with.8®

And so it proved. As the programme of reconstruction commenced and the wages of black workers were reduced in the succeeding years, so the industry lost the services of its best semi-skilled workers. In 1902 55 per cent of all black miners in Rhodesia were Shangaans; by 1903 this had dropped to 45 per cent®° and by March 1904 37 per cent.®* Groups

of Shangaans, such as the fifty workers who armed themselves with sticks to oppose a wage reduction at the Bonsor mine in 1905,°? became

increasingly rare in Rhodesian compounds. The roots of a stabilised force of semi-skilled workers were severed by lowered cash incomes and the consequent dominance of the South African mines. | Reconstruction and the Triumph of Chibaro, 1903-1912

The two fundamental objectives of the industry in this period came to be output maximisation and cost minimisation. The successful pursuit of these objectives, however, necessitated the resolution of new and serious contradictions in the different ways that African labour was to be mobilised. The need to maximise production at the existing mines, and the

labour demands of a new class of producer, the small worker, both necessitated an expanded labour force, so within Rhodesia the B.s.A.co

administration took steps to increase the supply. Essentially this involved restricting further African access to land during a period when the peasantry was expanding its production by the sale of agricultural produce;®* and increasing taxation®* and consequently the peasants’ need for additional cash earnings.

The other requirement of the industry, however, the need to reduce costs, tended towards an opposite logic: reductions in African wages made the mines a less attractive labour market, so the peasantry, faced with increased cash demands, tried to expand the area it had under cultivation and increase the sale of crops — thus reducing the local labour supply. Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 91

Even acting alone, these two contradictory forces would have brought annual fluctuations in the labour supply — particularly between 1903 and 1908, when wages were constantly being adjusted downwards.

season. ,

But the fluctuations were made even more erratic by an additional

seasonal element, and that was the fact that Ndebele and more particularly Shona tribesmen would consider work only in the agricultural off-

Such fluctuations, both seasonal and annual, could not however be reconciled with the requirements of an industry that desperately needed to demonstrate its profitability. As the Rhodesian Land & Mine

Owners’ Association explained : ,

As soon as a stamp battery or other extraction plant commences to run on a mine, the number of unskilled labourers is more than three times as great as the maximum that could be employed on preliminary development. Unless the full number required can be constantly maintained the rate of extraction will invariably exceed the rate of advanced development

and sooner or later production must cease. : ,

If then the Rhodesian industry was to regain any stability in its African

labour force after 1903 it needed first to replace the semi-skilled Shangaan workers which it had lost to the south; and second, more importantly, it needed to recruit a constant supply of cheap unskilled underground labour which could augment the fluctuating local supplies. These contradictions, by now essential to the Rhodesian mining

industry’s structure and policy, were in fact to be resolved by the R.N.L.B., Which set out to provide the constant pool of unskilled labour to enable uninterrupted production of gold. So while all African labour ~ local and foreign — was called upon to pay a price for the reconstruc-

tion of the Rhodesian industry after 1903, none paid a greater price than the R.N.L.B. workers.

In the years before 1903, and to a lesser but still significant extent

in the years following, Shona and Ndebele workers constituted the poorest paid and most despised group of African miners. In part this dislike was the legacy of the two wars fought against them during the 1890s, but it derived also from the fact that the Ndebele and Shona remained relatively aloof from the unpopular industry which had transformed their country, and would consider only short periods of service

on the mines during the agricultural off-season. , Mine managers disliked these short-term workers and the impunity with which they deserted to their adjacent farms and kinsmen when the work or the conditions were not to their liking. For these and other reasons, it was considered that ‘the Mashona and Matabele are poor workers, far inferior to both Colonials, Zulus and Shangaans.’* 92 / Chibaro

The numerically preponderant Shona were particularly disliked by mine managers who found them to be ‘awkward and useless’®*” workers, and in 1900 the Chief Native Commissioner was of the opinion that: it will be some time before the Mashona natives can be of much use on the mines as they are the laziest, most ignorant, and unpromising material we have to deal with.%

Settler stereotypes were combined with more objective considerations, such as the length of service offered by the worker, to produce

a hierarchy of wage differentials on the mines. The hierarchy also reflected the employment preferences of managers, and before 1903 in particular, Shona and Ndebele workers were invariably the last hired and the first to be fired.®® This hierarchy is evident in the table of wages listed below :

Table C: Monthly Wages of African Miners in Selected Occupations as quoted in Four Rhodesian Mining Districts during 1900-1902°°°

Occupation District |

Bulawayo Unmtali Gwanda Gwelo

Rockdrillers

Colonials and Zulus 80 /- 80 /- 120/- 80/Shangaans 70/40/90/80/Ndebele and Shona 60/- *10/- 60/- 80/— Windlass Operator

Colonials and Zulus 40/- — — 40/Shangaans 30/- — 50/- 40/Ndebele and Shona 25 /- 30/- 30/- 40/Surface Workers

Colonials and Zulus 40/- — 80 /— 35/Shangaans 30/- — 50/- 35 /Ndebele and Shona 25 /- 20/- 30/— 35 /* This figure seems so badly out of alignment, even within the district wage rates, that it seems possible that it was incorrectly printed in the original source.

The general tendency for local workers to be paid less than the longer-working Africans from other regions during the period of rising wages is clearly evident. And from the employer’s point of view many of these differentials were perfectly understandable: a semi-skilled Shangaan with experience gained on the Rand must have been a considerable asset to any mine. But it is significant that discrimination to the disadvantage of local workers was maintained in essentially unLabour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 93

skilled tasks such as ‘surface workers’. The application of the differential to all jobs, semi-skilled and unskilled, leads one to suspect that local African workers were, to some extent, the victims of a self-fulfilling prophecy; for on those mines where Shona and Ndebele workers were

paid the ‘market rate’ for the job the quality of their work seems to have been seen as much more satisfactory.

At the Tebekwe mine which, significantly enough, paid higher wages than most, Ndebele workers from the Bulalima district were reported as giving the mine management ‘every satisfaction’.?° In the Gwelo district, which did not greatly benefit from the influx of South African labour during the speculative years, it appears to have been the policy of most mines to pay workers irrespective of their tribal affiliations. This practice increased the flow of local labour to the compounds and it was reported that ‘local boys, consisting of Matabele, Makalanga and Nyoka are considered fairly good mine hands.” In general though, throughout the reconstruction period, Shona and Ndebele workers were consistently paid less than other workers for similar tasks.*°? In addition each successive year between 1903 and 1912 saw a consistent decline in black wages in general. These factors, com-

bined with the appalling health record of most mines in the country, reinforced the local tribesmen’s preference for expanding their cash income by selling agricultural surplus, or working in other sectors of the economy, rather than go down a mine.*%

The fact that Ndebele and to a greater extent Shona peasants could largely ignore the mining industry between 1903 and 1912, and earn the bulk of their cash requirements from farming, was a cause of immense chagrin to the premier industry of the company-colony. Mine Owners were constantly frustrated by the thought that they suffered from a shortage of cheap labour in the midst of an apparently abundant ‘supply’.*°° Shona and Ndebele peasants might have been willing to ignore the mines, but the mines were far from willing to ignore them. Accordingly early in 1903 representatives of all employers of labour in Rhodesia, including the chairmen of the two Chambers of Mines, sent a deputation to Johannesburg. They hoped to put pressure on the visiting Secretary of State for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, not only to speed up his approval of the Pass Laws, which would help control labour in Rhodesia, but also to sanction massive increases in tax on the peasantry. The employers urged his approval of a ‘Labour Tax’ of £4 for each African male who failed to work continuously for more than four months in the year. This tax, it was suggested, should be levied in addition to the annual Hut Tax of ten shillings already im-

posed on the African population.1°* } 94 / Chibaro

Despite Administrator Milton’s enthusiastic support for increased taxation, the Colonial Office was unwilling to sanction the enormous increases demanded by the employers and desired by the B.s.A.co.*°”

The Secretary of State did, however, agree to raise the tax to £1 per annum, and to impose an extra levy on the peasants of ten shillings for each wife beyond the first. Despite the fact that this increase was exceptionally modest in comparison with what the mining industry had wanted, it produced a rate of taxation for the peasantry in Rhodesia 20 to 30 per cent higher than that for most Africans in the regional econ-

omic system. Taxation alone did not, however, solve the mining industry’s labour problem. The weakness in the use of taxation was that it did not

discriminate between the state economy and the regional economic system; so while tax increases did improve the supply of labour locally, they also tended to push a significant number of local peasants further out into the regional economic system, benefiting the Transvaal mines. This was especially true of those peasants in Rhodesia who were already closest to the South African border: when tax was increased in 1901

many of the Ndebele in the southern province turned to the Rand to earn the necessary cash; and when the 1904 tax increases following the 1903 deputation to Johannesburg produced a seasonal glut of labour in Rhodesia, it was again reported that many hundreds of workers had

turned to the Transvaal.

Throughout reconstruction the positive ‘push’ into the regional economic system from tax demands was reinforced by the decline in the attraction of the local labour market to Shona and Ndebele workers. As African mine-workers’ wages fluctuated seasonally in Rhodesia, and

cash income declined in successive years, so the offer by W.N.L.A. agents’? of guaranteed employment and a minimum wage became more attractive to peasants increasingly forced off the land.1?° When co-ordinated employer action in Rhodesia produced the 1906 wage cuts, there resulted a ‘stream of natives who wished to engage for work

in the Transvaal!" —.a movement which surprised the Chamber of Mines, for they had assumed that local Africans would be put off by

the 12-month W.N.L.A. contract. |

The loss of labour to the Transvaal and the activities of W.N.L.A. were a constant irritant to the industry and the B.s.A.co alike, who felt justified themselves in drawing on the labour supplies from territories further north but resented Africans within the areas under their jurisdiction continuing to move to better labour markets in the south. With financial resources strained it was impossible to establish police stations

along the entire length of the Limpopo river, but ‘Police and Native Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 95

Commissioners patrolled the country as often as was feasible.’"?? And it

was specifically within this context that the Pass Law proved of such

value to the company-colony. The wife of the British High Commissioner knew exactly how the system of Pass Law manipulation operated :

) The Southern Rhodesians are the only people who have a reasonable defence for it. ‘Our mines’ they say ‘must have cheap labour, if it were not for the pass law our natives would be able to go to the Transvaal for the high wages there, but our officials are forbidden to give them passes outside Rhodesia, and our railways will not give them tickets unless they have passes.’113

Many mine owners found the passage of W.N.L.A. workers drawn

from central Africa through transit compounds in Rhodesia particularly disquieting. ‘Gangs’ bound for the Rand showed ‘exuberant spirits’,7* a description that could hardly be applied to the R.N.L.B. workers destined for the local mines. An official enquiry in 1906 came to the conclusion that: the practice of bringing gangs of labourers recruited by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association in Northern Zambesia and the territories to the North, through Rhodesia, is detrimental to Rhodesian industries, and

is calculated to spread discontent among the natives of Southern Rhodesia.115

Members of the industry felt that the passage of such ‘gangs’ made the local peasants’ heads turn south and that ‘it were better to hamper the

operations of the W.N.L.A. in every possible way.’**® , It is difficult to assess with any degree of precision the exact num-

ber of peasants drawn from Rhodesia to the Rand during the reconstruction period. What is clear however is that some hundreds of Shona

and Ndebele peasants who were forced off the land during that time were willing to consider, and in increasing numbers, a year’s service in

the Rand mines before they would turn to the Rhodesian mines. At least some of the Rhodesian authorities’ attempts to swell the local labour supply benefited the Transvaal instead. In 1910, a monthly average of 13,000 local tribesmen were working on Rhodesian mines, while in the same year there were over 1,700 “Rhodesian boys’ on twelve-

month contracts in the Witwatersrand gold mines.12” , These figures reveal just how poorly the Rhodesian industry was supplied with cheap local labour throughout reconstruction. In 1910, for example, the industry employed over 37,000 black workers, and local labour still provided less than 30 per cent of its annual requirements. Worse still from the mine owners’ point of view were the severe seasonal fluctuations in the local labour supply at this time.

96 / Chibaro ,

Such seasonal and annual fluctuations were never welcome, but they were particularly unwelcome when the industry was trying to attract capital, maximise production and demonstrate its profitability in the wake of the 1903 collapse. Short-term labour did not produce the

productivity which the industry looked for, and as the 1906 Labour Enquiry Committee expressed it, ‘frequent change of labourers is detrimental to the establishment, on a firm basis, of any continuous industry.”11® The uncertainty caused by the lack of an assured local labour

supply had indeed been one of the central problems which had contributed to the 1903 collapse, and it continued to make foreign capital wary of investing during the first six years of reconstruction. In 1909 the industry spelt out the problem to the B.S.4.co administration : 1° what it required of the administration was to put still more pressure on the peasantry to ensure an even greater and steadier supply of local labour. Attempts by employers to get longer periods of service from the local peasantry were made long before the years of reconstruction, but

between 1903 and 1909 they assumed new urgency. The 1906 Native

, Labour Enquiry Committee noted its strong disapproval of the local peasants practice of contracting for only one month’s work at a time. The Committee explicitly suggested that measures be taken to discourage this practice, and the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines was quick to take up the suggestion with the administration — new legislation should impose longer contracts. The Executive Council of the B.s.A.co, how-

ever, was probably aware that it would be difficult to get such legislation approved by the Colonial Office, and merely pointed out to the Chamber that the onus of extracting longer contracts from the peasantry

really lay with the mine owners.*°

The 1906 Commission also suggested that tax collection should be arranged in such a way as to spread the flow of local labour to the

agricultural and mining industries:

Southern Rhodesia should be divided into three different districts for the

purpose of collecting the native tax, and that it should be collected at different periods of the year in the various districts.121

It was suggested in addition that local Africans who had been continuously employed for a period of twelve months should be exempted from the tax. These proposals too the B.s.A.co felt unable to implement, and an annoyed industry reminded the administration of the fact in 1907

and 1909.12? -

Through direct appeals to the B.s.A.co, or through its representatives on commissions of enquiry, the mining industry continued trying Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 97

to persuade the administration to take steps that would either lengthen the period of service of local labour, or spread the seasonal flow more

evenly throughout the year. Where the B.s.a.co could not succeed, individual mine owners and labour recruiters proved more successful. By employing a variety of techniques they managed to supplement the long-term structural developments in the economy (such as taxation or the growth of white agriculture) which were already indirectly tending

to extract longer periods of service from local workers. | One of the favoured devices of labour recruiters and mine managers was to mislead Africans about the length of their contracted period.’** Consistent, and in many cases deliberate, confusions arose about whether a contract referred to a ‘month’ or a ‘ticket’: whereas the word ‘month’ referred simply to the elapse of a calendar month, the

word ‘ticket’ referred to any period required for the worker satisfactorily to complete thirty working days. And a worker’s ‘ticket’ would only be marked as having contributed to his contract if his day’s task was approved by his supervisor at the conclusion of the shift. So while at first glance it would appear that a ‘ticket’ would take about a month to complete, in practice it could take substantially longer. Besides the more obvious and frequent abuse which arose through the white miner simply refusing to credit the labourer with his day’s work, injury, illness or rest days could lengthen the period.?** In 1909 a thirty-day ‘ticket’ took on average forty-two days to complete and in 1911 it was estimated to take between thirty-five and forty-five days.) It was especially in the earliest years of the reconstruction period that this confusion was used by the less scrupulous to mislead Africans about periods of service. But the confusion occasionally worked to the detriment of the industry too. Mine managers were particularly frus-

trated when black workers gave only a month’s notice rather than a ‘ticket’s’. This problem was serious enough by 1909 for ‘Consolidated’

Goldfields Ltd to bring a private prosecution against one of its employees as a test case.1** To the annoyance of the industry the magistrate upheld the worker’s right to serve only a month’s notice since the Masters and Servants Ordinance made no reference to the word ‘ticket’.

In the wake of this setback the industry was quick to get the Legislative Council to pass the necessary amendment to the Masters and Servants Ordinance, but it was found that this simply created further ambiguities, and by 1911 the issue was still unsettled.127 In practice, however, the problem was being solved by the longer periods of service which workers contracted for as they became increasingly

proletarianised. These longer contracts were enforced through the Masters and Servants Ordinance, which was uniformly hated by black 98 / Chibaro

mine workers: it relegated them to what they considered to be slave status and their derisive word ‘chibaro’* or ‘cibalo’, used to describe the system of recruitment, referred as much to the contract system** as it did to the R.N.L.B.

Mine owners and managers also resorted to other less subtle methods of lengthening the period of service of workers. Here again the techniques were applied in some measure to all workers, but they were of special use in dealing with local labour. At the New Found Out mine, for example, the manager insisted on all workers agreeing to a six-month contract in the presence, moreover, of the compound ‘police’ of the mine.*** This practice must have produced at least a 50 per cent chance of there being an element of coercion in the ‘bargaining’ between employer and employee, since the oppressive role of the compound ‘police’ was well understood by most black workers.?”° A more common ploy, however, was for mine managers simply to refuse to ‘sign off? workers who had completed their contracts.**° Since a worker

who did not have his pass ‘signed off’ was liable to be arrested as a ‘deserter’, this practice could be partially successful for some time with the more timid and vulnerable employees. *The words isibalo, cibalo, shibaru and chibaro were widely used by Africans throughout the regional economic system and are synonymous with contract labour, forced labour and slavery. Isibalo refers to the system of forced labour that operated in Natal at the turn of the century, see §.Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, Oxford 1970, pp.43-45. By at least 1909, the word chibaro was being more specifically associated with R.N.L.B. contract labour, see Pp.R.0., c.0.417/475, ‘Affidavit by M.M.Gruno, R.N.L.B.

agent at Kanyemba’, 23 January 1909. In 1910 it was reported that management and ‘independent’ black workers alike used chibaro as a term of ridicule (probably in the sense of ‘slave’) to refer to R.N.L.B. workers, see R.N.L.B., Report of the Management and Finance Committee for the 6 months ended 30 June 1910, p.45. In the mid 1920s, the word shibaru in Mozambique meant simply ‘forced labour’, see Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, The System of Forced Labour in Africa, New York 1926, p.20. In the mid 1930s in Nyasaland, the word cibalo

was said to refer to contract labour and was synonymous with ‘forced labour’ or ‘slavery’, see Nyasaland Protectorate, Report of the Committee Appointed by His Excellency the Governor to Enquire into Emigrant Labour, 1935, para.64. See also, G.N.Burden, Nyasaland Native Labour in Southern Rhodesia, Salisbury 1938, mimeo., p.2. **ibid. African hatred of long term contracts and a preference for the monthly renewable type stretched back to at least the reconstruction period, see S.R., Native Affairs Committee of Enquiry, 1910-11, para.229. Once the mining industry had been safely reconstructed and the local peasantry more proletarianised, its abolition was considered, see N.A.R.,

A3/18/30/9, ‘Report of the Committee of Enquiry in Connection with the Supply of Native Labour in Southern Rhodesia’, 1921.

Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 99

Less subtle still was the practice of keeping workers’ wages in arrear — managers would simply keep back a month’s earnings. With the worker consistently being owed a month’s wages, the mine owner could reduce the risk of desertion, stretch the period of employment and obtain a month’s free labour should the worker eventually abscond in desperation.1*? Occasionally too, the under-capitalised small workers who were speculating in the industry withheld wages in the hope of an ultimate windfall.4** Not only would the workers’ wages be at a considerable risk in such cases but they would also have to work lengthy periods in the hope of recovering some of their earnings.7*® The variety of devices and stratagems which mine managers were willing to employ indeed demonstrates the almost insatiable demand

for labour in an industry whose black work force increased five-fold

during the period. At a time of such demand Shona and Ndebele workers could no longer simply be shunned, hired last or fired first, so the industry was forced to readjust its stereotypes and make new assessments of its worth. As early as 1904-05 it was reported from one district that ‘local natives are becoming expert drill boys’.1#4 Even though the Shona continued to show a preference for surface work it was conceded that they had improved ‘in the use of tools,’?*° and by 1908 it was felt that mem-

bers of the Rozwi clan made good underground workers.1** The Ndebele too were reassessed, and by 1908 it was reported that ‘many of them earn the top wages paid to skilled hands.’***’ By 1910 members of the industry were being told that the Southern Rhodesia native is both of a better physique and possibly of higher intelligence than the Northern native, and it should therefore undoubtedly be our endeavour to encourage him to come out to work in

large numbers.138 | :

These assessments were in marked contrast to those of only a few years before, and probably do not simply reflect a readjustment of stereotype in managerial and settler ideology — although that undoubtedly did play

a part. It is quite likely that the longer periods of service offered by local labourers did in fact tend to increase the pool of semi-skilled labour available in Rhodesia during reconstruction. _

Through changes in the structure of the political economy between 1903 and 1912 Ndebele and Shona tribesmen were becoming increasingly proletarianised. The structural determinants of the process of proletarianisation, such as access to land, taxation and the inroads made by an increasingly competitive white commercial agricultural industry, were supplemented by the techniques used by mine managers

to produce these features. The process revealed itself not only in the

100 / Chibaro

gradual increase in the number of local workers but also in the periods of service for which they engaged themselves. In 1909 the average number of local Africans employed monthly on the mines was 10,000. By 1910 it was up to 13,000 and in 1911 there was a further rise to 14,000. Whereas during the speculative years of the industry local labour had accounted for between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of the black work force on the mines, during reconstruction this average rose to between 20 per cent and 27 per cent annually. The average period of service on the mines rose from two months in 1901 to three months in 1909 and

six monthsin 1912, > i ,

Although these figures testify to the growing contribution of local labour during reconstruction, they still represented a rate of ‘progress’ in labour supplies which was far too slow for the mining industry. Its labour requirements were expanding by as much as 9,000 in a single

year (such as 1906-07) and in comparison to this demand the Shona and Ndebele contribution was insignificant. Even in the best year for local labour, 1911, local labour only accounted for 14,000 relatively short-term workers of the industry’s 38,000. black workers. Clearly, the

success of reconstruction was not to be based on the contribution of local labour. The real solution was to be found further afield; and to depend upon the activities of the R.N.L.B.

Before probing the contribution which the R.N.L.B. made to the

mobilisation of labour for the mines, it is important to consider the labour of one other group utilised between 1903 and 1912. In traditional society, the outcasts, the dispossessed, the criminal and the landless constituted an insignificant, marginal element of the community. In the wake of colonialism however the numbers of such unfortunates multiplied as traditional societies buckled under the press-

tuary. a a - |

ures of social change. For these men on the-margins of community life, the mine compounds, however inadequately, offered some sort of sanc-

_ One important element in this group had its origin in the speculative era, when wages in Rhodesia were attracting black men from South Africa. Many of the ‘Cape Boys’ who had come to the mines then stayed during the following years, and a minority of these, semiskilled workers who undertook such tasks as drill-sharpening or blasting,?*° received relatively high wages and remained a valued element of

the work force. But the majority indeed led a less industrious life and

formed part of a ‘lumpen proletariat’. | _ Throughout the period of reconstruction the illicit liquor trade in the mine compounds was largely in the hands of “Cape Boys’, who had learned to live by their wits rather than labour. In some cases it was Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 101

reported that a ‘Cape Boy’ would sign on for a ‘soft job’ at the mine, move in with his wife and earn the bulk of his income through selling ‘kaffir beer’.1*° In other cases the trade would be conducted from a base

outside the compound; liquor supplies being obtained by white men and then passed on to the workers through the ‘Cape Boy’ who acted as middle man. While nominally ‘working’ on the mines, many of these ‘Cape Boys’ led a strange unstable existence. They were soon credited with 75 per cent of the more serious crimes committed by Africans.**! Their

ability to disrupt discipline in the compounds through the sale of alcohol to workers brought them into frequent conflict with managers, and made them the scourge of the British South Africa Police. When a ‘Cape Boy’ was shot by a B.S.A.P. trooper during a beer raid at the mines

in 1903, his Captain pointed out the problem to the Attorney General: It is absolutely necessary to instil fear into these Cape boys, In my instructions to these men posted at the mines I say ‘in dealing with Cape boys you will be as severe as justice will permit.’ Without wishing to screen my man in any way, not having the evidence, I am simply placing

these opinions before you to try and convince you of the absolute . necessity that policemen, when executing duty amongst a class like Cape Boys should be upheld by authorities almost at any cost.142 }

_ The origins of another group of the lumpen-proletariat could perhaps also be sought in the ‘passing proletariat’ of the years before 1903. Especially prominent in the Gwanda region, which had been the favoured haunt of Shangaan workers in the early days, were a number of Africans who called themselves ‘Portuguese’. These men, although again residing in the compound and ‘working’ on the mine, did little mining but earned most of their income through ‘gambling and cheating’.1** They chose their victims from amongst the most highly paid workers.1*4

The ranks of the ‘Cape Boys’ and the ‘Portuguese’ were swollen

by others who came from a wide range of different cultural backgrounds and areas throughout central Africa. These men, who formed a large section of these workers, laboured on the mines for long periods year after year, but although they possessed skills which were worth retaining during a period of fluctuating labour supplies, they were considered an essentially unstable group. In 1906 a compound inspector

described them as being Oo

men for the most part extravagant, careless and licentious, who, when not working, provide more work for the Police and the Native Department

than the rest of the community put together.145 102 / Chibaro

Shona and Ndebele workers who retained access to the land and who had kinsmen close at hand were conspicuously absent from this strangely heterogeneous proletarian group. But because members of

the jumpen proletariat often had considerable incomes and could afford to keep a wife or a mistress in some style, they attracted numbers of local women. And the fact that women were willing to desert their husbands or fathers for an independent, if somewhat hazardous, existence in the mine compound, caused endless conflict with local tribes-

men.?** ,

Industrialisation in Rhodesia thus gave rise to a new group of

Africans — a group that manifested some sort of cultural synthesis by being largely composed of ‘foreign’ black workers and local women.

To the various sources of labour in the period then, must be added these relatively long-term residents of the compounds. By 1909 it was estimated that 4,000’ of the 32,000 black men on the mines could be called ‘habitual labourers’.147 Many if not most of these workers originally came from the fringes of their societies to form part of a lumpen

proletariat in south central Africa.

In a period of particularly rapid expansion of its labour requirements the mining industry could always turn to the specially created labour recruitment agency. Although the function of that agency, the R.N.L.B., remained consistent throughout reconstruction, the. organisation actually existed in three slightly different forms between 1903 and 1912. The Rhodesia Native Labour Bureau was first formed within

three months of the collapse of the industry in 1903, and this first R.N.L.B. remained in operation between 1903 and 1906. A shortage of funds and too few labour agents contributed to its collapse in 1906.148 Then a reconstituted Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau came into op-

eration in 1906 and operated under that name until early in 1911: it benefited not only from a tax imposed on the industry but also from Capital supplied to it by the B.s.4.co.?*® It too, however, eventually ran. into financial problems and in 1912 was replaced by the New Rhodesia Native Labour Bureau.’®° This third R.N.L.B. lasted from 1912 until

1933, when it became redundant.

The task of the R.N.L.B, through these changes, however, remained

essentially the same. As an R.N.L.B. Chairman at an Annual General

Meeting of the organisation put it in 1915:

A nucleus of natives contracted to work for twelve months at a definite minimum wage has great advantages. They form the guarantee that certain work can be carried on. They tide employers over the wet season, when independent labour is scarce and they make employers to a large extent independent of the vagaries of the casual labourer.151

Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 103

In essence the task of the R.N.L.B. was to resolve the contradiction which

arose from trying to expand the labour supply during the years when

the industry was also cutting black wages. | , The second function of the R.N.L.B. was to secure for the Rhodesian

mining industry its share of African labour within the regional econ-

omic system. It had to try to ensure that labour from the northern territories made its way- to the Rhodesian mines rather than to other labour markets, and that Africans did not proceed to the Witwatersrand after a short period of work. The Chairman of the Salisbury Chamber of Mines could thus look back and tell the Administrator what he considered to be the ‘true’ purpose of the R.N.L.B. : ‘It was our policy to obstruct and discourage by any legitimate means in - our power the exodus of our natives in search of work, because there is

ample work for them here for their requirements .. .15? Seen in this way, the role of the R.N.L.B. was to frustrate the mobility of African labour which, under ‘market conditions’ would simply gravitate to the Rand and sell its labour in the relatively better paying South

African mines and industries. |

_ The third primary function of the R.N.L.B. developed as an outgrowth of the other two. It was to channel a supply of African labour to mines within Rhodesia which, because of poor conditions or exploitative practices, could not normally secure ‘voluntary’ or, as it was sometimes called, ‘independent’ labour. Again the problem was well defined by the manager of the Bureau who told a commission of enquiry that ‘if it was left to the natives they would not work at unpopular mines.’?°? It was in fact the task of the R.N.L.B. to supply the mining industry

with a supply of cheap coerced labour between 1903 and 1912.

Given this role, it can readily be appreciated why it was that the Bureau was universally feared and hated-by. black workers. Throughout

most of central Africa, work secured through the R.N.L.B. became known as chibaro — ‘slavery’ or ‘forced labour’.1°* So to secure chibaro-

labour was neither.a pleasant nor a simple task for some members of the Bureau. Manager Val Gielgud spoke plainly to the 1906 Labour

Committee: , oO

The labour business is not a particularly nice business at the best of times,

' there is always more or less underhand work.155 , ]

To understand what this ‘underhand work’ meant it is necessary to examine how chibaro-labour was secured. _ For hundreds, probably thousands, of black peasants in the territories in and around Rhodesia, chibaro meant exactly what they stated

it to mean — ‘forced labour’. In some districts of North Western Rhodesia between 1904 and 1910, peasants were simply rounded up by

104 / Chibaro oe

the Native Commissioner’s African messengers'®* and sent to the boma where they were handed over to the agents of the R.N.L.B. and their black

assistants, and then marched to the Southern Rhodesian mines.*°’ Those peasants who refused to go were in some cases whipped by the

Native Commissioner or his black assistant, or in others had ‘their

grain-stores burnt down.158 7

From at least 1911 onwards, some supplies of forced labour were also obtained from within Mozambique — despite the fact that, officially, the R.N.L.B, was entitled to recruit only in Tete Province after 1914. The R.N.L.B. agent, Walkden, was based within Rhodesia at Mtoko, but he operated through a Portuguese middleman, Manuel Vira. Vira would

obtain chibaro-labour from villages within Mozambique and would then escort his captives to the Rhodesian border, where he would hand them over to Walkden and receive his commission. The Managing Director of the R.N.L.B, at the time, H.W.Kempster, valued the work of the Walkden- Vira combination and pointed out tothe Administrator that Manuel Vira obtains natives who would otherwise, either not turn out at all, or proceed to the Rand, and thus legitimately increases the labour

supply for Southern Rhodesia.159 | There is other less direct evidence to suggest that attempts to secure chibaro-labour at the very source, in the rural districts, was more than reasonably successful. One way of assessing the impact which the

workers.

R.N.L.B. made on labour supplies is to scrutinise these cases where

chibaro-labour prevented other employers from obtaining black For many years the Salisbury municipality relied on workers from-the Northern Rhodesian districts of Pemba, Magoy and Monzi’ to operate the city’s sanitation works. Initially this labour came*down voluntarily but, ‘after the inception of the Native Labour Bureau [in 1906] this voluntary labour became more and more scanty in supply.’1®°

Between 1911 and 1913 the supply was so disrupted that the Mayor of Salisbury on two occasions had to approach the Administrator about the problems created. Ultimately the municipality itself had to turn to

the R.N.L.B. for workers. , .

The capacity of chibaro-labour to dry up the flow of voluntary labour from rural areas was also evident in the Eldorado district of Mashonaland. This district for many years drew a supply of voluntary labour from Mozambique. When this supply was drastically reduced a local observer was not lost for an explanation: since the R.N.L.B. has acquired powers in that territory [Mozambique] it is with increasing difficulty that free labour even on a small scale can be

_ obtained here,1#1 | a :

Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 105

Elsewhere in Mashonaland farmers found to their frustration that the flow of labour into the northern province was disrupted between 1910 and 1913 —.and again the cause was in essence the same. Sleeping sickness was discovered in the Luapula and Kalungwisi districts of NorthEastern Rhodesia in 1910, so the R.N.L.B. acquired sole recruiting rights within the region on the grounds that it alone could ensure an adequate

medical inspection of those workers going south. In theory, Africans who produced a certificate to indicate that they came from an infected area could still proceed south on a voluntary basis. In practice things worked out differently — virtually all workers from North-Eastern Rhodesia either had to engage for work. through the R.N.L.B. or return to their homes.**? A Mount Darwin farmer pointed outhow sy.

ness,163 : .

All north-eastern boys coming this way are caught and sent under police escort to be examined by the doctor at the Bureau station and are then handed over to them on the excuse that they may have sleeping sick-

Once there, in the words this time of a member of the Legislative Council, ‘All the boys required to do was to engage with the Bureau, and if they did that, that was sufficient to get rid of the suspicion of

having sleeping sickness.“ ,

Chibaro-labour from rural areas was also linked to the other mechanisms which were used to induce and channel the flow of black labour in settler economies — tax and passes. More especially, during the earliest years of reconstruction, the B.S.A.Co put severe pressure on

the Northern Rhodesian peasantry to pay tax. In North-Western Rhodesia during 1904 the police raided the villages of ‘tax defaulters’, burning homes, crops and grain stores of those Africans who did not have the necessary cash.2*° These harsh actions were designed to proletarianise the peasants rapidly and to force them to earn cash at the largest labour market close by — the Rhodesian mines. In the Guimbi sub-district, the Native Commissioner sent tax defaulters directly to the R.N.L.B, agent,”® while for other Africans even the fact that the tax had been paid offered no protection.1®7 In the same district, on instructions from the District Commissioner, passes for those wishing to travel south were only granted to those who would undertake to serve with the R.N.L.B.7** It is very probable that a similar variation was employed

within Southern Rhodesia itself, since R.N.L.B. agents there were also

empowered as ‘pass officers’. | , Although much of this chibaro-labour was obtained from the more remote districts of the regional economic system to the north of Rhodesia, the Bureau did not always have to operate in the rural areas

106 { Chibaro. |

themselves. In very many caSes R.N.L.B. agents allowed the labour to move in their direction rather than go out searching for it. In fact, the closer to the Rhodesian mines the labour could be procured the better

for the Bureau, since it reduced the amount of money that had to be spent on workers in transit on items such as food, clothing or escorts.** The R.N.L.B. soon discovered that there was no need to rely exclusively on direct penetration into the rural areas. Once various other

forces, such as taxation, had pushed the peasants off the land, they would move towards the labour markets of the system anyway. Secure in the knowledge that most peasants would have to move south to try to sell their labour, the chibaro agents could position themselves accordingly. To situate themselves on the main labour routes, however, was not enough, since ‘boys were afraid to travel along the main routes for fear of being intercepted by the Bureau’s agents.”?”° Ideally, what the Bureau required was a set of barriers running at right angles (west to east) to the labour routes. In central Africa just such barriers existed in the form of the rivers which flowed eastwards towards the Indian ocean. From the earliest days of the industry in Rhodesia the mines had interested themselves in the ferries crossing the various larger rivers.*™ Presumably it was the ‘abuses’ which arose from the private operation of the ferries and the need for reconstruction labour which, in 1908, prompted the B.s.A.co administration to put the R.N.L.B. in Sole charge

of these ‘free’ ferries.772 0” oe

Certainly between 1908 and 1911, and possibly for some years thereafter, there was a campaign of well-organised recruiting by R.N.L.B.

agents at the ferries crossing the Zambezi, Luangwa and Hunyani rivers.7* So successful was ‘recruiting’ at such points where ‘free ferries’ operated, that ‘returns’ were published showing specifically how many workers had been obtained there. In 1909, for example, at the Zambezi crossing of Kanyemba, the R.N.L.B. obtained the services of well over

2,000 ‘independent natives’ making their way south.** There is no doubt that the ‘recruiting’ at the ‘free ferries’ left a deep impact on the

workers of central Africa and that they regarded such contracts as chibaro-labour. When in 1928 new free ferries were opened in two places on rivers the responsible state official reported to the govern-

ment that .

For the first few months these facilities were very little used as natives were suspicious that there was some catch and that if they used the free ferries and accepted the free food they would find themselves bound to the Bureau or some similar organisation.17&

Before 1912, the RN.L.B. also recruited within Rhodesia itself, Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 107

and this meant that in some cases chibaro-labour could be obtained even further south — and even more cheaply. The problem in obtaining such labour was that it was already close to the labour markets and this might, on occasion, disrupt a voluntary flow of labour to the mines.*”®

The Bureau manager was aware of this irritating problem but, as he told the 1906 commission of enquiry, ‘if you put out agents they are bound to catch some boys who would otherwise apply to the mines.”*”” Here again most of the R.N.L.B. effort was concentrated in the northern province of Mashonaland — a procedure which capitalised on the voluntary flow of labour southwards in the system. Chibaro-labour for the mines during 1903-1912 was thus obtained

by outright coercion in two ways. First, labour was procured in the heart of the rural areas themselves. Most chibaro-labour of this type was probably obtained during the years between 1903 and 1910, that is, in the period when the industry’s labour requirements were expanding

most rapidly of all. In addition, it seems as if it was mostly obtained from North Eastern and North Western Rhodesia — that is from areas that were under the direct control of the B.s.A.co.*7% _ Second, chibaro-labour for the R.N.L.B. was obtained by waiting

for other economic forces to push the peasants off the-land, and then claiming a percentage of this labour flow at suitable points on the routes

south. The supplies of labour procured in these two ways, however, were still insufficient to meet all the demands, and chibaro-labour also had to be sought out in rural areas by making use of methods other than

outright compulsion.17° , , No central African peasant would, voluntarily, seek out con-

ditions of employment where he was to be paid the lowest wages, obli-

gated by the longest contracts and sent to the mines with the worst health and labour management records in Southern Rhodesia. To avoid that chibaro-labour however, a peasant had to be fit to walk the hun-

dreds of miles to the labour markets, have the necessary cash with which to provide himself with food and. clothing for the journey, and not to have left home while he had important obligations to his kinsmen unfulfilled. The normal vicissitudes in agricultural cycles, sheer distance from the labour markets and new burdens such as tax all made inroads into the bargaining power of the ‘independent’ work seeker.

It was to those groups within the peasantry who had had their independence already undermined that the R.N.L.B. looked for many of

its additional recruits. Operating in the more remote areas, where alternative solutions to these problems were few if they existed at all, the R.N.L.B. advanced supplies of cloth, grain or cash1®° to the poorest members of traditional society. These men from the very periphery of

108 / Chibaro |

the regional economic system thus started their R.N.L.B. contract with

the added burden of indebtedness. This added load, when combined with the normally difficult lot of the chibaro-labourer, must have been manifest to some employers who complained of the ‘discontent’ of workers recruited in this way.1*t The Bureau, however, explained : ... natives should pay their taxes and observe certain other obligations before leaving their homes and unless the Bureau met them in this respect it would be practically impossible for them to go to Southern Rhodesia.182

Droughts, such as those of 1903, 1912 and 1918, could not only swell the number of ‘voluntaries’ or ‘independents’ seeking work, but it could also supplement the ranks of chibaro. In 1918 the R.N.L.B. agent in Mozambique noted that the peasants were only agreeing to contracts because they were starving and added that: as the Gangs get their issues of blankets, money and food on leaving Tete there are numbers of their friends and relations from their homes waiting for them to give them practically the whole of what they had

received.188

Here too it was obviously the plight of the peasant rather than the popularity of the proposed employment that assisted the R.N.L.B. in obtain-

ing ‘recruits’. , |

Whilst drought posed.problems for entire families, individual Africans were always faced with the problem of food supplies for the long march south. The majority of the men setting out on that journey did not have the cash with which to purchase supplies along the way — indeed the shortage of cash was the major motivation for the journey —

so these poverty-stricken migrants too became potential sources of

RANL.B. recruits.18* a

Bureau agents were fully aware that much of the ‘independence’

of the voluntary worker derived from his access to enough food to enable him to reach the labour market independently. Accordingly, it seems as if at least one stratagem employed by agents was to intercept

‘independent’ workers and then, under the guise of having greater powers than they really possessed, to order them to remain in one place

until ‘authorisation’ for the continuation of their journey had been received. Once the men had waited for a number of days and exhausted their food supplies, they would be forced to accept the R.N.L.B. ‘offer’ of further food in exchange for a contract with chibaro.1®* Workers from North Eastern Rhodesia faced on average a 750-

mile walk to the labour centres, and many must have walked even further. Not unreasonably, some were daunted by the time, effort and savings which such a journey would consume. In fact the journey south

constituted an investment which had to be made even before their Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 109

labour started to earn them cash. The less able the worker was to make this initial investment, the more likely he was to have to turn to chibaro for help. R.N.L.B. contracts thus also partly reflected the distance of the

point of recruitment from the labour market. The closer to a labour market the worker had been, the more likely he was to have reached it ‘independently’ — consequently the greater his bargaining power and the shorter his R.N.L.B. contract.18* The Chairman of the Bureau made the

point when he told members of the mining industry that: ‘south of the river [the Zambesi] boys were seldom engaged for twelve months, but

north of the river they were usually engaged for not less than six months.”/87 It was also the sheer distance from the labour markets that made some workers willing to face the appalling R.N.L.B. rail journey.1**

And it was for the same reason that the Bureau found it profitable to concentrate most of its recruiting drives in the remoter parts of central Africa. Then there was a third category of R.N.L.B. workers — the ‘ortho-

dox recruits’. Occasionally the Bureau recruited labour by a method already familiar among some settler employers: that is, by advertising highly exaggerated conditions of employment. This technique, with its heavy reliance on dishonesty, was used for short periods in areas where,

for any one of a number of reasons, African market intelligence had failed. However, once workers from such districts had experienced at first hand the disadvantages of chibaro-labour, they soon returned to spread the bad word amongst the remainder of their district’s inhabitants.1®° The Bureau itself expressed the position quite frankly in a circular to its agents: ‘Marked success in Northern Rhodesia in one year is of course liable to diminish the chances of recruiting in the ensuing twelve months.”*° In other words, the successful ‘orthodox recruiting’ of one year tended to become the residual ‘Hobson’s choice’

recruitment of subsequent years. _

In theory, and in practice, this meant a continual exhaustion of recruiting grounds.}*! As in some primitive rural robber-economy, the R.N.L.B. was always seeking out a potential new field to exploit briefly for a year before it passed on to the next. The number of areas in which

the organisation had to operate was quite remarkable when it is considered that the average number of Africans employed annually on the Rhodesian mines was about 40,000, and that the R.N.L.B, supplied only about 10,000 of these. The Bureau recruited 1. legally in Nyasaland between 1903 and 1910, 2. illegally in Mozambique from 1903, and from 1914 onwards legally

within Tete Province, ! 110 { Chibaro

3. legally on the basis of a near monopoly within Southern Rhodesia

between 1903 and 1912, a

4. legally on the basis of a near monopoly within the extensive areas of North Western and North Eastern Rhodesia from 1903 onwards. By 1919 even these fields were proving insufficient and the R.N.L.B. unsuccessfully sought permission to extend its activities to Tanganyika. The agents had to move far and fast indeed in order to keep ahead of

chibaro’s reputation. _ |

When one understands how the R.N.L.B. operated on the fringes of

the regional economic system, it becomes even clearer why Bureau re-

cruiting within Rhodesia itself was such a dismal failure. For local Africans were both best informed about the terrors of chibaro, and in the best position to exploit alternatives to R.N.L.B. employment. Local peasants could go to the compounds to sell their produce rather than to

the mine owners to sell their labour. The relative absence of rural poverty made the area south of the Zambesi in any case a comparatively poor recruiting field; and when Shona or Ndebele tribesmen did find it necessary to go to the mines they found themselves the best work conditions through a well developed system of local market. intelligence.?®? Further, when local peasants were recruited by force, they could desert the more easily because they could count on assistance

and protection from local kinsmen along the path home. And their knowledge of local geography enabled them to avoid the more common

labour traps at river crossings. :

_ It was only two years after the second R.N.L.B. was formed in 1906

that the Chief Native Commissioner of the populous Mashonaland province reported that “The efforts of the R.N.L.B. to obtain local natives

for work have practically failed, and their agencies have- been withdrawn except in the Victoria circle.°* Chibaro recruitment became worse rather than better in subsequent years, and by 1912 the Attorney General, who was a member of the Native Affairs Commission, noted

| that ‘The Bureau had not recruited a single native in Southern

Rhodesia.’1°%* ! - :

This failure of the R.N.L.B. effort within Rhodesia only exacerbated the need to look further afield, and this in turn involved greater movement of Africans over.a larger area and movement cost money. Ferries, food, clothes and escorts for chibaro workers all added to the cost of labour and imposed a heavy burden onan industry trying to demonstrate its profitability.‘°* The Rhodesia Chamber of Mines was acutely aware that, ‘The resources of the industry have always been strained in its efforts to afford to the labourer efficient and safe means of transport to and from the mines.”*** In part it was the attempt to reLabour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 111

cover this cost which forced the R.N.L.B. to extract lengthy periods of

service from its ‘recruits’. -

The length of the contract, however, did little to directly recoup the cash outlay incurred in the provision of facilities to workers on the way south. In order to cover its expenses.and running cost the R.N.L.B. therefore made a per capita charge to. the employers. This charge involved the mine owner in a substantial cash outlay which he did not normally incur when he obtained the services of ‘voluntary’ or ‘independent’ workers,*®’ so he in turn sought to recover his cash expenditure from the workers of the R.N.L.B. he was provided with. In practice this meant working his R.N.L.B. workers to the limit* and restricting, to an even greater extent than normal, direct and indirect expenditure on them. In short, R.N.L.B. workers were exploited more ruthlessly than any

other African labour and the derogatory implications of the term chibaro reflected not only R.N.L.B. recruiting tactics, but the conditions of these workers in the compounds themselves.

They were forced to contribute towards the repayment of their capitation fees in a variety of ways. In a significant number of cases they

received poorer rations than ‘voluntary’ workers./®* This, combined with the fact that they had a lower cash income and were forced to work

for longer hours than other workers, produced a significantly higher death rate among them from scurvy and pneumonia.?®® Moreover, Bureau workers were usually denied access to the better paid jobs?°° and were paid the lowest wages possible for the entire duration of their

contract.2' In addition it appears that in some cases they were the victims of harsher discipline even than was normal in the tightly regu-

lated compound system.2°? /

Chibaro-labour formed the-most exploited group of an exploited class. Recruited under strained circumstances, exploited in the work place, sent without choice to the most unpopular mines in Rhodesia? and kept for long periods in a strange country, their lot was appalling. Indeed, if slavery be defined as, ‘the bringing of strangers into a society for use in economic production and legally defining them in terms of the category of property’,?°* then chibaro was perilously close to the

‘slavery’ which Africans perceived it to be. While black workers in Rhodesia were never legally defined ‘in *In some cases ‘the limit’ meant literally working Africans to death. When five chibaro workers died at the North Bonsor mine in 1912, the Managing Director of the R.N.LB. wrote: “The fact that a capitation fee had been paid for the boys can not of course be any excuse for keeping them at work, after they were palpably unfit for work, as was, I feel convinced, done in this case.’ N.A.R., A3/18/30/6, H.Kempster (R.N.L.B.),

to Sec. Dept. of the Administrator, 25 September 1912. -

112 / Chibaro a

terms of the category of property’, there is no doubt that they were perceived as commodities by their settler masters. In official circles, where terminology was usually more genteel than that on the mines, African workers were described as labour “devices’,?°° labour ‘units’?°*

or ‘tax-paying units’.2°? Employers were even less vague, and their thought patterns were revealed whenever they wrote about their black workers. A mine manager thus found nothing strange in writing of the amount of money ‘spent on purchasing Kaffirs from labour agents,’?°° and at least one R.N.L.B. employer claimed to have ‘bought four boys’ from the Bureau.?°? R.N.L.B. recruits themselves referred to the work as ‘slavery’. The deprived socio-economic status of the chibaro workers was so apparent to all within the compounds that fellow black ‘voluntary’ workers also referred to R.N.L.B. employees as ‘slaves’:??° the rivalry involved divided

the black labourers and was, at least on occasion, encouraged by the management.?*! Nor was the chibaro status of the R.N.L.B. workers lost

on the compound managers: the compound Manager at the Yankee Doodle mine welcomed the new R.N.L.B. arrivals at the mine with the comment ‘look at the slaves coming in.’*7? And at least one perceptive

journalist in Rhodesia, Gertrude Page, wrote about the lot of black miners in the Rhodesia Herald under the title ‘Rhodesian Slavery’, asking: “Which is worse, I wonder, to be a slave and know, or be told you are a free man, and treated like a slave?’??® In an economy where the system of control over African labour was so extensive, employers held powers which placed them on a footing remarkably close to that of the slave owners of the nineteenth century. Control over African labour was so effectively ensured through the Masters and Servants Ordinance, the Pass Laws, the Native Regulations Ordinance and the compound system that some settlers actually were in a position to ‘sell’ black workers to other employers. The combined hold of legislation, fear of settler employers, and the remoteness

of a legal system controlled by a colonial power, all inhibited the African’s ability to resist. In the mining district of Selukwe in 1911 it was reported that labour agents ‘had been peddling in boys and making a living out of them in that way’.27* When a mine was bought or sold, employers took for granted the fact that African labour formed part of the deal and an inspector of compounds noted that ‘the custom of sell-. ing the mine and the labour together is open to abuse.’??> The workers for their part also felt that they had been ‘sold’ in such deals,??* and

chibaro workers particularly claimed that they were ‘sold’ by the R.N.L.B. contracts with unpopular mines.??7 ©

Labour Mobilisation: Part 1 / 113

So it was that what an illegal and largely unsuccessful campaign of forced labour had failed to achieve in the speculative years, the legal, systematic and organised activities of chibaro succeeded in achieving over the decade of reconstruction. It was the R.N.L.B. that ensured the

industry its share of labour drawn from within a regional economic system in which it could not offer competitive wages. It was the supply

of chibaro-labour that ensured that mines who could not attract a supply of ‘voluntary’ labour remained in continuous production. It was the Bureau that systematically extracted the longest contracts from the | poorest peasants, which in turn ensured that the mines could develop

ore reserves and continue milling during the Rhodesian wet season. Above all, it was chibaro that bridged the gap between labour supply and demand during the years when the industry’s requirements for black workers expanded while at the same time it reduced wages for African miners. The essential contribution of chibaro is clearly evident from Table ‘D’ below.

Table D: Contribution of the R.N.L.B. to the Black Labour Supply of the Rhodesian Mining Industry between 1906 and 1925*

, Year Total Supplied %RNLB. —— employed by R.N.L.B. of total Contract length

1906 17,381 - 4,914 28.27 5.7 ‘tickets’ 1907 26,098 14,112 54.07 6.73 ‘tickets’ 1908 30,865 15,102 48.93 8.21 ‘tickets’ 1909 32,721 12,652 38.67 10.10 ‘tickets’ 1910 37,826 15,378 40.65 11.75 months 1911 37,909 7,667 20.49 11.78 months — ~=-1912 34,494 8,255 - 23.29 11.72 months 1913 33,543 6,645 19.81 12.00 months 1914 36,100 4,602 12.75 12.00 months 1915 37,928 6,790 17.90. 12.00 months 1916 40,520 3,079 7,60 12.00 months 1917 38,461 4,752 (12.36 12.00 months 1918 32,766 4,162 12.70 12.00 months 1919 30,296 5,684 18.76 12.00 months ~ 1920 37,699 6,956 18.47 12.00 months 1921 37,605 3,685 9.80 12.00 months | 1922 35,718 1,496 4.18 12.00 months 1923 37,482 3,015 8.04 12.00 months 1924 41,286 1,571 3.80 12.00 months 1925 39,386 3,172 8.05 12.00 months * Data derived from figures provided in s.R. Reports on the Public Health covering the period, and annexure ‘C’, R.N.L.B. Annual Report 1926, p.14

114 / Chibaro

4.

Labour Mobilisation in a Colonial Political Economy Part 2

The Harvest of Centre and Periphery 1912-33

Of course the native is a free agent. He can choose how he shall employ his time. He may and too often does elect to loaf through life, doing nothing. Unfortunately under existing conditions he cannot be compelled to work. The matter is however having the earnest attention of all concerned. In a country where millions have been invested in farming, and many millions in mining; in a country where the returns for those millions depends so largely on sufficient unskilled native labour, that labour must and will be procured. The task is not beyond the ingenuity of man... —B.S.A.cCo Official Handbook, 1912

The years of reconstruction had seen the energetic pursuit of both of those basic objectives of the mining industry, output maximisation and cost minimisation; and by 1912 the profitability of the industry had been clearly demonstrated. But whilst these objectives were to remain constant during the years of consolidation (1912-33), there was to be

an important change in the relative contribution that each made to overall profitability. Whereas during reconstruction much of the progress of the industry could be attributed to output maximisation, this was not nearly as true of the years after 1912. Gold production continued to rise only until 1916, after which it showed a steady decline. The industry was further threatened by the rising cost of mining supplies

during and after the first world war. So it is no surprise to find that continued profitability had once again to be achieved by the method already well tried: yet further reductions in the largest bill facing mine owners — that for African wages. Throughout the years of consolidation there was a continued decline in the wages of black workers on the gold mines.

It was however not only the gold mines that demanded cheap black labour between 1912 and 1933. During the latter years of reconstruction,. the base mineral industry had made rapid progress, and, especially after 1912, chrome, mica and asbestos mines all demanded their share of African labour. But since they could obtain lower prices for their products, the owners of base mineral mines had even smaller margins of profit than the goldmine owners, and they thus offered even Labour Mobilisation: Part 2 / 115

lower wages. The central question for the period of consolidation for both base mineral and gold mining was thus essentially similar to that posed for the reconstruction period : how could the industry retain and expand its supply of African labour in the face of falling cash wages?

In the past, of course, it had turned to the R.N.L.B. to work miracles. The role of the Bureau during the years of reconstruction had been essentially two-fold: it had provided the industry with labour at a

time when the local peasantry could avoid wage labour through the sale of their agricultural surplus; and it had bridged the gap between labour supply and demand in a period of falling cash wages. And from Table ‘D’ (page 114) it is clear that it performed both tasks particularly well between 1906 and 1912, when it provided on average 36.4 per cent of the industry’s annual requirements of black workers. But it is also apparent from the table that after 1910 the R.N.L.B.

made a declining contribution: in the period 1913-20 for example, it supplied on average only 14.8 per cent of the industry’s African miners.

This means that during the first seven years of consolidation the Bureau’s annual contribution of labour to the mines dropped by more than half. Clearly, some other factor had entered the scene after 1912, and what chibaro had achieved earlier, was being achieved through other mechanisms in the regional economic system. The move away from chibaro-labour on the mines after 1912 was also apparent in the way that the R.N.L.B, allocated its supplies. For many years the Bureau had supplied labour not only to the mines but also to the white farmers of Rhodesia. During the years of reconstruction, however, the premier industry of the colony always got precedence — a priority which was capable of producing considerable conflict between the two sectors.1 But from 1913 onwards the Bureau no longer supplied the majority of the workers it ‘recruited’ to the mines, but to

the farms.? One of the factors behind this change was that once the profitability of the mining industry had been ensured, the mines turned away from the declining African peasant sector for the supply of their food requirements, towards European commercial agriculture. As the African peasant sector diminished,® so the white farmers found themselves well set for a period of expansion: and what chibaro-labour had done for the mines prior to 1912, it was now called upon to do for the

poorer agricultural sector. The mining industry, however, was unlikely simply to hand over

what had hitherto been a virtual monopoly of R.N.L.B. workers to the agricultural industry on grounds of sympathy alone. The mines would not have sacrificed their supply of cheap long-term workers without having somehow secured even cheaper supplies. As early as May 1914 116 / Chibaro

an editorial in the Rhodesia Herald noted that, ‘A number of mines employ only a comparatively small proportion of Bureau labour, because they can get the bulk of their requirements from other sources at less expense.”*

The mining industry discovered soon after reconstruction that the number of immigrant labourers offering to work was growing dramatically. Over a quarter of a century of colonial presence in central Africa,

taxation, the decline of peasant markets, increases in population and restrictions on the amount of land available were all forcing a growing number of African workers into the cash markets of the regional economic system. The decline of peasant independence on the periphery of the system was making cheap labour available at a rate that undercut even chibaro rates on the mines. What chibaro had done between 1903 and 1912, ‘market forces’ were achieving in the years of consolidation. In 1925 in the Hartley district, ‘independent’ natives earned from 12s 6d to 15s 1d per month as unskilled workers while at the same time

R.N.L.B. workers received 18s per month.’ The Colonial Secretary, W.M.Leggate, put the case clearly when he stated: These figures show the difficult situation in which the Bureau finds itself today. Voluntary labour is offering itself, and offering itself plentifully,

from the capitation fee.®

at a lower wage than what the Bureau natives require to be paid, apart

Further evidence that the influx of ‘voluntary’ immigrant labour was

undercutting the Bureau is evident from the fact that it was the Mashonaland mines that made least use of R.N.L.B. labour — that is, the

mines on the migrant route south.” — , - The R.N.L.B. indeed found itself in what Leggate called a ‘difficult situation’. From being the employer that offered the lowest wages in the industry, in 1914 it suddenly found itself in the strange position of being

one of the relatively generous employers in Rhodesia: it was even under considerable pressure to make a ‘permanent substantial cut’ in the wages it offered. Where it had once provided the cutting-edge for wage policy in the mining industry, the Bureau now blunted the employer-initiative to achieve even lower wage structures. The R.N.L.B. was lagging behind ‘market forces’ and it made the cuts accordingly.°

- The ‘difficult situation’ was exacerbated by the fact that the R.N.L.B. still required capitation fees from employers, and this further

undermined the organisation’s attraction. With cheaper immigrant labour available the mine owners turned elsewhere, and it was useless for the Rhodesia Herald to complain that, ‘clearly a number of large employers have not sufficient patriotism and foresight or realisation of Labour Mobilisation: Part 2 / 117

their own interests to join the Bureau.’!° In practice the industry operated on profits and not patriotism, and mine managers had long ago

discovered their ‘own interests’. .

The fact that the R.N.L.B. could not adjust itself instantly to the new market conditions should not, however, lead to the conclusion that it had no role to play in the mining industry during the coming years. The role of chibaro was certainly not as important as during reconstruc-

tion, but it.was still to provide a valuable ‘insurance policy’ for the

mining industry after 1912. |

The Bureau acted as an ‘insurance policy’ in the sense that it ensured continued supplies of cheap labour to the mines even if African wages should rise. Since the years between 1912 and 1933 saw an overall fall in African mine wages, this role was not as valuable or as important as it might have been; but the value of the institution to the industry can still be illustrated from a study of the labour market in the years immediately after the first world war. During the war years the mining industry had benefited from an influx of immigrant labour from Nyasaland. Africans from that terri-

tory were anxious to avoid ill-paid and hazardous work as porters in the East African campaign against von Lettow Vorbeck, and many of these war-time refugees turned to the mines of Rhodesia as an alternative. But the end of the war brought a shrinking in this supply of labour, and moreover, 1918 saw the ravages of the Spanish flu epidemic, when 7 per cent of all mine workers in Rhodesian compounds lost their lives. These factors,” together with the massive fall in the real value of African wages that had occurred during the war years,'* produced a post-1918 ‘labour shortage’. With the mining industry poised for expansion in response to the gold premium of 1920, there was upward pressure on wages between 1918 and 1920 and the cash wages of black miners rose on average by 13 per cent.%* As African wages rose, so employers again turned to the R.N.L.B.

Whereas in 1917 the Bureau had supplied 12 per cent of the black workers in the industry, this figure rose to over 18 per cent in 1919 and 1920.15 But once this temporary ‘high’ in 1920 had passed and the de-

pression brought an increase in the number of ‘voluntary’ workers, R.N.L.B. workers were systematically replaced by cheaper labour,;** and

by 1921 the R.N.L.B. supplied just 9 per cent of the industry’s black labour. By 1922 it was as little as 4 per cent.?” Thus it is clear that the R.N.L.B. still had a role to play in the mining industry, by guaranteeing the employers a sufficient supply of cheap

labour when ‘market forces’ failed to do so. And it is understandable that for many years after reconstruction, members of the industry were 118 / Chibaro

extremely reluctant to dismantle the apparatus they had learned to

depend upon in hard times. a

In general, however, apart from this brief period after the war and before the depression, the ‘insurance’ the R.N.L.B. provided was not extensively used during the years of consolidation. As Africans within

Rhodesia, and in the areas of the regional economic system further north, became increasingly proletarianised, so the mining industry became increasingly independent of chibaro labour supplies. In 1931 the Bureau supplied only 124 black workers to the mining industry, and by 1933 Rhodesian employers were being so well served by the ‘market forces’ that the R.N.L.B. was disbanded.® , Discrimination against peasant producers in the market place, population growth, land pressure and taxation all contributed to the post-1912 increase in the number of ‘independent’ workers seeking employment in a labour market which held out declining cash wages. A

small number of workers in the Rhodesian compounds were drawn from as far afield as Angola or Tanganyika, but many more came from the adjacent regions of Northern Rhodesia and Mozambique. And the number of workers drawn from all these regions was overshadowed by

the influx of workers from the single territory of Nyasaland. = | The country surrounding Lake Malawi came into the British sphere of influence during the scramble for Africa: in the nineteenth century its characteristic features included an abundance of missionaries and shortage of money. With the increased settler population in the early twentieth century, however, came a demand for cheap African labour to develop plantations and coffee farms, and to provide both the cash for administering the country, and the African labour with which to ‘develop’ it, the Nyasaland administration introduced an early programme of taxation directed at the African peasantry. As early as 1892 African males in Nyasaland were called upon to pay an annual tax of six shillings. When by 1894 it had become apparent

that this imposed too heavy a burden on the peasantry, the tax was reduced. to three shillings. Within a decade the settler industry was suffering from a shortage of cheap labour and in 1901 taxes were again raised to between three and six shillings; but settler requirements were still not met, and this rate was once more increased to between four and eight shillings in 1912-13. In 1921 a flat rate of six shillings was introduced, and there the rate came to rest — at the figure at which it was

introduced nearly thirty years earlier.?2° There are two remarkable features about this programme of taxation. The first is the early date of its introduction — 1892. Neither Nyasaland nor the immediately adjacent territories constituted a wellLabour Mobilisation: Part 2 / 119

developed labour market in the 1890s, so peasants who did not want their homes destroyed for failure to pay taxes? were forced to look far afield for cash earnings. The second peculiarity is the rate of taxation, in relation to potential cash wages and employment opportunities — even when compared with the more developed southern states, the Nyasaland tax was extraordinarily high.?? This exceptional taxation policy was to

isation in Nyasaland. ,

make a considerable contribution to early and vigorous proletarianPart of the objective of the tax collection was indeed to increase

the labour supply for settler farmers within Nyasaland; but once peasants were forced off the land for substantial periods, a significant number of them were liable to seek out the best labour markets within the regional economic system as a whole, and not simply within the national economy. For many Africans from Nyasaland the stimulus of

taxation, combined with the broader horizons developed through a rudimentary mission education, precipitated a decision to seek work in the Rhodesias or South Africa. In this and other respects, Nyasaland’s relationship to Southern Rhodesia was similar to Rhodesia’s to South Africa.?* Both Nyasaland

and Rhodesia increased taxation to swell local labour supplies, and both administrations found to their despair that a significant proportion of the labour thus generated moved southwards. In both countries the

settler populations resented the better-paying labour markets to the south, and pressed their administrations to take steps to control the mobility of African labour. Significantly too, much of this settler pressure was most evident in the first decade of the twentieth century, when national economies struggled against the increasing hold of the developing South African economy and its voracious demand for labour.** In

both Rhodesia and Nyasaland it was found necessary to introduce labour bureaux — devices which were designed to bridge the gap between the demand for cheap labour and the supply.”® Nyasaland, Rhodesia and South Africa were directly linked in a

chain of economic competition for cheap African labour within the regional economic system. The southernmost centres, where capital was best developed and entrenched, each in turn fed off the less developed northern periphery for part of its labour supplies. Planters in the south-

ern areas of Nyasaland obtained their labour from less developed northern Nyasaland. The Rhodesian mines drew much of their labour from Nyasaland, and South Africa in turn took some of its labour from Rhodesia.

As premier industries in their respective countries, the mines of Rhodesia and South Africa had the largest appetite and the greatest 120 / Chibaro

ment: |

need, so could not rely on ‘time’ and ‘market forces’ alone to yield

their labour. Through the R.N.L.B. and W.N.L.A. the process was short-

circuited and labour supplies obtained directly at source, and for both the mining industries, Nyasaland: was well within the range for recruitNyasaland was not simply a missionary frontier, it was also the frontier of the white settlers and of the capitalists interests represented in South

Africa and Southern Rhodesia.2* ]

The ‘voluntary’ flow of immigrant labour to Rhodesia should thus be seen against a background of local and regional demands for the proletarianisation of the African peasantry to meet the require-

ments of a growing capitalism. |

Particularly from the turn of the century, increasing numbers of Africans from this frontier of capitalist interests made the long trip south in search of higher cash wages; and amongst them were at least two who were destined to occupy a prominent role in South African history — Hastings Banda and Clements Kadalie. Banda, later first President of independent Malawi, made his way to the South African

mines after a stay with his. uncle who worked on the mines in the Hartley district of Rhodesia. Kadalie, who was later to head the Lc.v. in South Africa, followed the example of hundreds of his compatriots when he spent a period of work on two large Rhodesian gold mines

before proceeding southwards.?* 7 Basically, Nyasaland workers took one of two routes to the labour

markets. Many from northern and western Nyasaland made their way to Fort Jameson in Northern Rhodesia and from there journeyed south to Feira where they crossed the Zambesi. into Southern Rhodesia. This route, in common with others, presented the worker with the need for cash in order to protect his ‘independent’ status.and reduce his exposure

to danger and hardship. Ferries, particularly, across the large rivers, operated by local Africans, had to be paid in cash or kind in order to avoid the ‘free’ ferries of chibaro and the long contracts that went with them. And many of those who refused to accept R.N.L.B. offers of assistance in the form of food, for example, fell ill, starved and died along the way. Indeed, the presence at that time of large numbers: of maneating lions on the Fort Jameson-Feira route was specifically attributed to the number of migrants who had died there.?®

The second route was utilised by workers who came from the southern province of Nyasaland, and it involved. the hazardous crossing of the Tete pedicle in Mozambique. Here again, cash payments had to

be made to ferrymen, such as the ‘Sena people’, in order to cross the Labour Mobilisation: Part 2 / 121

rivers in the region safely. In 1917, the ‘Sena people’ charged 6d or Is

for those making the ferry crossing to the labour markets and 2s to 2s 6d for those returning from the mines.”® Possibly the greatest danger

which faced the worker on this route, however, was the prospect of being captured as forced labour by the Portuguese or their agents. In order to avoid the labour traps, local Africans had to be paid to escort the workers along ‘secret ways’.®° Until well into the 1930s workers along both routes had to face considerable hardship, deprivation and danger** before they arrived as ‘independents’ at the labour markets. Given the rigours of the journey it is not surprising that parties of workers who had successfully negotiated the trip conspicuously celebrated their arrival at the labour centres.*? Although there were some workers from Nyasaland in Rhodesia before the South African War, they became a prominent element in the Rhodesian labour force only in the decade that followed, by 1912 constituting 5,000 (roughly 14 per cent) of the 34,000 Africans employed on the Rhodesian mines.** When in 1913 the South African mining industry was legally prohibited from officially recruiting in areas north of 22°S, because of the high death rates amongst such workers, there was

a further expansion in the number of ‘Nyasas’ seeking work in Rhodesia. ‘This influx was in turn-supplemented by the men anxious to avoid service with the Kings African Rifles in the East African cam-

paign, so that by 1916 there were 10,000 ‘Nyasas’ at work on the Rhodesian mines — about 25 per cent of the labour force of 40,000.** This percentage continued to rise, and after the war the Rhodesian min-

ing industry could rely on a steady 334 per cent contribution of

Nyasaland labour.*® , .

With the advantage that.an early mission education gave them, many of the ‘Nyasa’ workers sought the better paid semi-skilled jobs. In general, they shunned underground work and were more prominent in roles like compound police (especially the Yao and Ngoni), cooks, clerks, hospital orderlies and stores assistants.** With the important ex-

ception that they did not undertake underground work on a comparative scale, the ‘Nyasas’ after 1912 occupied the same place in the compounds as the Shangaans had before the collapse of the industry in 1903. Both groups came to dominate the industry’s black labour force at different stages of its development, both constituted the best paid

compounds. » ,

workers, and both formed the nucleus of the real proletariat in the

For many hundreds of workers from Nyasaland the mines of

Rhodesia: became permanent-homes. ‘Nyasa’ workers were prominent in the Shamva strike of 1927, and the extent of their proletarianisation

122 { Chibaro

proved significant to their action at the time.*’ It is probable that at several large mines, such as Shamva, whole ‘Nyasa’ communities took root, and the Nyasaland Native Labour Officer in Salisbury described a walk through the compound at the Cam & Motor mine as ‘like walking through Kota Kota town.”* The inhabitants of Nyasaland referred to their long-absent kinsmen in Rhodesia and South Africa as machona

— the lost ones.*®

In the years of consolidation for the Rhodesian mining industry, then, it was above all the influx of immigrant labour from Nyasaland which contributed to the continual fall in African mine wages,*® and from 1920 onwards there were more ‘Nyasas’ at work on Rhodesian

mines than any other group. - , :

Single male adult workers from African communities within Rhodesia also made a growing contribution to the labour force on the mines in the years after 1912. To an increasing extent young men in their physical prime had to make their way to the mines to sell their labour, as restricted access to land, taxation and the decline in peasant markets proletarianised Shona, and to a lesser extent, Ndebele com-

munities.** |

_ Up to this time, the local peasantry had made only a minor con-

tribution to the mine labour force, through the lumpen proletariat, those who in traditional societies had been the outcasts, the dispossessed, the landless, the criminal and those without kin. While the local

peasant economy remained relatively intact, the men of the lumpen

proletariat tended to be drawn from countries further afield. The women of this heterogenous group on the other hand were largely local,

coming from communities which had either rejected them, or from which they had consciously opted out of for life in the new industrial centres where they were freed from traditional obligations and responsi-

bilities, and capable of earning a living through prostitution or beer selling.

Adult men and women from local communities thus made their ways to the mine compounds at different stages and for different sets of reasons. Adult women*? were amongst the first to settle permanently on the mines; but it was only once the peasant economy was on the decline

and the progress of proletarianisation advanced, that Shona and

homes. |

Ndebele men chose, in significant numbers, to make the mines their This process in turn had its effect on the traditional economies. Within the traditional economies, and more especially within the agricultural economy of the Shona, both sexes laboured in the fields and Labour Mobilisation: Part 2 / 123

gardens: the bulk of the manual labour was undertaken by the fittest and most productive members of the society. This tradition, however, operated within the context of a value and belief system which ensured that the less productive members of society — the young, the old or the handicapped — also shared in the fruit of the labour, so that those who were not at the prime of their physical ability were nevertheless secure

in a system of communal living. |

With the advent of colonialism, and the forces of proletarianisation which it set in motion, came a new set of structures: for both cultural and economic reasons, the extent to which the young or the old were ‘at risk’ was heightened. Less labour time, greater cash demands, less land and a belief system centred on individualism made the duty of providing for the family increasingly onerous. As obligations mounted, values changed and living standards declined, so the young and the old became increasingly valued only to the extent to which they could contribute to the cash income of the family. It was under these pressures that children and old men too came to be drawn into labour

onThethe Rhodesian mines. , , use of child labour in certain sections of the Rhodesian in-

dustry has its roots deep in the years of reconstruction. From the earliest days of the R.N.L.B, young boys in the rural areas of central Africa were

recruited by chibaro.** To these children, bound by contract, fell the task of cooking for the adult workers making the long march to the mines.** Once at the mines themselves, the boys earned their. living through the relatively minor tasks of cleaning, sweeping or cooking in the compounds. By 1905 the use of children was sufficiently pervasive for the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines to quote wage rates for ‘piccanins’ in its annual report.*°

_ Unable to work underground because of their lack of strength, these boys thus came to occupy, in compounds dominated by single male workers, a type of surrogate female role: their tasks were essentially those that were usually associated with women in traditional society. This, together with the structurally designed shortage of women in the compounds, partly explains the high incidence of sodomy involving young boys.*® Young and powerless in a new role, these boys were vulnerable to the demands of adult men who were denied their normal

sexual outlets by the compound system. a But if the limited physical capabilities of boys protected children from the labour demands of mine managers on the gold mines, where

bulky manual tasks moving and crushing tons of ore simply offered little opportunity for the productive employment of child labour, in the base mineral industry on the other hand there were tasks which 124 / Chibaro

relied on quickness of eye and agility of hand: work which mine owners

and the Chief Native Commissioner considered eminently suited to children.*’

There was also a series of more deep-seated economic reasons for the use of child labour in the base mineral industry. The asbestos and mica mines in Rhodesia developed very rapidly after 1908 and again after the first world war, but the consequent need to expand the African labour force came at a bad time** because during both these periods the gold mines were short of cheap labour during their own periods of expansion. Their lower profit margins made it impossible for the base mineral mines to compete even with the meagre wages that were paid to black workers in the voracious gold mining industry, so they turned to the even cheaper labour of children.

Qn the asbestos mines child labour was used to separate the mineral fibre from the rock matrix in which the mineral occurred. As early as 1910 it was reported that several mines used considerable numbers of children, and at least one mine was entirely staffed by child labour.*® More frequently the labour force simply included a significant

number of children: in 1928 the Ethel Asbestos Mine, for example, employed 360 African workers of whom seventy were children.

The proportion of children employed on the mica mines, however, was far more important. Here at least half of the labour force was composed of children.*® In return for a penny and a half a day, boys ranging in age from ten to fifteen years were employed in cutting, splitting and sorting mica. Older boys received slightly higher wages than the normal rate of four shillings per month.

The children at work on the mica mines reveal to what extent some African families had been proletarianised. The fact that mothers and fathers allowed their children to work on the mines at all indicated a desperate attempt to raise incomes that were themselves exceptionally low. Most of the children were ‘content’, or so it was reported, because ‘their fathers or elder brothers’ were also at work on the mica mines.*? The mothers for their part only allowed their children to work because food was provided on the mine — indeed it is significant that the food issue on the mica mines was called ‘mothers’ rations’.®?

On mines such as the asbestos mines in Mashonaland, whose wages were even lower than those on the gold mines, it was not only the labour of the very young that was exploited but also that of the old. ‘Cobbers’ — the workers who separated the asbestos fibres from the rock matrix — received cash wages ranging from 3d to 6d per day in 1917.53 From the Kings’ Asbestos mine it was reported that ‘many’ of the men sold eight hours of their day’s labour for one penny.®* And the Labour Mobilisation: Part 2 / 125

fact that the cash wages were linked to piece-work did not ease the burden of those who found it difficult to complete their task. What is more, even though ‘old men’ were employed, those workers who had

failed to complete their task for three days during the month were

sometimes punished with as many as 25 lashes.*® These were not the conditions which a fully fit man would readily endure, and the asbestos mines were frequently troubled by desertions.*®®

Even the old men could hardly have found the labour pleasant, and most of them came only to work off debts incurred for food provided by the state during famines, or to pay their tax.5? The fact that the state sent these old men to work on the mines is yet further testimony-to the close linkages between the administration and the mining industry in

Rhodesia. |

In the colonial economy there was only one group that held less bargaining power than the young or the old — the black convicts; and these too made their contribution to the Rhodesian mining industry and its development. Here again, it is significant that the most consistent employer of convict labour in the industry was not a gold producer, but the Wankie colliery. Because of its low wage structure the coal mine experienced a consistent shortage of cheap labour during the first two

decades of its development, and convict labour did much to ensure that production did not suffer more than was necessary in periods of exceptional “shortage’.5* On rare occasions other mines also used convict labour, but never on the same scale as at Wankie. Indirectly, how-

ever, convicts did contribute to the development of the industry as a whole, for it was largely through their labour on the roads that access to remote mines, especially during the wet season, was maintained.*® The Minister of Mines and Public Works frankly told his colleagues in the Legislative Assembly that such labour was ‘a commercial and econ-

omic proposition’ and that ‘If we had to hire these convicts from an outside party they would not be anything like the value to us of free

paid boys.’®° Oe

The extent to which the young, the old and the powerless were used on the mines highlights two features about the functioning of a diversified mining industry in a colonial political economy. First, by default, it illustrates the dominance of the largest and most powerful employer in the labour market — gold mining. Since with higher profit

margins gold mines could offer a relatively ‘generous’ wage to their African workers, the base mineral industry could not compete and thus

had to look beyond the fully fit male adult worker for a significant pro- , portion of their labour. Second, it demonstrates the vulnerability of 126 / Chibaro

certain groups within traditional communities once the process of proletarianisation is under way, and the intrusive economic system begins

to destroy the agriculturally based redistributive economy. = ~~ | Perhaps the most striking feature of all to. emerge from an exam-

ination of the whole picture of labour mobilisation for the mines in Rhodesia is the proletarianisation of the central African peasantry. The mines in Rhodesia moved from a position of acute labour ‘shortage’ at

the turn of the century to a position where, within three decades, a single generation, the Chief Native Commissioner could write of the labour supply reaching ‘embarrassing proportions’ in 1933.*! In the same year a contented industry could report that: “On the whole, native mine labour is cheap, plentiful and satisfactory, and causes very little trouble,’®? From an examination of how labour became cheap we can now turn to explore why it was that such exploited labour “caused very

little trouble.’

Labour Mobilisation: Part 2 / 127

5.

The Compound System | , Before coming to the Union, I had worked as a clerk in two leading _ mines in Southern Rhodesia, where I had watched the evils of the recruiting system. I resolved not to continue to be employed in the mine compounds. It should be added that it was the systematic torture of the African people in Rhodesia that kindled the spirit of revolt in me. — Clements Kadalie, founder of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Southern Africa

This study so far has sought to demonstrate how profitable mining

of low grade ore in Rhodesia could only be achieved through the ex-

ploitation of African labour; and that both conditions in the compounds, and the manner in which labour was mobilised for the industry, offer evidence of that exploitation. Labour-coercive systems, however, have a dynamic of their own and the problems of the mine owners did not end once they had secured the labour they required. How were reluctant workers to be kept on the mines, especially in the period before 1912, when the industry was so reliant on chibaro-labour? How, in later years — and especially in the 1920s and 1930s — were the growing number of workers on declining wages to be prevented from organising

and participating in collective bargaining? Furthermore, how were large numbers of unskilled peasants drawn from a wide area throughout central Africa to be controlled and disciplined to meet the needs of a modern industry with limited European manpower? These questions

demanded practical answers, and to find them, the Rhodesian mine owners and the state looked to their more industrialised southern neighbour. There the problems had already been tackled, and partly solved, by the compound system. Origins of the Compound System in Southern Africa Credit for the invention of this peculiar system of labour control must go to the labour-intensive industry that transformed the social and economic structure of the sub-continent in the late 1860s — the Kimberley

diamond mines. In particular, it was the problem faced by Cecil Rhodes’ powerful company, De Beers’ Consolidated Mines that gave birth to it, and although it was modified to meet differing requirements 128 { Chibaro

elsewhere, it was the De Beers’ compound which came to serve.as the

model for labour control in labour-intensive industries. At Kimberley, mine owners found themselves facing a special problem in addition to the usual difficulties of controlling and disciplining labour-in a large industry: diamond mines yielded a uniquely small and valuable product which could readily be hidden, stolen and sold. If prices were to be kept up, profits increased and the market stabilised, it was necessary both for the mine owners and for the state to eliminate as far as possible the illicit diamond buying (1.D.B.) trade — which was

largely supplied by workers. 7 7 _

As early as August 1872 a proclamation made it possible to confiscate any diamonds found in the possession of black servants, and Ordinance 11 of 1880 empowered employers to search their workers on the completion of the day’s work.! While production at Kimberley continued to expand, however, and the price of diamonds remained relatively stable, employers were reluctant to implement searching procedures which would have been most unpopular with white and black workers alike. So the powers of Ordinance 11 remained unused between 1880 and 1883. But in 1883 diamond production fell — as did prices.? The depression lent a new urgency to the need to search workers for stolen diamonds and increase revenue. When J.X.Merriman visited the diamond fields in 1883 he suggested that the powers of Ordinance 11 be put into effect. It was thus during the year of a recession that state and employers

co-operated to tighten control over the workers on the Kimberley mines. By the end of 1883, the least powerful and most colonised section of the labour force — the blacks — were already living in partially

closed compounds, rarely allowed out and usually restricted to a Sunday visit to town. The barracks-like accommodation, combined

sentment. ,

with the more rigorous searching procedures, soon earned African reIn order effectively to block the illegal flow of diamonds, however, it was also necessary to extend searching procedures to the more powerful and privileged workers — the whites. This required the backing of more substantial force, which was provided on 1 January 1884 when the state made the “Detective Department’ responsible for guarding the mines.? When the head of the department attempted to extend searching to white workers, however, he was faced with serious resistance. On 24 April 1884 white workers came out on strike and gained the support of their fellow black workers.* Yet although the strike involved workers of both colours, it achieved only. the removal of the more humiliating aspects of the search of white workers. The Compound System / 129

It was from these foundations of state and employer co-operation established during the recession years that the mining companies sought to extend their systems of labour control. By 1885 the largest and most powerful company, De Beers, was seeking further ways to reduce LD.B. losses and extend control over the black work force, and Rhodes en-

listed the expertise of two men. To the De Beers’ compound came ‘Matabele’ Thompson, bringing with him his knowledge about ‘the native’ gained from experience in the reserves, and to assist him J.Carruthers, an ex-policeman who was to put to use the systems of control he had learnt in the police and army.*® Although nominally still an ‘open compound’ the De Beers’ com-

pound in 1885 already had a formidable quasi-military appearance. Carruthers described it as forming a square, surrounded by a corrugated iron fence ten feet high, with a single large gate as an entrance, and a ‘tower outlook’.* The rudiments of the system at De Beers were thus well established, and the ex-state officials were called upon to

perfect rather than initiate a system of control. , Under the supervision of ‘Matabele’ Thompson a series of ‘improvements’ were made. Essentially these were directed towards mak-

ing the compounds a closed self-sufficient community of African workers. In addition to the much-praised swimming bath, stores for bakers, grocers and butchers came to be erected within the perimeters. But around this soft core of concern for the workers’ welfare there also grew the cruder cudgels of control. Access to the mine workings was restricted through a covered way and an inclined shaft. The entire compound came to be covered by fine wire mesh — a precaution designed to } prevent parcels of diamonds being thrown out over the fence. In addition a new wall twelve feet high was erected in order to prevent easy entry to, or exit from, the compound. On the completion of these ‘improvements’ state permission was sought, and obtained, to change to a ‘closed compound’ system.’

Under the new system, African workers who entered the De Beers’ compound on a two- or three-month contract lost all access to the outside world for the duration of their engagement. While the system was primarily designed for, and largely successful in, restricting I.D.B. activities,® it also produced other features attractive to the mining

company. It prevented desertions, reduced labour turnover and probably increased the average level of competence of workers forced to see

out a two- or three-month contract.* Later, the control over black workers which at De Beers had been primarily a by-product of an attempt to restrict the illicit diamond trade, became a central feature of compound systems that had nothing to do with diamonds but every130 / Chibaro

thing to do with employers seeking to maximise control over labour.

When gold was discovered. on the Witwatersrand in the late 1880s, mine owners there were not confronted with the identical problems that had troubled Kimberley companies. Tons of low-grade ore hardly posed the same security problems as small diamonds, so a rela-

tively relaxed compound system emerged on the Rand in the years before the South African War. As had happened in Kimberley in 1883-84, it was the effect of an economic crisis and the need for expanded production which brought about the perfection of the system.

In order to ensure the continued profitability of the Rand gold mines, the mining houses had effected general wage reductions for their

black workers during the Boer War. Reduced wages and poor conditions then combined to produce a ‘labour crisis’ in the Transvaal between 1901 and 1906 — a shortage of cheap labour that was ultimately resolved through the introduction of Chinese indentured labour.® In 1903 the mine owners were faced with the need to expand production, a shortage of African labour, desertions that had reached serious proportions, and rising wages. They were forced to seek ways of tightening control over their labour supplies. Significantly, it was in this year that

the Rand mining industry chose to send a commission to study and report on the compound system at De Beers.*° The ideas of tighter control that emanated from Kimberley were used as the basis for the relatively closed compounds that were used to * For an interesting and complex set of reasons South African scholarship has tended to stress the security aspect of the De Beers’ compound system and largely ignore the ancillary but important function of labour coercion. .There is thus a tendency to play down the importance of labour coercion at Kimberley by stressing the fact that much of the labour in the diamond mines was ‘voluntary’ — see for example, G.V.Doxey, The Industrial Colour Bar in South Africa, London 1961, p.34. With the passage of time this theme is now assuming the dimensions of an academic myth and a recent study assures us that: ‘employers in Kimberley have never had to go out and recruit labour in the way that other employers have to do.’ F.Wilson, Migrant Labour in South Africa, Johannesburg 1972, p.2. There appears to be no factual basis whatever to these grossly over-stated claims. At the very time that the ‘closed compound’ was inaugurated at De Beers, labour had to be recruited, see N.Rouillard (ed), Matabele Thompson, Johannesburg 1953, p.43. In the labour crisis that followed the South African War agents from De Beers were actively recruiting as far north as Northern Rhodesia, see P.R.O., €.0.417/363, Acutt & Crewe (Labour Agents), to c.n.c., 29 January 1902. By 1913, De Beers Consolidated Mines recruited at least 10 per cent of their black workers, see Royal Commission on the Natural Resources, Trade, and Legislation of certain Portions of His Majesty’s Dominions, 1914, #.M.S.0., Minutes of Evidence taken in the Union of South Africa, Part 2, p.93.

The Compound System / 131

house the Chinese workers on the Rand. Once the Chinese had left, the remaining compounds, combined with the Pass Laws and the contract system, were to provide the central institutions of African labour control in the South African mining industry.“

When the Rhodesian mining industry started to expand more rapidly after the revolt of 1896-97, it too experienced the need for a system of African labour control. The instability produced by a growing realisation that Rhodesia did not constitute a ‘Second Rand’ meant that the authorities there were forced to look south far earlier than had

occurred on the Witwatersrand. As early as August 1900 the Chief Native Commissioner wrote to the Secretary of the De Beers’ Company

requesting information about the compound system, wage rates and the different ways of treating ‘free’ and convict labour.’? The need for expertise in labour control assumed more critical proportions with the collapse in March-April 1903. As this collapse coincided exactly with the Rand mining industry’s commission to Kimberley, it was an opportune moment for the Rhodesian administration to send a representative as well. It was thus again at a time of crisis in the industry that Native Commissioner C.L.Carbutt (later Chief Native Commissioner), visited the Rand and Kimberley to report on the compound systems employed there.1®

_. Embryonic systems of labour control over African workers had existed at Kimberley, on the Witwatersrand and in Rhodesia from the very start of the respective industries. In each case the moment chosen to allow the systems to crystallise into more rigid forms, however, came

when. the industry was undergoing a production or labour crisis, or - both. In general, the introduction of the compound system in southern Africa seems to substantiate the hypothesis advanced by one analyst of capitalist development that: .,. When state intervention has occurred in the past as a considered and settled policy adapted to normal circumstances of peace-time, the two objects which mainly seem to have actuated it are the enforcement of a monopoly in favour of some group of capitalists or the tightening of the bonds of labour discipline; and one might expect that the efforts of the State in a capitalist society to control wages and to restrict the freedom of movement of the labourer would be greater when the labour reserve was depleted than when it was swollen.1*

The sharper focus which the compound systems of southern Africa assumed in 1883-84 and 1903 should thus be traced to very particular

phases of capitalist development. ,

132 / Chibaro |

Physical Features of the Rhodesian Compound System The system that came into existence on many of the larger mines in Rhodesia differed in important respects from those that developed in Kimberley and the Witwatersrand. Basically these differences, and especially those between the Rand and Rhodesia, can be traced to the

relative attractiveness of the industry as a labour market within a national and regional economic system. Since the compound system at Kimberley had its roots mainly in the attempts to limit the L.D.B. trade (or, in Dobb’s terms ‘the enforcement of a monopoly’), while the system on the gold mines really centred on attempts to tighten ‘the bonds of labour discipline,’ it is really more to the point to compare the compound systems of the Rand and Rhodesia.

The Rand mines with their poor health record and low wages proved an unattractive labour market in the South African national economy, and had to compete with the manufacturing and other sectors for its labour supplies. They thus required a high degree of compound

control to prevent desertions, and in comparison with most of the Rhodesian mines ran virtually ‘closed compounds’. The Rhodesian mines for their part had for many years an even more appalling health record than the Rand, and the cash wages they offered declined steadily after 1903. Within the regional economic sys-

tem, Rhodesian mines were also forced to compete with the more attractive labour markets in South Africa. So there were several forces to induce Rhodesian owners to opt for a relatively ‘closed compound’ system — especially in the early years when the industry relied on a con-

siderable amount of chibaro-labour. | But there were also important differences in the positions of the respective industries. Despite an appalling health record and low cash wages, the Rhodesian mines still formed the best labour market for workers in the national economy, and for the thousands of workers drawn from further north in central Africa. Unlike its South African counterpart, the Rhodesian industry never had a significant local manufacturing industry competing with it for its labour supplies. In addition, and again unlike South Africa, the Rhodesian mines were widely spread

throughout the country and often located in relatively remote rural areas. This meant that large concentrations of black labour did not pose the same real or imagined threat to white communities as they did on

the Witwatersrand. There was thus a combination of forces at work

which made for a more relaxed or ‘open compound’ system in Rhodesia.

In practice the compounds on large Rhodesian mines came to reflect an interesting compromise between the different forces making The Compound System / 133

for ‘open’ or ‘closed’ compounds. Large mines developed a three-tiered compound system. The inner or square compounds were used to house

either short-term workers or recruited labourers'* — that is, the least proletarianised, unskilled and lowest paid workers — who would have been most prone to desertion. The huts of single workers surrounding the inner compound housed longer-term miners — that is, more proletarianised workers with greater skills and average wages — who were less likely to desert.1” Finally, separated from both of these tiers were the huts of the married workers and their families — fully proletarian-

likely of all to desert. _

ised workers, semi-skilled, with above-average wages — the group least

The ‘three-tier’ compound system allowed for differing degrees of control over the black labour force — a degree of subtlety not needed on the Rand mines which made exclusive use of the single male migrant worker. In Rhodesia, as workers became more skilled, relatively: better paid and more proletarianised, so managers could relax their control by allowing the worker to change his. accommodation from the hated inner compound*® to the relatively private and relaxed outer areas of the

compound. As early as 1903 a compound inspector pointed out the

rudiments of this system : , ,

‘At most mines there is the mine compound [the ‘inner compound’] and all natives commencing work must live there until they are given permission to move into a vacant hut or build: one for themselves. [usually the

second tier.]1° |

Frequently the tight control of the ‘inner compound’ was reserved

for the short-term workers, or the chibaro workers. Since much of R.N.L.B. labour was, at best, reluctant, it can be appreciated why it was that the reception compound at Salisbury was also ‘fenced all round’.”° There were claimed to be medical reasons for this isolation, but once workers had been ‘drafted’ to-the various mines the medical arguments became less convincing and the simple coercive function of. the compound more evident. The compound inspector in the Salisbury district drew attention to the ‘prison-like perfection of conditions’ for chibaro

workers at the Shamva mine.??

During the early years of the industry the ‘inner compound’ was used to contain these workers recruited on the basis of forced labour. In 1901 the largest producing mine in Rhodesia — the Globe & Phoenix — had a compound described as ‘a hollow square with a compound policeman at the gateway’? and elsewhere it was noted that the huts were in ‘a yard enclosed with iron’.?* Robert Codrington, Administrator

of North Eastern Rhodesia, offered the usual rationalisation to Sir Harry Johnston: “The object of the compound is not to prevent the 134 / Chibaro

native from running away but to keep him from being interfered with.’**

But Codrington’s explanation would have been more appropriate had it been offered in the late 1920s, or the 1930s, when the compound was used to keep the workers from being ‘interfered’ with — largely by African trade unionists or political organisers. Especially in the early years, the compounds were primarily used to ‘prevent the native from running away’. When a mine owner was plagued by a spate of desertions

in 1909, he responded by building ‘a compound with high walls and

only one entrance’.?®

The fact that the tightest control was reserved for the inner compound did not mean that managers were content to allow the second or

third tier to develop on a haphazard basis. In their own distinctive fashion the layouts of the second and third tiers were also carefully organised. At the Falcon mine, the huts of seven employees that were not sufficiently centralised for purposes of control were burnt down on the order of the assistant compound manager.”* And the physical consolidation of the. compound at the Globe & Phoenix mine between 1913 and 1914 reduced the ‘daily unaccounted for’ workers from 4 per cent

of the labour force to 1 per cent, while the manager commented that additional fencing or walls would further reduce the number.?’

Since within the industry gold mines were relatively attractive employers, the tightest control on such mines could be reserved for the

poorest paid workers - the inhabitants of the inner compound. Other mines within the industry who could not afford the wage rates that were

offered on gold mines had to exercise greater control over all their workers, so on base mineral mines compounds.tended to be at least as

coercive, if not more so. ,

At Wankie colliery for instance the compound assumed the familiar square shape. The basically repressive nature of the structure is evidenced by the ease with which it could be used to house prison labour: no fundamental changes to the compound were necessary except that the convicts were ‘isolated from the-rest of the compound by means of a barbed wire fence’.2* A large asbestos mine in the Victoria district also had a compound surrounded’by a barbed wire fence, which in this case was partially used to enforce a trading monopoly within the

compound.”®

One reason for Rhodesian mine owners not introducing fully ‘closed compounds’ was possibly that this would have produced ten-

sions with the traders, who were anxious to have assured access to their customers.®° But the most important reason remained that, as a relatively attractive labour market in the northern part of the regional economic system, the mines could afford ‘open compounds’ for the more The Compound System / 135

proletarianised members of the central African peasantry — a degree of ‘relaxed’ control which the Rand mines with their distinctive pattern of labour mobilisation could never allow.

The Compound Staff |

_ While the nature of the workers’ accommodation facilitated con-

trol over the black miners, it was not in itself however sufficient to ensure the functioning of the system. Within the physical confines of the ‘barracks system’? the compound staff — in particular the mine manager, the compound manager and the compound ‘police’ — regu-

lated the system of control. Nor was the “barracks system’ the only quasi-military feature of the Rhodesian mining industry. It is striking to what extent the entire system functioned on a quasi-military basis: in the countryside uniformed agents of the R.N.L.B. or of individual mines sought out labour that was in turn controlled by uniformed ‘police’ within the compounds.*? The terminology of the industry, and especially that associated with the R.N.L.B. even had an explicitly mili-

“ tary flavour to it. Workers were ‘recruited’, Africans ‘deserted’ from the mines, R.N.L.B. workers were ‘drafted’, and when confronted with a Strike the administration referred to a ‘mutiny’ in the compound.** On

the mines themselves this military pattern was set at the most senior level by the mine manager himself.

Given that the invading settlers had fought two wars against the indigenous population within a decade of occupation, the dominance of men with military experience in the small white population is not surprising. After the revolt of 1896-97 many of the more seasoned military campaigners came to play prominent parts in the mining industry,

both at managerial and more senior levels. In Bulawayo the large Rhodesia Chamber of Mines was for many years presided over by Colonel. Raleigh Grey, while the sister Chamber in Salisbury was headed by Major Frank Johnson. Before their collapse, the large Gwanda mines of Matabeleland were managed by Major Maurice Heany and the managing director of the Consolidated Exploration and Development (Rhodesia)-Co, A. Woolls-Sampson, was an honorary colonel in the British army and played an important part in the military history of South Africa.*+ The former Secretary to the Foreign Labour

Department of the Transvaal Colony, Captain Wolfe Murray, also found his way to Rhodesia where he was for some years in charge of the R.N.L.B.

The expertise in the organisation and control of men which these men had gained in the army could be put to good use in a labour-intensive industry. Wolfe Murray’s experience of the compound system and 136 / Chibaro

‘recruited’ labour was so wide that his services were used not only on the Rand and Rhodesia but also as far afield as the mines of the Gold

Coast.*> Military experience constituted an important strand in the skills of the early Rhodesian mine managers. Non-military Rhodesian mine managers did not always derive

their knowledge of coerced labour from more industrialised South Africa.** Some gained experience even further afield — in particular, from working with Chinese indentured labour in the Californian gold-

fields.27 In those early years ‘no one had a chance of being a mine manager unless he had an American accent’, complained H.U.Moffat when he was Minister of Mines in the 1920s. But though experience gained in the army or America did much

to bolster the often dubious technical expertise of many mine managers,®* especially in the earliest years of reconstruction, control over

large numbers of men in tightly-knit hierarchical communities left many of them with inflated ‘ideas of their own superiority or official position’.*® Perhaps it was because the number of whites on mining properties was so small that managers were so anxious to maintain their authority over, and their dignity in front of, the vastly more numerous

African workers. ,

For example, although many of them, especially those with some-

thing to hide, may have had other reasons for objecting to African workers being independently interviewed. by native commissioners or

compound inspectors, they chose to object to the practice on the grounds that they suffered ‘considerable loss of prestige’*° in the eyes of

their black workers. And the arrest of the manager at the Falcon mine on a charge of culpable homicide in connection with the death of a black miner provoked a letter of bitter complaint to the London Secretary of the B.S.A.co:

The point to which I am desired to draw your particular attention is the wholly unnecessary step of having the manager arrested at the mine. Such

an action, taken with the full knowledge of the natives and others employed at the mine, cannot fail-to have a seriously prejudicial effect on the position of those in authority at mines in Rhodesia.*1

This concern with: dignity, prestige and power put great pressure on black workers. At the Killarney mine, the manager demanded ‘almost military discipline and oriental deference on all occasions’,*? while at the Gaika mine failure to remove a hat in the presence of the mine manager was rewarded with six lashes from the sjambok.** The day-to-day running of the compound system, however, was one of the less prestigious roles in the industry, and on the large mines

other Europeans were appointed to this task, leaving the powerful The Compound System / 137

figure of the mine manager as general over-lord. On the smaljler and medium-sized mines, managers could not avoid more direct involvement with the compound system, and many of the mine managers were also the compound managers, and thus intimately concerned with the cruder measures of labour control — the fines and physical punishments. Occupying a central position of power in a labour repressive sys-

tem, the role of compound manager required a particular blend of qualities which were vital to the satisfactory running of the mine. From

the earliest years of the industry it was recognised that the man who had to hear and voice African grievances, discipline workers and act as

rations-overseer, medical attendant, store-keeper,*t time-keeper and paymaster for all the black workers would need special strengths. Stanley P. Hyatt who was widely travelled in Rhodesia felt that: —

These compound managers should be educated men, English born by preference, above petty spite, and free from the ordinary South African prejudices - men who, without giving way to the native, will look to all matters concerning him from an impartial standpoint, and safeguard his interests without endangering those of the mining companies.45 —

During the reconstruction period when money in the industry was tight, mining companies were very unwilling to pay for the services of educated Englishmen who were not directly involved in the production process. Faced with the terrible death rates in the. compounds, however, the administration came eventually to appreciate the need for men with special responsibility for the care and welfare. of African workers, and from 1907 onwards all mines with more than 300 African employees were legally required to employ a licensed .com-

pound manager.** ,

Since working with Africans inside the compounds was a lowstatus job on the mines, and relatively poorly paid,*’ the job was not

likely to attract men with the qualities that Hyatt attributed to the English. In practice, especially during the first two decades of this century, companies often offered the position to the man who was willing to sell his services most cheaply: as the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines

frankly put it in later years, ‘In the past a Compound Manager’s job was given to anyone.’** Indeed the cost of his labour, in spite of the colour of his skin, undoubtedly earned the black American, Robert Swundla, the job of compound manager at the Leopard mine,*® and economic considerations rather than respect for his politics, education or colour actually induced the owners of the Claremont mine to consider employing the South African nationalist and journalist Saul

Masane as compound manager.°° |

Typically, however, the position was filled by a white, though not 138 / Chibaro

necessarily one particularly fitted for a leadership role: | They generally come from the labouring or lower middle classes and are

accustomed to obey rather than to give orders .. . Their tendency is either to be too hard with natives, in which case there are constant complaints to the Native Commissioner, or to go to the opposite extreme

and treat them as equals with the result that the natives immediately become familiar, hold the man in contempt, and neglect their work.>!

Incompetent compound management played an important part in a strike at the Wankie colliery in December 1912, and revealed the need

for more training. Partly for training purposes, and partly to guide state. officials, the Chairman of the R.N.L.B. accordingly drew up an ‘Outline of a System of Compound Management’ in January 1913;°? but it was only towards the 1930s, and then only on the larger mines, that compound managers were required to have qualifications beyond those of simply ‘knowing the native’, and being able to ‘discipline’ workers and reduce ‘loafing’.®* The latter requirements indeed always

remained central to the job. , So , One comparatively badly paid white man however did not constitute a viable labour-repressive institution, and it was recognised

throughout that a a

Compound police are a necessary evil, and in their case an entirely different treatment is advised to that for the ordinary native labourer. Police boys need constant supervision and must be kept in a state of

almost military discipline.®4 - | ,

For every 100 black workers in the compound, on large and small mines

alike, was appointed one especially selected, armed and uniformed

African compound ‘policeman’.> . What the management ideally required for this role was a man from a different cultural background to that of the rest of the workers, who, once trained in military skills, would implement discipline without

fear or favour. During the early years of this-century, when much of the labour on the mines was chibaro-labour, such men were especially invaluable, and were mainly Zulus, Ngoni, Ndebele, Xhosa and Yao". In later years, when the military reputations of these tribes had perhaps been dimmed, managers recruited their compound ‘police’ from more modern institutions. At Wankie colliery, for example, it was policy to select them as far as possible from the ranks of the ‘Black Watch’ — the

African police attached to the British South Africa Police.®? = The policy of selecting ‘police’ drawn from a cultural background

different from that of the rest of the black workers, however, often produced its own friction within the compounds, and some managers, who wished to blunt the edge of the relationship between ‘police’. and The Compound System / 139

workers, found it expedient to select ‘police’ from tribes that were reflected within the composition of the work force. The explanation and analogy used by a R.N.L.B, inspector are both relevant: Besides his other uses a police boy is the intermediary between the natives of his own nationality and the Management, just as an NCO stands between the men of his troop and the Commissioned Officer.5®

In the period when the labour force was being largely supplied by ‘market forces’ it was found that the system of selection could be re-

laxed even further and under certain circumstances workers were

allowed to select their own compound ‘policeman’.*® The background of the ‘police’ chosen and the method by which they were selected thus varied according to a number of factors: not only on the manner in which the labour force had been mobilised (the stage of historical development of the industry), but also on the degree

of control required within the particular compound (such factors as wage rates or nature of the production process). It is not insignificant that in later years the tensions in compounds specifically involving ‘police’ most frequently occurred on the low-paying base mineral mines ~ such as the King’s and Gaths Asbestos mines or the Wankie colliery. To promote and maintain order in compounds the mine management found it necessary to arm their ‘police’ in one way or another. On rare occasions the chosen weapon could be as mnocuous as a stick, or,

at the other end of the spectrum, as lethal as a gun.®° But normally it was the chikote, the central African hippo-hide version of the leather whip or sjambok — that formed the most important part of any compound ‘policeman’s’ equipment.*! But also important was the uniform that went with the job. The provision of uniforms served not only to separate the ‘police’ from the workers, but it also provided a gloss of legitimacy for the violence that was an integral part of the job. Since uniforms were a relatively expensive item they were not to be found at all mines — at Wankie for example, they were provided out of the fines inflicted on workers for breaches of mine discipline, and in general the provision of uniforms was restricted to the larger mines. The fact that management approved of the use of weapons and provided uniforms did not necessarily in themselves make the job appealing, although men with names like Sergeant or Sjambok*®? may be

guessed to have derived personal satisfaction from it. More appealing to the majority of compound ‘police’ must have been the fact that the position was one of the best paid on the mine, and free from the toil of manual labour. Essentially for this reason, it was found that there was ‘an ample supply of volunteers for this work’:* but no inducements could actually ensure the total loyalty of Africans in an essentially op140 { Chibaro

pressive task against other Africans. ‘Unless police boys are continually under white supervision,’ complained one official in 1912, ‘they

cannot be relied on.’®

Nevertheless, it was the compound ‘police’ who were in large measure responsible for the day-to-day operation of the compound sys-

tem. Especially chosen and equipped for the role, they formed the abrasive edge of managerial practice and policy on the mines. The fact that one set of Africans were responsible for the imposition of a harsh regime over another made the system all the more appealing to the employers: not only did it serve to divide the black compound inhabitants but it also reinforced white prejudices about the supposed savagery of

Africans towards each other. The Rhodesia Chamber of Mines, for example, was of the opinion that: .. . the worst European Compound Manager in the country would be gentle in his treatment compared to what:a native would be to his own people if given the same power as a Compound Manager... .®%

The fact of the matter was that in many respects the compound ‘police’ did have the substantial powers which compound managers also enjoyed; and in addition the role and function of the ‘police’ was sanctioned and legitimised by state and employers alike. To see how this occurred it is necessary to examine how the compound system operated in a wider context. Functions of the Compound System

During the years when the mining industry relied largely on forced labour provided by the Labour Board or the native commissioners of Mashonaland, particularly between 1898 and 1901, the compounds played an important part in a contributory role of extraeconomic coercion. Since the administration did not have the necessary funds or manpower to operate a system of control in the economy as a whole, employers and the state combined to cope with the problems of desertion within the compounds. In an attempt to reduce desertions, native commissioners selected and provided uniforms for ‘native police’ who resided within the mine compounds. While technically the activities of these ‘native police’ were legitimised through their being government employees, their wages were

in fact paid by the mining companies. Their job was to inform on “gangs’ of workers that were about to desert, and to assist in arrests.“ They were at least partially effective — the compound manager at the Globe & Phoenix mine for instance, noted that ‘Since Mr Taylor [the native commissioner] recalled his head police boy Semunto . . . a large number of the boys supplied by him have deserted.’*? The Compound System / 141

In later years, when the industry was less reliant on forced labour and the state better endowed with both finance and man-power, the system was modified. After 1904 in particular, the bulk of the extraeconomic coercion was applied by the state, again through the agency of the ‘native police’, who roamed town and countryside enforcing the

Pass Laws. The focal point of much of the coercion thus shifted to outside the mine, and the physical layout of the compound diminished in importance — except of course in relation to chibaro and other low-

paid workers of the inner compound. __ , -

, In both the earlier and the latter periods, however, what is striking is the manner in which state and employers combined to restrict the

African workers’ response to ‘market forces’. In 1913, for example, African miner Kabangu deserted from the Globe & Phoenix mine and sought better employment at the nearby Blucher mine. ‘The compound

manager of the Globe & Phoenix, on hearing of Kabangu’s whereabouts, sent his compound ‘policeman’ to ‘fetch’ the reluctant worker. The ‘policeman’ of course had no legal standing; yet he was able to

‘arrest’ the worker, handcuff him and return him to the Globe &

Phoenix compound.® , - ;

- Unskilled forced labour before 1902, chibaro-labour between 1903 and 1912, and black miners earning constantly declining cash wages in the period post-1912 hardly constituted a well-motivated or highly productive labour force. Forced labour procured in the countryside and contained in compounds did not automatically convert itself into a workforce capable of the variety of tasks that African miners were called upon to perform. In fact much of the daily routine in the compound revolved around the need to force unmotivated or resistant

black miners to work. | ,

For most African miners the day started at between three and four a.m., when they would be roused in the compounds. Frequently the compound manager himself, accompanied by a dog,*° would ‘turnout’ the shift. On large mines, such as the Globe & Phoenix” or Wankie colliery, the rounds were made by compound ‘police’ — each ‘police-

man’ being responsible for turning out all the workers in his section each day.”! In many cases this would be followed by a general parade or roll-call at which the sick would be separated from the healthy and, if the mine had more workers than it required for the shift, the healthiest

workers would be ‘selected’.=7 : oe

- Once they were underground, the operation of the ‘ticket system’ did much to ensure that the miners applied themselves to the work required of them. Failure to complete the day’s task meant that the

142 / Chibaro }

work ‘ticket’ would not be signed by the supervisor at the conclusion of the shift; and an unsigned work ticket in turn meant that the day’s work did not count towards the completion of the contract, that such work

aS was done was unpaid for, and in some cases, that the day’s mine

ration had been forfeited as well.7> oO !

_ Failure to work thus brought direct consequences for the black miner. It did not, however, provide much consolation for the black ‘boss boy’ or white miner who had to account for the production of his section. He too had managerial pressure on him, and good reasons of his own for taking more direct action against laggards. This they did in

two ways. ; ,

First, both ‘boss boys’ and white miners frequently assaulted the

black miners whom they supervised:** and the brutality of these assaults often lay behind the large-scale desertions that were so characteristic of the reconstruction era. In October 1901 for instance, ninety-

eight Lozi workers left the Red & White Rose mine in one night as a result of treatment at the hands of a Mr Quinn. At the Killarney mine, assaults by a white miner not only contributed to fourteen desertions in October of 1905, but caused a deputation of twelve workers to approach the compound inspector about the matter. Likewise at Wankie colliery in 1905-06 assaults contributed to a spate of desertions. Second, those white miners who were either unwilling or unable to assault Africans personally could report offenders to the compound

manager. As the overlord responsible for all black labour, the compound manager had to discipline ‘loafers’, half-hearted workers or African miners who lost or damaged mining equipment. And whereas the actions of the white miners or ‘boss boys’ were frequently spontaneous and impulsive, the actions of the compound managers were premeditated. In his specialist role, the compound manager had recourse to a number of techniques for dealing with recalcitrant workers.

The mildest form of sanction was the system of fines. A legal system of fining workers for breaches of discipline; through the inter-

mediary of a state official, was provided for by the Native Labour Regulations Ordinance of 1912.75 But this legal system was neither popular with compound managers nor widely used. Instead, the managers dispensed their own form of rapid justice with a pervasive system:of illegal fining. In 1914 a mine manager described the illegal system as ‘a common practice on mines in Rhodesia’,”* and in 1930 a compound manager was still able to give evidence in court that it was ‘a general practice on Mines for fines to be inflicted or wages reduced.’ What exactly constituted an ‘offence’, and the size of the fine that it warranted, varied from mine to mine. At the Wankie colliery in 1908, The Compound System / 143

damage to underground trucks resulted in workers being fined five shillings.”* At the Gaika mine in 1930, falling asleep on the job apparently warranted a fine of five shillings, and over two years the manager

_ inflicted more than 300 fines which brought in a sum of £77 11s 6d.” Offences involving damage to equipment, however, could be far more severely punished. At the Cam & Motor mine in 1915, such fines averaged between £3 and £4 over a three-month period, and two workers accused of breaking a machine drill were fined £4 each.®° .

But fines were not the only disciplinary measures which compound managers could resort to. Larger mines, such as the Cam & Motor, frequently had well-constructed jails,** and even the smaller mines had huts ‘set aside as a lock-up to confine, prior to disposal, vari-

ous offenders and other natives found on the property without permission’.8? On mines, often remote from police stations, these cells were often used to house those suspected of criminal offences, participants in ‘faction fights’ or simply those who had drunk too much. |

With these cells came at least some of the accoutrements of regular imprisonment — most frequently a compound ‘policeman’ armed with a sjambok and equipped with handcuffs. At least two of the largest

mines in Rhodesia, the Cam & Motor and Wankie colliery, actually had cells equipped with ‘stocks’. And although these facilities were most frequently used for potentially serious criminal offences, there is little doubt that they were occasionally used for trivial ones. _ At Wankie, workers guilty of ‘loafing’ were placed in the ‘stocks’ prior to being whipped by the compound manager.®* Likewise at the Cam & Motor mine workers were confined in the cells for breaches of

mine discipline** and at the Wanderer mine the compound manager twice handcuffed a worker to a pole ‘for some time’ prior to assaulting him.®° At the Gaika mine a worker was kept in the cells for two days for leaving his work for an hour.®* But confinement robbed the mine of the worker’s labour, and for this reason whipping constituted the most favoured form of discipline — at least from management’s point of view. The use of the chikote or sjambok to force production and mini-

mise ‘loafing’. was the central feature of compound discipline. Occasionally these whippings were undertaken by the compound ‘police’ — on the explicit instructions of the compound managers*’ — but usually

the compound manager chose to administer the lashes himself. Many of these whippings were so brutal that they required more than one

man to administer them: the worker was held down at wrists and ankles by the compound ‘police’ while the lashes were administered by the compound manager.®®

The penalties for attempting to avoid work or jeopardise pro144 / Chibaro

duction varied considerably. At Wankie colliery, where there was a well-established tradition of administering whippings, one enthusiastic acting compound manager in 1912 administered fifty-six lashes to a worker accused of ‘loafing’.*° Usually, however, the penalty awarded by the self-appointed mine courts was less severe: at the Gaika mine in 1930, workers who missed the first call in the compound at the start of the morning shift, those who fell asleep on the job or left work early,

were all given six lashes with the sjambok.®° In 1916 at the King’s Asbestos mine, failure to meet the piece-work target on any three days in the month earned twenty-five lashes.*1 -

The setting of the compound, the presence of armed uniformed assistants and the power of the white settlers all combined to produce a generally unquestioning acceptance among black workers of such assaults. Worker Nyabowa of the Gaika mine put it plainly to a magistrate who questioned this acceptance: ‘What could I do? I thought it was an order from the Court, I am only a native.’®? Indirectly, Nyabowa was correct — the state, through the police and the courts, did sanction

assaults in the mining industry. The latter feature requires detailed

explanation. , African reticence in complaining about assaults within com-

pounds made certain that the majority of such assaults never found their way to the ears of the authorities or of the police. Compound managers, however, also took: precautionary steps to ensure that their

regime of violence remained intact, and African workers had good reason to be cautious about making complaints to the compound inspectors.**At Wankie in 1905, workers who complained to the compound: inspector were instantly dismissed.®* In 1916 those workers at the Cam & Motor who wished to go to town to lodge complaints with the native commissioner were either simply refused permission to leave the compound, or made to deposit cash with the compound manager.” Small wonder that the regime of violence within the compounds was

always reasonably secure. In cases where assaults by miners culminated in the death of a black worker, however, it was not possible to conceal the facts from the

authorities. But even in these cases the jury system that operated in Rhodesia between 1899 and 1927 invariably came to the protection of the white miner. When African worker Umdarra dropped a valve into

a bucket of hot water, Gustav Peer of the Inez mine inserted the worker’s head into the water and held it there: A post-mortem examination was made, and a slight evidence of drowning

was revealed. The boy had a weak constitution. A fine of £50 or six months’ hard labour was imposed.®* — The Compound System / 145

When African worker Sulman of the Jumbo mine could not find the

spanner that miner Samuel Hodgkins wanted in a hurry, he was pushed down the mine shaft. Since the only other witness was another African worker, the jury saw to it that the accused was discharged.°’ For kicking African miner Antonio to death at the Old Chum mine, F.E.West was sentenced to a £25 fine or six months’ imprisonment.*®

In some cases the crudity of the justice provided by the jury system was impossible to rationalise away. In July 1908 four white miners at the Battlefields mine flogged two black miners to death over a period of three days.°® The acquittal of the white miners — on the grounds that the Africans were suspected thieves — was difficult to uphold in the face of Colonial Office enquiries, and the jury system was ‘reformed’ to allow for a seven to two majority decision rather than a unanimous verdict. Further obvious injustices caused the administration to attempt to introduce the ‘High Court Assessors Act’ in 1912, but elected members in the Legislative Council found this unacceptable.

Juries Ordinance’. ,

Instead, the jury system was again ‘reformed’ through the ‘Special

Settler juries soon discovered too that there was no need for

crude refusals to convict a white miner accused of culpable homicide — professional medical evidence could do much to justify verdicts which

would provide lenient sentences. In a part of central Africa where malaria was endemic, members of all races tended to develop slightly enlarged spleens.*°° If medical evidence — usually provided by the district surgeon — could testify to the presence of an ‘enlarged spleen’ much

of the reason for fatality in a case of assault could be explained away.

For at least two decades ‘enlarged spleens’ were regularly made to account for deaths following assaults on African miners.

Neil Griffin kicked a miner to death in 1907, and it was found that the ‘native’ was suffering from an ‘enlarged spleen’ and ‘without listening to the defence the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty and the prisoner was accordingly discharged.”*° When Frederick Butcher of the Eldorado mine kicked Kamzima to death in 1910, it was again found that the ‘native’ had an enlarged spleen and ‘after retiring for half an hour the jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty.’?°? Likewise in 1920, C.W.Abbott was sentenced to £25 or three months’ imprisonment when medical evidence showed that yet another African worker was in possession of an ‘enlarged spleen’.1°* Since African workers tended to have ‘enlarged spleens’, many of the cases of culpable homicide came to revolve not around the act of assault per se, but around the physical positions of the parties involved

at the time of the assault. When African worker Vinyo of the Giant 146 / Chibaro

mine dropped a piece of mining tackle, T.M.Hughes responded by kicking him and he died. Medical evidence provided by the district surgeon

showed that Vinyo suffered from an ‘enlarged spleen’, so in passing sentence the Judge noted that the deceased had stood ‘in an unfortunate position’, and that ‘had the deceased been in a healthy state, the circumstances of the case might have been different.’1°* J.M.Stokes, with three previous convictions of assault behind him, told the Judge how he had

come to rupture the ‘enlarged spleen’ of another African miner: ‘I made to kick him on the buttocks, but while I was in the act he turned

around and caught the kick in the side.2° a In these cases of assaults on African miners, Judges tended to pass lenient sentences, for fear that juries would otherwise bring in unfair verdicts. As Justice Hopley, who fined Stokes £300, pointed out: I must often curb my own indignation for fear of setting up a state of public feeling which will react injuriously in the future... . Angry and uncompromising punishments; however well-deserved, are calculated to

lead to unfair verdicts in other trials in similar cases.10¢ | The regime of violence which ensured production underground had to

workers. , oo

be secure — even when assaults culminated in the deaths of black In cases where assaults did not result in fatalities — such as the

bulk of the floggings undertaken by the compound managers — the state

and its officials were inclined to take an even more lenient. view. An

inspector of compounds who noted that a compound manager had twice been prosecuted for assault: within a six-week period, ‘warned’ the offender that he was jeopardising his state-issued licence. He was

also of the opinion though that the assaults themselves were ‘of no magnitude, for a compound manager must be allowed some authority in petty misdemeanours.”°” One step up the hierarchy, the Superintendent of Natives for Salisbury felt that floggings at the Cam & Motor mine ‘though illegal’ were ‘of a trivial nature consisting of a-few cuts

with a sjambok.”?°* Still higher up the hierarchy, the Chief Native Commissioner held the view that a man who had been found guilty of assault should not necessarily be deprived of his compound manager’s

licence.1°° , an a /

_ Appreciating this implicit acceptance of violence by state of-

ficials, mining companies and settler press alike were not shy to articu-

late their defence of whippings in the compound. The London and Rhodesian Mining Co. protested directly to the Secretary for Mines and Works when their compound manager was warned about assaulting black miners: “we beg to point out that this will considerably lessen the authority of the Compound Managers if they are not able to sumThe Compound System / 147

marily deal with the trivial offences in their compounds.’® The Rhodesia Herald felt confident enough to state in an editorial that “To inflict reasonable corporal. punishment is permissible in fact if not in law .. .’;172 and the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines felt likewise that ‘the

Compound Manager should be able to use a certain amount of discretion in awarding punishment.”!” Toleration of industrial violence was clearly not restricted to the popular press or the lower ranks of the civil service — it extended to the highest offices of state and empire. In 1930, when G.M.H.Dinsmore, compound manager at the large Gaika mine, was prosecuted for fining

and flogging black workers, the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines approached the government with concern about the consequences for the functioning of the compound system. The Attorney General reassured the Secretary for Mines and Works that ‘in fact compound managers generally are-not interfered with in the exercise of their duties ... .’,27°

and in case there should be any residual doubt he spelt out in some detail how the system operated : I realise too, that many employers of labour in this country in addition to mines exercise disciplinary powers over their employees by means of fines and to a lesser extent by corporal punishment. On the whole there is no need for an inquisition into these matters and in fact prosecutions in respect of them are few and far between. But while realising this and appreciating that shutting one’s eyes to a systematic contravention of the law is not satisfactory, I am unable to agree with the view that compound

managers should have a definite status and should be given protection in the exercise of their disciplinary powers. ... Special instructions have in fact been given that no prosecution in such cases [fines and flogging] is to be instituted without prior reference to headquarters.11*

Provided that the violence was discreet and kept within tolerable limits, in other words, the compound system in Rhodesia could function with the acceptance of compound inspectors, native commissioners, police, the Attorney General and the courts. Neither did the support end there. During the reconstruction period, the Administrator had been told that the High Commissioner himself winked at ‘certain irregularities . . . in regard to flogging.’115 ,

The fact that compounds had their own mechanism of control, the remoteness of the mines from the administrative centres, and a shortage of revenue in the company-colony all provided the state with good reasons for leaving the preservation of civil order among the workers largely in the hands of the companies. Indeed, when questioned about what assistance they provided to mining authorities in the control

of their labour, the police pointed to the sanctity of the compound as_. private property, and the fact that they could only enter with a warrant 148 / Chibaro

or at the invitation of the management."* But since the same reverence

for private property never deterred the same police from conducting tax raids in the compounds — a procedure which both unsettled the African labour force and annoyed the white management — one may reasonably conclude that it was largely considerations of expense and expediency that underlay the state’s policy of delegating the task of maintaining order. As the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines pointed out to the administration, ‘Mining companies police their own compounds at an infinitesimal cost to the State for the amount of police work done.”*”

The mine management and the compound ‘police’ accordingly undertook many of the duties which, under other circumstances, should have fallen to the police. Many of these activities centred on the curtailment of petty thefts or beer brewing within the compounds, and compound ‘police’ were instructed to conduct regular arbitrary searches through workers’ possessions and accommodation.*** But the most serious policing duties involved the suppression of the violence that was

a commonplace of enclosed life: fights between individual workers, and ‘faction fights’ between different ethnic groups needed to be dealt

pound. |

with promptly and decisively if they were not to engulf the entire com-

The state lent its implicit support to the mining companies by indemnifying their agents against the consequences of any violence used. And when a magistrate’s decision questioned the legal standing

of a compound ‘policeman’, the Attorney General hastened to re-assure the Administrator that he considered the magistrate to be incorrect.'" In practice problems seldom arose when the compound ‘police’ used violence in the exercise of their duties. At Wankie for example, charges

of assault against compound ‘policeman’ Simasiku were withdrawn when the prosecution discovered that the assault had occurred while he was putting a stop to an affray between two black workers.’*° So by default, violence against black workers within the compound was legiti-

mised by the state. -

Large-scale disturbances amongst compound inhabitants often led to the use of guns and rifles.‘?4 When workers at the Ayrshire mine demonstrated against an arbitrarily imposed wage reduction in 1908, it was reported that ‘the sight of a few revolvers and shot-guns calmed things somewhat.’!2? In some cases it was not merely the sight of the weapons ‘that calmed things somewhat’, but their use. A Wankie ‘faction fight’ came to an end when a worker was shot by an African policeman, and another at the Fred mine ended when a worker had been shot dead by the compound manager.’”* The exact cause and circumstances of the death of workers killed The Compound System / 149

in such ‘faction fights’ was never the subject of detailed questioning by the state. The death of the worker in the Wankie compound was con-

sidered by the Attorney General to have been caused by a ‘stray bullet’.124 At the Fred mine, it was reported that ‘white employees fired

shots over natives’ heads.’!25 The precaution of firing ‘over heads’, however, was not enough to prevent at least one black miner from being killed. Where deaths did result in court appearances the jury system came to the protection of the management. When the manager of the

Hollis mine was prosecuted for shooting an African worker during a Christmas day ‘faction fight’, ‘The jury brought in a verdict of not

guilty without leaving the box.”!”* | 7

_. White settlers in Rhodesia had managed to establish themselves in the colony only after two wars fought in the 1890s — the second of which was bloody and bitter. The process of conquest on which the state was founded had left a legacy of hatred and resentment; and among the small white settler population, the even more lasting scars of

fear and suspicion. | | | Oo

_ White mining communities — small and isolated ~ were not immune to the anxieties that permeated settler society as a whole. The white miners and their families lived in close proximity to compounds housing large numbers of young African men, and the real or imagined dangers within these compounds served to feed the underlying tensions of the mining communities. So it is against a background of fear and insecurity — unavoidable companions of colonialism — that one should seek to understand white responses within the compound setting. Crude oppression and deep-seated insecurity prove to be inextricably linked.

Almost without exception, large mines in Rhodesia had well established Rifle Clubs, and weekend shooting competitions reflected the popularity of a sport that testified to the ‘manhood’ of the settlers. Unconsciously, this access to and skill with weapons bolstered the confidence of a small and vulnerable minority while at the same time it sounded a noisy weekly warning to the compound inhabitants. | The underlying function of these Rifle Clubs — to reassert the basis of the colonial presence — might occasionally be given manifest expression. For instance, the large ‘faction fight’ at the Fred mine in 1920 generated great anxiety amongst the white mining community despite the fact that Africans were fighting amongst themselves — the unstated fear was always that the object of African aggression should switch to themselves. Accordingly the entire membership of the Filabusi

Rifle Club arrived armed at the scene of the ‘faction fight’. White mining communities quite frequently found such demonstrations useful 150 / Chibaro.

State. :

to show black workers exactly who formed the basis of power in the This continual reassertion of mastery was of course most needed and most frequently exercised in the setting that had been expressly

designed for it - the compounds. For the compounds belonged to a distinctive set of institutions which have been described as having an ‘encompassing or total character’!*" — like prisons or mental hospitals —

and within them black men were the objects of a process of ‘perpetual colonisation’. Indeed, in several-important respects the compounds were the colleges of colonialism from which thousands of workers in central

Africa graduated.

~ Much of this process of on-going colonisation is to be found in the ideology of the whites in the mining industry. At its best this ideol-

ogy aimed at denying African workers the status of mature men — black

men were either ‘savages’ or perpetual ‘boys’. At other times it denied the humanity of black workers altogether ~ they were perceived in essentially animal terms. Complaining about the labour turnover a settler could thus bemoan the fact that ‘raw boys are constantly being broken in.’?2® And Wolfe Murray, director of the R.N.L.B., could advise that great care be taken with workers from tropical areas, in fact, ‘they should be treated like imported stock until they become acclimatised.’!?® But at worst the ideology could totally objectify the worker — he was neither animal nor half-human, merely mine

number 515.7*° oo 7 ,

The pernicious effect of this ruling-class ideology percolated down to the ranks of the workers, some of whom soon accepted their status as mining ‘boys’. They had to do more than this, however. They had to act out their submissiveness. Ideology to be effective has, in some measure, to square with the realities of everyday life and the colonised status of the blacks had to be seen in the compound. Everywhere, for instance, black miners were expected to raise their hats respectfully to white miners.!*! Failure to raise-a hat to the manager of the Gaika mine, defined as ‘insolence’, was rewarded with pay reductions and six cuts with the sjambok.*** For insecure whites gesture or absence of gesture were equally threatening. In the compounds such punishments were not reserved for the lowest ranks of the black workers only. Clements Kadalie was slightly surprised to learn that at the Falcon mine even the African compound clerks could get a taste of the compound manager’s sjambok when the

mood.so took him.*** And Knight and Walter, two workers from Nyasaland, discovered that their status as educated workers did not provide them with much protection from the compound system: The Compound System / 151

At Rezende Gold Mine the Compound Manager of the place he treat us as he treat pigs and he often gives us good shambok (along) even with his Police boys. We was working as Hammer boys he did not know that we are Education boys. Even education boys he do treat them the same and the General Manager he doesn’t know all this . . .134

Essentially it was not status or education that categorised compound

inhabitants, but blackness. The colonised status of compound inhabitants was continuously

reinforced in a thousand insidious ways. Daily life was even regulated by a system of communication which denied the workers any independence, coherence, maturity or comprehension:*** the language used was the industrial lingua franca, fanakalo which dominated the mining industries of southern Africa, and this bastard tongue lay at the base of much of the friction and violence in the compounds.*** As an early observer of the Rhodesian scene noted The jargon — it cannot be dignified with the name of language — in general used in the mines is “Kitchen Kaffer’”, a villainous mixture of bad Dutch

and worse Zulu interspersed with English oaths; the unfortunate native

is supposed to understand this and he is frequently abused for “not knowing his own language.’ ! 137

figures.

Fanakalo, well endowed with imperatives and little else, was indeed totally unknown to the majority of workers, who were drawn from North Eastern Rhodesia and Nyasaland,?** so that their incomprehension served to reinforce the stereotype of blacks as ignorant child-like _ The effects on blacks of the disorientation induced by the use of this strange and inadequate ‘language’, and the combination of demoralisation and resentment aroused by on-going colonisation in the compounds arid the regime of violence there, were to do much to mould the nature of African responses within the whole industrial setting of central Africa. And during the years of reconstruction particularly, the most eloquent African response was that of total avoidance of, or large-scale desertion from, the mine compounds. The continual ‘labour shortages’

exploitation.

of that time only mirrored the Africans’ repulsion from systematic Within the compounds themselves those unfortunate enough not

to have escaped reacted like the powerless and the colonised. The literate geared their response to the realities of arbitrary power in a closed community, and wrote notices or letters which complained about exploitative practices — but invariably such letters were anonymous.*** For the many, however, there was little alternative to simple

fatalistic reconciliation with their status as a colonised people.}* 152 / Chibaro

Worker -after worker, probed about their unquestioning acceptance of fining and flogging at the Gaika mine, gave answers which reflected how deeply their colonial status had been imprinted on their minds. ‘I did not protest’ said worker Loeni “because I am a native and he is a white

man.’ “What could I do, I am a black person’, asked Alide, and Nyabowa told the magistrate that he was ‘only a native.’ The compound, as much as any other institution in colonial society, through a process of perpetual colonisation served to mould and shape servile African personalities. For an unknown number the rigours, violence and pressures of compound life were sufficient to stifle any rational response at all. Amongst the Bemba people, many of whom had made their way to the Rhodesian mines, “The cry often heard in the village is — ““He went off to the mines to work and came back mad.”’ ’* Although detailed factual evidence is hard to come by, there is little doubt that the traumatic demands of the compound system deprived many peasants of their sanity. Of the 142 ‘invalids’ which the R.N.L.B. repatriated to Nyasaland in the

final year of its existence, no fewer than twelve were ‘unstable’ or ‘msane’.7*! It is likely that, during the earlier years when the system was

in many ways more rigorous, the proportion of those who proved mentally incapable of coping with the compound system was considerably higher. The vast majority of workers were housed in different sections of the compound according to their ethnic background — a feature which, especially during the early years, reflected a worker demand as much as a management decision. Occasionally too, ‘gangs’ of R.N.L.B, workers

(sometimes but not always of the same ethnic origin) would also be housed separately. In the latter cases, the chibaro status of the workers * W.V.Brelsford, ‘Insanity Among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia’, Africa, Vol.20, 1950, pp.51-52. From what the Bemba said it seems clear enough what they meant. The author, however, is wary of the self-evident to the point of mystification: “This does not in native eyes mean (although it might in ours) that the reorientation from village life to industrial life caused the breakdown. What is really meant, I feel sure, is that absence from home and tribal authority and the mingling with alien tribes may cause a man to commit some acts believed to cause some form of insanity.’ ibid. This observation offers yet another example of how social scientists have been unable to understand the very particular nature of African experience in the primary industries of colonial societies. See also C. van Onselen, ‘Black Workers in Central African Industry: A Critical Essay on the Historiography and Sociology of Rhodesia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol.1, No.2, April 1975, pp.228-246.

The Compound System / 153

necessitated tighter control and the accommodation was predominantly a form of managerial insurance against possible losses through desertion. Regardless of the basis on which these decisions were made, how-

ever, they extended opportunities to the management for exercising political control over their labour.

In an attempt to stimulate productivity amongst workers who received little financial inducement, white overseers exploited the socioeconomic differences within the black labour force. The fact that underground work ‘gangs’ for instance were often selected along ethnic lines presented managers with obvious possibilities, as an inspector of labour was quick to point out: Rivalry between individuals in a gang is of course a useful factor if tactfully made use of, but rivalry between gangs is far more useful to the employer.142

It was also this crude strategy for stimulating productivity that partly underlay managers’ use of ‘opprobrious terms and epithets’ to describe chibaro workers, the object of the exercise being to make such workers the ‘cause of ridicule to independent boys.’?**

But whilst the primary object of such divisive tactics might have been to set up some form of primitive competition amongst African miners, the exercise also yielded secondary by-products of value to the employer. In particular, it formed the basis of social control, and did much to inhibit the development of working-class unity amongst the compound inhabitants. According to their own purposes at the time, mine owners were capable of condemning ethnic animosities amongst compound inhabitants with one breath, while stoking the flames of the same animosity with the next! The isolation of the mining properties, and within them the even greater isolation of the compounds, also helped employers and state alike to regulate the flow of political ideas amongst the black workers. Virtually all in-coming letters to black miners were funnelled through the compound manager’s office, where they were sorted before being

passed on to the workers.* This afforded the management an ideal * At the Wankie compound, for example, mail was handed out once a week — on Sundays at 9 a.m. Basically the decision to issue mail on a non-working day reflects how workers’ needs and rights were subordinate to the productive demands of a capitalist enterprise. The practice also probably facilitated a measure of social control over workers. The Sunday issue of mail ensured that workers would be sober and present on the mine property on the morning rather than drunk in a neighbouring kraal. Further, a single issue of mail at the end of the demanding working week must have given workers something to look forward to — at exactly the time that their minds might have turned to contemplating the prospect of another hard week. For the latter reasons the non-issue

154 / Chibaro

opportunity to scrutinise the correspondence addressed to real or potential ‘trouble-makers’.?** Likewise in later years when a close watch was kept for the ‘seditious’ propaganda of the Church of the Watch Tower or the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (I1.c.U.), it was a relatively easy matter for censorship to be imposed.**° Frequently there was close co-operation between employers, acting through the compound

managers, and the state, represented by its compound inspectors, in

matters of political intelligence.** a 7

Nor were employers content to restrict their surveillance to the writings and literature received by the more educated compound inhabitants. In order to assess the extent and nature of the worker organisations accurately they made use of compound spies who would report back to the compound manager. The lack of privacy and the consolidated accommodation within the compounds facilitated the functioning of these spies, who were readily able to detect and infiltrate meetings

held on mine property.

On occasion, their alliance of oppression with the compound ‘police’ provided employers with recruits for the role of ‘spy’ — at Wankie it was the compound ‘police’ who reported on the meetings of the Watch Tower. But uniformed compound ‘police’, renowned for their association with management, and listening outside huts, hardly constituted a subtle attempt at ‘spying’;**7 and the ‘police’ only rarely served the dual functions of crude oppression and intelligence-gather-

ing.

The alliance of oppression. between the ‘police’ and the mine management was in any case always a fragile and uneasy one. Trapped

by their own perceptions and practices, white managers could never extend complete trust to their assistants, who also wore a uniform of a different sort — the uniform of colour. The invariable reference to the compound ‘police’ as ‘police boys’ underscores the reservations. that managers retained about the maturity and reliability of their only black allies in the compound. So employers took the precaution of also re-

cruiting spies from outside the ranks of the compound ‘police’. The compound manager at the Cam & Motor:mine, for example, had ‘an informant’ amongst the workers within the compound. This spy was thus well placed to report not only on the activities of the L.c.U., but also

on thé extent to which members of the compound ‘police’ were in-

volved in the organisation.148 ,

of mail was potentially disruptive and at Wankie it produced at least one ‘riot’. See N.A.R., D3/37/13, Case No.317 of 1927 in which a crowd of 25 attacked the ‘head police boy’ who had put the clerk responsible for mail-issue in ‘stocks’ for drunkenness. |

The Compound System / 155

For its own purposes, the state too planted spies in the mine com-

pounds, and these were able to keep government informed about the degree of violence tolerated there. Sometimes with and sometimes with-

out the knowledge of the mine manager, African detectives would ‘work’ on a mine and inform on the disciplinary techniques employed against black miners.?*® But in later years, the spies turned their attention to the political activities of the workers. When at Shamva in 1927 the mine’s internal ‘intelligence department’ — the compound ‘police’ — failed to give advance warning of the strike, employers and police agreed to rely for future information on detectives living in the compounds.?™

Finally, the value of the compound system to employers and the state proved itself when Africans did take industrial initiatives. During

the Shamva strike of 1927 it was a comparatively easy task for the police to surround the main mine compound, and to seal off the smaller surrounding compounds which housed the contractor’s black workers. Meanwhile, employers heightened their ‘bargaining power’ by reducing the mealie meal ration for compound inhabitants to a third, and completely stopping the supply of any other foodstuffs.‘*1 Both of these

actions were greatly facilitated by the design and construction of the mine compound -— little wonder then that the African nationalists of a later era also found great difficulty in organising on mine properties.**?

At this stage perhaps some conclusions can be reached about what is peculiar in the experience of the Rhodesian mines. It is not the

need to procure, hold and discipline labour that is restricted to the development of capital-intensive enterprises in southern Africa in general, or Rhodesia in particular: on the contrary, these features appear

to be shared, in different degrees and at different points of historical development by many industrialising systems.*** Nor is it the enormity

of the price that labour is called upon to pay in the process of capital accumulation and industrialisation that in itself makes for a distinctive or unique experience. What is peculiar is the compound system. In terms of its point of historical introduction in southern Africa, of the particular colonial structure at the time and the longevity of the institution, it is uniqte in

capitalist development.* ,

* It is therefore inadequate to perceive the compound system simply as a somewhat archaic institution typifying European attitudes towards blacks, and now rendered obsolete by the requirements of ‘modern’ industry. One analyst thus writes: “The organisation of a compound may be described both as authoritarian and as paternalistic but not, as some officials have suggested, as something that maintains the traditional tribal pattern. In control with very great authority is the compound

156 { Chibaro

The compounds existed as an embryonic form of labour control in South Africa and in Rhodesia from the earliest days of the respective labour-intensive mining industries. The state and employers, however, precipitated the crystallisation of this form of coercion at a particular stage of capitalist development — that point at which the system was confronted either with a labour or production crisis, or both. Everywhere in southern Africa, the compounds served to isolate, regiment and exploit the most vulnerable section of the working class — the black working class as represented by African miners. It was the compound as an institution which provided the frame-

work for the total exploitation of the black workers. It was the compounds together with the Pass Laws which denied Africans the right to respond to ‘market forces’ and sell their labour in the best market. It was the compound, with its state-sanctioned system of industrial violence, which converted reluctant and forced labour into forced production. It was the compound, acting as the college of colonialism, that did much to rob Africans of their dignity and help mould servile black personalities. It was the political control in the compounds, exercised by the state-employer alliance, that did much to prevent the emergence of black working class movements which could have improved the lot of African miners. And it is the unique and powerful social, political and economic cutting-edge that the compound system represents both for state and employers, that accounts for its continued prominence in

central African industry seventy-five years after it was first introduced.?**

manager who through his assistant manager, his indunas (prefects) and izibondo (seniors) ensures the smooth running of the compound along lines not dissimilar from a boarding school, except that the “boys” are

full grown men.’ F.Wilson, Migrant Labour in South Africa, OS Johannesburg 1972, p.10. Wilson feels that despite the fact that ‘the indunas are not exactly the same as school prefects nor the izibondo as school seniors [that] the analogy is instructive.’ ibid, p.14, footnote 5). In fact, the analogy is not only unhelpful, it is also positively misleading. A labour coercive institution in which workers sell their labour for the profit of capitalist enterprise seems remote from an educational establishment which trains children on a non-profit basis. This type of sociologically inappropriate analogy is illustrative of how some. economists in southern Africa seem unable to specify or understand more precisely in what way primary industry is labour repressive.

The Compound System / 157

6a}

Social Control in the Compounds

In dealing with natives, it is very desirable to conceal the system used as much as possible, for the reason that they have a natural dislike. of constraint. Elaborate regulations, even if made for their comfort, often prove exceedingly irksome, and it is therefore desirable not in any way to cause them to look upon their term of service in a compound as being somewhat akin to imprisonment — R.N.L.B. ‘Outline of a System of Compound Management 1913.

The pursuit of profit in the Rhodesian mining industry undoubtedly had limitations — limitations that left their most visible impact on

African workers. We have already seen how, in order to produce a suitable return on the capital invested in the industry, mine managers had to restrict their expenditure on African labour, and how this was reflected both in the conditions in the compounds and in the manner in which the labour force was mobilised. In large measure, it was through the coercive compound system that forced and reluctant labour was

made productive. ,

Capitalist production aims at the most efficient possible use of the factors of production whether labour, land or machinery. Mine managers sought control of black labour in exactly the way that they commanded the inanimate factors of production: mine owners were told that, in the ideal compound system, ‘Natives should either be working, or resting, or in hospital’; employers needed a system which aimed

at total control of the worker both in and outside of his working hours.?

In practice, mine managers could never achieve that system of total control, and it is doubtful that it was ever more than an ‘ideal’.? African workers, in common with the rest of humanity, had needs, aspirations, traditions and a cultural life which distinguished them from

mere automatons that were either worked, rested or being repaired. The workers’ insistence on, and defence of, a relatively’ independent social life repeatedly frustrated the managerial dream of total control. Once managers acknowledged the fact that workers had a social existence, they were forced into making decisions about the extent to which that social life threatened the profitability of their mines.

158 /{ Chibaro ,

The social life of compound inhabitants presented managers with both prospects and problems. On the one hand, it provided useful and necessary camouflage for the compound system. In a system of otherwise naked exploitation, social life could be used as the loin cloth of respectability with which ‘to conceal the system as much as possible.’ Insofar as the distinctive working-class culture of the compound system proved attractive to the black miners, it was useful to the management. Beer, for example, not only provided cheap recreation but it also helped

reduce scurvy amongst the workers. Women who lived with and cooked for their husbands not only protected the health of workers, but

assisted in labour stabilisation and reduction of labour turnover. On the other hand, however, not all of the workers’ recreation was innocu-

ous. Alcohol consumed in vast quantities over the weekend made its contribution to a reduced turnout on a Monday morning as well as to compound violence. Sexual competition was equally capable of producing violence, or a trail of venereal diseases that sapped productivity.

It was because the social life of the compounds did not produce a single, uniform and predictable consequence that it was such a difficult element for the state or management to control. Its relative complexity contributed to an apparent ambivalence in the attitude of state and management towards aspects of the social life of black miners, and gave rise to long-lasting debates over the advantages or otherwise in exercising control over drugs, beer, recreation or women. The production process, however, could not afford time-consum-

ing hesitations, and a labour-intensive industry could not wait for the outcome of a debate. In practice, the social life of black workers demanded day-to-day decisions from the compound managers and the state. And in order to show how and why these decisions came to be made, it is necessary to examine in detail various aspects of social life and conditions amongst the black workers. Meat as the Motivator of Productivity in the Labour Force The diet of the African labour force in the compounds was at its most inadequate during the years of reconstruction — that is, in the period before 1912. It was during this first decade of the twentieth cen-

tury that hundreds and probably thousands of African miners died from scurvy. Dr Loir, a visiting medical practitioner who inspected compounds in the Gwanda division in 1903, described many of the workers as ‘veritable skeletons’,* and conditions did not improve markedly until diet regulations were legislated for in 1908 and 1911. In a country recovering from a series of cattle diseases meat was Social Control in the Compounds / 159

an expensive item and it constituted an extremely modest part of the legislated diet. Before 1911, when the ration was doubled, a black miner

with a ten-hour shift behind him could look forward to a meat ration that averaged a little over two ounces. This ration obtained at-a time when other rations were found to be insufficiently nutritious, and cash wages were constantly declining. And the problem was not simply that black miners were hungry for meat — many were simply hungry. Men on an inadequate diet and suffering from scurvy must have longed for a plate of meat desperately and often.

Especially during the reconstruction period, when the need to expand output was at its most acute, meat would be issued to those workers who most affected the rate of production — the ‘drill boys’ — or

to those who worked unpopular hours and thus kept the mine running. At the Dumbleton mine, two Ibs of fresh meat per week was issued to those ‘drill boys’ who worked in wet shafts, at the Globe & Phoenix meat was offered only to underground workers, and at other mines it

was the practice to issue meat to those Africans who worked on Sundays. In the minds of those who ran the mining industry, increases in meat rations were inextricably linked with the demand for increased productivity from the black workers.° Food — including or excluding meat — was always directly har-

nessed to the production process in many Rhodesian mines, and as such it constituted an important part of the armoury of management. From the very earliest days, failure to work on a certain number of days during the week,*® or an uncompleted daily task, could result in the

forfeiture of the daily food issue.? As late as 1927, the underground workers at the Wankie colliery were still being issued with a larger meat

ration than other workers. When a basic human need such as that for food is set against a specific production demand, a rising cost of living, declining cash wages and the powerful coercive capacity of the compound system, the element of control becomes profoundly significant. In certain limited respects and in uncrystallised form, there are similarities between the dynamics of control used by the mining industry Over a semi-captive labour force, and the means of control exercised over the inmates of forced labour camps in the Soviet Union. And in the way that food was used, these similarities are perhaps at their most striking.

The most important factor determining the standard of life of the prisoners was a ration which they received from the camp kitchen. This

varied according to time, place, and the percentage of the ‘norm’ executed by the given prisoner, In certain cases the ration was at starvation level, even for those who executed the full norm, and this led to a

160 / Chibaro

very high death rate. Sometimes, however, the ration was sufficient to keep

one alive and even maintain physical strength. The policy of the camp authorities was to keep most prisoners in a state of semi-starvation and to give them an incentive for more efficient work by promising a higher food

ration to those who overfulfilled their norm. If, however, exhaustion

became so great that it seriously affected the output of the camp, a special commission was usually appointed to investigate the causes in the fall of productivity. This usually brought some improvement tn living conditions, which, however deteriorated again after a time. In the pre war years these fluctuations in living conditions occurred periodically. Food conditions in the camps also depended on the harvest and on the political situation.®

Pushing for Proletarianisation: the Credit System® In Rhodesia, as elsewhere in colonial Africa, the purpose of taxing the African peasants and restricting their access to land was to push them from the countryside into white-owned enterprises requiring cheap labour. The problem for industrialists such as mine owners was that the

process of proletarianisation took time, and all-that it offered in the short term was the progressive lengthening of the spells that Africans were prepared to spend labouring for cash in the agricultural offseason. Short labour cycles led to increased labour turnover and higher costs, besides producing a labour force with a low average level of competence. Rhodesian mine owners had as much reason as any other em-

ployer for disliking labour turnover. Meanwhile, pushed out of their subsistence economies by state policy, African peasants found themselves in the world of the com-

pound, which rotated around the axis of cash and commodity. For basic needs such as food and clothing, or for relative luxuries such as the purchase of the proverbial concertina, the black miners had to look to the shops — this they shared with their fellow black workers in the urban areas of Rhodesia. But the ‘cash and commodity’ environment of the mine compound had at least two distinctive features which dis-

tinguished it from the capitalist relationship entered into by black workers elsewhere in the economy.

First, the majority of mines were located in relatively remote rural districts so that the compound in many cases constituted a captive

market for the single ubiquitous ‘mine store’. Generally, compound consumers could not benefit from the range of competitive prices to be

found in the larger urban areas, and mine storekeepers found -themselves in the fortunate position of being able to stretch their profit margins substantially.*° These higher prices in turn forced black miners to make long marches beyond the local mine store in search of better prices — a procedure which mine owners did not necessarily approve of,

for reasons that shall become apparent. At an asbestos mine in the Social Control in the Compounds / 161

Victoria district, the compound was enclosed by a barbed wire fence, so that workers. had to make a round trip of three miles to reach an alternative store. Journeys of five miles were not uncommon and at Wankie in 1918 workers were undertaking a round trip of twelve miles

to avoid the exorbitant prices at the local store. Second, compound consumers were also faced with another feature that did not confront most workers in the towns — the fact that the stores were often fully or partly owned by their employers. A high proportion of mine stores were owned either by a shareholder in the mine, or by the mining company itself.12 This in turn meant that the employercum-storekeeper knew not only the date on which the worker was to be paid and the extent of his earning power, but in some cases also the

amount of his cash savings.1* ,

The combination of these two features placed the compound inhabitant in an exceptionally vulnerable position as he entered the environment of “cash and commodity’. When these disabilities were combined with ten-twelve-hour shifts, the absence of rest days, Pass Laws that restricted mobility?* and above all a rising cost of living amidst constantly declining cash wages, they placed compound consumers in a uniquely disadvantaged position within the economy. Rhodesian mine owners and their commercial allies were quick to recognise and exploit this weakness: through extending credit to increasingly deprived black workers, they found the means to lengthen the labour cycle and enhance

the process of proletarianisation. _ ,

In cases where the store was not directly owned by the mine, an alliance between storekeeper and mine owner developed. To lessen the credit risk and facilitate trade, many mines allowed the storekeepers to

enter the compounds on pay day and collect their cash from the workers. At Shamva mine, debt-collecting traders sat next to the clerk at the mine wages table.?° In the Penhalonga Valley, the manager of the Rezende mine likewise allowed trader Goldberg to collect cash in the compound on pay day, despite the fact that the two men disliked each other personally.1* More efficient-still, and more profitable too for the mine owners, was the automatic deduction of credit from the workers’ wages.’” In return for the assistance of the mine authorities, the trader paid the mine 10 per cent of the cash collected — and recovered the outlay through price rises in the store itself.1® Besides the attractive. pros-

pect of recouping part of the cash outlay on wages, mine owners explicitly approved of these schemes since they had the effect of length-

ening the worker’s labour cycle.’® Oo

Much of the credit advanced to the workers in the compounds was for food, an item immediately consumed, and supposedly provided 162 / Chibaro

for in sufficient quantities by employers. But there also developed another system which centred on commodities that were not directly consumed: particularly clothing. Here, it was the ‘Box System’ which kept the workers within the clutches of the compound. Since few commodities of value were safe in the compounds, workers would purchase a ‘box’ or trunk from the mine store. Into such boxes were placed the more durable commodities which the worker obtained on credit from the storekeeper. The worker’s ‘box’ would then be kept within the relatively safe confines of the mine store until all the items had been paid for and the worker was ready to undertake his journey home. Unscrupulous storekeepers found it a relatively easy procedure to place items in the worker’s box and ensure that the credit was deducted from the black man’s wages.*° Just as the practice of debt-collection at the wages table reduced the credit risk for the storekeeper, so the deposited. box provided the trader with security against defaulted payment. Here again, the system was well established during the era of reconstruction and must have made a considerable contribution to prolonging the labour cycle and increasing the hold of the employer or his allies over the worker.?* The more orthodox extension of credit and the ‘box system’ were

further supplemented by that variation whereby storekeepers issued tokens to the workers of those mines with which they had debt-collection arrangements. The primary purpose of this system was to increase to a maximum the amount of credit extended to an individual worker. A worker entering a store and requiring goods on credit to the value of say two Shillings, would be debited with the larger amount of ten shillings. Tokens in the form of metal discs, coupons or printed notes to the value of ten shillings would then be handed to the worker. After this the worker would hand over tokens to the value of two shillings in exchange for the item he had originally requested, and depart with the additional debt of eight shillings in his pocket in the form of tokens. Back in the compounds, where money was always in short supply, these tokens rapidly became a form of currency in their own right and circu-

tutes.?? , a

lated for payment of debts, stakes in gambling or payment of prosttThe token system was particularly prominent on the smaller and medium-sized mines, and it was also here that other variations of the system were developed. Mine owners often paid their workers in ‘good fors’ or ‘coupons’ — in lieu of wages.?* Since they had limited credit

facilities of their own, modest capital resources and irregular gold crushings, mine owners were thus in a position to reduce the cash flow into the compound to a mere trickle. Social Control in the Compounds / 163

The way that the system operated is well illustrated from events

at a small mine in the Gwelo district during the war. By September 1914, the black workers of the Gretna Green mine had been consistently ‘paid’ in kind for periods ranging from six months to two years. In their desperation for cash, workers took to selling beer to the workers from adjacent mine compounds who visited them over weekends. In order to

brew beer, however, the workers required rapoko (millet) which they were forced to obtain on credit from the mine store as well. The situation was thus created where such cash as did circulate in the compound came from other mines, while the workers of the Gretna Green remained in bondage to the mine owner and his store.?4

African workers of course did not remain passive in the face of exorbitant prices and the credit system. In 1904 the labour shortage at the West Nicholson mine was largely attributed to the high prices in the local store.?° In 1910 the system was held responsible for widespread

‘discontent’ amongst black mine workers, and at Shamva in 1920 the

point was reiterated in the most explicit and categorical terms by Africans themselves. Faced with an average rise in the cost of living of

165 per cent between 1914 and 1920, and the demands of the credit system, African workers organised a successful boycott of the two stores

on the Shamva mine property — using pickets, pamphlets and verbal appeals to participants in the action.**

Events at Shamva, however, were far from typical. The credit system, much like the peonage system of the Deep South which followed and partly replaced slavery, sucked men into a vortex of despair and disillusionment. Peasants who had specifically left the rural areas with the purpose of earning cash found themselves trapped by the credit system in its various guises and were described as being ‘demoralised’.?7 Workers from Nyasaland ensnared in the web of debt of the Rhodesian

compounds spoke of their deep shame in going home without cash or goods for their kin.?* In some respects at least, the credit system as much as the compounds themselves was responsible for the passivity,

frustration and despair of the workers. ,

The state’s attitude towards the credit system was essentially similar to that which it adopted in connection with violence in the compounds. In both cases the state recognised the importance of the respective systems and the contribution which they made to the functioning of the mining industries; and in both cases the objective of the state became to regulate rather than abolish the systems of exploitation. As early as 1907 concern was expressed in the Legislative Council about the way in which the ‘box system’ was used by traders to defraud black mineworkers. The Attorney General, Tredgold, voiced the admin164 / Chibaro

istration’s intention of introducing legislation to control the “box system’ during the following council session, but this did not materialise. When the 1910-11 Native Affairs Committee pointed out that as many as half of the black miners never claimed their boxes because they became too heavily indebted, the state eventually decided to take action.®

The Box System Ordinance, No 9 of 1912, forced traders to keep a register of boxes and receive magisterial approval before they sold unclaimed boxes belonging to workers. This ordinance however still did

not sufficiently protect workers from traders who defrauded black workers of goods or cash deposited at the mine store for safekeeping. The courts, for example, took the view that traders who converted the money deposited with them for their own or business use were not guilty of theft.*° It was seventeen years before the state again tightened its regulation of the system through the “Goods and Money Deposits (Native) Regulation’ Bill of 1929.*+

The token system, too, the state protected and hoped to regulate rather than abolish. When a motion was introduced to the Legislative Council in 1910 suggesting that the system be prohibited by law, it was defeated by the administration. The Secretary for Mines, E.W.S. Montagu, felt that the ‘native’ was a ‘free agent’ and could either participate in or opt out of the system as he pleased. The Attorney General

purpose.*? , |

for his part felt that the system provided the ‘raw native’ ‘with the necessities for starting work on the mines’ and thus served a useful In the face of mining company and trading interests®* the state was thus reluctant to take action against the cruder forms of credit such as the box system or tokens. For what it considered to be very good reasons, it was even more reluctant to legislate against the more orthodox form of credit extension to black miners. Administration officials were well aware of the fact that it was this credit which enabled workers

to purchase the extra foodstuffs needed to supplement the inadequate diet that the state had specified by legislation. The Chief Native Commissioner, for example, knew that it was the credit system which en-

- abled workers ‘to purchase extra rations with the result that they are kept in better health.’** If the credit system were abolished, or seriously

curtailed, scurvy deaths would have increased proportionately and made even more apparent the glaring inadequacy of the mine diets on

which workers were supposed to labour. _ :

Recognising this clear linkage between worker health and credit, the state again chose to regulate rather than abolish the system. As the cost of living rose and real wages declined, so the credit system spread throughout the compounds. So pervasive was the black workers’ need Social Control in the Compounds / 165

for credit that their books of ‘work tickets’ were printed with a special provision made for a space into which credit transactions were entered by the mine store. In many cases workers pledged their entire wages against the credit thus provided,®® while in other cases compound inspectors attempted to restrict the credit to half of the workers’ monthly wages. By the late 1930s, after workers’ wages had been falling for three decades, the system was so well entrenched on large and small mines alike that a Nyasaland administration official was of the opinion that ‘drastic action [would] be necessary in order to suppress it.’** Drugs and the Black Worker: Labour Stabilisation and Productivity Of all the aspects of social life in the compounds, none posed both management and state with a greater problem of control than the brewing and consumption of ftshwala, or ‘kaffir beer’. In traditional societies the brewing of beer was appreciated as an art,®” and the peasants did

not lose their taste for ¢shwala when they moved to the industrial centres of Rhodesia. Indeed it is probable that beer assumed. even greater importance in the male-dominated working class culture of the compound: but to management and the state, 1t was a source of endless problems. These problems operated at several levels. One such level, and the frustration that it caused, is clearly evident in a complaint made by Gatooma mine owners in 1907: ‘the Mashona sits in his kraal, growing opulent on the work of his “better halves” and pays his hut tax out of the hard cash obtained by the sale of beer in the compounds.’** Plainly, the sale of beer inhibited the process of proletarianisation amongst the local peasantry, because it provided them with an independent source of income. Even the London Daily Telegraph — the ‘labour shortage’ was a problem that concerned British shareholders as much as Rhodesian mine managers — voiced its pique about what it clearly felt to be a matter of morals, when it claimed in 1908 that the sale of beer allowed ‘natives to live in a state bordering on luxury’ while the ‘white man had to work hard for a living’.*®

On the other hand, for those Africans who were already within the compounds, beer consumption enhanced rather than hindered the process of proletarianisation, a consideration that the Rhodesia Herald clearly recognised when it pointed out in an editorial that ‘the boy who spends his money on beer works longer than the boy who saves his pay’.*°

Complexities were also evident in other aspects of the problem. The consumption of large quantities of beer tended to undermine in166 / Chibaro

dustrial discipline and productivity — as a compound inspector pointed

out: The one object during these weekly sprees, on the part of the old hands especially, is to gorge themselves with this beverage, the result is many sore heads and scarcity of men for shift on Monday morning.*!

But in a different way beer drinking also improved the health of the workers, and by so doing ensured their continued productivity. From at least the turn of the century, mine owners were aware of the fact that tshwala protected workers from scurvy,*?.so that while the basic mine diet remained grossly inadequate for labouring men, industry and state alike had an interest in allowing them access to a food which they paid for themselves. The mines did not have to make cash outlays on fresh vegetables, and both state and industry could economise on the expenditure involved in hospitalisation. Just as the credit system worked for the benefit of mine and state, so too beer produced certain benefits for

capital and country.

It was within this broad framework of contradictory consequences that the state and management were called upon to design their strategy

for control. Basically the objective came to be the destruction of the peasant trade in beer with the mines, and the provision for monopolistic

control of beer within the more confined setting of the compounds. Smashing the peasant trade in beer would facilitate the process of proletarianisation and by so doing make a long-term contribution to the assurance of labour supplies to the mines; while once the control of beer came to rest within the compound it could be used as a lever of social control which could ke made to influence productivity and reduce labour-turnover in a more systematic way.

The campaign to crush the peasant beer-producers really got under way in an organised fashion during 1907-1909. The small workers were particularly prominent in this campaign, and after various public pronouncements in 1907 the Affiliated Individual Workers’ and. Tributors’ Associations passed a joint resolution to the effect that no brew-

ing of beer should take place within five miles of a mine without the assent of the mine owners.** The Rhodesia Chamber of Mines lent its support to the campaign in 1909,** and the state responded by framing a new Kaffir Beer Ordinance. With limited administrative resources, however, the administration was somewhat sceptical of its ability to enforce the legislation.*° A mere three years later further legislation was indeed necessary in the form of Kaffir Beer Ordinance No 17 of 1911, and it was only after yet another Ordinance became law in 1915 and the police had become much more zealous in its implementation Social Control in the Compounds / 167

that the trade based outside the compounds really declined.*° These various ordinances had the object not only of destroying the peasant beer sales, they also had the purpose of shifting beer production into the compounds where it could best be controlled. The 1911

Ordinance, in the wake of the Scurvy and Pneumonia Commission, made it possible for the mine to brew beer and offer it as an official part of mine diet.*” As peasant production of beer became more restricted, so beer came to an increasing extent under the control of the compound

manager and his ‘police’. , From the very earliest days of the industry, a certain amount of

beer had always been brewed within the compounds. During the first decade of the century ‘Cape Boys’ and their wives were particularly prominent in the business. Much of the day-to-day supervision of this beer brewing had been undertaken by the compound ‘police’;*® and as legislation and the campaign against peasant producers tended to shift more beer brewing into the heart of the compound, the uniformed and armed agent of management empowered with the right of arbitrary search was obviously well placed to receive bribes, and enforce monopolies. Indirectly then, the brewing of ¢shwala and the various Kaffir Beer Ordinances had the effect of bolstering the power of the compound ‘policeman’ and the control he exercised within the relatively

closed community. , Workers were fully aware of this power, and its potential for

disrupting one of the few ways they had of increasing their cash incomes in the decades of falling wages. When ‘Head Police Boy’ Johnny Sebelu enforced a monopoly in favour of a prostitute in the Wankie compound in 1921, workers demanded his dismissal, came out on a two-day strike and resumed work only when the police marched them back to the pithead.*® It is probable that workers were content while Sebelu restricted the weekly-alternating monopoly to fellow workers, but disapproved of

its extension to a prostitute.®° }

While however compound ‘police’ saw beer brewing in the industry as an opportunity for petty bribery, mine and compound managers generally saw possibilities for harnessing tshwala production to broader objectives.* From the very earliest years, and to an increasing extent as brewing shifted into the compound, management used beer as a means of social control. More specifically, beer came to be used in two ways

which need closer examination.

The extensive brewing of beer within the compound had been encouraged in the first place not only because it cut out the peasant producer but because it helped to stabilise the labour force. The Civil Commissioner at Salisbury talked in 1908 of beer brewing being en168 / Chibaro

couraged on the mines, ‘the object of course being to make the mine popular and induce the boys to remain.”*? And in a very diffuse way, beer drinking as a form of recreation no doubt did contribute to the

popularity of a compound. But the Attorney General had a more specific understanding of the economic forces operating when he pointed

out that mine owners encouraged beer brewing because ‘if a labourer can find means of spending money he is likely to remain for a longer period.’®? At one level then, beer was simply one further way of reduc-

Rhodesia.

ing labour turnover and assisting the process of proletarianisation in

Second, as the beer brewing process came increasingly under the © control of the compound system, mine and compound managers found that they could use it to increase the productivity of the labour force. On small and large mines alike, mine managers were willing to extend a beer-brewing monopoly to certain workers in return for special service, or as ‘a reward for good work’.* In effect, the weekend monopoly in beer brewing came to be a ‘bonus system’ for which black workers

competed. For the management this system had considerable advantages. Not only did it act as a spur to weekly productivity by making workers compete with each other, but it produced a cash bonus for the winner which was financed by the rest of the compound inhabitants. In many ways this perverted “bonus system’ represented the apex of man-

agement achievement in the social control of alcohol amongst the black workers.

Both of these systems of control were pervasive — and illegal. While the law made provision only for small-scale individual brewing or for beer to be issued as a ration, compound managers were able to assume the illegal right to control its sale for profit. The state was aware of this illegal activity and tolerated it — the Chief Native Commissioner himself said in 1930 that compound managers ‘break the law by allowing beer to be sold in the compounds, and are tacitly allowed to do so.”®

Beer monopoly became a mechanism of social control of compound inhabitants, and although illegal, it was allowed to persist in exactly the same way as the floggings were permitted — because the system suited

state and industry alike. Only when disturbances on a large scale inconvenienced the state, would action against a compound manager be entertained.** The beer-brewing monopolies thus came to rest with the state and industry after the peasant producers had been largely eliminated — and the monopoly was then jealously guarded. Whereas com-

pound managers were allowed to sanction beer brewing as a part of social control, the same tolerance could never be shown to a worker who broke the ring through independent action: indeed, the continued Social Control in the Compounds / 169

effectiveness of the management-sanctioned weekly monopoly depended on the ability to smash any independent production that might arise within the compound.**

In traditional societies the brewing of tshwala in its many forms was a process which took considerable time — sometimes days. Often brewed for special occasions or associated with ritual, the mildly intoxicating beer was consumed in large quantities over a period of hours or days; and much of this beer drinking was also seasonal, reaching a peak after the harvesting period when the economic demands of the subsist-

ence economy were minimal. This pattern of beer consumption was however ill-suited to the needs of capitalist production. In a system where shift followed shift with relentless regularity, and where seasonal variations formed a marginal consideration,®* hours or days for beer consumption were hard to

find. On the mines time meant money, and beer drinking became restricted to the hours between midday Saturday and midnight Sunday. Alienated in a productive process which revolved around machines rather than nature, workers thus sought solace in quicker acting beer, with a higher alcohol content than traditional tshwala. The tshwala brewed in the compounds came in any case to have a significantly higher alcohol content than that traditionally brewed by peasants. Workers came to expect a high alcohol level, and this in turn contributed to frequent conflict, even so-called ‘faction fights’, about the strength of the beer.®® In dozens of other brawls and riots, the pre-

scale.®° ,

disposing and aggravating cause came to be beer — a commodity which,

in the rural areas, seldom gave rise to conflict on any considerable From the very earliest days, however, workers found that not

even the strongest tshwala could produce the results they desired over a twenty-four-hour period. Unable to purchase spirits — except on the black market at suitably enhanced prices — they turned instead to.a new and dangerous way of increasing dramatically the alcoholic content of tshwala. Qilika, a small dried root suitably ground and powdered, was added to a mixture of golden syrup, sugar and millet or hops. The addition of this drug*: to the beer brought two benefits to the worker who had to seek his recreation within the periods prescribed by industrial capitalism: not only did it greatly shorten the fermentation period, but

intoxication.®”

it also required very little of the drink to induce a state of advanced

The supply of the drug lay largely in the hands of workers drawn from outside the borders of Rhodesia. ‘Xhosa’ transport drivers on the 170 / Chibaro

mines seem to have been the principal source,** while another was per-

haps the poorer migrants drawn from Northern Rhodesia.** For workers with little or no cash, who had to cover a long distance to reach the labour market, gilika would have been the ideal commodity to take to the compounds. It was a small item, easily hidden, and it was a ready money spinner — especially during the early years before the beer trade was very rigorously controlled. In later years, the drug was occasionally also found in the possession of other Africans well placed to use it — the

compound “police’.® ,

Initially, the use of gilika in beer seems to have been confined to Africans who came from the same ethnic background as suppliers.** While the peasant beer trade was largely intact, it did not in any case

appeal widely to the bulk of the compound inhabitants. But as beer production shifted into the compounds, and the black miners’ workcycles lengthened, so the use of the drug became more extensive. In particular, the decline in the beer trade in 1915 seems to have had the effect of increasing the use of gilika. The Kaffir Beer Ordinance of 1915

effectively pulled the workers from the arms of the peasant beer producers in the countryside, and pushed them into those of gilika in the

compounds. ,

Once the consumption of gilika increased markedly within the compounds, it caused more concern to the mining industry. Unlike the milder ¢tshwala which had beneficial side effects on the health of the black miners, gilika simply jeopardised productivity. But while the Chief Native Commissioner had been aware of the effects of the drug at least since 1907, the state waited until 1916 — that is until it was requested to intervene by the mining industry — to prohibit its use.*’ This slow official response, unless spurred on by industry at the point at which it felt its productivity impaired or its control threatened, was

also evident in the case of other drugs.

By far the most powerful of these was ‘dop’, or cheap Cape brandy. The need to control workers’ access to brandy had indeed been one of the main motivations behind the development of the compound system in Kimberley: on the day that the ‘closed compound’ was inaugurated at De Beers, Carruthers and ‘Matabele’ Thompson smashed

over 200 bottles which the black workers had attempted to smuggle into the mine barracks. Spirits consumed on a large scale produced a high rate of absenteeism and reduced productivity to an extent which the mine owners were unwilling to accept.

In Rhodesia, as on the Rand, the sale of spirits to Africans was prohibited by law.** State and industry alike were anxious to ensure the Social Control in the Compounds / 171

productivity of their black workers, so compound managers, especially before 1912 when production demands and the ‘labour shortage’ were at their most acute, spent much of their time and energy in attempts to

curtail the illegal liquor trade. Suppliers were frequently caught in specially set ‘traps’ and liable to severe sentences.®® Yet, despite these penalties, spirits in considerable quantities continued to make their way

into the mine compounds.” The suppliers were “Cape Boys’, unemployed whites, white miners, or compound staff who were anxious to raise a few pounds.”*

Yet although considerable efforts were made by both state and industry to restrict the flow of spirits to African miners, here, too, there was a basic ambivalence in official attitudes. Mine owners were aware that workers could be attracted through the issue of spirits and actually called publicly for the ‘dop system’ to be introduced in an attempt to solve the ‘labour shortage’ in 1901.7? That the manager of the Ayrshire mine could be recommended for a retail liquor licence after being prosecuted for selling liquor illegally is further evidence of this ambivalence on the part of authority,”* as is the fact that sentences were reduced for the offence in later years when the labour supply had increased.’ It is perhaps equally revealing that the state did not take action against the

‘extensive sale of methylated spirits’ to black workers at the ‘mine stores’.”°

In many parts of central Africa, peasants also had a well-developed taste for tobacco. The Shangwe people cultivated large quantities of inyoka tobacco in the Sebungwe district of Rhodesia and then sold it in the compounds. And this too was used as a device for social control in colonial enterprise; for when any commodity entered the nexus of rising cost of living, high store prices, short supply, declining cash wages and the relatively closed community of the compound, it assumed a new dimension.

Mine owners were quick to spot the potential of tobacco in this distinctive setting. As early as 1899 when the ‘labour shortage’ was making itself felt, tobacco was one of the inducements held out to a peasantry that was reluctant to make its way to the mines.” On large mines such as the Globe & Phoenix tobacco was used as a “bonus’ paid to those workers who were willing to work a certain number of days in the week — in much the same way as meat was used. On many other mines too the value of a weekly issue of tobacco to make the mine popular and reduce labour turnover was well known.”’ The workers’ liking for smoking, however, transcended the need for tobacco, and many also developed a taste for dagga — marijuana or 172 | Chibaro

cannabis. In several ways the attitude of state and industry towards beer and gilika was paralleled by their stance towards tobacco and dagga: the milder forms of the drugs were not only tolerated but encouraged,

since consumption had the effect of increasing the process of proletarianisation; and although the state. was.aware at an early date of the

use of the stronger drug, it was willing to take action only when prompted by a mining industry. The time lag between such prompting from the industry and the administrative response, however, differed

significantly in the case of gilika and dagga. Whereas the sale of qilika was largely confined to ‘Cape Boys’ or ‘foreign natives’ — largely

lumpen-proletarian elements in the work force — dagga was sold by European traders, and it took the state much longer to deal with the suppliers of dagga than of gilika.

While small amounts of dagga had always been consumed by Africans in different parts of central Africa, the amount consumed appears to have escalated amongst workers who lived under miserable conditions and earned very low wages. This increased consumption appears to have become most noticeable in the years before the first world war. In 1913. the Marula Branch of the Rhodesian Agricultural Union requested the Director of Agriculture to take action against a

drug which left their labourers ‘saturated’ and ‘absolutely unfit for work’ on five days in the week.7* And in the same year a less directly interested party, the Southern Rhodesia Missionary Conference, also passed a resolution requesting the administration to ban the use of the

These initiatives prompted the Chief Native Commissioner to make enquiries into the sale and use of the drug, and from the replies of the native commissioners it became clear that most of the dagga was sold by European traders to compound inhabitants in the mining dis-

tricts. The most extensive users of the drug appear to have been the “Zambesi natives’ — i.e. Africans from Northern Rhodesia.?° A complaint from the owner of the Gothic mine to the Secretary for Mines also pointed to R.N. L.B. workers as the most prominent consumers.®° On

the basis of this scanty evidence, it is possible to speculate that dagega found its greatest number of adherents amongst those in the very lowest

socio-economic stratum of the black labour force,*+ and further, if flimsy, evidence to support this hypothesis came from the Native Com-

missioner at Umzingwane, who noted that workers from Nyasaland (prominent amongst the best paid workers in the compounds) were not fond of it. In any event, the Chief Native Commissioner was largely un-

concerned with these subtleties, and merely reported to the Administrator that the drug was used on the mines, and that it was frequently Social Control in the Compounds / 173

supplied by those who owned mine stores.®? The 1913 initiative, which was largely a response to the missionaries, was thus allowed to fizzle out.

, The dagga pipes in the compounds, however, did not fizzle out and increased consumption led to decreased productivity. D. Begbie,

spokesman for the Small Workers’ Association in the Legislative Council, took the opportunity raised by the qilika debate in 1916 to raise the issue of dagga and black workers,®* and with the voice of the mine owners rather than the missionaries ringing in its ears, the state was willing to adopt a more responsive posture. In 1917 the administration ordered traders to stop selling dagga. This order however was not well received by those in the ‘native trade’ : Landau Bros. of Matabeleland for instance complained of being saddled with 1,500 lbs of the drug which was ‘one of the usual trading lines’;**

and in Bulawayo thirty-six traders petitioned the Administrator for compensation for the ‘large stocks’ which they held.*° Accordingly a considerable legal trade in dagga did manage to persist until 1923, when

a legislative ordinance finally curtailed the supply. The post-1917 squeeze on the dagga supply did not however deter those workers who had acquired the habit. The legal trade was simply

replaced by an illegal one. At the Rezende mine compound, Africans turned to their fellow worker Shereni (‘Shilling’), who arranged for regular supplies to be sent to him from neighbouring Mozambique.* At the Lonely mine in the Bulawayo district, dagga consumption remained high, and the trade was lucrative enough for a worker to arrange for an elaborate system of smuggling from South West Africa in 1930.8?

Clearly, drugs remained one outlet from the oppression of compound life.

Sex in the Service of Industry and the State The compound inhabitants of Rhodesian mines were better placed for sexual relationships with women than were their fellow workers in the mining centres of South Africa. Unlike the ‘closed compound’ of Kimberley or the males-only barracks of the Rand, the three-tier system of Rhodesia acknowledged the existence of women. This apparent concession to the sexual needs of the workers, however, did not lead to a simple pattern of heterosexual relationships, and in order to understand how the industry and state made use of sex for purposes of social

context. ,

control, it is necessary to place these relationships within a broader Officially, the mines neither made allowance for nor acknowl-

edged the presence-of women in the compounds. With the exception of a three- or four-year period at the turn of the century, when food rations 174 / Chibaro

were also issued to women at certain large mines in an attempt to stabilise the labour force, wages for miners were never related to family needs. In the ideology of the companies and the state, the low wages of the black miner were justified-on the grounds that they were the earnings of a single male migrant worker who had a supplementary income

from the traditionaleconomy. ss ,

This economic and ideological denial of the existence of women in the industrial areas reflected itself.in two important ways. First, as a self-fulfilling prophecy it led to a structural imbalance in the sex ratios within the compound. Second, it placed. such women as did live there in a state of chronic financial deprivation and insecurity. Unable to sell their labour power to the capitalists, married and unmarried females alike were forced to ferret out the cash that flowed into the nooks and crannies of the compound economy from the workers’ pockets. Much of this was done through undertaking tasks traditionally associated with women — jobs such as housekeeping, sewing, cooking or selling beer. The remainder of the women without a skill or craft had only one more

thing to sell. a .

The fact that there was a ‘shortage’ of women in compound society in the first place, and that women were willing to sell themselves in the second, were both ultimately attributable to the exploitative wage policies of the mining companies. Within the confines of a relatively closed community, any shortage offered the management a potential lever for social control; and food, tobacco, dagga, and alcohol and sex were all used in this way. Where the shortage was linked to a basic human need — as in the cases of food or sex — the potential for social

control was greatest. ,

The three-tier system itself ensured that all men did not compete on an equal footing sexually. The barracks-like inner compound which housed dozens of workers under one roof put the short-term workers and the chibaro labourers at an immediate disadvantage. Besides having no privacy in which to entertain, their mobility was also most circumscribed, so that sexual outlets outside the mining property too were inhibited. The short-term migrants and chibaro workers had also the further disadvantage, of receiving the lowest wages: as in all aspects of capitalist society, there was no democracy of poverty, and for the most under-privileged of all the prices charged by prostitutes were beyond reach. It was thus in the lowest socio-economic stratum of compound

society that sexual deprivation was most severely felt. The sexual frustration of some of the unmarried male workers employed at the lowest wages forced them to turn to bestiality. Many of the Rhodesian mines located in the rural areas kept live-stock on the Social Control in the Compounds / 175

property — either as the possessions of white staff or as a source of meat supplies for the workers. It was towards this livestock — often kept next to the compound — that some of the men turned for their sexual needs. And those found guilty of offences with donkeys, heifers, oxen or goats

frequently turned out to be the poorest paid unmarried men of the inner compound.®® Although evidence is sparse, it does seem also that most of these offences took place in the later years, when the workers’ earning power in the industry was at its lowest.®® In cases of bestiality, the magistrates did not consider the imbalance of sex ratios in the compound as a mitigating factor: sentences were usually six months with hard labour, sometimes with the option of a fine of £20.

In the inner compounds and the huts of the second tier, sexual frustration was also evident in the number of cases of ‘indecent assault’

involving male workers. Overcrowding, and the poverty of workers who had to share blankets, made their contribution to this type of offence; as did the surrogate female role which many young boy servants were called upon to play.®* Here too the state was unconcerned with the social context of the offence, and the favoured sentence for black workers was five months with hard labour.*

Particularly vulnerable too were young girls who lived in the compounds — the offspring of countless illegal and temporary unions. Being the smallest and weakest of those females accessible, they formed relatively easy prey for workers denied more orthodox sexual outlets.

Girls under the age of ten who were not under close and concerned supervision were liable to sexual assaults,°* and whilst the rape of two-

or three-year-old girls was almost unheard of in the rural areas, such cases did occur in the compounds. Girls of ten and twelve, approaching puberty, were likely to be raped if not constantly watched.*° There was usually more violence when older girls were involved, since they were more likely to resist, and this fact was reflected in the common sentence of three years’ hard labour with twenty lashes. But the frequency of such cases and their underlying cause were never considered worth examining by the state or industry. Perhaps inevitably, violence also surrounded the adult women. Occasionally prostitutes assaulted each other in disputes which hinged around attachments to favourite customers,®* but more frequent by far

was the conflict between workers about women they called mahure (prostitutes).°? Women who often owed their only allegiance to the highest bidder acted as the catalyst of conflict among poorer workers. Thus

much of the black workers’ energy and wrath was directed against fellow-workers while the fundamental cause of the conflict and competition lay outside the compound. 176 {| Chibaro

For most black miners and some white miners it was pennies and pounds that ultimately ensured the attentions of the mahure.®** But in

the confined new industrial setting, it was not only the power of the purse that commanded respect. Managers and their black assistants could be certain that their requests would not be lightly discarded. At the Antelope mine in 1934, the assistant compound manager simply sent his ‘cook boy’ Dennis to get women for himself and his European guest.°® And compound ‘police boys’ Jacob and Sam used their authority at the Falcon mine in 1919 to demand sexual favours from the women residents on the property.*°° Ordinary black workers on the other hand, without the advantages of uniforms or sjamboks, had to invoke powers that did not derive from the industry itself if they were to gain an advantage over their fellows. The traditional power of witchcraft was put to new use by a frustrated worker at Wankie colliery in 1914: a woman who refused sex was handed a red-coloured stick and

told that she would die if she ever let it go, while a second reluctant woman was handed a charm accompanied by a note written in Swahili. And in the basic state of sexual deprivation in the compound of course the wives of married workers were also at risk. Quarrels, assaults and numerous cases of arson all bore eloquent and bloody testimony to the insecurity of marriage in a community of poverty and violence.’

Most married workers were at a loss as to how best to protect their wives and their legal rights in the new setting, where old beliefs, values and traditions were badly equipped to deal with the more basic competition of commodities and cash. The literate workers from Nyasaland, ever articulate, looked to Zomba to help them resolve their difficulties. Feeling that they got little

help from the Rhodesian authorities they directed pathetic pleas for assistance to those they considered to be more reasonable men.’ Isaac Manda of the Cam & Motor compound articulated the dilemma of many a married man: But don’t think that I am a troublesome man. Bwana, because my heart is not well for my wife having been taken away. I am afraid to make

battle because perhaps you shall imprison me if I kill a man for the reason of a woman, but it is right therefore that I should complain to you, Bwana.1°3

The lack of authority in the compound was also felt by Simon Banda who wrote from the Eldorado mine. ‘We are living as if there is no Europeans of the Boma here,’ he observed, ‘therefore I thought it right to put my complaint before you.”°* This too followed the mevitable appeal for assistance in an attempt to get back his wife. The more practically minded black workers did not waste their Social Control in the Compounds / 177

time writing to far-off European authorities. Traditionalists sought to protect their wives from adultery through witchcraft and the custom of ‘eating’ their women.*®> Others, aware that a jealous neighbour may set fire to a thatch roof, took additional basic precautions. A cynical journalist, writing in the style of the time, noted with some truth in 1909 that In Rhodesia you can always tell when a kaffir has a too attractive wife ... He invariably lives in a kia made of tin sheeting, without a thatched

roof... . The tin roof is the... kaffir’s fire insurance.1°

The poverty, violence, squalor and insecurity of compound life

that was part of the twentieth-century industrial dispensation in Rhodesia was very far removed from the life which African men and women led in their traditional communities. And although it is clear that from the inception of colonialism, the practices of the mining industry and the processes it had helped set in motion were designed to induce black men to gravitate to the compounds to sell their labour, it is necessary also to examine what it was that made women willing to leave the life they were born to for the compounds, where if they could not sell their labour to the mine owners, they could sell their bodies to

the workers.

- For a certain number of women, the compounds, right from the earliest years, must have offered an alternative to the restricted life of women in traditional society.1°? Others, such as Shona girls who cut their upper teeth first, had already been rejected by traditional society, and for them the undiscriminating world of the compound no doubt offered some sort of home.?°§ Yet. other women may have been forced to turn to prostitution by their husbands, who found their low wages insufficient to meet their needs.?°° Such explanations, however, account for only a relatively small number of the prostitutes who found their way to the mines. Basically,

prostitutes — just like male African labour - were a product of the process of proletarianisation. Once the redistributive economy of the traditional society was undermined it offered little security to the young,

the old, the powerless or those without kin, and when the standard of living in the rural areas dropped, women who were not part of a family production unit were increasingly vulnerable. Those who lost their access to land were forced into the urban areas to seek cash and fend for themselves. But in Rhodesia, unlike South Africa where there was at least the possibility for women to be taken into domestic service in white homes, the bulk of the housework was undertaken by ‘boys’, and working opportunities for females were few. The overwhelming ma178 / Chibaro

jority of prostitutes in the Rhodesian compounds therefore were probably women without close family who, for want of any other means of earning a living, were forced to sell their bodies. This hypothesis is supported by the evidence we have about the social background of compound prostitutes. Lassi, a Mashona woman from the Victoria district, left home only when both her parents had died. She sought out a sister living in the Gaika mine compound and it was there that she first turned to prostitution.11° It was also only after their parents had died that the Atonga sisters, Sijioma and Sewaya, went to live in the care of George Haridi of the Globe & Phoenix mine; and again this was the start of a life of prostitution.1** The same pattern is apparent in the small band of travelling prostitutes who made their way from mine compound to mine compound in 1924 working for a pimp named Chilopola. An Achewa woman of seventeen, Malita, was re-

cruited after her husband died; fourteen-year-old Anija — another Achewa from Kota Kota in Nyasaland — had no father and was living

with her mother at the time of her recruitment, and a third woman

Manangota was also without a father.1?” |

Such women made their way to the compounds from the very earliest years of the industry. But while individual women may have turned to prostitution at any time that misfortune overtook them, the large-scale movements to the compounds can be more specifically dated. This closer definition reveals the underlying structural reasons for the

presence of the women on the mines.

Prostitution was a particularly noticeable feature of the 1920s and °30s — that is, of those years when the process of proletarianisation

had reached an advanced stage.1* In addition, there was a significant acceleration of the trend during the years when the economy was de-

pressed. 7

Thus 1921 saw an ‘influx of foreign native women’ who went to the compounds for purposes of prostitution.1* And it is significant that the Inspector of Native Compounds chose 1931 as the year in which to

draw attention to the fact that. prostitution was ‘rife’ in the compounds.?*5

Since they were parasites within the black working class, prostitutes shared the fortunes of that class — both in the economy as a whole and in the mining industry in particular. Just as more labour made its way to the mines during the depression, so too more women went to the mines to become prostitutes. Just as the earning power of the black miners declined as real wages dropped in successive years, so too did the charges the prostitutes could command. Mahure regularly charged ten to fifteen shillings a time between 1900 and 1910, but by the early Social Control in the Compounds / 179

1920s they were accepting between two and five shillings,*** and at least some were accepting credit tokens in the 1930s.7*7

Deprived rather than depraved, these women were pushed into the patterns of behaviour that characterise many under-privileged and exploited socio-economic groups. As the ‘scum of the country’ they lied, cheated and stole from the black miners on whom they depended for money. The state officials responsible for inspecting the mine com-

pounds concluded that prostitutes were at the base of most crime on the properties. The black workers themselves felt that the ‘mahure and beer’ were the most important contributory factors to the “faction fights’ that frequently racked the African mining communities.11* Yet despite all the conflict, tension and disruption caused by these women no action was taken against them by the authorities; and indeed state and mining

compounds. |

industry alike made it their business to protect their presence in the One of the reasons that made women in the compound acceptable

was the fact that their presence had an effect on the health of the workers. Early on it was recognised that a woman who attached herself to a chamwario (lover) produced better quality meals than he made for himself and that this tended to increase his productivity as a labourer."

The settlers for their part were more taken with the idea that black prostitutes in the compound protected white women in the community from sexual assault: “The opinion is freely expressed’, the Native Commissioner at Shamva observed, ‘that the presence of these women has the effect of minimising the danger of “black peril” cases.”2?° Given the

extent of sexual deprivation and frustration among the miners it is possible that the mahure did in fact indirectly protect white women on the mining properties from rape. Appealing as these arguments might have been in themselves, the mine owners had other more deep-seated reasons for approving of prostitution. From at least 1900 they were aware of the fact that the presence of women attracted workers, lengthened the labour cycle and contrib-

uted to the proletarianisation of the black peasant at no direct cost to them.*?? The more ‘voluntary’ labour that could be attracted to the mine, the less the amount that had to be paid to the R.N.L.B. for recruiting. And the more stabilised the labour force, the greater the average level of competence and productivity of the workers. In Rhodesia, what was good for the mining industry was considered to be good for the state. State officials accepted that the mahure

assisted labour stabilisation, and were thus willing to ‘regulate’ but never to eliminate prostitution. The Chief Native Commissioner made his acceptance quite clear: 180 / Chibaro

... 1 do not think that it would be good policy to interfere to any great extent with the native women who congregate on the mines as such interference would be likely to affect the labour supply detrimentally, but their presence in the compound should be regulated in some degree.1??

This fundamental acceptance was also evident in the comments of the Inspector of Native Compounds who, in 1931, felt that it would not be ‘good policy to abolish these evils [prostitution and credit] altogether’.’**

When, on the one and only occasion that the state did take action against the influx of women into the compounds in 1931, it did so on a very selective basis. On the specific instructions of the Chief Native Commissioner, the police were asked to eject only those women who had deserted their husbands or parents — i.e. those who had an alternative source of income: the prostitutes were to be left strictly alone.*** There was a price to pay, however, for this policy of inaction — the growing incidence of venereal disease amongst black workers. It

was not so much the cost of treatment which concerned the mine owners — the workers were made to pay for that — but the fact that it reduced productivity. Ideally what the industry and state required was a system which would reap all the benefits of prostitution, without reducing the productivity of the workers. It was around that objective that the strategy of ‘regulation’ evolved.

In 1916 the Chief Native Commissioner, following his ‘good policy’ of ‘regulation’ rather than elimination, suggested the compulsory medical examination of prostitutes.1*° In the wake of this sugges-

tion a few of the larger mines did in fact set up a system of medical checks, and by the time that the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines initiated a debate on productivity and venereal disease in the Legislative Council in 1923, two large mines already had quite well-developed systems. At the Shamva mine, a committee of African women inspected any new female who desired to take up residence in the compound, and at the Falcon mine a woman ‘was compelled to carry a medical certificate’

after examination by the mine medical officer.1?* a As prostitution on a large scale gained momentum in the 1920s and °30s, so the need for the extension of this system of ‘regulation’ increased.27 Between 1928 and 1933, with most sectors of the economy other than gold mining depressed, the compounds grew in importance as markets for prostitutes. Mines in the Bulawayo district not only had their resident women within the compound but also had weekend visits of literally truck-loads of prostitutes from the Bulawayo location.1?8 This expansion of scale forced the state to push for an extension of the system of ‘regulation’. At such large mines as Wankie and the Lonely mine it became standard practice for women to submit to medical — Social Control in the Compounds / 181

examination at the compound entrance before offering themselves to the workers.'2° Just as the compound inspectors were called upon to make certain that the credit system operated smoothly, so too they were called upon to make certain that the system of ‘regulated’ prostitution did not endanger the work force and productivity. By late 1931 these arrangements were operating smoothly on ‘most’ large mines.**°

As the purveyors of sex in a sexually deprived community, then, prostitutes came to form simply one more lever of social control. By 1933 at least one enterprising native commissioner was suggesting that they might bring to the state benefits of a more tangible nature than labour stabilisation : _ Granted that prostitutes are a necessary evil, there is no reason why they should carry on a lucrative but repulsive trade without heavy taxation. Many people will no doubt be horrified at the suggestion of legalising and regulating prostitution; but facts must be faced squarely and courageously.131

Although the government never came to legalise the mahure, or to tax prostitution in Rhodesia, it continued, in partnership with the mining industry, to be an active supervisor of a system of ‘regulated prostitution’.

_ Education and Religion in the Service of Industry Of all the devices of social control used in settler-dominated societies, none was more pervasive or more explicit in its use than education. In an economy which centred largely on the need for a supply of cheap unskilled or semi-skilled labour, settlers were exceedingly wary

of giving Africans any education at all and in Rhodesia no government education was provided before 1920. Instead, the state chose to subsidise mission education which emphasised industrial training and habits of ‘discipline’ and ‘cleanliness’. The state disapproved of more literary education since ‘the native in his ignorance almost invariably abuses a purely “book” education, utilising it only as a means of defying authority and oppressing his “‘raw’”’ fellows.”2*?

. This aspect of settler ideology aimed at producing a subservient working class which would have a deeply ingrained respect for white employers. The premier industry of Rhodesia was in full accord with this philosophy and stated it forcefully to the 1903-05 South African Native Affairs Commission :

the form of education suited to the status of the native and the requirements of his position is one which inculcates in the first instance habits of order, discipline and obedience with a view to rendering the native actually

182 / Chibaro

useful to his employer and accustoming him to look upon work as the

natural means of earning a livelihood.1%3

Many of the missionaries — primarily Anglicans and Methodists***

— articulated an ideology compatible with that of the mining industry and the state. This was especially the case during the first decade of the century, when the labour needs and problems of the industry were at

their most acute. In 1901 Father Richartz, the Jesuit priest from Chisawasha mission, wrote to the Administrator approving ofa system of forced labour under ‘police supervision’.**> In the same year. the Anglican Bishop of Mashonaland found inspiration in the Bible when he told African workers that ‘Thou Shalt keep your contract’;*** and the ‘dignity of labour’ theme was as popular in mission as in mining circles. The Wesleyan minister at Tegwani, J.W.Stanlake, told Africans

that they owed the Europeans a debt for liberating them from the ‘tyranny’ of the Ndebele. ‘In return you must show your gratitude by serving them,’ he suggested: ‘Do not be afraid of work, Christianity

means obedience and service.’**”

The mining industry was willing to make place in the compounds for any ideology that preached ‘obedience and service’. While the mine owners themselves felt no great need to spread African education, they

were quite prepared to make use of education as a means of social control. Realising the strong desire of Africans for literacy, they had toyed with the idea of a system of night schools to attract labour in 1902;1#8 but for a variety of ideological and practical reasons the scheme came to nothing. Instead, they came to welcome the night schools estab-

lished in the compounds through mission and other agencies. Part of the mining companies’ ready acceptance of the night schools lay in the fact that they cost the industry nothing. No special buildings needed to be constructed, since workers simply used the existing buildings or those huts which they had constructed for themselves. Teachers were no problem, since the majority came from South African

missions or from the long-established Nyasaland mission schools. In addition, the teacher-preacher was acceptable because in some cases he doubled as mine-worker as well. At the Antenior mine for example, the Wesleyan lay teacher was a Zulu, Siketo, who also had a semi-skilled

jobAmongst as athe workers fitter’s assistant.’*° the hunger for education was striking. A close observer of the Rhodesian mines noted in 1909: Pass by the huts of a mining camp at night, and from many sides you may hear words of two or three letters spelt out from an English spellingbook. On a Sunday boys may be seen basking in the sunshine outside their huts, learning words from the same books; and where a few year Social Control in the Compounds / 183

ago there was but a single spelling-book in a camp, today there are a dozen or more.140

To satisfy their hunger, however, workers had to create opportunities for themselves. Not only did they acquire books and writing materials, in at least one case they went so far as to construct a special night school in the compound and pay for the services of a full-time teacher.***

In proportion to the workers’ investment in time, effort and money the compounds became educational centres. What the state had in large measure failed to provide, the workers created for themselves. But while much benefit no doubt accrued to the workers, the mining

companies also reaped their share, and by the time that the Native Affairs Committee of Enquiry reported in 1911, it was widely recognised that such night schools helped the mines with their ‘labour problem’. They were reported as being ‘a distinct inducement to steady labour on mines’;/*? and it was similarly recognised that ‘mines with schools on them are most popular’.*4*

During the first fifteen years of the century then, mine owners ‘welcomed’ worker education for exactly the same reason that they ‘welcomed’ beer and women. Education at night schools not only attracted labour without capital outlay, it also helped stabilise it. But once the labour supply had become relatively swollen in the 1920s, mine

owners became more indifferent to the fate of the schools. The 1925

education commission noted that the schools could still act as a ‘magnet’ for Africans anxious to improve their education, but felt that ‘As adjuncts and auxiliaries of our labour market they deserve more support and encouragement than they receive.’!** The limited education which workers received in the compounds was largely self-initiated and was tolerated by the mining companies more as a means to manipulate

the labour market than as an end valuable in itself.

Religion, on the other hand was perceived by mining industry and state alike as a potentially powerful threat, and they took it upon themselves to intervene in the religious life and activities of the compound inhabitants. From at least the turn of the century, the administration kept a wary and nervous eye on the activities of African separatist churches, which they considered to be the source of the dangerous and ‘seditious’ doctrine of ‘Ethiopianism’, and to be kept out of both

compounds and colony.’** The fear of independent churches was further exacerbated when news was received of the abortive Chilembwe revolt in Nyasaland in 1915.

The state thus undertook to keep the compounds free of what it

considered to be the undesirable doctrines of churches not under 184 { Chibaro

strict European control. George Kampara, founder of the Gazaland Zimbabwe Ethiopian Church, was therefore refused permission when in 1915 he sought to visit ‘Nyasaland boys in Rhodesian compounds’.1*¢

The industry, for its part, was perfectly willing to co-operate with the state in ejecting those it considered suspicious. When a preacher from the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion wished to continue preaching at the Shamva mine in 1924, the compound manager sent him to the native commissioner who. refused the request.

By far the greatest challenge to the state and industry, however, came from the Watch Tower movement that operated in mine compounds from 1917 onwards.1*7 The Chief Native Commissioner felt that the movement, which had some followers in the larger mines, was: ... purely Ethiopian in character, and if allowed to spread will at the least, tend to create a feeling of dissatisfaction and unrest in the native mind. It is therefore, desirable to suppress the movement as early as possible. 148

The industry responded by dismissing all known Watch Tower followers in the compound, and the state made the action secure by de-

porting the workers to their countries of origin. a This early over-reaction to religious teachings that seemed to challenge. white authority was, in the mid-1920s, replaced by a more cautious policy of wait-and-see. While remaining basically suspicious, some mining authorities came to realise that not all religious activity was threatening, or incompatible with industrial activity. The majority of religious teachings were conservative, and the values of the protestant ethic, such as ‘obedience and service’, could be put to good use in the compounds. In some measure this toleration came to apply even to the more challenging teachings of the Watch Tower: by the mid-1920s, the management at the Shamva mine was willing to allow the Watch Tower

followers there to build a church. As good workers who rigidly abstained from alcohol, they made a valuable contribution to productivity. Mine managers were also willing to acknowledge that sobriety, hard work and obedience were not exclusively Christian attributes. For the black followers of Islam, who came from Nyasaland, mosques were allowed to be constructed; and at both the Cam & Motor and the Globe & Phoenix mines they became part of compound life.**® The teachings

of Mohammed were considered to meet so well the requirements of industrial life that at the Globe & Phoenix the company undertook to pay the salary of the butcher attached to the mosque, as well as the Imam.**° While ‘Mohammedan’ workers were undoubtedly a little weak on their fast days, this failing was more than offset by their other Social Control in the Compounds / 185

virtues. As a commission of enquiry noted: ‘we had it from an experienced compound manager that the most trustworthy of his natives were

Mohammedans, that they do not drink, are very moral and very clean.”251

Workers were also encouraged to attach themselves to one of the more orthodox Christian churches (such as the Methodist, Anglican,

Dutch Reformed or Catholic) in the compounds, since this was considered to have a ‘good’, if temporary effect.*? This tolerance of certain

creeds, however, extended only as long as they did not challenge the ideology of white dominance or jeopardise production.

The Seventh Day Adventists, for example, attracted the suspicion of state and industry alike. In 1921 they were banned from the territory until they had made a declaration to the High Commissioner denying any contacts with the Israelite sect, the Watch Tower movement or the Ethiopian movement. Once this ban was lifted African preachers from the church sought to make converts — among other places, in the compounds. But since the adherents of the church refused to work on Saturdays, they were far from popular with the managers of the chrome mines where they congregated, especially when many of them also wanted to be freed from Sunday work as were the rest of the men in the compound. The threat of a religiously-sanctioned five day week mine managers were unwilling to tolerate. Seventh Day Adventists

were not given employment on the chrome mines and in addition, a preacher who persistently sought access to his followers in the com-

pound was prosecuted.**

Although used in a more diffuse way, religion like education was thus employed as part of the system of social control. Between them, state and industry decided what religions were most suitable for black workers in a colonial economy. Ideologies such as that of the Watch Tower which threatened settler ideas about perpetual white domination

were unacceptable to the state. While others, like the teaching of the Seventh Day Adventists, were unpalatable to an industry that needed labourers for almost continual production. At the same time the established religions were to be encouraged insofar as they encouraged a self-discipline that meshed well with the needs of industrialism: a sober,

hard-working and obedient labour force that offered its services for cheap and declining wages was in no way at odds with the requirements of the Rhodesian mining industry.

Recreation: Defusing Class Consciousness The colonial presence was. never sustained through force alone. As Frantz Fanon has argued, the culture of the invaders is a pervasive 186 /{ Chibaro

part of settler control that perpetually reasserts the dominance of the colonisers. In Rhodesia, the naked force exercised under the compound system was reinforced in the mining communities by whites who chose to live and enjoy a separate social life which distinguished them from ‘uncivilised’ blacks. White dominance was not only asserted in the work situation, but also through the privileged and exclusive nature of white social gatherings. Of these gatherings, the most important in the relatively isolated communities was the ‘mine dance’.

These relatively sophisticated and well catered-for European ‘mine dances’ came in due course to have their counterparts in black compound society. On Sundays rather than Saturdays, and with pros-

titutes rather than wives or women friends, black miners could be found at ‘tea meetings’,°* ‘big dinners’?*> or ‘dances’. Partly in imitation, and-partly in mockery of the fashions elsewhere on the mining

property, Africans could be found dancing ‘arm in arm’ with the women of the compound or visiting prostitutes from the nearest town

‘location’.** As derivatives of European. culture, and therefore en- | dowed with the mystique of supposed superiority, these functions were particularly popular at the larger mines during the 1920s and 1930s. But the fact that an entrance fee was usually charged meant that attendance was largely restricted to the most privileged socio-economic stratum of compound society; and the limited numbers of the women, and the prices they were likely to charge, were further restrictions. The mass of this male-dominated society earned very low wages and in any case retained strong links with their peasant culture. Rather than court

ing’.157 , |

the pale mirror-image of white society, they turned towards a more

popular, cheaper and more familiar pastime — ‘traditional tribal danc-

Sometimes on a Saturday afternoon, but more usually on a

Sunday, black workers drawn from the same ethnic background would meet to drink and dance. As is customary in much peasant dancing, their dances would portray ethnic origins, historic achievements, or the

attributes of manhood and virility. Groups of workers drawn from different parts of central Africa would each. perform their own ‘tribal’ dance. Largely done for pleasure, these dances also had the important

implicit function of reasserting the worker’s individual and group identity amidst an industrial setting which too often denied his human-

ityAlthough altogether.?"° , most of the black workers on the mines were drawn from outside Rhodesia, local tribes also featured in such dances. The rhythmic clapping of hands on legs distinguished the Nxuzu of the

Ndebele, while the Karanga (a Shona speaking group) danced the Social Control in the Compounds / 187

Zangoma — a dance to the spirits associated with illness. Shangaans from

the eastern districts of Rhodesia or Mozambique either danced the Shimbo or the Mutzongoya — dances which celebrated the role of women in society. In more militant mood, the Shangaans also danced the Morrumbene Motzongoya — a dance associated with victories at war.

More exotic dances from northern cultures too found expression

in Rhodesian compounds. Ngoni workers from Northern Rhodesia fashioned themselves musical instruments from gourds which then accompanied their dancing of the Ngoma. Also from north of the Zambesi came the Mashukulumbwe who did an elaborate dance involving the throwing and catching of sticks. From Nyasaland, the Chewa danced the Nyau — a dance derived from a secret society of that name that operated in the rural areas of Nyasaland.’°® The Yao were associated with the Mbeni while the Tonga were widely known for their love of the M ganda.*®©

For European visitors to the mines, such compound dancing provided a touch of ‘tribal Africa’, and from an early date observers were impressed. On the larger mines, the free entertainment provided by the compound dancers became something of an occasion and parties of visitors were privileged with special performances: compound dancing in short came to form part of an early public relations programme for the companies.**? Members of mine management and white audiences alike saw ‘primitive’, ‘happy’ black workers, and thus received visual confirmation of the settler mythology describing contented ‘tribes-

men’ well satisfied in a paternalistic industrial environment. Workers who danced and sang obviously did not provoke questions about forced labour, exploitative wages, death, disease or poverty.* And dancing too could play its part as a means of social control. It provided cheap, harmless entertainment for workers who might other*JIn 1910, C.N.B.Venables recounted what a B.S.A.P. Trooper had told him about forced labour collected in Northern Rhodesia: ‘Messengers would return with gangs of natives tied in single file with ropes around their necks. When they approached the settlement the ropes would be taken off and the Messengers would order them to sing and those who did not do so they would “encourage” with sjamboks, and that, he [the Trooper] said, was why the natives used to appear so delighted at the prospect of doing the particular work they were brought in for.’ R.#,, Oxford, MSS. Brit. Emp. S22 G184/2, C.N.B.Venables to Travers Buxton, 23 January 1910. What is important here is not whether or not this particular story was truthful or not. What is important is that it demonstrates a contemporary consciousness about the prospects of manipulating African singing and dancing.

188 / Chibaro

wise find their relaxation in drinking, with adverse consequences for Monday morning’s productivity. Dancing also had the effect of diverting the workers’ minds from more serious issues of exploitation.?© _ Finally, since such dancing was largely ethnically based, it had the effect of reinforcing division amongst the black workers along tribal lines : *®

it served as off-the-job buttressing for tribal divisions already institutionalised in the production process itself. The latent nature of the function of dancing as a means of social control meant that it was subject to minimal interference from manage-

ment and state. But tolerance was never allowed to degenerate into lack of vigilance. Ever-watchful for developments amongst the black workers, both the state and industry at various stages made it their business to examine the dancing in the compounds. This was particularly the case in the years during and immediately after the first world war, when the dance clubs assumed a more organised form. In 1917 the police enquired into the Chinyau society at Shamva mine in connection with. the death of a worker,'** and in 1921 the Commissioners of Police in Nyasaland and Rhodesia exchanged notes on the Mbeni so-

ciety.*°° The Rhodesia Chamber of Mines for its part was quick to notice when workers from “all tribes’ started to join any association, and raised the issue of what it considered to be embryonic ‘strike committees’ with the C.N.c. in 1922.1¢° In general, however, dancing in the

compound operated in their interests, and the authorities left it undisturbed.

Compound sports, on the other hand, were largely initiated by management in a deliberate effort to defuse potentially explosive situations. For while the major forms of compound recreation remained prostitution and beer, the potential for serious conflict always remained

high. During the normal weekend leisure periods the risk was high enough, but there were at least elements to impose limits to the drinking: a significant proportion of the workers were employed on Sunday — a continuous production process waited on nobody and boilers had

to be kept operating, crushers fed and slimes dams attended to; and the mine management and its agents would themselves be vigilant, ready to step in and protect Monday morning productivity if necessary. In any case workers had little if anything to celebrate, and weekend drinking was more an attempt to drown sorrows than to enjoy compound life.

These restraints operated for virtually the entire year. But on Christmas day in particular, and during the festive season in general, the situation was qualitatively different. A greater proportion of black workers were simultaneously off duty than at any other time of the year; Social Control in the Compounds / 189

management and its agents, if not less vigilant, were likely to be slightly more tolerant, and in terms of the invading ideology of Christianity the workers did have a reason to celebrate. The brakes of control were thus more difficult to apply. Increased alcohol consumption produced conflict between the workers, and Christmas day always saw a significant number of ‘faction fights’.1*’ Large-scale physical conflict in the compound was not welcomed

by mine managers, who not only sought to protect the productivity of their labour force but also looked forward to a relaxed festive season of their own. Managers thus assumed the burden of providing alter-

native entertainment for the workers on Christmas day, and more usually than not this entertainment consisted of a sports meeting. In 1907, for example, the workers in the Wankie compound competed in a sports meeting — the prizes being provided out of a fund from the fines

inflicted on them during the year.*** At small and large mines alike it became customary for workers to compete in such meetings on Christmas day: though it is uncertain how popular they really were among under-nourished adult miners who found themselves expected

season.1® ,

to run and jump on a day of celebration at the height of the hot The objective of such sports meetings — the reduction of conflict and the protection of productivity — meant that in theory they would

also be desirable on normal weekends. In practice they involved too much organisation, and most managers were unwilling to invest such time on Sundays when workers in any event had other preferences. This

reluctance, coupled with the fact that organised sport tended to cost money, meant that as a device for social control sport was slow to spread to the larger mines. By the time that the first world war came, however, soccer was being played at some mines and at the Falcon mine

the workers had the use of a swimming bath. , As cash wages continued to decline and workers resorted in larger numbers to beer and prostitutes as recreation in the 1920s, so the need for an enhanced programme of social control presented itself. For

the Native Commissioner at Belingwe the solution was clear and he informed the Superintendent of Natives at Gwelo accordingly: For a moment let us consider what it was that made the (pre-war) British proletariat contented, although working in many cases, in circumstances which were scarcely more conducive to a sustained interest in their actual labours than are those in which the mine boys work here. It was largely sport — or what the workman considered sport. For example, the hands old and young in every community were enthusiastic “supporters” of some local football team whose Saturday afternoon matches furnished a topic of interest for the remainder of the week. Here the labourers’ principal

190 / Chibaro

- ‘recreations are connected with beer and women, leading frequently to the

Police Court and the risk of being smitten with one or other of the venereal diseases which are so insidiously sapping the strength of the native population. Those who employ and those who control native mine labour should, for a double reason, try to influence the native to change in this respect, Sporting enthusiasm is not the ideal substitute for present

conditions but it would be a step forward, and one, I am sure, not difficult to bring about. The native is intensely imitative, often vain, and always clannish, and all these are qualities which would further “sport” — a parochial spirit of sport if you like — but one which would forge ties of interest and esprit de corps between the labourer and his work-place.

A patch of ground, a set of goal-posts and a football would not figure largely in the expenditure of a big mine.17°

This reasoning was not unfamiliar to mine managers; and the strategy was really only an extension of what had long been applied to Christmas day in the compound. Organised sport accordingly spread to many compounds during the 1920s, especially on the larger mines whc

not only had greater need for devices of social control, but also the necessary personnel to deal with the organisation. Recreation fields became a prominent feature of the areas surrounding the compounds at mines such as Wankie. At other mines swimming or soccer was intro-

duced; while at the Globe & Phoenix the management took pride in encouraging cycling. In industry and settler press alike it became accepted that sport was an important weapon in the control of large numbers of black workers: not only did it discourage men in miserable surroundings from killing each other, but it also diverted their. attention from the ‘agitators’ of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’

Union. | |

_ The extent to which the view that sport was ‘good’ for black workers and entrenched in settler strategy?” was never more clearly exposed than when the policy apparently failed. On Christmas day 1929 the miserable Bulawayo location was the scene of such serious and protracted ‘tribal disturbances’ — ‘faction fights’ — that the army had to

be called in to restore order. ‘When the Chief Native. Commissioner expressed the opinion that boxing matches might have sparked the rioting, an editorial in the Bulawayo Chronicle challenged him immedi-

ately and seriously: 7

. .. it has often been claimed that the natives have not been given sufficient facilities for reasonable organised recreation during their leisure

hours. That point of view has been expressed in our columns on many occasions, and it comes as.a shock to hear from a responsible official that what might be one form of legitimate recreation is likely to cause unrest

among the natives.172 |

In general, however, sport on the mines themselves never gave rise to Social Control in the Compounds / 191

conflict between workers, and it served an overall purpose of regulating tension.

For a largely illiterate audience, films, as a form of cheap mass entertainment, readily suggested themselves to mine managers. Not only was the cost moderate but if screened at peak drinking hours on a weekend evening they also had the beneficial effect of making inroads into the total of cases of Monday morning hangover. Further, and again unlike alcohol, films were unlikely to lead directly to violence.

Free film shows at the larger mines became a feature of compound life at a relatively early stage. By 1921 the Globe & Phoenix compound manager had arranged for open-air screenings on two evenings in the week — Wednesdays and Saturdays.’”* The following -year the practice was also started on another large gold mine — the Arcturus — and by 1925 it was established at most large mines.*** Towards the

end of the 1920s even the base mineral mines such as Shabani were showing films.

There were problems involved in showing imported films designed primarily for adult whites to a compound audience, however. Male settlers, their virility ever threatened by their mythologies about black men, were reluctant to allow Africans to see films which showed white women as having normal sexual desires and needs. There was equal reluctance to allow blacks to see scenes of conflict between whites:

the idea that Europeans were in any way vulnerable to anybody, was not one that nestled comfortably in a colonial society. Believing firmly in the capacity of the African to imitate mindlessly and at random, the

state and the industry took it upon themselves to ensure that adult workers were treated as impressionable children and ‘protected’ from ‘undesirable’ or ‘dangerous’ visions. As the practice of showing films in the compounds spread during

the 1920s, so the state took increasing care to ensure that all films intended for black audiences were suitably censored. State and industry alike however soon found that censorship did not pose any great prob-

lem. In South Africa, from where the films were distributed, the missionaries were already doing the job to white satisfaction. The Rev Adams of the American Board of Missions was taking good care that his scissors removed all scenes considered unsuitable for Africans. So when the Magistrate at Gatooma forwarded a request for permission to

show films in the Cam & Motor compound, he was assured by the administration that there would be no objection, provided that such films had passed through the missionaries’ hands.?"° The authorities however remained wary, the feeling in Rhodesia 192 / Chibaro

being that altogether too much ‘propaganda’ was tolerated in South Africa,'** and they kept a vigilant eye on the content of films. In 1932 the police passed the c.N.c. an up-dated list of scenes which they thought ‘undesirable’ for black audiences, amongst them scenes referring to violence, sex, white women and ‘scenes representing antagonistic relations of capital and Jabour.”"" In terms of Rhodesian requirements, the South

African censors were being too liberal, and in 1935 the Chamber of Mines took up the issue with the distributors. His letter is a striking expression of the fear-stricken white paternalism of the time: There is no doubt that as the native has little else to think about, the films he sees occupy his mind to a very considerable extent and have an important effect on his mentality and behaviour. It is also generally his ambition to imitate European habits, and if he is shown scenes of stealing, fighting, gambling etc., he is likely to consider that this is representative of European behaviour, and adopt similar bad habits. The types of films generally favoured as most suitable for showing to native audiences are, native life, and game scenes, travel pictures, topical subjects, cartoons such as “Mickey Mouse” and “Silly Symphonies”, wholesome comedies of the Charlie Chaplin type etc. The view is expressed that it would be better if films in which European females appear could be entirely debarred for

native showing, as there are usually certain aspects of such pictures which are objectionable from the point of view of the native’s respect for and general attitude towards white women. If it is not possible at present to eliminate all such films, it is considered that at any rate it is most important for future good relations between natives and Europeans that a very strict censorship should be exercised.178

Despite their qualms, however, the Rhodesians had in the end to accept what they considered to be the ‘relaxed’ standards of censorship that operated in South Africa, and films were established as an important part of compound ‘entertainment’ in Rhodesia.

In fact nowhere — as the details of this social control system demonstrate — was the paternalism of settler society more clearly exposed as fraudulent than when the ideology was set against the reality of the mining compounds: what underlay white strategy in Rhodesia

was the process of industrialisation, not the cliches of ‘progress’, ‘Christianity’ and ‘civilisation’. Africans were ‘children’ insofar as they

required Christianity or education to make them suitable for service, but were adults when allowed to participate in a system of ‘regulated’ prostitution. Blacks were ‘children’ or ‘stupid’ when they could not

understand garbled fanakalo from a miner, but fully adult or ‘free agents’ when a storekeeper induced them into debt. Beer was ‘bad’ when given to non-workers, but ‘good’ when it formed the basis of a bonus system within the compounds. Between them, the compound Social Control in the Compounds / 193

system and the system of social control revealed the real processes of capitalism and class formation that underlay the more mundane clichés of settler ideology.

194 / Chibaro

f. |

Ideologies and Organisation

First the white man brought the Bible, then he brought guns, then chains, then he built a gaol, then he made the native pay tax. Were they told to do this in the Bible? Why does the white man want all this? It is because the white man wants more money. He can | make money with machinery, he gets money out of the ground, he makes paper and turns it into money. The white man does not want to give the natives money. Join together and keep on knocking — you will win in the end — J.M.Mphamba, addressing a meeting. of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union in July 1929

It should by now be evident that, given the resources which they wielded between them, the state and industry had fashioned a powerfully labour coercive economy in Rhodesia, and achieved considerable

success in their aim of procuring, retaining and disciplining black workers. Yet, for all the power which the alliance commanded, it could never entirely subdue or eliminate African responses which, in varying degrees, continued to challenge the functioning of the system. At this point it is necessary to make a detailed examination of these responses, which were always ingenious and sometimes amazingly determined, given the extent to which their daily life was regulated and controlled. To understand their significance one should remember something

of the background to these men’s experience of the mines. Within a matter of years of the conquest of Rhodesia, men who had been independent farmers in traditional societies had been forced — either through compulsion or administratively created market mechanisms — to sell their labour to those who owned the new resources for creating wealth. So they inevitably brought with them much of the social and conceptual baggage of the countryside. The simple act of a journey to the mines did not destroy loyalties and obligations that belonged to a different world, neither did it automatically render obsolete beliefs and practices founded on village society. Thus, while it is tempting to look for the ‘new’ organisations that developed-in the compounds, it is important also not to lose sight of the traditions that came to town. Although the evidence is tantalisingly brief, it seems possible that old patterns of resistance against the colonial presence established footholds in the compounds. In 1900, when the Shona warrior Mapondera was waging war against the settler authorities in the Mazoe Valley,’ the Ideologies and Organisation / 195

British South Africa Police did not rule out the possibility of the revolt

spreading to at least one mine compound in Mashonaland. Captain C.D.L.Morro thought it prudent to leave at least three ‘native’ police at

the Ayrshire mine ‘for purposes of patrolling the several footpaths daily, and to watch the natives carefully who are working there’.?

In times of distress the Shona also tended to look to the messengers from Mwari (God) for messages of hope and resistance. Here too there are strands which link the mining industry with traditional beliefs. At least one messenger of Mwari — Manyanga — brought a mess-

age predicting dire consequences for those who collaborated with the administration in securing forced labour for the mines.? While much of the activity surrounding messages from Mwari centred on the countryside, the ebb and flow of labour from the compounds facilitated linkages between the two. It was suggested by Africans in the Shangani reserve for example, that the Shamrock mine compound was the origin of the Mwari message that came in the midst of the drought of 1912. These rather diffuse manifestations of traditional politics did not address themselves directly to the mine owners and thus had little direct

impact on the industry. Occasionally however traditional leaders also articulated more direct concern about the lot of their kin in the compounds. Although ultimately equally ineffective, these appeals were directed through channels which led more directly to the industry or the administration. In 1910 a number of ‘mine boys’ chose to give evidence to the Native Affairs Committee of Enquiry through an Ndebele chief who had himself experienced a stint of labour in the compounds. ‘Shangaan’ chiefs resident in the Pretoria area were also instrumental in attempting to set up an inter-territorial conference about mine labour in 1913. They called upon the Rhodesian Chief Native Commissioner to allow ‘Shangaans’ from the Fort Victoria district to proceed to a meeting which would ‘protest against the action of the Portuguese government in “‘selling’’ members of their tribe resident in Portuguese territory to W.N.L.A. and their treatment at the mines’.*

‘But appeals, letters or meetings were not the stuff from which effective resistance could be forged. At least one chief realised that what was needed was a combination of his own influence and the techniques developed by the black mineworkers themselves. So Chief Mwasi of the

Chewa in Nyasaland decided to undertake a personal visit to the Rhodesian mine compounds in August 1920. In part the objective of the visit was to collect money and clothes from the workers and pass it on to the kin back in the villages of Nyasaland.* But it seems very probable that the Chief also took the opportunity to advise his followers to desert from those employers that they did not find satisfactory, for the 196 / Chibaro

trail of desertions that followed in the wake of Mwasi’s visit left the administration in no doubt as to who was to blame; and at least one mine manager complained to a local native commissioner: ‘I wish I could get hold of the blighter that is causing all this trouble. Do you know if he is still in Rhodesia, the Police should get hold of him.’* The case of Mwasi, however, is one of very few instances where traditional leadership had any direct impact on the mining industry. Vestiges of traditional leadership were of course to be found in the compounds — especially in the form of the induna or headman who

often accompanied gangs of labourers. But he too had an essentially marginal role to play in the development of resistance. At the Globe & Phoenix mine an induna led a party of deserters some fifty strong,’ while at the same time a deputation of indunas succeeded in persuading

the compound manager not to make mandatory admission of sick workers to the disgusting ‘hospital’. While such leaders might have helped to alleviate the immediate plight of groups of workers, they were

not instruments of significant change.

In the same groping manner in which traditional leadership coped only obliquely with the realities of a harsh industrialising system, so the practices and beliefs of essentially rural people lingered and meshed with the sociology of the compound. Attempts were made either to procure sex, or to prevent infidelity, through the power of witchcraft.® And workers who had their cash stolen in the compound engaged the services of those versed in magic in a desperate attempt to recoup their earnings” — sometimes with fatal consequences, as when a young Mfengu worker at the Lonely mine reported to the compound manager that he had been ‘bewitched’ after being pointed out as a thief, and that he would die. Within days he reported ill and died.**

Employers themselves were not always immune from the consequences of what miners perceived to be witchcraft. At the Bonsor mine a ‘boycott by bewitchment’ followed a series of fatalities, and caused severe problems of labour supply.*? And between November 1927 and March 1928 contractors Southey and Luscombe of Mashaba in Matabeleland suffered from a consistent shortage of labour. It seems

that when Africans had buried a fellow-worker there in late 1927, a whirlwind had lifted the body into the air — much to the consternation of those attending the funeral. When the body was eventually placed in the grave a hawk had flown overhead and dropped a dead chicken into the grave.1* When in February these disturbing occurrences were sup-

plemented by a rumour that a compound ‘policeman’ had eaten the amputated leg of a woman, work was so disrupted at Mashaba that the police were eventually forced. to exhume the body of the woman in Ideclogies and Organisation / 197

order to demonstrate ‘the absurdity of the statements’.** In north eastern Mashonaland — and in particular in the vicinity of Umtali — Africans believed in the powers of a ‘mysterious cock’. The cock appeared at places where tensions or quarrels were well developed and, if the conflict was not immediately resolved after its appearance, disaster in the form of sickness, death, crop destruction or cattle disease

was bound to follow.15 When a cock was found in the mouth of the inclined shaft at the Nyahuku (cock) mine one morning in 1920 the workers at once understood the significance of the omen. Although the

exact cause of the conflict at the mine is unknown, it is nevertheless significant that the workers chose to resolve the problem by ‘refusing to work for the entire day’.1° To the ‘boycott by bewitchment’ thus must be added a ‘strike by witchcraft’. Neither the events at the Bonsor mine, nor those at the Nyahuku, illustrate systematic organisation for industrial purposes, or the presence of ‘ideology’ in the normally accepted sense of the term. What is significant however is the fact that workers took action — albeit on the basis of a- mediating ‘traditional’ belief — against mines where there was already considerable tension or where deaths in unacceptable numbers had taken place. In an indirect fashion then, workers’ beliefs did serve to shield them from exploitation. The number of such cases was sufficient for at least one native commissioner to speculate about the need

for the revision of the Witchcraft Ordinance. ‘What seems to me as essential,’ he wrote, ‘is the consideration of the matter from an industrial point of view: the effect of such threats, and the consequent fear

kraals. }

or excitement caused to Natives in service.’!7 Clearly, if witchcraft was an index of fear and tension in an African community, then the witches

were as much at home in the mine compounds as they were in the

Ethnic, Dance and Mutual Aid Societies Organisation, however, was not far away. For a number of years prior to the outbreak of the first world war, black workers in various

parts of Rhodesia had met on an informal and social basis: weekend compound dances, ‘big dinners’ and ‘tea meetings’ — each with their own distinctive roots — formed a base from which other activities and

organisations could grow.7® 7

It was during the war years that these activities crystallised into more organised forms, and there seem to be three main reasons why this should have happened. First - and most important — was the dramatic rise in the cost of living during the war and the continued decline in African wages. Perhaps at no other time were black workers in more 198 / Chibaro

desperate need of brotherly assistance, when prices rose dramatically and real wages fell.1° Second, 1918 saw the greatest disaster that ever befell black miners in the compound — the death of 7 per cent of all black workers in the "flu epidemic of that year. Third is the fact that

the war years saw a mushrooming of organised voluntary action amongst a settler community anxious to make a contribution to Britain and the Empire in their hour of crisis. Everywhere Africans must have been struck anew with the potential for organised activity. The impact of all three of these factors can be seen on different black organisations. The Loyal Mandabele Patriotic Society came into being in 1915, and while its primary function was to offer Ndebele support for the war effort, it also took the opportunity to point to the evils of prostitution and venereal disease in the compounds.”° Ostensibly, it was the desire to collect funds for the Red Cross that gave birth to the

‘Nyasaland Boys’ Club’ in 1917:? to the members of the club who visited various mine compounds, the Red Cross must have presented itself as a respectable, successful and rapidly growing organisation to which even the administration could not object.22 While the Port Herald Burial Society was first established in the year of the “flu, 1918.74 For

although burial in the compounds must always have been a shoddy affair, given the persistent poverty, it could never have been more ap-

parent than during the Spanish ‘flu: workers vividly remember the bodies of six and nine black miners at a time being dumped into mass graves.?* With cash in short supply and death never a distant prospect, there must have been considerable appeal in the promise that ‘If one of our Society dies, the society will buy a coffin for the dead body, and bury him nicely.’*° The burial societies were again particularly active in: the economic depressions of the 1920s and 1930s.2¢

But besides its part in generating these broad socio-economic pressures, the first world war also made a more direct contribution to African organisation within the compounds. Patterns of leadership and organisation perceived by African soldiers in the army were transferred to the compound setting after 1918, and they put stiffening and structure into compound societies that were already assuming more organised forms. Nowhere was this clearer than in the case of the Beni dance societies.

In tropical Africa the Beni dance societies can be traced back at least to the 1890s — in German East Africa (later Tanganyika), the societies were said to have ‘flourished’ then.?” Beni societies emphasised hierarchy, uniforms and drilling, and were heavily influenced by military practices amongst the colonial powers. Indeed, two variations Ideologies and Organisation / 199

active in Tanganyika during the early 1920s were in fact known as Arinoti (army) and Marini (navy). With the tremendous upheavals and the large-scale movement of men that accompanied the East African campaign during the first world war, there was ample opportunity for

the Beni societies to spread to central Africa. |

The principal carriers of the idea of the Beni society appear to have been the ‘Nyasas’ who took part in the campaign against von Lettow Vorbeck. Not only would these men have had their own ideas on organisation and hierarchy stimulated by military experience, but they would also have had the opportunity of making direct acquaintance with the Beni societies of East Africa. When the King’s African Rifles was disbanded, these ‘Nyasas’ no longer went east for employment but

south — along the traditional routes to the labour markets of central Africa. . In the quasi-military atmosphere of the compound — endowed with its own emphasis on discipline, status, uniforms and barracks — the Beni societies found a host culture that was already pregnant with the possibility of organisation. And who were better qualified to ‘lead’ than the widely-travelled, mission-educated, better-paid and self-confident

workers from Nyasaland? Beni society and compound culture in Rhodesia fitted together like hand and glove. By the early 1920s, and much to the consternation of the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines, workers in several large mine compounds had dummy guns (cut from wood),

and spent their recreation time in drilling and marching.”* © , Most of this ‘drilling’ took place in the compounds of the. large mines in the Gwelo district, and on the Penhalonga and Rezende mines in the Umtali district. The instruction was usually undertaken by exsoldiers, and frequently these appear to have been Tonga workers. The services of two experienced Yao buglers were also put to good use at the Globe & Phoenix and Falcon mines.?° Beni, whose name was probably derived from the word ‘band’ placed considerable emphasis on

musical accompaniment.

Through a process of cross-fertilisation, the patterns of leader-

ship and organisation evident in the Beni societies also made their way

to the early mutual aid societies.* Here, the emphasis on status and hierarchy found explicit expression in the titles given to the office * It is just possible that these patterns of leadership also made their way to another institution which many black workers in Rhodesia had experience of — prison. In the 1920s various ‘gangs’ developed in prisons. “They go in for trials. They have a high court with a prosecutor, presiding judge, defending counsel and so forth. They have district courts, and there they try these people for various offences...’ S.R., Conference of Superintendents of Natives and Native Commissioners, held

200 / Chibaro

bearers. In 1923 the Port Herald Burial Society at Shamva mine - with a membership drawn largely from Mozambique — had the services of a King, Governor, Prince, General, Commander, Doctor, Bishop, Lord and King’s Servant. In the later burial societies, however, the pattern of

leadership appears to have changed somewhat, and assumed a form which laid less stress on rank. At the Gath’s Asbestos mine in 1932, for example, these titles were not to be found in the Gazaland Burial Club or the Nyasaland Burial Club. Here the ‘leader’ of the Nyasaland Club was a Tonga and the son of Chief Chiweyo.*° | In spite of the formality of their structures, however, the activities of these dance, ethnic and mutual aid societies were largely straightforward and self-evident from their names. The Beni dance association was primarily a group of workers who sought mutual relaxation through a form of dancing which they knew and enjoyed. Likewise, the burial societies were pre-eminently concerned with organising funerals for the

workers who had died in the compounds. But the proliferation of professional, political and judicial titles does offer some clues to widerranging activities that they also tended to embrace. Sickness, destitution and death were of primary concern to most

of the associations. So from a fund composed of entrance fees and monthly half-crown contributions, the Port Herald Burial Society offered workers daily sick pay of two shillings. Under the ‘ticket system’ whereby the worker did not receive pay if he did not work, this must have been an important form of health insurance. The Cam & Motor

branch of the Nyasaland Burial Society likewise made payments to workers who had fallen ill or those who, because of the loss of a limb, could no longer sell their services to the mine owners. On the miserable payments received from the mine owners, many sick or injured workers

could not even afford the journey home; and here the Mozambique Native Association came to the rescue by providing a train fare. All of these associations, whether called burial societies or not, and including some of the Beni societies, also took explicit interest in the question of

funeral expenses. , a

The dance, ethnic and mutual aid societies also concerned themselves with those who became entangled in the web of settler legislation. The Port Herald Burial Society’s. Salisbury. Governor told the members of the new Shamva mine branch: ‘If you are arrested by the police, the at Salisbury, 12 December 1927, p.64. In this regard it is also significant that the Mozambique Native Association, active on several mines in the early 1920s, also had the services of a ‘Judge’, ‘Police Messenger’ and ‘High Commissioner’, see N.A.R., N3/21/4, Sup. of Natives, Gwelo, to

GNn.c,, 16 August 1922. } Ideologies and Organisation / 201

Magistrate, Royal and Judge, will take money to pay the court as your fines.”* The Beni societies and the Mozambique Native Association in Gwelo extended the same facilities to members. Likewise the Nyasaland Burial Society in the Cam & Motor compound paid for the legal expenses of those members who required them.*? Finally, the various associations also attempted to come to grips with those conflicts that were generated within the compounds them-

selves. On the immediate and practical level, the Nyasaland Burial Society at the Cam & Motor mine offered its members compensation for loss through fire. When the number of thatch roofs in the compound and the incidence of arson is kept in mind, this too, must have been an attractive offer. More idealistically, the associations sought to establish a feeling of brotherliness and camaraderie between workers, and a means of conflict-resolution. In the words of Governor Antonio

to the workers at Shamva mine: , The people who join the Society must be of good condition [and?] not be rough [towards?] each other. If one of the Society offends you can go to the Magistrate, Royal or Judge to appeal, and they will decide you.34

All these grandiose titles, the emphasis on status and hierarchy, and the presence of marching and drilling together make it extremely tempting to view the compound associations as a variation of some of the more exotic movements, such as the ‘Cargo Cults’ of Melanesia, characteristically associated with rapid social change and the advent of colonialism. But, despite several similarities, compound associations differed substantially from other relatively transient and bizarre movements. In their various forms, the compound associations were the rational and creative response of Africans to deeply felt needs in com-

pound society. } Through joining the compound associations, Africans were re-

sponding as workers in an attempt to secure the benefits which settlers and mine owners denied them in a colonial economy. Societies that

attempted to come to grips with the problems of death and disease, conflict in the compound and colonial courts were bound to attract workers — not only ‘tribesmen’. Thus, while there was an ethnic core or

component to many of these associations, the membership tended to. stretch beyond the more limited horizons of tribalism. By 1922 ‘natives of all tribes’*> were said to be joining the Beni societies, the Mozambique

Native Association was ‘not confined to Portuguese natives’** and in the Port Herald Burial Society membership was ‘not restricted ‘to any

one tribe.’*” |

The state and employers sensed the danger and implicit challenge of the compound associations. From Tanganyika came the warning that 202 { Chibaro

the Beni societies were organisations ‘eminently capable of misuse for propaganda purposes’;®® the compound manager at Shamva felt that

the Port Herald Burial Society was ‘liable to lead to a great deal of trouble’;*® and the Chief Native Commissioner felt that a close watch

should be kept ‘on the activities of the leaders’.*° The Rhodesia Chamber of Mines claimed that the associations were ‘the basis of labour movements’ and in many respects this judgement was accurate.**

The compound associations were indeed the logical precursors of a trade union movement and, in at least one case, offered a base for-the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of the late 1920s.47 The compound associations however never quite managed to fulfil their promise. Although always present in various forms. between 1918 and 1933, they never achieved the strength that allowed for un-

interrupted permanent service to black miners. Despite the common precaution taken of depositing all funds with the native commissioner of the district, there were occasional instances of theft — in Gwelo, the Angoni ‘King’ disappeared with a fund of some £40.** Robbed of the value of their own labour by the mine owners, some of the black leaders

money. - ! a oe -

found it difficult to resist the attraction of a relatively large sum of

The reasons for the failure of the compound associations, however, must be sought beyond the problems created by a minority of

leaders. More important than this were the restraints placed on the associations by the way of functioning of the mining industry itself. In an exploitative system there was a high degree of labour turnover as workers constantly attempted to find marginally better employment; so the absence of steady contributions over a protracted period of time made it exceptionally difficult for an association to build up a large fund — a most necessary basis for any successful insurance scheme. Societies that started out with the smallest assets soon lapsed -into a state of dormancy or collapsed totally.. The Portuguese Native Society in the Gwelo district started with a sum of just over £4 in 1920 and did not undertake a single transaction over the following two years. : ‘Most fundamentally, however, the compound associations failed

because the mine owners did not- pay black workers wages which allowed for the luxury of an insurance scheme. The immediate and pressing demands for food and clothing took precedence over the likely problems of tomorrow — at least for the majority of the miners. It was only amongst the slightly better paid workers that the mutual aid soCieties ever stood a chance of achieving ‘take off’. It was no coincidence, then, that of all the burial societies, those associated with ‘Nyasaland’

were the most long-lived and relatively successful. As a former Ideologies and Organisation / 203

worker at Gath’s Asbestos mine put it: ‘the club of the Tongas and Zwangendabas was strongest because they earned the most money.’** At the opposite end of the spectrum, it is equally significant that there was no vibrant ‘Northern Rhodesia Burial Society’ in the compounds. For chibaro and other poorly paid workers, the associations were beyond reach. An entrance fee of five shillings and a monthly contribution of 2s 6d was, through effort and planning, within the sight of a ‘Nyasa’

worker but clearly beyond the capacity of those who were called ‘slaves’. Viewed from one angle then, the compound associations sought to reach all black workers. Viewed from another, they simply reflected

the socio-economic stratification of compound society. Perhaps it is this second perspective that explains why it was that compound associations played no real part in the more radical resistance of black miners — the strike.

The Church of the Watch Tower in the Compounds

Indeed of all the ideologies and organisations active in the . Rhodesian mine compounds between the first and second world wars, none aroused greater fear or suspicion from the state than the Church

of the Watch Tower. Watch Tower, which through much of central Africa took the form of a millennial social movement, derived its teachings from Jehovah’s Witnesses and the writings of the founder — Pastor Charles Russell.*® And its radical millennarian prophecies, with their implicit and explicit promise of a change in the colonial society, were capable of attracting the attention both of black miners and the admin-

istration, though for very different reasons. | In the compounds, it was the ‘Nyasas’ — and again more especially

the Tonga — who constituted the vanguard of the movement: literacy, a higher income and the status that came with education all combined to push the ‘Nyasas’ into the roles of preachers. And the matrix of the Watch Tower message emphasised those virtues widely associated with Christianity. Preachers stressed the virtues of sobriety, fidelity, honesty, trust and love. But at the core of the message there was often a teaching which delivered a more direct challenge to settler supremacy. George Kunga, ex-Rezende mineworker, told his Bulawayo location audience: You must not take unto yourselves wives as the time is at hand. The end of the world is near. Goliath was a very strong man but David, a small man, killed him. This will be the same with us and the white people. You must hold on fast for the kingdom is near. This time the white people will come behind us, but they will soon be our servants as they have had good times in this world.#6

This promised reversal in the social order no doubt appealed to some black miners almost as much as it did to peasants in Mashonaland,

204 /{ Chibaro |

amongst whom Watch Tower gained:a large following in the late 1920s. But on the other hand, if black miners were as capable of envisaging a change in the social order, they must have found it difficult to find evidence of the more orthodox virtues in the compound, with its authori-

tarianism, its poverty, squalor and immorality. So in an attempt to narrow the gap between their teachings and social reality, the Watch Tower preachers developed nuances in their ideology which would

have a more direct appeal to black workers. ,

“The Pass Law,’ George Kunga told his audience, ‘is made by the white man and does not come from Jesus Christ.’ Further, he suggested, ‘the Pass laws are only a means of obtaining money from natives.’*’ Another compound preacher told his audience how he foresaw a period

during the following year when black workers would no longer be required to pay tax.*® At Wankie colliery, preacher Zintoka developed a variation on this latter theme when he told his audience that tax imposition and collection by whites was not sanctioned by God. Cognizant

of the realities of compound life, Zintoka also raised another moral issue Which black miners would have perhaps understood better than most Africans: ‘It is not possible to avoid adultery,’ he claimed, ‘and there was no harm in it.’4° It was at Wankie, the most successful indus-

trial base that Watch Tower developed in Rhodesia, that preachers developed a variation on the millennial theme which held out a detailed and specific promise to oppressed black workers. At the very time that political power in the country was being passed from the B.s.A.co to the settler government, Wankie workers were told : .. . The white people will leave on 1 January. The first to go will be Mr Thomson [the colliery manager], with the Doctor and Mr Darby, and you Mr Kidd [the compound manager]. All of you [management] shall go and your authority (ufumu) shall pass to the society.5°

It was on the basis of these teachings that the preachers sought, and succeeded in gaining, several compound converts. In 1923 Richard Kalinde of Shamva mine provided the administration with-a list of Watch Tower believers to be found along the major labour route in Rhodesia. At Shamva itself there were seventy followers, while to the

south, at the smaller Asp mine in the Bindura district, there were twelve members of the church. In the compound of the Cam & Motor mine in Gatooma — a stronghold of Islam®* — the Watch Tower had gained only twelve followers, but further south, at Gwelo and the Globe & Phoenix mine, there were twenty-seven members. To this should be added an estimated seventy to 100 followers who lived in the Wankie compound. Ideologies and Organisation / 205

By the time that Kalinde supplied his information then, Watch Tower had approximately 200 committed followers in the mines. Since the movement had been first noted in 1917, there had been a gradual and modest consolidation of membership. Particularly in the early years of the depression and in the months when. there was uncertainty about changes in the settler political structure, Watch Tower was most active. The appeal of its ideology in the compounds seems to have reached a peak in 192352 — when a preacher in the movement was deported from Wankie in that year, over 1,000 compound inhabitants at the colliery were sufficiently interested to make their way to the station and witness

his departure.®® , re Oo

Watch Tower ideology, however, had no appeal for the settler authorities. The administration did not find anything attractive in teachings which proclaimed native commissioners as Satan-personified, or which saw whites as serving blacks. When the movement was first

noticed in 1917 a vigorous campaign of deportations followed, and thereafter a programme of continued administrative vigilance aimed at frustrating and limiting the growth of the movement. Mail interception, censorship, selective use of the Pass Laws and, where considered necessary, deportations, all helped to hamper. the spread of the movement.™ By the late 1920s Watch Tower seems to have lost most of its appeal to

industrial workers, and as far as mine compounds were concerned it seems to have been effectively restricted to the colliery at Wankie.**

The repressive. administrative response certainly made a substantial contribution to the demise of the movement in the compounds. But so too did the limitations inherent in the movement’s ideology. It tended, for one thing, to make promises it could not fulfil. In 1924, for example, a preacher suggested to a group of workers that they would

be honoured with a personal visit from Moses and Aaron. When the biblical characters failed to make an appearance in the Wankie compound, at least some of the followers were deeply disappointed if not

thoroughly disillusioned. . : 7

A more important failure was that for all its efforts, Watch Tower never succeeded in offering an ideology which specifically appealed to the mass of manual labourers and which could be reconciled with the harsh realities of everyday compound life. More typical than the proph-

ecy which forecasted the passing of management authority to the workers, was the teaching of Alexander Mwenda. Amongst other things

he told his Wankie followers that ‘the white people did not want the natives to become clerks in the offices because they were afraid of the natives getting up in the world.’®* This teaching was more suited to the literate and semi-educated minority in the compound than to the mass

206 / Chibaro

of workers, and since it was largely the ‘Nyasas’ who constituted the former category, it is not surprising that they formed the majority of the Watch Tower membership. Of the 174 Watch Tower members listed by Kalinde in 1923, no fewer than 172 were ‘Nyasas’.

It was this limitation in the ideology of Watch Tower which accounts too for the distribution of followers in the Rhodesian mining centres. Most Watch Tower followers were to be found in the northernmost parts of the colony, in compounds such as those at Wankie and at Shamva which were the ports of entry for many of the ‘Nyasa’ workers making their way south. This distribution also coincides with the zone of low wages in Rhodesia: for as.an ideology promising socio-economic mobility for the semi-literate, the teachings of Watch Tower must have been particularly appealing in labour centres which held out some of

the lowest wages in the regional economic system. The mines of Mashonaland and the one large base of Watch Tower in Matabeleland - Wankie colliery — fit particularly snugly into this category.*’ In other words, the ideology attracted those ‘Nyasas’ whose feeling of relative deprivation was particularly well developed because of their lowly position in the labour market.** Further, the ideology could only really take root on the larger mines, since these were the only places where sufficiently large clusters of jobs requiring the services of the semi-literate — specialised stores assistants, cooks, and clerks — could be found.

_ There is some evidence about the activities of the ‘prophets’ which supports this analysis. The personal ‘visions’ of the prophets were unfortunately seldom recorded, but George Kunga’s testimony survives, and is particularly valuable. In 1919 Kunga was a worker on the Rezende mine in Penhalonga. Although the mine was a northeastern Mashonaland gold mine, it did not have a sufficiently large cluster of ‘Nyasas’ to support a Watch Tower following: not only was the mine relatively small (compared to Shamva or Wankie), but most of the workers came from neighbouring Mozambique and not from Nyasaland. So Kunga’s calling to the church thus became particularly interesting. While at Rezende, he says, ...Lhad a dream and Gabriel spoke to me and told me that the natives there were no good and he told me to leave Penhalonga and to go to Bulawayo and preach to the natives there and save them.59

Kunga’s vision thus led him to a more profitable socio-economic base for his teachings.

A further reason why the response of the majority of black miners to Watch Tower was limited, was the nature of its leadership. In Ideologies and Organisation / 207

keeping with its ideology and relatively privileged following, a leadership emerged which enjoyed a life-style and income that was remote

from that of most compound inhabitants. A survey of the positions held by Watch Tower leaders reveals how they were drawn from the ‘softer’ and better paid jobs on the mines. In 1917 at the Globe & Phoenix the leader of the movement was Sandris, a compound police-

man — hardly a position which would have endeared him to most workers. The Shamva mine leader in 1919 was Andrew Mahoni, who worked in the assay office. Equally influential at Shamva during 1922 and 1923 were John Dickson and Richard Kalinde. The former was a cook, while the latter was an overseer at the compound grain store. In 1923 the Wankie followers of the faith looked to Alexander Mwenda, a Yao compound clerk, while the leader in the Shamva district-during the same year was ‘Wilson’ — chief hospital orderly on Shamva mine.

Not only did these leaders earn better wages than the average black miner, but they also sometimes had additional sources of income. At least three of the Watch Tower leaders can be seen as petty traders,

or at least as aspirant petty traders. For example Elias at Shamva in 1921 showed skill in handling a sewing machine, and like many others in the compounds, it is likely that he turned his hand to repairing and selling clothes. In 1922 he moved out of the compound to the Abercorn Trading Co in Shamva village where he was employed as a tailor.*° The same pattern is also detectable at Shabani asbestos mine, where Watch Tower leader ‘Wilson’ first worked in the compound and eventually be-

came a full-time boot repairer in the village.** Richard Kalinde of Shamva gained most of his income in 1923 from the photographs he took in compounds during his many Watch Tower visits around Mashonaland.*? Watch Tower leaders might have held the Bible in one hand, but they seem to have kept the other free to involve themselves in

the down-to-earth activity of business. a ,

This distinctive leadership — often dressed accordingly** — could

never espouse an ideology which was capable of successfully bridging the gap between its own relatively privileged position and that of the mass of the black miners. Much, if not most, of the poorer workers’ response can be described as being luke-warm. In 1917 it was reported that the preachers in the Globe & Phoenix compound had ‘apparently not met with great encouragement’.** In the same year it was also re-

ported that the preachers in the Eldorado compound had ‘no actual

following.”®® | Stratification within the ranks of the labourers of course involved tensions that were not readily to be resolved by such an organisation as

Watch Tower: it will be remembered that George Kunga left the 208 / Chibaro

Rezende compound in 1919 because ‘the natives there were no good.’ This abrasive edge between Watch Tower followers and other workers was also evident in the Shamva compound in 1923. The native com-

missioner there noted that the movement had not made any inroads amongst the ‘Mashona natives against whom there seems to be an underlying hostility’.** _ .

Even at Wankie, where the movement reached the heights of its industrial popularity in 1923, there is evidence of half-hearted support and tension. Successive meetings in August managed to attract only

twenty-six and thirty-four compound inhabitants respectively. In December of the same year, the compound manager received an anonymous letter which supplied him not only with a list of leaders but also with some of their teachings. ‘I want to tell you the names of the people who want to upset (ononga, literally “to spoil’’) this compound,’ wrote the informant.*? Clearly at least one worker felt that Watch Tower did not straddle the interests of all of those resident in the compound. A narrow social base and a diffuse challenge to the colonial state

through biblical prophecy thus rendered Watch Tower largely irrelevant to the struggle of most black miners. The movement never really _ offered a base or an infra-structure that was capable of challenging the mine owners, and nowhere is there evidence of overt Watch Tower involvement in any industrial action of any sort between 1917 and 1933. Even at the height of its appeal in the 1920s the movement never offered a direct challenge to the mine owners: at Shamva, where the movement had a relatively well-developed. base in the early 1920s, Watch Tower was in no way involved even in the famous strike of 1927. Its ideology in short never offered the compound inhabitants a picture of themselves as workers — and that was a fundamental weakness given the oppressive

industrial situation in which Africans found themselves. And if -the ideas propagated were weak, the practice was weaker still. Its Christian ideology failed to produce even the modest benefits which the mutual

aid societies held out to their members. |

The attention that Watch Tower received from the administration should therefore be seen more as an index of settler insecurity than of real or incipient African radicalism.in the industrial setting. __

The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union Amongst the many ‘Nyasas’ who made their way to Rhodesia during the first world war was yet another Tonga — Clements Kadalie. Working his way south towards the more promising labour markets, Kadalie was employed at Shamva and at the Falcon mine before entering South Africa in 1918. There, he formed the Industrial and ComIdeologies and Organisation / 209

mercial Workers’ Union (Lc.U.) which became the central voice for African economic and political protest in the early years of the 1920s.®*

It was the South African I.c.u. which served as the model and inspi-

ration for workers north of the Limpopo. - ,

By the late 1920s black workers in Rhodesia had good reason to look for any inspiration that they might find. Real wages in the compounds — one of the relatively better labour markets within the colony — had been declining for over a quarter of a century. A growing army of proletarians, drawn from over a large area of central Africa, were being forced to sell their labour at rates even lower than those offered to the ridiculed ‘slaves’ on chibaro contract. Each successive year saw the cost

of living bite more deeply into the miserable incomes of the black workers, and the movement along the stop-go labour route to South Africa gathered unprecedented momentum. Such was the exodus that, in at least one southern district, the settlers held a public meeting to discuss ways and means of curbing the outflow of black labour. _ In the midst of this crisis in the political economy, 1927 proved something of a watershed. In that year, at the time when settler employers were at their most anxious about the movement of black labour southwards, the workers chose to offer well organised resistance to the mine owners for the first time. There were in fact a number of strikes during the year, though that at the Shamva mine attracted most attention;®® and it was also in 1927 that a group of workers made an ap-

proach to the annual congress of the Lc.u. in South Africa. From Rhodesia came a telegram requesting that Kadalie extend his union and

its activities to central Africa.

Kadalie delegated the task of organising the 1.c.u. in Rhodesia to

a fellow-‘Nyasa’, Robert Sambo. During the early months of 1927 Sambo used Bulawayo as a base from which to develop the new movement, and by the middle of the year he had been effective enough to get himself deported back to South Africa.” As in the case of Watch Tower, the first move of the administration was symptomatic of its deep-seated fear of any African organisation — especially one that appeared in an industrial setting. The crude political surgery achieved through the deportation of Sambo was effective for a brief period. It could not however remove the basic desire of a small group of local workers to organise in defence

of their interests. In January 1928 ‘Sergeant’ Masotsha Ndhlovu returned to his native Rhodesia after a period of ten years’ employment in South Africa. During his stay this enthusiastic organiser must have had ample opportunity for close scrutiny of Kadalie’s .c.u., and within weeks of his return he had begun discussing trade unionism with other

210 /{ Chibaro |

enthusiasts in the Bulawayo location. By June 1928 the 1.C.U. Yase

Rhodesia had been established. _

‘The committee of the new organisation was chaired by Thomas Sikaleni Mazula, a messenger-interpreter who was employed by the Government in the Native Affairs Department, until he was forced by his employer to choose between the 1.c.U. and his job.” Job Matabasi Dumbutjena filled the post of Vice-Chairman, while the ‘Sergeant’ himself took on the task of General Secretary. The military flavour of the

committee was further supplemented through the presence of John Mansell Mphamba, a ‘Nyasa’ veteran of the first world war.”? The rest

of the committee was dominated by the James trio — James Banya Dakamela (described as a ‘trustee’), James Mabena (a ‘committee mem-

ber’) and James Mhaso (‘acting treasurer’), Within a year, this committee was functioning relatively smoothly from its Bulawayo base and

the Lc.U. was looking to extend its activities to Salisbury.” In practice, however, the I.c.U.’s main activity was to remain-confined to the Bulawayo location, in spite of vigorous attempts to expand

to other industrial centres in the colony. Throughout 1929-30 1n particular, Dumbutjena and Ndhlovu travelled extensively, addressing meetings all along the labour route. From Salisbury in the north to Gwanda in the south they traversed the country in an attempt to establish 1.c.U. branches. And although their organisational success was limited, what was significant was that for the first time Africans in Rhodesia were systematically being offered an organisation and ideol-

ogy which consciously directed itself at black workers. In part, Lc.U. ideology was aimed at giving black workers clearer

insight into the nature of power and the class structure in a colonial economy. John Mphamba for example aimed at raising the consciousness of his audience through telling them how the ‘white man’ owned the means of production and consequently the opportunity to accumulate capital. ‘He [the white man] can make money with machinery, he gets money out of the ground, he makes paper and turns it into money. The white man does not want to give the native money.’** Masotsha succinctly informed his audience that their class position had changed through proletarianisation: ‘We native people do not depend on crops anymore but we remain in town and earn wages — we are the workers in mines and farms and railways.’”> The link between class and colour in the colonial context was also not lost on Masotsha, who attempted

to mobilise his followers accordingly: ‘As people of Africa we find that we are all in one class. We are all suffering and we are all paid less

because we are black.’"® ,

To the industrial workers of Rhodesia then, the Lc.u. brought Ideologies and Organisation / 211

the message ‘black people rise and organise so that your interests may be studied too.’"” For their part, the leaders also attempted to draw the attention of the administration to the plight of the Africans in the late 1920s and early 30s. Conditions in the locations, the need for tax relief. during the depression, and the fate of the unemployed were all issues raised at the annual conferences of the I.c.u. in 1932 and 1933.78

And amidst its concern with the urban industrial worker, the L.c.U. did not lose sight of workers in the mine compounds. Particularly

in 1929 and 1930 Dumbutjena and Masotsha attempted to establish bases in the compounds and to articulate interests which would appeal to black miners. Since the basic concern of miners, as of all other groups of black workers, was with their exploitative wages, I.c.U. speakers concentrated

on this theme, At the Globe & Phoenix mine, for instance, a speaker pointed out to the miners that they received a shilling a day in return for

ten hours’ labour underground, and asked them if they thought that adequate.”® Alert to the particular circumstances of the mining situation, ‘Sergeant’ Masotsha also campaigned about the ticket system and the oppressive effect of the passes. “Your certificate has different wages marked on it today,’ he told the miners, ‘it does not help you — that is why we say let us organise, this certificate does not help us.’®° L.c.U. leaders were also aware, however, that low pay was only

one of many problems confronting those in the compounds: at least one speaker called for a full inquiry into conditions on the mines.** And the ‘Sergeant’, who once again proved the one most conversant with the specific problems of the compound, revealed his knowledge and insight in repeated addresses to the workers. “We work in mines but we get no

compensation for our broken legs’, he pointed out to the workers of Que Que. And, still speaking to an audience drawn partly from the Globe & Phoenix mine, he demanded: ‘today your sisters are selling

their bodies . . . who is responsible for that?’®? , State officials who received detailed reports of these meetings addressed by Lc.U. leaders were singularly unmoved by question, observation and ideological statement alike. The Commissioner of Police in particular took a most serious view of 1.c.U. ideology. For him, and probably for most settlers, independent black political movements invariably smacked of ‘communism’ and he warned white Rhodesians accordingly in 1927. And since the 1.c.u. had links with ‘communism’ it must also espouse ideas and beliefs which would bring white Rhodesia

to the very brink of revolution: |

... It cannot be concealed that such an organisation, working on mass emotions by seductive visions of greatly increased pay and equality 212 / Chibaro

between black and white, conceals an insidious. and dangerous doctrine, a thinly veneered version of ‘Africa for the Africans’, and is capable of producing results very different from the avowed objects.9

In retrospect, however, it would appear that it was the emotions of the

Commissioner of Police rather than those of black workers and the I.c.U. leaders that were in danger of being carried away. In fact, the 1.c.U. leadership appear to have been at pains to demonstrate that they were a non-violent movement, without revolutionary aims and with modest objectives. Aware that the word ‘communism’ had an impact on the settler mind not dissimilar to that of the word ‘witch’ on the African mind, the ‘Sergeant’ took the trouble to affirm publicly that he was not a ‘communist’.** With monotonous regularity I.c.U. leaders assured their audiences that they were a non-violent movement. Masotsha told a crowd of Bulawayo workers: ‘We are a Christian movement. We do not come with assegais.’®° Even the ‘firebrand’ of the movement, John Mphamba, was at pains to deny the use of violence. “We are not asking for assegais or ammunition,’ he told the workers, ‘we do not want to fight, we want peace. We are not out to win victories, let us cry for our own ability.’®®

In their anxiety to deny revolutionary aims and proclaim their modest objectives, 1.c.U. speakers often included Christian ideology in their addresses to the workers. ‘We do not fight with knobkerries,’ said Masotsha Nchlovu, “We are Christians, but we ask for bread-and butter

that is all.”°” The spirit of compromise was repeatedly evident in speeches, and even on the fundamental issue of wages, the I.c.u. hardly articulated the most radical of demands. James Dakamela, who made something of a speciality of the wage issue, urged workers in Bulawayo

to ‘join the I.c.u. and obtain better wages, not equal to that of the European but sufficient to live comfortably on.’*6 As in the case of Watch Tower, much of the supposed I.c.uU. rad-

icalism was in the eyes of the settler administrators rather than in the minds of the leaders of the movements. Indeed, again as in the case of the Watch Tower movement, the aspirations of the petty trader could be found amongst the I.c.U. leadership. At least two of the Lc.u. leaders

spent some of their time in the world of the petty bourgeois. John Mphamba worked in the Scotch Stores, Bulawayo, while ‘Sergeant’ Masotsha was employed in another large store — Meikle’s. The ‘Sergeant’ was not unaffected by his experience and he told workers that they were called ‘boys’ because they did not own businesses.®*® The fact that Indians dominated trading in the location was likewise resented

by Lc.u. leaders: and for some of them this-concern with trading was a personal practical problem, for Thomas Mazula, Chairman of the Lc.vu. Ideologies and Organisation / 213

had actually applied unsuccessfully for a licence to start an ‘eating house’ business in the Bulawayo location.®°

In fact the explicit aims and objectives of the L.c.u. often tended to remain hidden or difficult to detect amidst a number of diverse and confused ideological strands, some of which were lost on the mass of the industrial workers. Perhaps even more important to the survival of

the movement however were the considerable practical difficulties which the leaders had to face.®°! The poverty of most workers ensured that, like the mutual aid societies of the compounds, it was starved of funds. The better paid and more conservative workers — those whom Masotsha scathingly referred to as ‘good boys’ — held back their support from the Lc.u.°? The more promising and energetic black workers in any case made their way to South Africa® and this left the I.c.u. with

the poorest, most miserable and oppressed workers of all. Starving workers on the poorest wages could not have been much inspired by the 1.c.U. leadership’s appeal not to go to South Africa but to stay and struggle on in Rhodesia.**

The police also felt it their duty to make a contribution to the difficulties of the Lc.u., and they succeeded in getting an informer from within the ranks of the national executive committee.®® Other leaders

in the movement were frequently questioned, warned and generally intimidated. Any outside stimulus to the leadership was denied: Sambo for instance was refused permission to re-enter the colony in 1930. But although their attitude continued to be one of vigilance, state officials were arriving at a more realistic assessment of the movement’s strength after two years of activity. By 1929 even the nervous Commissioner of the British South Africa Police was more accurate and self-confident in

his assessment: .

Meetings of the Lc.u. have been held regularly throughout the year at various places in the colony. The response to the efforts of the leaders is but lukewarm. The grievances, real and imaginary, in the main of a petty and trifling nature, which have been mentioned by the speakers, have failed to stir up enthusiasm.%°®

By mid-1929 it was thus already apparent to the administration that a combination of organisational difficulties and state power was effectively limiting the appeal of the I.c.u. to a small number of urban workers. In several respects, these problems in the location were also the problems that the movement had to face in the mine compounds, which proved in the end to be rather barren recruiting grounds. But although the efforts to organise the mineworkers came to nothing, the 1.c.U. leaders conducted a lengthy drive which showed considerable evi-

214 / Chibaro |

dence of determination, enthusiasm and ingenuity. Nowhere was this

clearer than in the Cam & Motor campaign. ,

During their travels in 1929-30, Job Dumbutjena and the ‘Sergeant’ devoted a considerable amount of attention to black miners. Much of this effort was concentrated on the two mining towns of Que

Que and Gatooma. The former town offered a potential base in the shape of the Globe & Phoenix compound, while the latter would have given the organisers access to the Cam. & Motor mine. Had the Lc.u. succeeded in establishing large and active branches in these centres, the movement would have been able to point to representation along much of the industrial spine of the colony. As early as June 1929, ‘Sergeant’ Ndhlovu sought permission from the London & Rhodesian Mining Co to address a meeting in the Cam & Motor compound. Not surprisingly. permission was refused. — the management pointing to the fact that the

compound was private property.°? ,

This, together with other similar experiences, brought it home to the I.c.u. leaders that direct and open access to compound workers was not possible. What the movement required ideally, was a ‘front’ which

‘allowed access to the compound and a base which was off private property. In the early months of 1930 the leaders set about the task of creating these prerequisites for a more systematic approach to inhabitants of Cam & Motor. This they did in two ways.

First, the Lc.u. set about organising a branch in the municipal location of Gatooma. Although some distance from the Cam & Motor compound, the location did have the advantage of offering a meeting and discussion point. Amongst the more prominent members. of this branch were Stephen Matendeza.and Ronald Mapundu.*® While the former was a worker in Gatooma, the latter, like the national Chairman of the Lc.U., was employed by the government as a clerk in the Native

Affairs Department. _

Second, once the branch had: been organised, the workers set about establishing their ‘front’ organisation.°® Early in March 1930 a

group of ‘Nyasa’ workers approached the Assistant Native Commissioner at Gatooma and sought official recognition for a resuscitated version of the ‘Nyasaland Burial Society’. The choice of a burial society as a ‘front’ was ideal. Not only were such organisations familiar to the authorities but it was quite common for them to have members in both the town location and the compounds, On the 28 March 1930 the Chief Native Commissioner gave ready approval to the new burial society-at

Gatooma.?”° : At the same time that the approach in connection with the burial Ideologies and Organisation / 215

society was being made to the Assistant Native Commissioner at Gatooma, Job Dumbutjena was making one more attempt to get directly into the Cam & Motor compound. At the mine, the manager ordered Dumbutjena off the property and instructed two compound ‘police’ to make certain that his instruction was obeyed. Once the man-

ager had departed, however, Dumbutjena spoke to the compound ‘police’. From their later actions it is clear that the ‘police’ were not unsympathetic to the Lc.u. and, after talking to Dumbutjena,

instructions.

they allowed him to tour the compound despite the manager’s During his brief tour and in his discussions with the miners, Dumbutjena discovered some of the deep-seated grievances of the workers. Not only did he find that miners were being charged rent in the compound, but he also heard about the fining practices of the compound manager: a practice that at the Cam & Motor went back at least to 1916.?°! While still talking to the miners, Dumbutjena was again dis-

covered by the manager, who this time turned him off the property instantly, and as retribution for his defiance reported him to the Native Commissioner at Gatooma. The latter arranged for Dumbutjena to be prosecuted for non-payment of tax and instructed the 1.c.u. leader to walk to Hartley for his court appearance. The Gatooma branch of the 1.C.U. however, supplied Dumbutjena with the necessary train fare to

Hartley.?°

The failure of this second attempt to gain direct access to the Cam & Motor compound was perhaps-the final stimulus to the local

1.c.U. branch. In the weeks that followed the Dumbutjena affair plans were made for yet another meeting which would take place in the heart

of the Cam & Motor compound itself. This meeting was set for the 1 June 1930.

At about 2.30 p.m. on that date the leaders of the I.c.u.-cum‘Nyasaland Burial Society’ entered the compound of the Cam & Motor mine. There, assembled outside the hut of the head compound ‘police boy’ Machila, Stephen Matendeza, Ronald Mapundu and ‘Isaac’ then proceeded to address ‘a very large crowd of natives’.*°* Amongst the audience of miners there was also a compound clerk, ‘Handy’, and a number of the compound ‘police’.?°* Ronald Mapundu directed his speech along lines geared to have maximum impact on a black mining audience. Workers should join the LC.U. he suggested, because it offered black miners a means of obtaining adequate compensation for the injuries they were likely to sustain

in the industry. Working along the lines pioneered by the burial societies, Mapundu outlined the conditions of membership: membership 216 / Chibaro

was open to all tribes, entry fees amounted.to-five shillings and this was to be followed by monthly contributions of half a crown. If it were left to the employers, nothing would be done for the workers. Black miners

should join the Lc.u. ,

The audience readily comprehended these aims and objectives, because of their similarity to those of the burial societies. But they also knew of the practical difficulties that tended to beset these organisations.

What the audience needed was reassurance from a practical mining man whom they could trust and respect: Isaac, “boss boy’ from the nearby Eileen Allanah mine, formed the ideal foil to Matendeza and

Mapundu. | ,

Whereas Matendeza and Mapundu outlined the benefits of Lc.u. membership in their addresses, Isaac concentrated on the safeguards to those who contributed to the movement. Isaac pointed out to the Cam & Motor workers that they had the advantage of knowing local leaders who resided in Gatcoma location. Since the leaders were locally known they could be trusted, and it was unlikely that they would use the funds

for their personal benefit. | - There is evidence to suggest that the meeting was not entirely without promise for the 1.c.U. leaders. Not only had it succeeded in attracting a ‘large’ audience, but proceedings were lively enough to call for the intervention of the compound ‘police’ on several occasions. In a new and novel context, ‘police boy Ambande called out several times to the natives to keep order and listen to what was being said.”! At the end of the meeting, six membership cards were issued, although no money was collected. _ News of a compound meeting of this magnitude could not fail to

reach the ears of the authorities. An ‘informant’ supplied the Cam & Motor compound manager with details of the proceedings. The- mine management in turn provided the Chief Native Commissioner with an account, and within four days Isaac, Matendeza and Mapundu. had received a summons to appear in court on a charge of trespass framed

under the Native Pass Ordinance. Eight days later, the three Lc.v. leaders appeared in court and were sentenced to a fine of ten shillings or seven days’ imprisonment. Although the sentence was lenient enough,

the magistrate left the accused with no illusions about further consequences should the offence be repeated.°* The counter-attack of the state and the employers was further consolidated by the withdrawal of recognition for the ‘Nyasaland. Burial Society’ at Gatooma.'®? By the end of June 1930 the campaign of the I.c.u. to establish a base in the

Cam & Motor compound lay in ruins. The events at Gatooma provide the stark details of a case study Ideologies and Organisation / 217

which goes some way in explaining why the I.c.U. never became-a force

in the mining industry. The problems facing the organisation at the Cam & Motor were the same that were to be encountered in compounds throughout the country: convoluted ideological strands, difficulties of

access to workers, a largely despondent and colonised working class and administrative harassment. Like Watch Tower before it, the LC.uU.

never achieved anything concrete for the mass of black miners, and neither did it espouse an ideology capable of arousing large-scale support. Such industrial action as did occur in Rhodesia between 1900 and 1933, did so without the ideological trimmings or organisation of move-

ments such as Watch Tower or the Lc.u. But perhaps the most important reason of all for failure was the fact that the compounds had

succeeded as instruments of oppression.

__- Black Miners and Strike Action against Employers 1900-1933 The organised resistance offered by black miners between 1900 and 1903 is of particular interest in several respects. First, because in this period prior to the collapse of the industry, black miners earned higher cash wages than at any other time during the thirty-three years under review. Not only were wages significantly higher than in succeeding years, but cash wages were actually rising —- a phenomenon only comparable with a brief period after 1918. Second, because for a time during these years the Rhodesian mining industry formed perhaps the best labour market within the regional economic system. Before 1903 the Rhodesian mines drew workers not only from central Africa but also from South Africa — particularly during the years of the South African War. While the ethnic composition of the black working class in Rhodesia was always heterogeneous, it was never more so than during these early years. Third, the period is of interest because it marked some of the earliest initiatives by the industry to reduce the income of

black miners unilaterally.*°° Oe

The interplay of these features was clearly evident in the indus-

trial climate of the time. Black workers drawn from South Africa demonstrated to the mine owners that they were under no illusions about the relative value of their labour. Especially those miners recruited in the Transkei and sent to the Tebekwe mine in 1900, caused ‘dissatisfaction’ about wage rates amongst compound inhabitants. As they were familiar with the relatively high wages of the pre-Boer War

period, ‘Cape Boys’ did not take readily to Rhodesian rates. The Rhodesian Chamber of Mines complained that ‘Cape colony natives’ were in the habit of requiring ‘prohibitive wages for the little they will

do’,?° a -

218 / Chibaro |

Although Rhodesian wages were rising, they were clearly insufficient to satisfy the miners drawn from South Africa. And since all miners, regardless of their territorial origins, were disgruntled with existing wages they were unwilling to tolerate any new inroads into their cash earnings. When the mine owners attempted to- reduce wages in the months of November and December 1901, they met with remarkable resistance. The labour supply in Matabeleland fell off so markedly that the old wage rates had to be re-introduced within a matter of weeks.}44 And at the Camperdown mine, where the labour force was composed of Africans drawn from south as well as central Africa, ‘all the natives struck work on account of the reduction of wages, and refused to start

again until the Manager promised to pay the ordinary rates’.'? A quarter of a century before attempts were made at official union organisation by the I.c.U., black miners showed a capacity for organised resist-

ance in defence of their interests. a

A willingness to resist the mine owners in defence for what they considered to be their just rewards is also evident from other actions of

the black miners during the period. At the turn of the century when meat was particularly scarce and expensive, food formed an important part of the real income of the miners. They considered that an issue of meat on Christmas day was an unwritten but important part of their

contract, and failure by mine owners to provide the expected meat ration was met with unanimous worker resentment. When the meat was not provided at the Blanket mine in December 1902, it set the wheels in motion for a disturbance which culminated in police intervention and the arrest of four miners.1* At the Imani mine, also in December 1902, when the workers were denied the expected Christmas ration they decided to come out on strike in retaliation. On 26 December “the natives

simply left the compound and went into the bush; the next day they

resumed work as usual.’***

During the years between 1903 and 1912, as we have already seen, the mine owners made a prolonged, organised and successful attack on the real earnings of black miners.4*> Through the employment of large numbers of chibaro workers, the industry was able to undercut the bargaining power of the black workers, and make possible dramatic wage cuts between 1904 and 1908. But the mine owners did not achieve their objectives without active resistance from black workers. At the Bonsor mine Shangaan workers left the management in no

doubt as to their resentment about wage cuts. There, in August 1905, fifty workers from Mozambique armed themselves with sticks and demonstrated outside the mine offices. The compound manager hardly Ideologies and Organisation / 219

created a climate for discussion when he produced a revolver, but after the disgruntled workers had been addressed by the native commissioner, they were forced to accept the reduction and return to the compound."

Events at the Ayrshire mine show the capacity of wage reduc-

tions to elicit a more wide-ranging response from black workers. In August 1908 Africans from a number of tribes — but led by Mashukulumbwe miners from Northern Rhodesia — came out on a ‘carefully organised’ strike. On a Sunday evening the entire night shift refused to go underground unless the old wage rates were restored — the refusal to work was accompanied by a certain amount of stone-throwing and shouting. Here too ‘peace’ was restored through the production of a ‘few revolvers and shotguns’, but the miners still refused to return to work, and ultimately only returned to duty on the following evening after the strike leaders had been escorted off the mine property by the police.™2’

In both the Ayrshire and the earlier Camperdown cases the workers had employed the strike weapon to attain an essentially defensive objective. Confronted with reduced wages they sought a return to the status quo. And in some respects, these strikes can be seen as reflex responses by the miners — the disturbances at the Ayrshire, like at

the Bonsor mine, indeed show traces of spontaneous emotional behaviour. There is also evidence, however, to suggest that even during these early years workers were capable of responding to less visible attacks on the value of their labour, and of employing the strike weapon for offensive rather than defensive purposes.

One stimulus to a more positive demand was comparison with the conditions of other mines in the economic region. During 1905, W.N.L.A. Was active in recruiting Nyasaland labour for work on the South African gold mines. The -w.N.L.A. recruits passed through Rhodesia on the long overland march to the Transvaal and many of their overnight stops were made in local mine compounds. These overnight stops gave black miners the opportunity to compare and contrast wages and conditions in different parts of the regional economic system, and it quickly emerged that W.N.L.A. recruits were relatively better off _ than their Rhodesian counterparts. One such W.N.L.A. party in 1905

painted such a glowing picture of employment in South Africa that ‘they caused a mutiny in the compound of a large mine.” , The ‘mutiny’ showed how keen was the black miners’ appreciation of the extent to which they were being exploited by the local mine owners. And indirectly the authorities acknowledged this worker consciousness when the 1906 Native Labour Enquiry Committee recom-

mended that W.N.L.A. recruits should no longer be allowed to pass 220 / Chibaro

through the country, since they were liable to ‘spread discontent among natives of Southern Rhodesia’.?* And that ‘discontent’ was widespread

throughout the reconstruction period is beyond doubt, for scarcely a year passed without some work stoppage or strike. In 1909 a native commissioner described how he had been called out to deal with a strike by all 200 black workers at a mine, and that “cases of the same kind on a smaller scale often occurred.’2° While wages were frequently at the centre of these industrial disputes, workers also came out on strike against other exploitative practices within the industry. At Wankie colliery in 1912 over 10 per cent of the 1,000-strong black work force withheld their labour over.a variety of grievances which stemmed from the compound system. Deaths, work

pressures, abuses in the rationing system and the practice of making sick miners undertake unpaid work provided sufficient motivation for workers from at least five different tribes to combine. The strikers demonstrated their capacity to undertake united action and formulate collective demands. During the strike two deputations attempted to negotiate with the management, but the authorities were unwilling to make any concessions. Here again, the state and the employers combined to crush workers’ resistance. The magistrate who. prosecuted the

miners for their refusal to work felt that ‘the management of a large industrial concern must be maintained even in the face of mismanage-

ment,’22? ,

After the wage reductions of the reconstruction era, the mine owners found that they no longer required an organised campaign to lower the earnings of black workers, for the process of proletarianisation in central Africa had gone far enough to ensure a growing number of Africans willing to sell their labour on the mines. This increased supply of labour — especially noticeable during the war years — exerted a continuing downward pressure on wages, and seriously limited the willingness of black workers to resort to the strike as a form of defence. There is little evidence of organised industrial action by black workers between 1912 and 1918. From 1918 onwards, however, there was a great deal of industrial action — including strikes. There appear to be two reasons for this revival after 1918. First, the war years had seen a massive increase in the cost of living and after 1918 miners, both black and white, were eager to put pressure on employers for more cash to make good their losses. Second, the aftermath of the Spanish "flu epidemic of 1918, which had reduced by 7 per cent the black labour force in the compounds, brought a shortage of labour so that for the first time in half a decade ‘market Ideologies and Organisation / 221

forces’ swung briefly in favour of the workers.?2? : The Spanish ’flu epidemic had a particularly devastating passage

through the Que Que district in November 1918. At the Globe & Phoenix mine over 220 black workers died in the compound while 800 miners deserted in an attempt to avoid death.?”* Death and desertion on this scale left the remaining workers with a greatly increased workload. It also left them with increased bargaining power. Within days of

normal work being resumed, the black miners came out on strike in support of a claim for increased wages. While the details of the strike are unknown, it would appear that the workers’ claims were at least

partly met.?4 . :

But the impact of the rise in the cost of living on African industrial protest is most clearly illustrated from the labour unrest and:strikes that occurred at the Wankie colliery in the immediate post-war period. The workers at the colliery, paid even less than men on the gold mines, were perhaps amongst the most vulnerable of all in the industry, and during 1918, African discontent with low wages and the prices charged at the local mine store led to serious labour unrest. Unorganised resistance, in the form of desertions and reduced productivity, reached proportions serious enough to warrant a full-scale enquiry by the admin-

istration. : |

Superficial adjustments in managerial policy and the opening of two new stores in the vicinity of the compound did not, however, solve the basic grievance of black miners. Indeed, no sooner had the new stores opened than the miners formulated a new request for an increase in wages. This request the mine management would not entertain. The mine manager, A.R.Thomson, who had a long history of inflexibility and mismanagement?*> behind him, persisted in his view that wages were not a real grievance amongst the workers. Denied an increase in wages, the workers in the Wankie compound had to find other ways of increasing their cash incomes. Some embarked on petty trading within the compound itself. Through selling fire-wood or beer to their fellow workers, they found that they could supplement the inadequate wages they earned from the company. And when this petty trading within the compound was threatened in 1919 and 1921 the workers came out on strike. Already discontented with exploitative wages, they would not tolerate any interference with the delicate mechanisms at work within the compound economy. _ _ The first to strike were the sanitation workers. In their case petty trading was threatened through the introduction of new technical equipment in the form of incinerators. Why this modernisation reduced their income and how the management chose to break the strike is best re222 / Chibaro

March 1919: 7 |

counted in the words of the compound inspector who visited Wankie in _ On being ordered to dump the filth on the incinerators instead of the pits (a long way off) the sanitary-natives struck. With the incinerators the work is much easier and done by day instead of night. Upon investigation it was found that by hurrying over their night work they also worked most.of the day in gathering fire wood -which they sold to other mine natives and thus made a considerable revenue. The management on learning this practice knocked the bottom out of the market by issuing free coal to any native wishing for it. The strike then soon ended.126 |

Viewed in the most positive light, the 1919 strike therefore earned black coal miners the right to free coal — at the expense of the sanitation workers. But free coal to coal miners was not.a service which the management of the colliery was willing to maintain indefinitely, and. by the

early 1930s and the depression the inhabitants of Wankie compound were again forced to invest a substantial part of their incomes in the

purchase of fire-wood from local Africans:*277 _ The second strike, in 1921, involved a wider cross-section of the

workers, and was also a more militant response in character. The miners’ right to sell beer was threatened in this.case, through the actions

for, : : ,

of a compound ‘policeman’; so they came out on a two-day strike which ended only when the police had been called in and marched them back to the pithead:*?* For workers forced to ‘live’ on below-subsistence wages, the cause of petty trading was one that was vital to fight

| ‘Whilst the battle against the ravages of post-war inflation was

most strongly fought at the colliery, it was not restricted to the lowestpaid miners in the colony. Gold miners too must have felt the pressures of inflation, since it was calculated that ‘on the basis of ten classes of goods most commonly bought by Africans, the African cost of living had risen on average by 165 per cent. between 1914 and November 1920.”2° At the Bushtick gold mine in January 1920 the workers voiced their need for higher wages, and atleast one worker corresponded with a Rand miner about the advantages of a trade union.”° But the most dramatic and successful protest came from. Shamva — also in 1920. Significantly, workers again directed their protest at the prices in the two mine stores on the property: making use of speeches, notices and pamphlets, they organised a successful boycott, and within days of the start of the campaign, the prices of certain goods in the stores began to fall.28+

Much of the immediate post-war industrial protest, however, was not successful. But while the majority of strikes and requests for wage Ideologies and Organisation / 223

increases failed, broader economic forces did in fact-cause the cash wages of miners to increase by 13 per cent between 1918 and 1920.1 The slight improvement that this brought, coupled with an increased labour supply during the early 1920s, saw a falling-off in the incidence of strikes. By the mid-1920s, however, there was again a relative im-

provement in the bargaining position of black- miners, since local African labour again tended to be in relatively short supply.*** This fact, coupled with new annual declines in mine wages, again contributed

to a period marked by organised African protest. Between December 1925 and October 1928 there were at least four work stoppages and five

strikes by black miners." Of the strikes by far the largest, the most spectacular and the best organised was at Shamva in September 1927, when 3,500 workers came out. Again the central grievance was exploitative wages. Since this was

a period of. massive outflow of labour from central Africa to South Africa, the Shamva workers naturally tended to assess the value of their labour in terms of wages pertaining elsewhere in the regional economic system; and as in the case of the ‘mutiny’ some twenty-two years earlier,

black workers were at a loss as to why they should earn less than workers employed on similar tasks south of the Limpopo. One of the leaders in the strike, Tom Rikwawa had himself recently returned from the Rand, and according to reports at the time he made much of these discrepancies in the wage rates.**> This grievance, together with others

common to black miners throughout the industry, made for considerable cohesion amongst the strikers for several days. Through the familiar combination, however, of employer and state power in the form of police, the resistance of the miners was overcome and the strike was

unsuccessful. 144 ,

Although the strike at Shamva was crushed, its failure did. not

prevent black miners from continuing to use this form of resistance. At two other mines in late 1928 the workers came out.on strike to protest against new piece-work rates that would have entailed a loss of earnings. While these ‘defensive’ strikes at least had the merit of earning the

workers the right to return to the status quo, an ‘offensive’ strike for higher earnings at the Queen’s mine in May 1928 simply resulted in the workers being prosecuted for their refusal to work.1*7 And by: the late 1920s and the early 1930s, conditions again favoured the employers and there was little organised resistance from the miners between 1929 and 1934.

However sparse the victories for the workers, then, after the first world war ideologies and organisations within the mine compounds

224 / Chibaro .

tended to assume a more crystallised form. The dance, ethnic, and mutual aid associations attempted to address themselves in a systematic way to the problems and pressures that were part of life in the black

mining communities: through practising rather than preaching, they sought to offer immediate and tangible assistance to miners left vulnerable in an exploited situation. Then came the attempt to explain if not

avoid exploitation, through organisations that preached rather. than

practised: Watch Tower and the 1.c.u. both attempted to provide African workers with sets of ideas and interpretations to make sense of

the industrial experience in a colonial society. a What is most striking about the ideologies and organisations in the compounds is the indifferent success they both achieved. A variety of forces, internal and external to the organisations, continually hampered their development and sapped their ability to consolidate membership. Internally, the limiting factors were derived from the socioeconomic structure of the compound: the small and sporadic financial contributions which black miners were able to afford could not produce the strong foundations which the more practical associations needed; and. continuity in membership of the associations was undermined by the high level of labour turnover. More complex limitations were most clearly visible in the case of Watch Tower and the 1.c.u., both of which showed weaknesses — in leadership and the content of their ideologies —

the compounds. So | a

that ultimately derived from the pattern of social stratification within

The fissures that developed in miners’ organisations through the operation of internal forces were widened into cracks by external forces, mainly the compound system commanded by the mining companies, and the police commanded by the state. But the attitude of this alliance towards the organisations of the black miners was_not uniform: both

employers and the state had good reasons for tolerating the dance, mutual aid and ethnic associations, for not only did these organisations not pose any ideological threat to the status quo but they could be used as instruments of social control, and their practical activities actually

filled a gap which employers and the state were unwilling to occupy themselves. The same toleration, however, was never extended to the more ideological organisations. Both Watch Tower and the 1.c.u. came under heavy attack from the alliance and this attack did much to limit their development.

Yet in spite of the might of the forces ranged against them, the workers even in the earliest years showed themselves capable of resistance. Long before the first formal compound associations started, black

miners demonstrated their solidarity through the use of the strike. Ideologies and Organisation / 225

Although unfortunately little detail is available about the leadership and planning of these strikes, it is clear that they confronted employers

with a considerable challenge. The intervention of the police: at the Blanket mine in 1902, at the Ayrshire in 1908, at Wankie in 1912 and 1923 and at Shamva mine in 1927 testifies to the seriousness of that challenge. It also testifies to the manner in which force was used to deny

a subjected people the right to collective bargaining. , However, the strike weapon like the more formal compound associations brought only indifferent success to the miners. Only a small number of strikes were ‘offensive’ — the 1905 ‘mutiny’, 1923 Wankie, 1918 Globe & Phoenix, and 1927 Shamva; for the continued prolet-

arianisation of the central African peasantry and the flow of labour within the regional economic system continually weakened the workers’

bargaining power. The major effort was directed towards extracting what was due from employers or defending existing earnings: Camperdown 1901, Imani 1902, Bonsor 1905, Wankie 1912, Wankie 1919, and

Matabeleland 1928. |

Indifferent success, however, was not failure. Viewed in isolation the strikes, ideologies and organisations of the miners might not have been dramatically successful. But they were considerable achievements

in their own right. The ability of Africans to resist as workers rather than tribesmen was only one aspect of this achievement. The fact that these organised responses took place within two decades of the inception of industrial activity in an extremely labour repressive system is another. African experience in the Rhodesian mine compounds forms

one important strand in the making of the working class in southern

Africa. The degree of resistance which that experience bred was a tribute to black. workers drawn from South Africa, Rhodesia,

Mozambique, Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. oe

226 / Chibaro |

é. -

Worker Responses in a Labour

Coercive Economy — | _ There is practically no gain to the Native going to Johannesburg? ‘No. It is merely one of those ideas that get into the Native’s head: no one understands how it gets there or why it stays there. They think they will do better in Johannesburg, and some are prepared to walk all the way there, rather than work in our mines, but this, of course, applies more to Natives coming from outside, North of the Zambesi — Chairman of the Salisbury Chamber of Mines in , evidence to the South African Native Affairs Commission of

1903-05

Considering the power which they challenged and the control to

which they were subject, black workers on Rhodesian mines then showed an impressive degree of articulate, literate and organised resistance to the alliance of the employers and the state. In a labour-coercive

economy, however, worker ideologies and organisations should be viewed essentially as the high water marks of protest: they should not be allowed to dominate our understanding of the way in which the economic system worked, or of the African miners’ responses to it. At least as important, if not more so, were the less dramatic, silent and often unorganised responses, and it is this latter set of responses, which occurred on a day-to-day basis, that reveal most about the functioning of the system and formed the woof and warp of worker consciousness. Likewise it was the unarticulated, unorganised protest and resistance which the employers and the state found most difficult to-detect or suppress. _ Labour Markets in the Regional Economic System The Rhodesian mining industry was set within a regional economic system which embraced a large part of the geographical area of south and central Africa. The heart of this regional economic system lay in South Africa — and in particular in the most industrialised and developed area of the Witwatersrand. It was as we have seen this centre that dominated the economic development of the sub-continent and that drew varying quantities of cheap labour from as far afield as South West Africa, Angola, Northern Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Nyasaland and Mozambique. As a labour market, the Rhodesian mines thus lay between a more powerfully industrialised south and the supplies of cheap labour on the northern perimeters of the regional economic system. Worker Responses in a Labour Coercive Economy / 227

As far as labour for the Rhodesian mines was concerned, this geographical configuration both helped and hampered the industry. On the one hand, Rhodesian mines were forced to compete for labour with the richer South African mines and industries. Rhodesia thus experienced a continual ‘drainage’ of workers to the Transvaal. On the other hand, Africans from the northern regions of the economic system mak-

ing their way south to the Transvaal were forced to pass through Rhodesia, which was thus always able to rely on an influx of black workers hoping to make their way to Johannesburg. These realities of supply and demand left their imprint on African wage patterns within the Rhodesian economy. In the northern districts of Mashonaland, where the ingress of immigrant black labour was at

its greatest, wages were at their lowest. As the volume of foreign labourers became smaller in the Midlands areas of Gatooma, Que Que

and Gwelo, so wages tended to rise. In the southern province of Matabeleland where there was an egress of black labour and where em-

ployers had to compete with South Africa for their labour supplies, wages were at their highest. But supply and demand was by no means the only factor at work. Important too was the different investment and profit potential of the

industries in the respective provinces. In the north, the smaller and medium-sized mines affiliated to the Salisbury Chamber of Mines had a more limited capacity for investment than had mines elsewhere in the country, and they trimmed African wages accordingly. In the south, the larger and more profitable mines affiliated to the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines were capable of making a slightly larger investment in black wages, tending to reinforce a pattern of low wages in Mashonaland that merged into the slightly higher wages of Matabeleland.” The pattern of low northern and higher southern wages was repeated south of the Limpopo. The outflow of labour from Rhodesia made for swollen labour supplies in the Northern Transvaal, making for a zone of low agricultural wages which gradually gave way to the higher wages of the industrialised Witwatersrand.* Here too, the patterns were partly shaped by the different capacity for investment and profit of the South African agricultural and mining industries.* This configuration of wage patterns within the regional economic system combined with the worker’s desire to sell his labour in the best market possible to determine basic African strategy. The essential. objective of the African worker was two-fold: first, he aimed to avoid as far as was humanly possible the prospect of work in the zones of low wages; second, he sought to move as far south as possible. The further south he got, the higher were the wages he was likely to receive. Ideally, 228 / Chibaro

the goal for a black worker was to sell his labour in Johannesburg.

The ability of the worker to avoid the zones of low wages and reach the best labour markets, however, was directly proportional to the savings he could muster at the beginning of his journey. These savings fundamentally influenced his independence and bargaining power within the regional economic system. The more cash or light-weight trading goods — such as salt, cloth or tobacco® — he carried, the further south he could penetrate. The further south he got the greater the price

he could obtain for his labour. _

Not all workers drawn from north of the Zambesi had sufficient resources. Those without any at all fell prey to the R.N.L.B., and in exchange for food and escorts they agreed to chibaro contracts. Others with more, but limited, resources walked as far south as they could, and when their savings were exhausted worked for African farmers along the way — usually in exchange for food so that they could recover their strength before proceeding with the journey.® Many of those who found

themselves stranded immediately south of the Zambesi worked for

Mashonaland white settler farmers.’ - |

As soon as workers were suitably equipped to continue their journeys, they would desert from agricultural employment and make for the Mashonaland gold mines — the next best labour market on the journey south. While the wages here were better than on the farms to the north, they were still poor and the procedure would repeat itself. This time the savings were used in order to facilitate successful desertion

to Salisbury or the mines of the Midlands.* From here, the worker would desert yet again — this time making for the mines of south western

Matabeleland.

Through successive acts of desertion the worker reached markets which on-each occasion offered him slightly higher wages. By the time

that he had reached the gold mines of Matabeleland, he had reached the best labour market in Rhodesia. At this point the worker was faced with yet a further choice — either he could attempt to accumulate savings.in the Rhodesian compounds or else he could desert yet again, this time for the best labour market of all within the regional economic system. Those workers who opted for the latter choice and headed for the

Witwatersrand had to run yet another gauntlet beyond the Limpopo, where South African labour agents and officials sought their share of cheap coerced labour.® The labour coercive economy made no concession to these black

workers seeking to ‘work the system’. Close to the Zambesi lurked R.N.L.B. and other labour agents — ever anxious to trap the poorest or

the unwary into long contracts at the lowest wages. Passes issued at Worker Responses in a Labour Coercive Economy / 229

border posts sought to direct labour to districts within the country that

were suffering most from ‘labour shortages’. The mines built compounds at least partly designed to reduce the mobility of black workers, and incessant requests for passes by the police made desertion a hazard-

ous way of improving one’s job. As the labour agents patrolled the Zambesi waiting for workers coming into the country, so the police patrolled the Limpopo seeking to prevent other workers from leaving. For Africans, the hunt-to find the best labour market required the successful negotiation of an intricate and complex obstacle course. The success they did achieve was despite rather than because of the system, and considerable ingenuity, determination and cunning were required. _ Much of the worker’s effort before entering Rhodesia was directed towards ensuring his continued ‘independent’ status. In order to achieve

short-term employment at relatively good wages, he had to adopt a strategy of avoidance: particularly to be avoided were the well known labour paths, chibaro and other labour agents, and river crossings where official ferry services operated.?° Once inside the country, he made his

way along the stop-go labour route to the south by a series of well planned desertions.

Frequently, plans for impending desertion to the better labour markets were discussed by groups of workers within the compounds. Indeed, so well was the stop-go labour route known to workers that individual mines and regions were specially chosen for their suitability as desertion points for the next leg of the journey. The Antelope mine in Matabeleland, for example, was much favoured as a base from which to get to Bechuanaland — usually to enlist with the W.N.L.A. agent who operated from Francistown.* By the late 1920s the Gwanda region was used so systematically as a departure point for the Transvaal that the Prime Minister was forced to take action: }” native commissioners were instructed to exercise the greatest possible care before issuing passes to

seek work in this southern-most region of the country. | _ African overall success with the technique of desertion was mirrored in the lament of the Mashonaland mine owners: ‘The police use every possible effort, but the fact remains that whole gangs can and do abscond and are never traced or heard of again.’*? From the workers’ point of view, however, systematic desertion along the entire length of

the stop-go labour route was not the most satisfactory procedure. An

initial period of employment in the low-wage agricultural zone of Mashonaland was not only time-consuming but unprofitable; and in addition, the unsuccessful deserter always faced the possibility of pros-

ecution. Ideally, what the worker required was either sufficient resources to take him through the zone of low wages without having to 230 { Chibaro

work, or transport to the better labour markets of the Midlands. Through ‘working the system’, foreign labourers were often able to

meet both of these requirements. Co

_ The R.N.L.B. did in fact provide both food for those who walked and rail transport for others — but only in return for long contract and low wages, i.e. at the sacrifice of the worker’s ‘independence’. So, many workers found an ideal compromise by ‘agreeing’ to R.N.L.B. contracts,

making use of their facilities to avoid the Mashonaland leg of the journey south, and then deserting. A frustrated General Manager of the

R.N.L.B. noted of workers coming from North Eastern Rhodesia: Directly these men get south of the Zambesi it appears impossible to control them and they, after receiving food and assistance, desert in large numbers while proceeding to work .... I should estimate that 60 per cent of the N.E. Rhodesian natives engaged and fed by the Bureau desert while proceeding to the destination where they are to work.1*

Workers adopted the same ploy on the train journey south. The chance to desert presented itself when they were moved from covered to uncovered trucks, but the precise point of desertion was invariably somewhere between Salisbury and Bulawayo.** Through choosing to desert only along this particular stretch of the line, workers not only revealed. their knowledge of the wage patterns within. Rhodesia, but they also achieved a relative coup which improved their lot. They evaded the possibility of chibaro-labour and also received an R.N.L.B.-subsidised

trip to one of the more promising labour markets. 7 Desertion was not simply a matter of stealth or running away under cover of darkness: the Pass Laws saw to that. Specifically: dessigned to cope with the problems of desertion, the pass system,.as the Attorney General pointed out, ‘gave the employer a magnificent hold on the servant.’*® The problem for the state was the fact that a good number of employers including the mining industry, did not make full use of the system. Mine managers in particular were reluctant to spend time and effort going to court for cases involving desertion.’” (In part this hesitancy testified to. the adequacy of supplies of labour in Rhodesia — today’s deserter to the south was bound-to be replaced by tomorrow’s

deserterfrom the north) # | - a

Yet for Africans seeking to ‘work the system’, passes were frustrating in two particular ways. First, they hampered directly their ability to improve their wages. -The ‘working classes’, as the Africans of the Bulawayo location called themselves in 1909, put it eloquently in their petition to the cN.c. : by ‘putting down the amount of wages to be paid on the Registration Certificate-the native is prejudiced through subsequent employers refusing to advance or increase the rate’ of pay.’2® Worker Responses in a Labour Coercive Economy / 231

For decades this grievance against the passes was shared by workers throughout the country — including black miners.’® Second, the passes

greatly reduced the mobility of the worker seeking new employment. Without a properly ‘signed off? pass — evidence of completion of the previous contract — the worker could not be legally employed and was liable to arrest without a warrant by police who would suspect him as a deserter.

The state’s drive for rigorous implementation of the Pass Laws started late in 1904, but within eighteen months it was reported that black workers, on a significant scale, had found ways of overcoming the

disadvantages of the system. The most radical way to overcome both major disadvantages of their passes was for workers simply to destroy them — a procedure widely resorted to by immigrant workers between 1904 and 1915.2° Once they had destroyed what they knew to be a mill-

stone around their neck, workers doubled back on their tracks and made for a pass office on the northern borders: such as at Mrewa, Mtoko or Darwin. There they took out new certificates, ‘having rechristened themselves and discovered new. fathers and chiefs etc.’*? With a literally clean sheet, the stop-go labour route could now be

worked anew.* | _

Another ploy was for workers to pretend to have ‘lost’ the passes they had destroyed. While the earlier method had the disadvantage of requiring a walk back to the border, this stratagem cost the worker ten shillings for the issue of a new certificate.?? So, while there were considerable advantages to be gained by obtaining an entirely new pass, it involved both time and money — assets not readily come by. Jn order to offset these disadvantages of the ‘destruction method’, workers also developed more convenient albeit more risky methods. In

Pampire : an

mocking tones, the settler press noted how a Ndebele worker named

* It was the success of these tactics which contributed to the continual _ need for amendments to the Pass Laws; particularly in 1913, 1914 and

1915. It is striking how the major amendments took place during the war years when African wages fell particularly rapidly. In 1914 a system was introduced whereby ‘the employer retains the registration certificate and the “boy” keeps a working ticket . . . It is considered that the old and slim method of forging the employer’s signature, or of the pretended loss of certificates, are now at an end. In fact, one can scarcely believe that any possibility for desertion now exists.’ Rhodesia Herald, 14 May 1914. When the ‘finger-print system’ was introduced in 1917 it was found that fraudulent re-registrations were of the order of 59 per cent, see S:k., Report of the C.N.C. for 1917, p.5,.

232 / Chibaro

_ Having a high opinion of the value of his services thought of a simple plan to deceive the easily gulled white employer and cutely altered the | scale of wages received from a previous employer in another part of the country from 30 shillings to £3. On the strength of this he came to Salisbury and was engaged for £2 15s Od, not a bad rise? —-— |

Likewise when hospital orderly Sarawira (a ‘Blantyre Boy’) moved from the Bucks Reef mine to the Sabi mine, he attempted to alter the restrictive wage rates on his certificate. He was rewarded with nine

months’ hard labour. a

More frequently, forgery was resorted to simply to get the African miner ‘signed off’ so that he could be mobile. Here it was particularly the mission-educated ‘Nyasaland Boys’ who put their skills of literacy to work.?5 While the literate simply signed themselves off, the illiterate frequently found a more educated friend who was willing to forge an employer’s initials.2* The ‘educated friend’ who performed this service stood the risk of a £20 fine or six months’ with hard labour.” But the web of pass legislation was not the only impediment to the worker’s efforts to sell his labour within the best markets. He had also to contend with informal devices of control used by employers to enforce long service, such as the credit system. But here too the workers

found a way of bending the system to help themselves. At the Jessie mine in the southern Gwanda region, a much favoured desertion point for many years, mine managers were annoyed to find the credit system

pointed out : | Bo On

used against them. In a letter to their Member of Parliament they To give you a clear idea of what is taking place daily, the deserter prior _ to his departure purchases. goods on his ticket, thus getting full-wages or what is due to him, then calmly migrates to the Transvaal unmolested. Once he has crossed the border he deliberately destroys his registration certificate thus causing our police difficulty in identification.2® —

For workers who had worked the entire length of the stop-go labour route through Rhodesia and experienced all the hazards of compound life, there must have been some comfort in “working the system’ in such

a way that it left the exploiters exploited! So, armed with a basic strategy and the knowledge of how to

‘work the system’ in various ways, the black worker was at least partly equipped for the search to find suitable employment. While this broad sketch-map offered the outlines. of the regional economic system it was not, however, sufficient for the worker’s purposes. Ideally, he needed

more detailed information about.a diversity of other matters. What were the exact wage rates and were wages regularly paid? Who were the managers and what was their treatment of-black workers like? How Worker Responses in a Labour Coercive Economy / 233

much death and disease was there to be found in the compound and was the quantity and quality of food acceptable? To answer these and other questions, they developed an elaborate and sophisticated system of market intelligence. Forced into selling their labour, Africans were fully aware of the fact that only detailed information could help minimise the exploitation which they would have to undergo.

The vast expanse of rural central Africa was kept constantly informed about the state of the labour market in Rhodesia. Returning workers would inform those in the villages of their experiences and this would in turn affect the labour flows in subsequent seasons. The workers from the Choma district of Northern Rhodesia, for example,

were sent to the Hartley and Gatooma mines during 1910. Within months the district knew that the workers had been kept on the lowest

rate of wages for the entire duration of their contract. Labour agent George Cooke noted that ‘this fact is known to every soul in the district (250 miles in length) and I simply cannot get the good class boys to turn out .. .”?° Equally effective were the letters that Africans — especially the mission-educated Nyasaland workers — wrote home. Parties who left the rural areas with some knowledge looked forward to gathering more recent information along the route. In this they would be assisted by parties of workers returning from the south. These

returning parties took considerable care to warn new workers of bad employers, and in case they missed anybody making their way to Rhodesia, they took the precaution of pegging notices to various trees en route. Sometimes written in Swahili, these notes, addressed to Africans in general or individual workers in particular, warned of mines to be especially avoided.*° For the illiterate a system of signs carved on trees served the same useful purpose.

This new information acquired on the route south was superimposed on the more permanent features of African market intelligence.

One of the more striking phenomena was the system of names which

Africans gave to the various Rhodesian mines.* For whereas the English names of the mines revealed nothing to the prospective employee, the African names were rich in meaning. Indeed, in some respects, these names for mines constituted a rudimentary code system.*? Some were innocuous enough — referring simply to a geographical

feature or the position of the mine on the stop-go labour route. The Excelsior mine thus became Mazengwe (Dust Pan), the Rover mine SureSure (Far Back) and the Queens Prize mine Bvute (Rest Place). On a similar descriptive level were those names which drew attention to some or other characteristic of the mine owner or manager: the Topaz

mine was known as Maglass (Glasses), while the Falcon mine must 234 / Chibaro

have been served by at least one bald man for it was known as

Shayamavudzi (an absence of hair). © ~ !

There were other names descriptive of food, accommodation or

working conditions. The Hollis mine was Kanyemba (beans), the Southern Cross Mapfunde (sorghum), the Old Chum Makombera (‘you

are enclosed or hemmed in’) and the Wanderer mine was termed

Mtonono (crouching or squatting). . |

But most helpful of all to the prospective worker were those names which gave ready insight into management policies and practices.

These too could vary from the suggestive to the coldly explicit. The total absence of generosity in food and wages at the Ayrshire mine was reflected in the name Chimpadzi — meaning a small portion. The fact

that the Chicago mine was called Matiketi (the marking of tickets) warned of trouble for those who thought that they would be readily rewarded for their day’s labour. And while Chayamataka — ‘hit on the buttocks’ - was hardly a name to make the Masterpiece mine popular, the fact that the Celtic mine was known as Sigebenga (a murderer or cruel person) made certain that the manager there-was never plagued

with work-seekers. __ eT

This system of market intelligence provided black workers with considerable knowledge and insight about the hazards they were likely to encounter underground*® as well as in the different compounds. The more perceptive officials were aware of this system and noted that Africans sought work on the basis of ‘prejudices and reports among themselves’.** The less gifted amongst them, the majority of compound

inspectors, found themselves surprised and one wrote: ‘The methods in-treating natives appear to bear similarity, natives however detect differences and visit or avoid mines according to their reputations.’** In order to assess just how effective these ‘reports and prejudices’ could

be, it is necessary to consider more specificcases. iS - One revealing experience was that of the Ayrshire mine during 1903. Because it was located in Mashonaland and set astride the labour routes to the south, the mine’s management looked forward to an adequate supply of labour during a drought year.** Not only would the compound be filled by migrants working their way south, but Shona peasants forced off the land would also be forced to consider working

at the mine. Be co

In the early part of 1903 this promise of good supplies held out indeed so many immigrants sought work at the Ayrshire that it was: reported that many workers were being employed in return for food only. Within weeks however this exploitative practice became known

and labour became scarce. Not only did the supply of immigrant Worker Responses in a Labour Coercive Economy | 235

workers dry up, but local Shona workers also avoided the mine despite their desperate need. The annoyance which the management felt was mirrored in a letter which the Chief Secretary of the Salisbury admin-

istration wrote to the High Commissioner :. : within the district [in] which is situated the Ayrshire mine, 12,000 Mashona

natives are said to be in want of food. The mine is 400 boys short of its

complement, and has only six Mashonas working on it.87 7

The Shona workers’ market intelligence had in fact led them to mines operating with less exploitative policies; for while only 1 per cent of the work force at the Ayrshire was composed of Shona workers, the figures were very different for other mines in Mashonaland; 30 per cent

of the labour force at the Penhalonga mine and 41 per cent of the workers at the Rezende mine were Shona.** Clearly Africans had no

doubt about who the worst exploiters were. , _ The effectiveness of market intelligence, both for local and immigrant workers, was also evident at the Bonsor mine between 1898 and 1903.°° Here a series of fatal accidents gave rise to the belief that the mine was bewitched. In effect this led to a ‘boycott by bewitchment’ and

it became virtually impossible for the management to procure black workers in the numbers they desired. This African response was. at least as important a factor contributing to the closing of the mine in

1903 as were financial considerations. : Oe

_. While it was probably at its most effective in dealing with information about individual mines, there is also evidence that the intelligence system.was more than capable of triggering rapid responses within

the regional economic system as a whole. The build-up and rapid decline of the Shangaan labour force on the Matabeleland mines between 1898 and. 1903 was perhaps the most striking demonstration of this.*° Equally revealing, however, was the way that the network expanded and coped with the changing economic profile of the sub-continent in

the 1920s and 1930s. oo | _ By the mid-1920s competition for African labour within the re-

gional economic system was carving new and deeper channels into areas of supply that had hitherto been dominated by Rhodesia. In the north the Rhodesian mining industry was threatened by the growing demands of the Copperbelt and Katanga;** and in the north east the workers of Nyasaland spread the word that the continued fall in wages within Rhodesia no longer made it worth their while to work the ‘stop-

go’ route there, so a growing number of workers simply walked to

South Africa via Mozambique instead.*?_ — These new pressures from the north were supplemented by the

236. / Chibaro os a |

older relentless competition from the south, and so falling wages within Rhodesia had the effect of expanding the labour catchment area of the Witwatersrand. And whereas South African competition of a decade earlier had made its greatest encroachment in the southern border districts of Rhodesia such as Ndanga and Chibi, it now made inroads into

the supplies of the Midlands.** Truck-loads of black workers.made

their way south to the border area around Beit Bridge. So many Rhodesian Africans out-witted the ban on passes to South Africa by going to Bechuanaland first, that the administration vainly appealed for the help of the High Commissioner. This exodus of local labour to South Africa meant that suitable

stratagems had to be evolved to avoid the more obvious pitfalls that might befall an immigrant worker. Within months of large-scale movements first being noticed and their effects felt,*° a new intelligence network had developed to supply all the necessary information: Africans from Rhodesia seeking work in South Africa had quickly established

a smoothly functioning system exactly parallel to that which central Africans. used to negotiate Rhodesia. Ethel Tawse Jollie, Member of Parliament and author, betrayed the pique felt by the typical settler: . .. the labour we ought to have is leaving to go south. From the district in which I live [Melsetter] the labour goes almost entirely to the Transvaal, and it goes by the same route as that from Gwanda, namely via Messina. The Shangaan boys are in great demand as hammer boys-on the

mines, where they get good pay. But it is not merely that,-from the conversations I have had with the boys, that is the attraction: it is the _ communication along the route and the attractions when they get to the mines, where they have their friends and acquaintances. They have this route established, and they know where they will stop on it and where they will meet their friends going and coming.4¢ _

African Resistance within the Compounds -In Rhodesia, unlike South Africa, the state was never powerful enough completely to dominate these large scale African movements. Its ability to enforce the Pass Laws, for example, was directly dependent on the number of police stationed in the mining districts ~ a fact which mine managers were never tired of pointing out to the administration.*’7 Thus, while the success and persistence of the movements of

labour testify to a creative African response within southern Africa, they also reveal the limits to the coercive capacity of the Rhodesian state.

But inside the compounds, the situation was quite different. There, state and industry were much better equipped to deal with problems of

control, and a degree of control which in the countryside would have Worker Responses in a Labour Coercive Economy / 237

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