MINING
CAPITALISM
Background to the South
African War
South Africa on the eve of the war
• Britain’s
was motivated by a desire to continue being the most
powerful empire in the world
• Thewealth created from mining could secure this but to mine the
gold they needed: LABOUR
• In1879 the Zulu kingdom came under British control after a
bloody war
• In
1881 the ZAR reacted to the British trying to take over the
Republic and the Boers defeated the British (First Boer War of
Independence)
• During
1884–5, Britain proclaimed Protectorates over Swaziland
and Basutoland
• These events had a huge impact on gold mining in the ZAR and
the gradual breakdown of blacks as independent farmers
Developments in mining and its impact
• In 1886 gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in the ZAR;
it transformed the SA economy
• The mineral revolution led to an industrial revolution
• The majority of the thousands of fortune seekers that came
from all over the world were British, and were known as
uitlanders (foreigners)
• After
a short time there was no room for independent miners,
as the mining had to go down very deep, which needed a lot of
money
• Gold also led to war in South Africa (1899-1902)
• Many features of the apartheid system, job reservation, the
pass system and the migrant labour system developed at this
time
Influx of capital, the development of mining
companies and the stock exchange
• It
was expensive to get the gold out because special
technology was needed to mine so deep underground
• Wealthy
mining capitalists– known as the Randlords – founded
the Chamber of Mines.
• Randlords needed lots of capital for machinery and technology
• Themoney was raised by selling shares on the London Stock
Exchange and…
• In
1887 a stock exchange was established in Johannesburg to
encourage people to invest money in these companies
• Goldmining resulted in major economic developments:
railways, roads, enlarged harbours, shops and banks
Emergence of classes:
capitalists, the middle class and workers
•The area of the Rand developed into the home of
capitalism and industrialist society
•Mining resulted in the following classes being formed:
•Randlords – multi-millionaires; owners of companies; the
bosses
•Middle-class entrepreneurs – people who made their own
living by being builders, craftsmen, lawyers, doctors and
shopkeepers
• Workers had no capital of their own, so they had to work
for other people as wage labourers
• Randlords were multi-
millionaires; owners of
companies; the bosses
• Forexample, John Hays
Hammond (31 March
1855 – 8 June 1936) was
a mining engineer. He
amassed a sizable
fortune before the age of
40. He was an early
advocate of deep mining
and made each
undertaking a financial
success.
• White mineworkers, mainly British – uitlanders
• White ex-tenant Dutch farmers – poor; unskilled; unemployed
because the black workers got all the low-wage, unskilled jobs;
lived in slums
• Black
unskilled workers – compounds were built where the black
mineworkers lived in unhygienic and overcrowded conditions
• Capitalism
is the system in which anyone can make as much
money as they like
• However, the rich often exploit the poor for their own profits.
• Capitalismbecame entrenched in South Africa – rich bosses
exploited workers by paying them low wages
• ‘Racial
capitalism’ emerged when laws were made to prevent
black people from even trying to become educated or skilled
• This kept black people in a life of poverty and subjection
The forming of a migrant labour system
•Theformation of a migrant labour system had deep
and far-reaching repercussions for South Africa
•Taxeswere introduced to force black subsistence
farmers to work on the mines as they needed money
to pay the tax
•Workersfrom rural areas signed contracts to work on
the mines for a fixed number of months (6- to 12-
months)
•They would stay in compounds on the mines
•These were overcrowded, unhygienic and strictly
disciplined (policed), and the food was poor
• Migrantworker compounds regulated labour on mines in South Africa.
The tightly controlled closed compound originated on the diamond
mines of Kimberley and was later replicated on the gold mines. This
labour arrangement, regulated the flow of male workers from rural
homes in homelands to the mines and jobs in urban setting. It generally,
became one of the major cogs in the apartheid state.
•A
recruitment system was also introduced where mine
owners paid people – and sometimes chiefs – to recruit
workers, from as far as Tanzania
•Recruiters
would often lie to the workers about getting
high wages
•The
mining companies worked together to keep the
wages of unskilled workers low
•Men were treated like ‘boys’ on the mines and this led
to a feeling of inferiority and lack of self-worth
•Themining revolution led to a whole way of life being
destroyed
•Theirfamilies stayed behind in the rural areas and had
to cope by themselves
•Families broke up, detribalisation happened, traditional culture
was lost and children grew up without a father
•This pattern of migrants living in town and visiting rural family
homes later became a basis of the system of reserves and
homelands
•Government introduced a pass law system
•All migrant workers had to have a pass stating which mine they
worked for
•This meant they could not move from mine to mine in search of
higher wages
•Blacks had to have passes to work on the mines
•This was a form of racial discrimination – later it was called
apartheid
The map
shows the
partially
self-
governing
areas
(reserves
and
homelands)
in South
Africa
designated
for
particular
indigenous
African
peoples
under the
homelands/ reserves
_._._. boundary former
policy of
apartheid.
The creation of a racially divided
industrial labour force
•After a while some black workers learnt skills
•They were paid lower wages than white skilled miners
(this kept costs low)
•Whiteworkers faced competition from lower-paid
migrant workers and they felt threatened
•Thewhite miners became very insecure when the
blacks got all the low-wage, unskilled jobs
•Theyformed trade unions to protect their rights and
would not allow black workers to join
The legislation of job reservation
•White workers demanded that the government pass laws
to reserve certain jobs on the mines for white workers
•This
is how the system of job reservation started, first on
mines and later in other industries
•Thelegislation of job reservation created structural and
economic security for white workers
•Lawspromoted racial discrimination and forcibly kept the
blacks out of the better jobs, keeping them in poverty
•These racist economic practices were discriminatory and
became a breeding ground for racism that would result in
legalized political discrimination
The responses of African societies to the demand
for labour
•Afterthe destruction of independent chiefdoms, black
resistance along traditional lines ended
•By the late 1890s, the mines were still short of labour
•Therewere several reasons why Africans went to work
on the mines:
•Some went to earn money to buy cattle or guns for
hunting, cloth and other manufactured goods or so
that they could get married
•Some went to earn money to pay the taxes that the
British colonial governments forced them to pay
•Thetaxes had to be paid in cash; After the British
defeated the Zulu many men went to work on the Rand
•Butmany blacks did not want to work on the mines for
low wages
•They still had their land to graze their cattle
•Black
tenant farmers and sharecroppers had a
comfortable life compared to the life on the mines
•Those farmers far from towns managed to avoid the tax
collectors
•Some preferred to do other jobs, building or domestic
work
