Burning the wheat stacks
Land clearances and agrarian unrest along the Northern Middelburg Frontier, c. 1918-1926
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4603330 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M J Murray (0000-0002-4448-281X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1988 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 74-95 |
| Publication date | 1988-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03057078808708192 |
| OpenAlex | W2075395950 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 13 |
On a single night in late 1924 unknown arsonists burned freshly harvested wheat stacks on the farms of a number of white settlers in the Pokwani area of the northern Middelburg district. This wave of incendiarism that swept this recently settled frontier area of the northeastern Transvaal symbolized in microcosm the ongoing class struggle between white farmers and their farm labourers. Farmers were determined to clear their lands of unwanted African ‘squatting’ households and to impose increasingly onerous terms of ‘labour service’ on those who remained. Local Africans resisted. In the ensuing bitter conflict, some settler‐farmers resorted to chicanery, including impounding of stray livestock, evictions, charging farm labourers with violations of the Masters & Servants laws, and other tactics. Africans responded in turn with work stoppages and slowdowns, petty thievery, and arson. Agrarian capitalism eventually triumphed throughout the South African countryside. Yet in some places, like the Pokwani area of northern Middelburg, Africans were able to purchase arable land from near‐bankrupt white settlers, and hence, at least temporarily, stem the tide of the forward march of capitalism agriculture
Agrarian society · Agriculture · Arable land · Archaeology · Biology · Capitalism · Economic history · Frontier · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Unrest · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · History · Law · South African History and Culture
Economy and society in pre-industrial South Africa
Taste of Freedom
The first two centuries of colonial agriculture in the cape colony
Confrontation, Class Consciousness, and the Labor Process
The Natal Sugar Industry, 1849–1905
Crisis and Catharsis in the Development of Capitalism in South African Agriculture
Hidden struggles in rural South Africa
Holding 'a just balance between white and black
Western Cape farmers and the beginnings of Afrikaner nationalism, 1870-1915
Putting a Plough to the Ground
The Great Fear of 1789; Rural Panic in Revolutionary France
The development of capitalism in South African agriculture
The Dynamics of Rural Accumulation in South Africa
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,05 |
| Citation span | 1989 - 1996 (8) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |