Subalternating Currents

Compared to other themes, there is very little written about Africa's electrification history. This neglect has led one scholar to claim that, outside South Africa, electricity only emerged in sub-Saharan Africa towards the end of the first half of the twentieth century. Nothing is further from the truth. This article demonstrates that public electricity supplies became available in Bulawayo, colonial Zimbabwe's second largest city, as early as 1897 and subsequently developed to become the major source of power and lighting for industries and homes by the 1930s. The article has two major thrusts; first, it traces how the Bulawayo Town Council nurtured home electrical mechanisation by subsidising both electricity consumption and the purchase of electrical home appliances. Second, it demonstrates that this electrical modernisation was a parochial project that benefited white settler residents of the town almost to the total exclusion of Africans. It concludes that, while electricity was a luxury enjoyed by those who were privileged to use it, the town council also harnessed it to control and police the underprivileged in a way that accentuated racial segregation in the town. * This article originates from my MA thesis: 'Electrification, Urbanization and Social Inequality in Southern Rhodesia: The Case of Bulawayo, 1894–1945', Dalhousie University, September 2004. I presented an earlier version of it to the Dalhousie 'History across the Disciplines' Graduate Conference, 13 March 2005. I thank the Killam Memorial Scholarship Trusts and the IEEE, Rutgers University, for co-funding the research. Many colleagues, including Phil Zachernuk and Max Zhira, commented on various versions of the paper. Thanks to Glen Ncube for help with the research. I am equally indebted to the three anonymous referees for their crucial comments on an earlier version of this article and to David Simon for his editorial input. Notes * This article originates from my MA thesis: 'Electrification, Urbanization and Social Inequality in Southern Rhodesia: The Case of Bulawayo, 1894–1945', Dalhousie University, September 2004. I presented an earlier version of it to the Dalhousie 'History across the Disciplines' Graduate Conference, 13 March 2005. I thank the Killam Memorial Scholarship Trusts and the IEEE, Rutgers University, for co-funding the research. Many colleagues, including Phil Zachernuk and Max Zhira, commented on various versions of the paper. Thanks to Glen Ncube for help with the research. I am equally indebted to the three anonymous referees for their crucial comments on an earlier version of this article and to David Simon for his editorial input. 1 C. Coquery-Vidrovitch, 'Electricity Networks in Africa: A Comparative Study, or How to Write Social History from Economic Sources', in T. Falola and C. Jennings (eds), Sources and Methods in African History: Spoken, Written, Unearthed (Rochester, Rochester University Press, 2003), p. 350. 2 Chikowero, 'Electrification, Urbanization and Social Inequality', Chapter 3: Electricity and Industrialization. 3 M.W. Swanson, 'The Sanitation Syndrome: Bubonic Plague and Urban Native Policy in the Cape Colony, 1900–09', in W. Beinart and S. Dubow (eds), Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa (London and New York, Routledge, 1995), pp. 25–42. 4 M.J. Bouman, 'Luxury and Control: The Urbanity of Street Lighting in Nineteenth Century Cities', Journal of Urban History, 14, 1 (November 1987), pp. 7–37. 5 National Archives of Zimbabwe (hereafter NAZ), S/BU. 257, Mayor's Minute, 31 July 1928. 6 National Archives of Zimbabwe (hereafter NAZ), S/BU. 257, Mayor's Minute, 31 July 1928 7 National Archives of Zimbabwe (hereafter NAZ), S/BU. 257, Mayor's Minute, 31 July 1928 8 NAZ, S/BU.257, Town Electrical Engineer's Report, 30 June 1928. 9 NAZ, S/BU.257, Town Electrical Engineer's Report, 30 June 1930. 10 Bulawayo Chronicle, 1 September 1939. 11 NAZ, S/BU. 257, Mayor's Minute, 31 July 1928. Note that the window lighting figure is for 1928; it was subsequently lowered over time, in line with the general tariff policy. 12 Rhodesia Herald, 'Light Used as Decoration: Achieving a New Beauty in the Home', 27 February 1936. Material for the next two paragraphs, except where otherwise stated, is derived from this source. 13 NAZ, GEN/BAS, C.H. Baskerville, The Development and Use of Electrical Power in Southern Rhodesia for Industrial and Domestic Purposes with Special Reference to Electric Power, 1928, p. 4. 14 Rhodesia Herald, 5 March 1936. 15 Rhodesia Herald, 6 April 1923. 16 For developments in Chicago, see H. L. Platt, The Electric City: Energy and the Growth of the Chicago Area, 1880–1930 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 153. 17 Rhodesia Herald, 'The Benefits of the Electrical Larder: The Refrigerator Keeps Food Fresh', 27 February 1936. 20 Rhodesia Herald, 'The World Over ... Moffat Electric Ranges Win Approval', 27 February 1936 22 D.S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 289. 18 Rhodesia Herald, 'Comfort in the Kitchen', 8 June 1923. 19 Rhodesia Herald, 'The World Over ... Moffat Electric Ranges Win Approval', 27 February 1936. 21 Rhodesia Herald, 'The World Over ... Moffat Electric Ranges Win Approval', 27 February 1936 23 Rhodesia Herald, 27 February 1936. 24 Predictably, Southern Rhodesia's industrial development suffered heavily until the Second World War, due to this commercial domination by its more developed southern neighbour. For details on these trade relations, see I. Phimister, 'From Preference to Protection: Manufacturing in Southern Rhodesia, 1940–1960', in A.S. Mlambo, E.S. Pangeti and I. Phimister (eds), Zimbabwe: A History of Manufacturing, 1890–1995 (Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications, 2000). 25 NAZ, GEN-P/BUL, Municipality of Bulawayo (Electricity Department), Tariff of Charges for the Supply of Electricity, July 1939. 26 NAZ, GEN-P/BUL, Municipality of Bulawayo (Electricity Department), Tariff of Charges for the Supply of Electricity, July 1939 27 NAZ, S/BU, 257, Mayor's Minute, 31 July 1932. 28 NAZ, S/BU, 257, Mayor's Minute, 31 July 1932 29 R.C. Tobey, Technology as Freedom: The New Deal and the Electrical Modernization of the American Home (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1996), p. 111. 30 R.C. Tobey, Technology as Freedom: The New Deal and the Electrical Modernization of the American Home (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1996), p. 111 31 NAZ, S/BU 257, Electrical Engineer's Report, 30 June 1930. 35 NAZ, GEN/BAS, Baskerville, The Development and Use of Power, p. 4. 32 Tobey, Technology as Freedom, p. 139. 33 A. De Leon, Racial Frontiers: Africans, Chinese, and Mexicans in Western America, 1848–1890 (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 2002), p. 66. 34 Tobey, Technology as Freedom, p. 139. 36 C. Leys, European Politics in Southern Rhodesia (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1959), p. 84. 37 A.B. Sibson, Report on Connections in Peri-Urban Areas, 13 March 1945. 38 Platt, The Electric City, p. 267. 39 This was, in effect, the founding myth of Rhodesia, credited to Rhodes himself. See D. Kennedy, Islands of White: Settler Society and Culture in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1939 (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1987). 40 Coquery-Vidrovitch, 'Electricity Networks in Africa', pp. 346–60. 41 Leys, European Politics, p. 84. 45 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Mr. Perry (Town Treasurer), Evidence to the Jackson Commission. 42 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Mr. Perry (Town Treasurer), Evidence to the Jackson Commission, January 1930. Appointed by the government as a standing commission on Native Affairs, the Jackson Commission's first (and ill-fatedly last) task was to investigate the mismanagement of the Bulawayo Location. Without directly focusing thereon, the commission gathered much evidence that related to the disturbances that had taken place in Makokoba in December 1929, when Africans rampaged through the location, destroying property and assaulting people. Evidence to this commission (collected from African leaders and individuals and colonial officials) dwelt on, inter alia, low wages paid to Africans, the destruction of their houses by the council in the name of urban renewal, the poor state of council houses, lack of facilities, and the general oppression the residents suffered. This evidence sheds important light on the council's electrification policy. 43 S. Mlambo, 'Makokoba: Population in an African Township', B.A. Project, Geography Department, University of Rhodesia, 1971, p. 5. 44 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, C.M. Harris, Evidence to the Jackson Commission. Harris was a councillor, and he later became mayor in the 1930s. 46 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Mr. Perry (Town Treasurer), Evidence to the Jackson Commission 47 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Evidence of Madhlinga to the Jackson Commission, c/o Mines Office, Bulawayo (emphasis mine). 48 F.T. Chiweshe, 'Provision of Housing', 26; I. Phimister and C. van Onselen, 'The Political Economy of Tribal Animosity: A Case Study of the 1929 Bulawayo Location "Faction Fight''', Journal of Southern African Studies, 6, 1 (1979), p. 19. 51 Leys, European Politics, p. 19. 49 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Reverend Mtahwelo (Superintendent of the African Methodist Episcopal Church for Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and Bechuanaland and President Elder for Bulawayo), Evidence to the Jackson Commission. This commission report apparently misspells the reverend's name, which should be Mtshwelo, which I use in my text while I retain the source as it is. 50 NAZ, GEN-P/FED, Federation of Rhodesian Industries, Survey of Rhodesian Industry: First Interim Report, February 1954. 52 E. Mlambo, Rhodesia: The Struggle for a Birthright (London, C. Hurst and Company, 1972), p. 58. 53 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Peter Mufla, Evidence to the Jackson Commission. 54 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Colonel C.L. Carbutt (Superintendent of Natives), Evidence to the Jackson Commission. 55 In fact, until the late 1930s (when labour requirements forced a gradual rethink of African urbanisation policy to accommodate Africans), the country's municipalities and the central government were locked in a perennial argument over who, between the two levels of government, had the responsibility to provide urban Africans with accommodation. Needless to say, no similar question arose with regard to white settlers' accommodation. See Mlambo, Struggle for a Birthright, p. 57. 56 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Mayor H. Peard, Evidence to the Jackson Commission. 57 NAZ, S/BU., 257, Bulawayo Mayor's Minutes, 30 June 1916. 58 N. Parsons, King Khama, Emperor Joe and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain through African Eyes (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 161–2. 59 A. Toporkov, 'The Devil's Candle? Street Lighting', History Today, 11, 46 (November 1996), p. 34. 60 O. Ransford, Bulawayo: Historic Battleground of Rhodesia (Cape Town, Balkema, 1966), p. 136. 61 Bulawayo Chronicle, 3 November 1897. 62 Most aspiring African elites resented the location so much that they opted to 'squat' on surrounding farms or in distant Hyde Park. 63 NAZ, A3/26/8/2, The Municipality of Bulawayo, 'Electric Light and Power Regulations', 1898. 64 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Thornton, Evidence. 65 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Thornton, Evidence 66 Such living conditions were indeed not peculiar to Makokoba, but were a common feature of African locations throughout the country. See C. Masakure, '"An Unfulfilled Step": An Examination of the Commission to Investigate the Socio-Economic Conditions of Africans Employed in Urban Areas, 1944' (BA Thesis, Economic History Department, University of Zimbabwe, May 2001), p. 13. 67 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Reverend G.H.B. Sketchley, Pastor-in-Charge of the Wesleyan Church, Bulawayo, Evidence. 68 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Thornton, Evidence. 71 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Peter Mufla, Evidence to the Jackson Commission. 69 NAZ, ZAN, 1/1/1, Evidence by Dakamela to the Jackson Commission, 1930. 70 Quoted in F.T. Chiweshe, 'Provision of Housing', p. 21. While appointing a string of theatrical commissions and committees of inquiry whose recommendations they mostly ignored, colonial administrations continually turned a blind eye to the deteriorating standards of living in areas designated for Africans in the towns. 72 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Mtahwelo, Evidence to the Jackson Commission. 73 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Thornton, Evidence to the Jackson Commission. 74 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Thornton, Evidence to the Jackson Commission 75 Rodwell Commission, quoted in T. Chiweshe, 'Provision of Housing', p. 22. In the same report, this commission had earlier expressed satisfaction with sanitary conditions in the Location. 76 Thornton, Evidence. 77 S.J. Maitland, 'Progress Illuminating the World: Street Lighting in Santiago, Valparaiso, and La Plata, 1840–90', Urban History, 29, 2 (2002), p. 232. For similar themes in the electrification of South Africa, see R. Christie, Electricity, Industry and Class (Albany, NY, State University of New York State, 1984). 78 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Perry, Evidence. 79 The British Indian Society accused these location Asiatics of 'degrading' their breed by mixing with Africans: NAZ, ZAN, British Indian Society, Evidence to the Jackson Commission. 80 M. West, The Rise of an African Middle Class: Colonial Zimbabwe, 1898–1965 (Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 149. West rightly designates these individuals as aspiring elites because of their shared middle class aspirations. Their dreams were perennially frustrated by legal and extra-legal measures so that their aspirations had little, if any, material correspondence. As Major Brundell noted, most of them could not afford the rent in the much better Luveve Village Settlement, opened by government in 1935. Rather, they preferred to live as 'squatters' on alienated farms. They were clearly caught between a rock and a hard place because, Brundell pointed out, 'the conditions in the Location go far towards precluding natives of respectable type from living [there]': NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Major Brundell (Chief Inspector, Criminal Investigation Department), Bulawayo, Evidence to the Jackson Commission. The invocation of the Land Apportionment Act after the 1930s, however, compelled most of them to move into the new location. 81 Further research should identify some of the few individuals who occupied the electrified cottages and determine their perceptions and relations with the deprived majority, as well as also providing important comparative aspects with other towns such as Salisbury. 82 The 1930 Commission's inquiry into the affairs of the Native Department resulted in the arrest of the Location Superintendent on charges of embezzlement of revenue from the brewery. It discovered that over 17 years, the Location had generated £74,556 through beer sales, rents, fines, etc., and that only £35,306 had been spent on projects and the rest unaccounted for. Residents had also complained of occasional harassment, unfair evictions and extortion of fines at the hands of the Superintendent – see Masakure, 'Unfulfilled Step', p. 13. The municipal beer hall was a characteristic feature of colonial African locations, and in ways that unmask the ugly face of the colonial 'development' ideology, this institution invariably constituted the principal source of funds for African housing and facilities' development – see J. Crush and C. Ambler (eds), Liquor and Labour in Southern Africa (Athens, OH, Ohio University Press, 1992). 83 E. Msindo, 'Ethnicity, not Class? The 1929 Bulawayo Faction Fights Reconsidered', JSAS, 32, 3 (2006), pp. 429–47; T.O. Ranger, 'The Meaning of Urban Violence in Africa: Bulawayo, Southern Africa, 1890–1960', Journal of Social and Cultural History, 3, 2 (April 2006), pp. 193–228. 84 Phimister and van Onselen, 'The Political Economy', p. 8; J.R. Hooker, 'The African Worker in Southern Rhodesia: Black Aspirations in a White Economy 1927–1936', Race, 6 (1964), p. 147. 87 ICU, quoted in Phimister and van Onselen, 'The Political Economy', p. 19. 85 The ICU – Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union – was one of the earliest activist labour-cum-political movements to emerge in southern Africa. 86 See also T. Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia 1898–1930 (London, Heinemann Educational, 1970). 88 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Perry, Evidence. 89 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Colonel C.L. Carbutt, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, Evidence. Water was not piped into the individual cottages, but, like other facilities, it was provided by means of a communal tap. 90 Bulawayo Chronicle, 4 January 1930. 91 NAZ, BR501, E. Ross Townsend, Report of the Civil Commissioner of Bulawayo, 30 September 1896. 92 Dark streets were by no means abodes of polite society for Africans. Indeed, in the late 1920s, location residents increasingly blamed many incidents of violent crimes on 'spivs' who had allegedly learnt their vice in the more volatile ghettos of South Africa – see Phimister and van Onselen, 'The Political Economy', p. 23. 93 M. Ndhlovu, quoted in Ranger, African Voice, p. 158. 94 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Major Brundell, Evidence. 95 This consisted of hysterical panics instigated by white men alleging – in a country where consorting across the racial divide was criminalised – that black men were sexually assaulting white women. Attracting capital punishment, 'black peril' allegations easily stuck to any African male accused of attacking white women, even where evidence suggested petty thievery, common burglary, or even accidental innocent contact – see, for example, J. McCullock, Black Peril, White Virtue: Sexual Crime in Southern Rhodesia, 1902–1935 (Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2000). 96 Rhodesia Herald, 'Electric Light', 8 January 1903. 97 Bouman, 'Luxury and Control', p. 17 (emphasis mine). 99 R.C. Tredgold, The Rhodesia that was my Life (London, Allen and Unwin, 1969)), pp. 159–60. 98 Isobel MacCalman, Interview with Mark Ncube, 1983. 100 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Mandunweni, Evidence. 101 For Mamdani's usage of the phrase, see his Citizen and Subject: Decentralized Despotism and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 218. 102 W.W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971). Rostow argued that, in the development process, the backward portions of the world would also benefit through the 'trickle down effects' as the process reached 'the stage of mass consumption' in the industrialising parts of the world. Rostow completely ignored the inherently parochial and exploitative nature of capitalist development, especially under colonial domination. 104 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Mbane, Evidence. Electrical modernisation certainly relieved white housewives who could afford electrical appliances. However, because they had access to cheap domestic help from Africans, they had never really been saddled with house chores as were their African counterparts. Overall, electrical modernisation reinforced the conservative gender ideals; for instance, it targeted housewives in a way that masked the place of African (mostly male) domestic servants in white homes. 103 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Madhlinga, Evidence. 105 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Mtahwelo, Evidence. 106 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Major Brundell, Evidence. 107 NAZ, ZAN 1/1/1, Mayor H. Peard, Evidence (emphasis mine). 108 W. Rayner, The Tribe and its Successors: An Account of African Traditional Life and European Settlement in Southern Rhodesia (New York, Praeger, 1972), p. 203 (emphasis mine). 109 W. Rayner, The Tribe and its Successors: An Account of African Traditional Life and European Settlement in Southern Rhodesia (New York, Praeger, 1972), p. 203 (emphasis mine)

Colonialism · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Electricity · Electrification · Modernization theory · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Engineering · History · Law · South African History and Culture

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