Introduction
Cheap black labor has been critical to the development and profitability of the South African gold mines since their inception in the 1880s. From the earliest days, the role of that labor has been much discussed. However, it was only in the 1970s that an emerging radical leftist historiography on South Africa first fully described the cheap labor principle that lay at the heart of South African mining capitalism and subjected it to extensive analysis.Footnote 1 This analysis showed that a sustained pattern of labor migrancy under highly exploitative conditions of work and service, which eventually drew in black workers from all over Southern Africa, was the key to the successful exploitation of the relatively low-grade gold ore deposits on the Witwatersrand and continued to be critical to the enormous profits generated by the gold mining companies over succeeding generations.
There have been a number of important scholarly studies of the early history of the migrant labor system in the gold mines of South Africa, beginning with Sheila van der Horst's pioneering study, Native Labour in South Africa, published in 1942 and Francis Wilson's Labour in South Africa's Gold Mines, 1911 to 1969 in 1972.Footnote 2 Frederick Johnstone's Class, Race and Gold (1976) was the first book-length study to look at the subject from a Marxist perspective, while Robert Davies built on Johnstone's work to examine the complicity of white mineworkers in the deal between capital and the South African state, which perpetuated the cheap black labor principle.Footnote 3 Further studies followed from differing ideological perspectives, including works by Yudelman, Jeeves, and Crush.Footnote 4 Several works have looked at labor migrancy from the perspective of those societies that supplied labor to the mines. These include studies on colonial Zimbabwe by Charles van Onselen, on colonial Mozambique by Patrick Harries, Leroy Vail, and Landeg White, and more recently on colonial Malawi by John McCracken.Footnote 5 One important recurring theme in the literature on black labor migrancy in South Africa has been health, particularly the high incidence of crippling respiratory diseases. Important studies in this area include those by Elaine Katz, Randall Packard, and Jock McCulloch.Footnote 6 Packard and McCulloch, in particular, consider the historical construction of the “tropical worker” in the medical debates surrounding the precarious health of African mineworkers in the first half of the twentieth century. The culture and consciousness of migrant workers has been the focus of some of the more recent studies in this area over the past twenty years, including several important works by T. Dunbar Moodie.Footnote 7
Set against this historiographical background, this article examines a seminal episode in the early development of the cheap black labor system in South Africa's gold mines: the introduction, for the first time, of labor recruited from the territory then called British Central Africa (BCA) (later Nyasaland, and, after independence, Malawi). The small group discussed in this article proved to be the pioneers of a major and long-lasting labor migration that would ultimately embrace tens of thousands of their compatriots every year; at its peak in 1970, 78,492 Malawian migrants were reported to be working in gold mines on the Witwatersrand.Footnote 8 Their traumatic experiences had a lasting influence on attitudes among whites in South Africa toward workers from north of the Zambesi, and on the treatment they received in the mines, while also shaping the pattern of labor migration from the region for the generations of migrant workers who followed them.
Labor Shortages in the Mines and the Origins of Recruitment from British Central Africa
The opening of the Witwatersrand Gold Fields in 1886 led to an immediate demand for cheap unskilled labor to mine the gold-bearing ore.Footnote 9 During the 1890s, as the number of mines on the gold fields increased, and as the workings pushed to greater depths, the demand for cheap unskilled labor grew at a phenomenal rate. Within a year of the opening of the gold fields, contingents of Basotho and Zulus had been joined by “Shangaans” from Portuguese East Africa (modern Mozambique)—some of whom had previously worked in the diamond mines in Kimberley or the coal mines in Natal. By 1899, 150 gold mines and 7 coal mines were in operation in the Transvaal, employing 112,000 Africans in a variety of unskilled jobs above and below ground. Remarkably, by that date more than 60 percent of these workers were from Portuguese East Africa.
As Vic Allen explains, bosses preferred to hire the Shangaans because they were easier to isolate and control—especially given the willing assistance of the Portuguese authorities. They were more reliable—that is, less likely to disappear seasonally to tend to crops, and more likely over time to develop the requisite knowledge and skills in mining operations (which meant that mine managers preferred them as “boss boys”). An added bonus was that under the terms of the agreement with the Portuguese authorities of 1895, the Shangaans could not refuse to labor underground—where work was the hardest and most dangerous, and two-thirds of them were not assigned to any specific mine; these provisions gave the mine industry the freedom to send them to any mine where there was a shortfall in the labor supply. From the perspective of the Portuguese authorities in East Africa the arrangement was also highly beneficial; by the late 1890s, revenue from migrant labor had become the single biggest revenue earner for the territory.Footnote 10
The rapidly growing demand of the mining industry for unskilled labor during the 1890s was marked by continual complaints from the Chamber of Mines about labor shortages.Footnote 11 This led to the formation of the Rand Native Labour Association (RNLA) (supported initially by twenty-two mining companies) at the end of 1893; a formal agreement with the Portuguese authorities in March 1895 granted the RNLA the right to recruit labor in Mozambique. Although these measures gave some temporary relief, complaints about shortfalls soon resurfaced. The Chamber of Mines reported 88,000 native laborers on the mines in 1898—an increase of 18,000 over the previous year. However, it estimated the demand at 100,000—an immediate shortfall of 12,000. As the Chamber's Native Labour Committee reported in January 1899, the biggest problem was finding workers willing to work underground:
There is no difficulty with regard to surface boys, who can be readily obtained from the Cape Colony, Bechuanaland, Zululand and Basutoland; but with the increasing demand of companies the scarcity of underground labour is rapidly becoming more and more marked. It is therefore necessary that immediate steps should be taken to get particulars respecting all available sources of supply.Footnote 12
The disruptions of the South African War (1899–1902) led to the suspension of gold production for a time, and a consequent dramatic drop in the demand for labor. Immediately after the war ended and the mines began to crank back into action, mine owners once again faced a serious shortfall in the supply of labor. The problem was compounded by the apparent reluctance of migrants from Zululand and other parts of South Africa to return to the mines.Footnote 13 As a result, the industry admitted to the Transvaal Labour Commission that it was “almost wholly dependent” on labor from Portuguese East Africa to sustain its operations at this time: They made up 88.9 percent of African labor in the mines at the end of January 1903.Footnote 14 In March 1903 a conference of British colonial officials representing all the territories of South Africa resolved, unanimously,
[t]hat this conference, after considering all available statistics and hearing the reports of the highest official authorities of the several States, has come to the conclusion that the native population of South Africa, south of the Zambesi, does not comprise a sufficient number of adult males capable of work to satisfy the normal requirements of the several colonies, and at the same time furnish an adequate amount of labour for the large industrial and mining centres. Under these circumstances, it is evident to the Conference that the opening of new sources of labour supply is requisite in the interest of all the South African States.Footnote 15
As of July 1903, the Transvaal Labour Commission reported 68,280 African unskilled laborers in the mines but estimated that 197,644 were needed to restore the industry to full production—a shortfall of 129,364, while the Chamber of Mines estimated the likely total demand for unskilled labor in order to keep pace with proposed expansion over the next five years would be 368,637.Footnote 16 While these numbers were undoubtedly inflated by the Chamber as part of a strategy to garner uncritical sympathy and support for the industry from the state, they nonetheless made a compelling case for the opening up of new sources of labor.
The Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA)—the new version of the mine owners labor recruitment agency established in 1900—made initial inquiries in the early months of 1903 concerning the possible recruitment of workers from British West Africa, British East Africa, German East Africa, Egypt, Madagascar, Ethiopia and Somaliland, Portuguese West Africa, the Congo Free State, and the Rhodesias. Permission was refused in all cases, generally because the authorities in those territories were concerned about the potentially negative impact on their own labor supply, or because the available labor was not deemed suitable.Footnote 17
Only two authorities granted permission to the WNLA to pursue labor recruitment in their territories—German South West Africa and BCA, but the sparse population of German South West Africa made recruitment there unattractive. In the case of BCA, the failure of rains in the Ruo and Lower Shire districts in early 1903 had left an estimated 20,000 people facing famine. In view of the circumstances, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, approved recruitment of 1,000 men from BCA to work on the Witwatersrand, although he stipulated strict conditions for their employment.Footnote 18
After permission had been received from London, the authorities in Zomba (capital of the Protectorate) decided to restrict recruitment to the Lower Shire and West Nyasa districts since men there were already participating in migrant labor in significant numbers.Footnote 19 While the general terms of the recruitment were fixed by the Native Labour Regulations, it was agreed with the WNLA that each man would be paid two pounds per month for their time on contract in the Transvaal; a further five shillings per month would be paid in the Protectorate for the upkeep of their wives and children; six shillings would be paid per recruit to cover the local hut tax; and the Administration would be paid a fee of ten shillings per man “for services rendered” in the recruitment process. Some effort was made to ensure that the recruits were willing and that they were properly cared for during the journey. As the colonial officer in charge of the recruitment, Major Pearce, explained,
Each native on volunteering will be brought before Judicial Officer, who will satisfy himself that native is thoroughly aware of terms of contract and service, is provided with proper food, clothing, and accommodation by steamer to Chinde. Also, inspection will be made by Vice-Consul at Chinde of natives, and before embarkation is allowed, will satisfy himself that each native has expressed willingness to go on, and that sufficient accommodation and &c. [sic] and passage is provided on ocean line of steamers. Men will be accompanied by European approved by me to Transvaal, where, of course, their inspection, &c, is provided for by Transvaal Government Regulations.Footnote 20
The individual contracts were signed by the men before Donald MacDonald, the magistrate in the Chiromo district, on May 30, 1903.
The British Central Africans on the Rand: The Influenza Epidemic
The first group of 380 men from British Central Africa, all of whom came from the Ruo and Lower Shire districts, left Chinde for Johannesburg on June 10, 1903, in the charge of E. B. Vertue, a local colonial official.Footnote 21 Most were drawn from the Sena people, though about fifty were from other groups. The remainder of the 1,000 recruits was delayed due to lack of sufficient space on the steamer to accommodate them; eventually two more groups left for Johannesburg—one of 350 men on August 11, and another of 88 men in September.
On arrival in Johannesburg on June 17, 1903, the first group was sent to the WNLA compound for medical inspection and to recover from the journey. The District Medical Officer of Health for the Witwatersrand, Dr. Charles Sansom, inspected the men there on the following day: “My general impression of these natives was that their physical type was decidedly good, chest and muscles being well developed; they also seemed good tempered and fairly intelligent, and seemed rather to appreciate the medical examination rather than otherwise.”Footnote 22
One notable observation, given subsequent events, was that he found “more or less complete absence of colds and coughs, considering that these men had only just arrived after a long journey in the cold weather.” However, he was struck by the large number who had teeth that were “decayed and defective” and also reported that 145 of the 380 inspected (38.4 percent) were showing signs of scurvy.
The general condition of the men began to deteriorate dramatically soon after they were marched to the compound of the Robinson Deep Gold Mine to begin work a couple of days later. The reasons for this were obvious. At the time of their arrival, Johannesburg was in the grip of bitterly cold weather, and an influenza epidemic was raging in the compounds. Even if the men had been in good physical condition on arrival, the dramatic change in climate from their home region, located close to sea level in the tropics, to the high elevations of the Rand in winter was bound to have been a shock to their systems. The challenging conditions were compounded by the new and traumatic experience of underground work at Robinson Deep, one of the deepest mines on the Rand. At the end of every shift the men went from the very hot and humid working conditions 2,000 feet below ground to the frigid evening air on the surface, with nothing more than the wet clothes they were wearing. While white miners could enjoy hot showers and a change of clothes, the mine company made no provision of any kind to protect black miners from the cold when they returned to the surface.
It is not surprising that over the next three weeks more than two-thirds of the men (275) fell ill and had to be hospitalized; of these, seventeen died. By the end of August, the death toll from illness had climbed to twenty-three: twenty-one from pneumonia, one from bronchitis, and one from heart failure. Even after the surviving men recovered sufficiently to return to work, it gradually became clear that the epidemic had left a disastrous legacy.
The first intimation of further trouble came on August 10 when Dr. W. H. Brodie reported examining six Africans from the BCA contingent—three in the compound and three in the hospital at Robinson Deep—who complained that they could not see:
With the exception of one with marked eye trouble, there is nothing observable in their eyes from an ordinary inspection to lead one to think they are blind. Eye trouble is however a sequita of the sickness that prevailed and they may not be malingering. Dr. Harger has properly attempted to make them work but without success. I suggested to him that they should be examined by Dr. Napier, the Eye Specialist, with a view to obtaining definite information as to the condition of the eyes. Dr. Harger, however, hesitates on account of the expense, but I think the matter of importance not only with regard to the present and future working of boys so complaining, but also from a scientific point of view.Footnote 23
The mine authorities apparently hoped that the men were malingering or that their condition was temporary. Eventually, however, Dr. Charles Napier, the eye specialist recommended by Brodie, examined them. On October 4, Napier reported seeing sixteen men from the BCA contingent at Robinson Deep who complained of eye problems. He found that ten had signs of inflammation of the optic nerve, while three others had clear damage to the optic nerve:
In all thirteen cases there is considerable loss of vision, varying from inability to count fingers at a distance of two feet to absolute inability to see more than a bright light; all these cases assert that in the dark or below the surface they are quite blind. I recommend that the first thirteen on the list be discharged as for all practical purposes they are blind …Footnote 24
More cases followed. On October 30, Dr. Brodie examined a further thirty-seven men at Robinson Deep complaining of eye problems. Twenty-eight of these had “an affection (sic) of the eyes that renders them incapable of working,” although they were otherwise in good condition. This brought the total number of men incapacitated by eye problems to forty-four. Brodie commented:
They have all been in hospital at one time or another suffering more or less severely from the epidemic sickness that attacked the BCA natives, except two or three who may have had the sickness in a very mild form. It is a fair assumption that the eye infection is a consequence of the illness they were attacked by …Footnote 25
By December, the number of men returned from Robinson Deep to the WNLA compound as unfit for work due to blindness had risen to sixty-two. Dr. Sansom, who had given them their initial medical inspection less than six months earlier, and had seen no evidence of eye problems at that time, found the phenomenon difficult to explain:
I have seen a few cases of similar character in previous epidemics, but never anything like to this extent, which I believe to be almost unique … . (U)ntil some convincing evidence to the contrary is brought forward I am inclined to attribute this unfortunate occurrence to influenza. It is the only explanation I can arrive at. The care and attention received by these natives at the Robinson Deep Compound is highly creditable. Everything suggested to add to their comfort and well-being has been cheerfully carried out.Footnote 26
On December 16, 1903, the WNLA sent sixty men discharged as medically unfit from Robinson Deep home to British Central Africa. A few stragglers followed later, so that ultimately 67 men out of the original contingent of 380 returned “for all practical purposes blind” to the Lower Shire Valley. No further record of their fate has been traced, and there is no record to suggest compensation was ever paid to them by the Chamber of Mines for their permanent incapacity. When added to the 23 deaths from illness at Robinson Deep recorded up to the end of August, this gives a total of at least 90 men out of the original contingent of 380 who were dead or permanently disabled by the end of 1903.
These figures were shocking, even when seen against a background in which—in the six months from November 1902 to April 1903—1,455 African mine workers on the Rand died from disease (including 643 from respiratory diseases), giving an annualized death rate for the Rand as a whole (excluding accidents) of 54.5 per 1,000 workers.Footnote 27 P. H. Ross, a former resident of BCA who had accompanied the men to Johannesburg (although he had not been involved in their recruitment) and who was employed at Robinson Deep to work with the group as an interpreter and acting compound manager, told the Transvaal Labour Commission:
In my opinion, no one with the slightest knowledge of that particular tribe would have thought of bringing them here at this particular time of year … . My opinion is that if these boys had been brought down during the summer they would have a chance to get acclimatized, and when the winter came on they would have been able to withstand the severe weather.Footnote 28
The Strike
Even before the influenza epidemic affected the men, they had struggled to come to terms with the alien environment in which they had been placed. On the morning of Tuesday, June 23, 1903, it was reported by the mine manager at Robinson Deep, J. W. Stubbs, that about 300 men from the British Central African contingent were on strike, having refused to go underground with the morning shift. It was only their second working day at the mine. H. S. Cooke, an inspector from the Native Affairs Department (he later became Chief Native Commissioner for the Witwatersrand), was immediately dispatched to determine the root of the trouble and to persuade the men to return to work. Having introduced himself to the men as a government official, he asked them to appoint two men to speak for them:
This they did, and I was informed by the interpreter that the men nominated were sons of chiefs. It was alleged by them that they had not agreed to work underground, hence the refusal. I then examined the three men who were appointed in B.C.A. as headmen and ascertained from them that the contract made with each native … had been explained to each of them and it will be seen that a certificate to this effect is signed by the Magistrate of Chironde. I therefore came to the conclusion that the plea advanced was not sufficient.Footnote 29
Cooke warned the men of the consequences of refusing to fulfill their contracts—a criminal offense under the Masters and Servants law—and, having appointed the two elected spokesmen as additional “policemen and headmen” for the group, urged them to persuade the men to return to work. He then left, hoping that the matter had been resolved. The following morning, however, he was forced to return to Robinson Deep when the men again refused to go underground. This time he gave them a final warning and resorted to asking each man individually if he refused to work:
I regret to report that eighty-four (84) still remained stubborn and I was compelled to have them brought before the Magistrate of the Native Court by whom they were tried, found guilty and were each sentenced to pay a fine of one pound or undergo fourteen days imprisonment with hard labour.
Cooke was moved to add: “The Natives appeared to me to be lacking in respect for whitemen, to have little discipline and to imperfectly realize that trifling would not be tolerated.”Footnote 30
When the men appeared before the magistrate to answer the charge of failing to fulfill their contracts, all pleaded not guilty. Under questioning from the magistrate (through an interpreter) they insisted that they had never agreed to work underground. The comments recorded below are the only surviving testimony from the men themselves:
Dambo states “We refused to work because we have never worked in a mine before and when we were collected we were not told we had to work under ground. Had we known we should not have agreed.”
Vicenti states “Yesterday we all refused to work below ground, saying we wished to work above. This morning when we saw the police we agreed to work. We did not say we would not go to work. We said we would work, as we saw the police.”
Rorke states “When I was engaged in Central Africa I was engaged to work on the surface not to work in the mine. We therefore refused to work.”
[In response to a question by the Court] “The Government Officer read to us the agreement but we did not understand it.”Footnote 31
The certificate of agreement signed by the magistrate on May 30, at the time of their engagement in British Central Africa had been entered into evidence. It stated,
[T]he native undermentioned has appeared before me, and has satisfied me that he has voluntarily agreed to work for one year for the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, in the Witwatersrand District of the Transvaal Colony, on the conditions indorsed hereon, and that he thoroughly understands the nature and terms of the Contract he has entered into.Footnote 32
No mention was made in the written agreement of the type of work the men would be engaged in. The men were justified, therefore, in claiming that they had not signed an agreement that committed them to working underground. In any event, their conviction for failing to fulfill the contract was not based on the terms of the agreement signed in BCA. It was under the terms of the Masters and Servants legislation extant in the Transvaal that they “did wrongfully and unlawfully refuse to obey the lawful commands of their master, A. Norsworthy, Compound Manager, Robinson Deep Gold Mining Coy.”Footnote 33
Norsworthy, for his part, asserted that the work stoppage had been due to a small number of lazy malcontents—though the depths of his knowledge of the group and the value of his opinion may be doubted in view of the fact that the men had been in his care for only three days:
The Compound Manager, at the conclusion of the case, informed a representative of the Star that most of the boys recently recruited appeared to be quite contented with their lot, but the accused, who were a portion of a number recruited from the Port Herald District, were lazy and discontented, and it was difficult to induce them to work, even in their own country. Footnote 34
Two days after the men had been jailed, Cooke visited them and reported that in his view, they had “learned their lesson.”Footnote 35 He was also concerned that their health would suffer if they remained in jail for long. On his recommendation they were released early and returned to work at Robinson Deep. No further labor unrest was reported during the balance of the group's stay on the Rand.
There is one further twist to this particular tale that casts a different light on the reluctance of the men to go underground. The evidence given by Cooke before the magistrate added a small but significant detail omitted from his later written report: “[T]he Accused now before the Court still refused to work saying it was not in their Agreement to go below ground, one of them saying he was afraid they would die.”Footnote 36 A few weeks later P. H. Ross (the acting compound manager with special responsibility for the group) told the Transvaal Labour Commission that their refusal to go underground had been temporary and a direct reaction to the death of one of their number, who had died (apparently of heart failure) after going underground on their first day working at Robinson Deep:
At first one man died underground suddenly, and thinking they would all die suddenly if they went underground, a scare against underground work was created, but this gradually wore away as they found others went down and returned safely, and when they got to know that it was warmer working underground than on the surface, they all wanted to go below.Footnote 37
The strike contributed to the popular view in the early months of the experiment that the BCA Africans made poor workers. A local industry journal reported:
The recent experiment made on the mine with regard to labour has not been very successful. On Wednesday last some eighty odd of the labourers recruited from Central Africa was escorted by a detachment of mounted police to prison. They would not work, and a similar number out of the 380 recruited were “indisposed.” Both the compound and the hospital are fine buildings, and it is hardly to be thought that these visitors from the north took a violent dislike to the property on this score.Footnote 38
Similarly the Transvaal Labour Commission reported that the manager at Robinson Deep had stated a few weeks later that he found the men from British Central Africa “very unsatisfactory.”Footnote 39
The Robinson Deep Mine Disaster
The grim toll taken on the BCA contingent by influenza was compounded by a steady stream of additional deaths from illness or accidents among their fellows in the months that followed. A report on “Mortality in the South African Mines,” ordered by the British House of Commons in June 1904, noted that deaths from all causes (including accidents) among the British Central Africans on the Rand in the early part of 1904 numbered nine in January, four in February, and four in March.Footnote 40 By this time the number of BCA Africans on the Rand had risen to 751, so it is not clear how many of these additional deaths—if any—occurred among the original contingent at Robinson Deep.
As the anniversary of their recruitment approached in April 1904, the survivors of the group of 380 pioneers at Robinson Deep must have been beginning to think about the journey home. Then on April 25, 1903, disaster struck the group once again. At about 4:30 p.m., as the men were being brought up from the No. 2 Shaft in batches from the workings 2,000 feet below, the winding rope snapped, sending the cage carrying 43 men plunging 1,700 feet to the bottom. A skip containing mined rock was suspended directly above the cage, and plunged down the shaft with it, smashing the cage and the bodies of the men beyond recognition. The carnage was such that the company could not be sure how many men had died until a roll call was taken. Among the forty-three men who died were eighteen of the BCA contingent, seventeen “Shangaans” from Portuguese East Africa, and eight from British South Africa. It was the worst industrial accident ever seen on the Rand.
The initial reaction within the white mining community was relief that no white miners had been killed. As the South African Mines, Commerce and Industries Journal was moved to comment a few days later, “The white miners who ascended the shaft just previously had a lucky escape from a fearful death.”Footnote 41 A week later a test by engineers, as part of the inquiry into the accident, showed that the rope, which had been installed only four and half months earlier, had begun to fray and split apart under a load of 14.5 tons, far below its supposed guaranteed breaking strain of 113 tons. The engineers also found that many of the strands in the rope were damaged or corroded. The Journal commented: “It was a distressing spectacle that might have been met with subsequent popular indignation had white miners been the occupants of the cage … although,” they added thoughtfully, “any life is worth saving at all times.”Footnote 42
It was clear, however, where the loyalties of the white mining community lay in the wake of the accident. Despite the evidence of serious deterioration in the rope, the Journal went on to assert in advance of any findings from the inquiry, that the mine manager at Robinson Deep, J. W. Stubbs, and the engineer in charge of checking the rope, Arthur Freeman, should be excused from any blame since “both are men of high standing, who would not permit carelessness to contribute to accidents, however slight.”
According to the report on the accident by the Chief Inspector of Mines, mine regulations called for daily visual inspection of the winding rope, with more intense inspections on a weekly basis. It emerged that these inspections had been carried out at Robinson Deep, but that Freeman, the chief engineer, had routinely delegated the task to a rigger, Peter Gallagher, assisted by an African named “Canteen.” Their method of inspection had been to allow the rope to wind out very slowly, stopping periodically to clean the grease from a section for a closer visual examination. This had been done on the day before the accident. Neither reported seeing any damage or corrosion that would account for the accident, but in his investigation the Chief Inspector estimated the rope had deteriorated by over 50 percent due to broken strands and corrosion and that this would have been plainly visible if it had been inspected properly. He therefore concluded that there had been a dereliction of duty on the part of the engineer. Nevertheless it was a considerable shock to the white mining community on the Rand when Freeman was held for trial to face forty-three counts of culpable homicide on the grounds of criminal negligence. The manager, Stubbs, was also charged, but with the minor technical offense of ignoring the Transvaal Mine Regulations by failing to ensure the required “Rope Record Book” was being properly kept.
When the case came to trial at the Criminal Sessions in Johannesburg on November 3, 1904, Freeman insisted he had carried out the inspections of the rope as required by the regulations and had seen nothing wrong. Under cross-examination he deviated from his original statement that he had inspected the rope on the day before the accident, but he continued to insist he had not been at fault for failing to detect its deterioration:
He could not swear if he was present at the examination on the 24th, although he signed the book stating he had made a personal inspection. He could swear, however, that he was present at the examination on the 17th. The flat rope that broke was only running four and a half months, and the usual term for such ropes running without breaking was two and a half years … . He differed from the evidence of the other experts, as when the wires were up one could not see how much a strand was worn. All the deterioration escaped his notice, but it was quite possible all the corrosion and wear could have taken place between Sunday and Monday.Footnote 43
Sensing perhaps, that this explanation failed to excuse him of personal culpability, he sought to shift the blame to the inadequacy of the regulations themselves: “He was of the opinion that the thorough examination of the ropes under the regulations was no guarantee for the safety of life. He made the daily and weekly examinations, which he knew were practically useless.Footnote 44
The Defense called several mine engineers from neighboring properties—presumably all close associates of Freeman—who testified, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that the break must have been caused by “a localized internal corrosion” rather than by external wear, and that it would have been impossible for Freeman or Gallagher to have detected this. The Jury, without retiring, returned a verdict of not guilty, and Freeman was discharged.Footnote 45
Meanwhile, news of the accident at Robinson Deep had quickly reached Sir Alfred Sharpe, the colonial administrator in Zomba, who immediately raised the question of compensation. To the secretary of the WNLA he wrote:
This occurrence is much to be regretted. The news of the death of so many natives at one time will have to be conveyed to the relatives, all of whom live in two districts, Ruo and Lower Shire.
I have considered the question of compensation and think that if the Association pay the sum of £5 in each case to the relatives of the deceased workers, this will meet requirements. I beg to request therefore that you will arrange for the sum of £90 being paid to this Administration for the above purpose.Footnote 46
Sharpe was evidently unaware that the Chamber of Mines had some time earlier made an agreement with the mine owners (subsequently approved by the Native Commissioner on the Witwatersrand), that the rate of compensation to be paid for death or permanent disablement of African mine workers should be £35 per man, with half that amount for partial disablement. Nevertheless, the WNLA conveyed Sharpe's request to the Robinson Deep Company, which promptly sent him the amount he had specified. It was only when a question was asked some weeks later in the British House of Commons about the compensation given that the discrepancy was raised with the Chamber of Mines by the Secretary of Mines in the Transvaal. The Chamber's response was that the compensation scheme was intended to apply to residents of British South Africa only, and it refused to ask Robinson Deep to pay more. However, as the Secretary of Native Affairs in the Transvaal pointed out to the Secretary of the Chamber of Mines, the Chamber's own circular on the scheme
… would seem to imply that Natives from foreign territory throughout Africa were regarded as coming within the scheme for compensation … surely it must follow that Natives from British Territory in Africa are entitled to the full advantages of the scheme, when their claims are vouched for by the authorities under whose jurisdiction they are resident.Footnote 47
The correspondence dragged on for almost a year, but in the end no further money was forthcoming. The relatives of the Shangaans who died fared a little better since they were awarded £10 for each man who died, while the families of seven of the eight British South Africans who died also received £10. Ultimately the relatives of just one of the forty-three men who died received the full compensation of £35.
Despite the agreed-upon terms of the compensation scheme, in the aftermath of the Robinson Deep disaster it became clear that compliance could not be enforced because the gold mine companies were not legally obliged to adhere to it. Robinson Deep had balked at meeting the full cost of compensation for so many men at one time, which would have totaled £1,505; in the end the company paid out just £365. Other companies on the Rand followed the lead of Robinson Deep in reducing the compensation paid on their properties, so that the Chamber of Mines was obliged to revise the agreed compensation rate downward to what was considered a more “reasonable” rate of £10 for death or permanent disablement per man.
The Legacy of the 1903 Experiment
It is difficult to be sure exactly how many of the original contingent of 380 men returned home to British Central Africa when their contract period finally came to an end in June 1904; the number is not recorded in the surviving records. However, official figures confirm that at least forty-one had died—twenty-one from pneumonia, one from bronchitis, one from heart failure, and eighteen in the winding rope accident. This gives a death rate for the group as a whole of one in 9.24. In addition, at least sixty-seven had been sent home early as permanently disabled. The number of men who had been killed or permanently disabled was 108 of the original 380.
The grim fate of many of this pioneering cohort from BCA helped to shape official attitudes toward African workers from that region who labored in the South African gold mines for years to come. Randall Packard cogently argues:
Defining the problem of Central African mortality in terms of the inherent susceptibilities of Central African workers involved the social construction or invention of the Central African worker as a distinct social category with particular cultural and biological characteristics that differentiated him from other African workers in the mines. This process of social construction resulted in the invention of the “tropical worker.”Footnote 48
The term “tropical worker,” Packard continues, had emerged from debate about the susceptibilities and utility of workers from Central Africa as “a rhetorical invention”: “[It] emerged at a particular historical moment as part of the mining industry's efforts to define Central African mortality in ways that would limit its financial liabilities, while insuring continued access to this important source of labor.”Footnote 49
While the mine companies were keen to keep their operating costs down, a few practical improvements in the treatment of African mine workers were made. A Committee of Mine Medical Officers, established in early 1903, had already made a number of recommendations for the improvement of the general health of mine workers in a report submitted that June to the Chamber of Mines. Spurred on by the high death rates during the influenza epidemic, including among the BCA contingent, the Chamber of Mines approved the recommendations in September and sent them out to the WNLA and to mine companies for consideration and implementation. In particular it was agreed that future cohorts from the region north of Latitude 20 degrees should be timed to arrive in the summer months, so that the men would have time to acclimatize before winter conditions set in and that they should be held in the WNLA compound for a minimum of ten days before being sent on to individual work assignments, in order to ensure they were in good physical condition and free of infection before entering the mines. It was also recommended that more attention be paid to the clothing the men wore and that changing facilities should be made available on the surface of each mine so that they could change from their wet clothes at the end of their shifts underground. Other recommendations included improvements in the miners' diet and in the administration of mine hospitals. However, since adoption of the recommendations was voluntary, it took years before a majority of the mines had implemented them.Footnote 50
A more general question about the capacity of “tropical Africans” for hard work had been raised with specific reference to the BCA contingent during the Transvaal Labour Commission's meetings in July and August 1903. This was in part due to the men's strike shortly after their arrival, which played into the popular view among whites that “tropical natives” were naturally indolent and, so, not suited to hard manual labor. The Commission heard from several witnesses who supported this view. E. Wilson, who had worked in BCA with the British South Africa Company, told the Commission:
It is a much less rigorous climate in the first place than further south. It is a tropical country, and inhabitants of tropical countries are never as good workers as the inhabitants of temperate countries … I think that most people recognize the fact that people in tropical countries are not the people that are going to do hard work.Footnote 51
Ewart Grogan, a former associate of Cecil Rhodes and self-proclaimed “native expert,” was much more explicitly racist in his views on the subject:
Small needs, warmth and facility of production have combined to produce a creature more indolent even than the South Sea Islander. The cultivation of additional wants and restriction of available land are the only possible influences which will make the negro a worker; and as to wants, drink seems to be the only one that persists … . This indolence, the product of countless ages, cannot be eradicated except by indefinitely sustained necessity of action.Footnote 52
Grogan also opined that in “Central Africa as a whole … 9 out of 10 people were of a ‘lower’ type … more like monkeys than men.”Footnote 53 P. H. Ross (the acting compound manager at Robinson Deep) conceded that the BCA men he had overseen had not worked well in the early days:
The Mine captain at Robinson Deep has told me that these new boys only do about half the work that the other boys do—instead of drilling about three feet of a hole per day, many of the new boys only do one and a half feet of a hole per day, and in fact some of them do no more than six inches.Footnote 54
However, he suggested that it was not fair to compare their productivity with the highly experienced Shangaans:
It is true that the new boys on the Robinson Deep are not doing as much work as the other boys; but most of the older boys have had considerable experience. Many of the Shangaans have been coming to work in the mine here for a considerable time past, and they return and tell the other natives who have not been to the mines, all about the work, so that when new ones of the same tribe come down, they know a great deal about the work before they arrive here, so that it is to be expected they will be able to do good work. It is not fair to compare the work of these new boys with the others. The mine authorities do not expect the same amount of work from new boys as from old ones: but even so, it is a fact that the work so far done by these Central African boys has been disappointing. Personally I am not myself surprised at this; I think that under the circumstances they are doing fairly well. They are undoubtedly lazy as a class. These new boys were principally recruited from the Sena tribe. There are other boys who would, in my opinion, suit the purpose much better.Footnote 55
The “other boys” alluded to by Ross were the “Atongas” from the highlands of British Central Africa, whom he and other witnesses had compared to the Zulus in terms of their supposed superior physiques, temperaments, and fitness for mine labor.Footnote 56 The implication was that the “right sort of native,” even if from a tropical region, could be turned into a productive laborer.
Any doubts about the productivity of the BCA men were soon set aside. The WNLA negotiated a fresh deal with the British authorities in February 1904 to bring another 5,000 men to the Rand from the Protectorate, though the new agreement contained some additional clauses designed to protect the recruits more effectively from the rigors of the climate. By 1911 the number recruited annually from British Central Africa had grown to 25,000. Much to the dismay of the colonial authorities, however, the death rate from disease among these recruits throughout the first decade regularly exceeded 100 per 1,000.Footnote 57 Attempts to find a vaccine that would protect them from pneumonia, predicated on their supposed special susceptibilities, were sponsored by the mine industry from 1911, but the continuing high mortality rate eventually led the government to ban further recruitment from north of Latitude 22 degrees in 1913. This ban remained in place until 1933, when permission was given to begin recruiting again in the territory, starting with a group of 2,000 men.Footnote 58 From that time onward recruitment of labor from the territory grew steadily until it reached a peak in the early 1970s.
Conclusion
Driven by famine and poverty in their home country, the 380 men of the BCA contingent who traveled to work in the South African gold mines in June 1903 were taking a leap into the unknown. Even so, they could not have imagined that more than a quarter of their number would be dead or disabled within a year. Their grim experiences mark the beginning of a history of labor migrancy from colonial Malawi to South Africa in which brutally hard work was accompanied by the real and constant risk of sickness, serious injury, or death. Yet for the mine companies on the Rand, the episode provided all the proof they needed that a supply of workers from this new source could help feed their insatiable appetite for cheap black labor. At the same time, the experiences of these pioneers helped to shape a discourse about the capacities and susceptibilities of “tropical natives” which had implications both for their treatment as workers in the South African mines, and for the measures developed by the colonial administration and the mines to exploit their labor.
