The land question in smallholder development in South Africa - Institutional Constraints to Small Farmer Development in Southern Africa - page 175

according to Plaatjie (2005), the indigenous black population was already actively farming
on the land long before 1652 and there were clear links between man and the land as a
productive resource.
Whatever the initial reaction, Wilson and Thompson (1969) recorded in their historical
account of those early days the development of serious tensions between the settlers and the
indigenous population. There was a clear sense of unease at the rate at which land was being
grabbed by the settlers. The first recorded violent conflict over land may have occurred in
1659 when the indigenous population made a serious attempt to chase the settlers out of
their land. This effort proved unsuccessful (Wilson and Thompson, 1969).
Basking in their successful subjugation of the black uprising, the settlers began to make
incursions inland. From the coast, the conquerors radiated northwards and eastwards,
capturing land in areas of present day Kimberley and the Orange Free State. In the course of
the 19 th century, it was no longer in doubt that white presence on the land was a permanent
feature of the South African agricultural scene. Gill (1993) described some of the conflicts
over land that spread into the heartland of the present Free State Province and commonly
known as the Lifaqane wars fought during 1818-1824.
Alongside the aggrandizing land conquests came another major development with
implications for black agricultural participation. This was the discovery of diamonds
and gold in several parts of South Africa where mines were springing up to exploit these
resources. With more discovery and exploitation of these resources, the mining interests
were consolidating and gaining more economic power which attracted more international
investment that facilitated improvements in the conditions at the mines. Expectedly, mine
employment became more attractive. It was also at this time that the Land Banks were
established, from 1907, to concentrate more land in the hands of the white settlers (Murray,
1997). This latter development gradually stripped the African peasant farmers of their
productive resources, turning them into wage earners on white-run large farms or in the
mines (Keegan, 1986; Jeeves and Crush, 1997; Murray, 1997).
With more settled and commercial-oriented agriculture and opening of the mines, wage
employment in both agriculture and mining became important and the period witnessed
a sharp decline in the incidence of raids and inter-group conflicts for which men were
expected to play important defensive/combative roles for their communities. With
considerable spare time at their disposal, the men were naturally attracted to the emerging
opportunities for short-term contractual employment in the construction of rail-roads and
in the diamond and gold mines springing up in South Africa. Kimble (1979), Swallow and
Borris (1988), and Gill (1993) have advanced similar reasons for the decline in agricultural
productivity in neighbouring Lesotho following the boom years as the nineteenth century
drew to a close. Similar spillover effects may have been inevitable in the other countries