[ Home ]

Communication

Natives in the Mission and the government laws

The  pass system was the system of controlling the influx of Blacks to towns.  It is argued that it originated in Johannesburg where there was high rate of migration and later it expanded to Natal.  From an interview which I have conducted with Mr. Khoza who is 68 years old, I found that "in the mission from about 1900 to 1920s the natives were not forced to carry passes.  It was only after the 1922 strike of the mine workers in Johannesburg that men were forced to carry passes. Women were not forced to carry passes in the mission."11

After the 1910 union certain laws were amended so as to control the natives.  In 1913 Land act was amended. People who were within the Mission were not affected by that law but there were people who were uprooted from their places and forced to live near the Mission at Tshelimnyama.  The Mission was powerless to help those people against the government. People were not happy about the Mission for being passive concerning the issue of forced removals, they criticized the Mission as deceiving them. Some critical writers like A.L Balling have claimed that it was time for Black people to unite and fight against the government. They were calling for self identity among Black people but that was only written and put into practice. This shows that Black consciousness Movements started earlier than it is known.People lacked an ideology to deal with the issue, like Steve Biko used the ideology from the African novels and from the American Slogans like 'Black is Beautiful'. A clear example about people lacking ideology was when they invited one of the priest from Marinnhill to advise them about how to approach the government.  What happened was that they during the meeting they wanted to attack the priest as if it was the fault of all the Whites that Blacks were treated so badly.