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Abstract
This paper aims to unpack the dynamics of displacement and the relationship of physical movement to elements of space (i.e. land) and place (or identity), in the Sundays River Valley, near the town of Kirkwood, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It primarily uses the motif of frontiers to cast light on displacement as an ongoing phenomenon and explore the different eras of occupation of land in the Sundays River Valley, from the early nineteenth century until 1970. It relates different layers of belonging and identity to the unfolding of capitalism and apartheid in South Africa. The article argues that ties to land are multiple, contested and based upon dispossession and physical movement rather than upon stability. While such a high degree of contestation of oral evidence in the Sundays River Valley might not give current claimants a detailed legal basis for restitution, it is an academically valuable idea to explore the origins of the inhabitants in the Sundays River Valley – because it can indicate the degree to which local identities are influenced by experiences of disruption and displacement. The paper argues that frontier relationships in the SRV are central in the formation of larger systems of relationships of race and class, and that this casts new light on displacement (both as a historical event and a contemporary experience), in the formation of identity and place in southern Africa.
Acknowledgements
This paper was originally presented at a conference in honour of Martin Legassick at the Red Location Museum in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, during November 2010.
Notes
1. The term ‘Xhosa’ used in this paper refers to the linguistic group of isiXhosa speakers, more commonly expressed as ‘amaXhosa’.
2. The term Xhosa (or amaXhosa) in this paper is used to refer to those diverse groups that may have been associated with the linguistic and general geographical location of ‘Xhosa’ in the Eastern Cape. The Gqunukwebe, for instance, were a mixed Khoi–Xhosa clan that occupied the SRV around 1730, particularly the Sundays, Bushmans and Swartkops Rivers (Mostert Citation1992, 226). Both the Gqunukhwebe and Mbalu occupied the Zuurveld under their chief Ndlambe, who was, in turn, under the protection of Ngqika, high chief of the Rarabe.
3. This area (lit. sourveld), was a well-known frontier region of the old Cape Province, encompassing the former district of Albany, with the SRV along its far western side. Here, like historiographers, I primary use the term to refer to a historical frontier, and use the Sundays River Valley as a contemporary marker of an area that lay within the eastern half of the Zuurveld.
4. The farm Congo's Kraal around the present-day town of Alexandria, refers specifically to the location of Chungwa's territorial base. Maclennan (Citation1986, 58) writes that Chungwa had his ‘Great Place a few miles east of the mouth of the Sundays River’.
5. The most important measure followed by the South African state for land restitution is the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994, which entitles the restitution of rights in land (and property) if dispossessed after 1913 and registered before 1994. A total of 18 land claims were registered in the SRV during 2000, only one claim has been successful thus far.
6. Fieldnotes, May 2002, Kirkwood.
7. Sir Percy Fitzpatrick also wrote the popular Jock of the Bushveld saga, based on his trekking and trade in the old Transvaal and the Kruger National Park.
8. These settlements were De Plaat, Rooidraai, Wesbank, Bonterug (currently Moses Mabida) and Mistkraal. Enon was a mission settlement and is situated on the outskirts of Kirkwood.
9. Quitrent land was a system of land distribution of the erstwhile Dutch administrators of the Cape Colony, which involved the rental of property, with ownership privileges. This was converted into private ownership through the abolition of the quitrent system in 1927.
10. Fieldnotes, June 2003, Kirkwood.
11. Fieldnotes, July 2003, Darlington Dam.
12. These records were sourced from the Eastern Cape archives in Port Elizabeth. See files N9/15/3-2 vol 1, N9/15/3/55 vol 1 & 2, N2/2/2/1 vol 1, N9/15/3-1, vol 7, N9/15/3-21, vol 1, N9/15/3-21 vol 2.
13. Fieldnotes, July and August 2003.
14. Fieldnotes, July and August 2003.
15. A list of land claims in Kirkwood (Land Claims Commission 2000, Port Elizabeth) reflect that two white individuals had lodged land claims for Korhaansdrif and Korhaanspoort in 1995 and 1998: A Mr. Holthausen, and a Ms. Elizabeth Smith. The family of the latter still lives in Kirkwood, but they refused to be interviewed.
16. The Greater Addo Elephant National Park purchased farms in and around the SRV in order to increase the size of the original Addo Elephant National Park, near the town of Addo, to accommodate greater numbers of Cape Elephant. The boundaries of the larger park still need to be consolidated, and farm purchases are ongoing.
17. In the SRV, contract farming positions are increasingly being filled by Zimbabwean migrants, who are willing to work for far less money. According to a survey conducted for the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality in 2006, Zimbabwean migrants made up at least 60% of the workforce in the SRV.