Scalar Claims, Worker Strategies, and ‘South Africa’s Labour Empire’ in Namibia, 1943–1979

Abstract

This article seeks to place Namibia’s contract labour system, and those whose lives it shaped, in histories of labour migration and South African empire-building in southern Africa. In order to do so, it traces South African and South West African (SWA) officials’ attempts to re-scale a trans-colonial migrant labour system to fit nominally decolonised, national scales. Secondly, it examines how African contestations of state power on a municipal scale undermined officials’ scalar projects. In asserting a transnational zone of migrant labour recruitment that straddled the SWA–Angola boundary and articulated with the sprawling recruitment networks of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA), the SWA Native Labour Association (SWANLA) laid claim to the same scale of practice as recruiters for the Rand mines. Labour shortages in SWA and South Africa in the 1950s led then Minister of Native Affairs Hendrik Verwoerd to place the ‘controlled bringing in and sending away’ of foreign Africans at the centre of South Africa’s labour empire. In the 1960s, in response to African migration and international pressures, South African and SWA officials sought to replace SWANLA with a territory-wide labour bureau system, run partly out of bantustan governments, that would support claims of decolonisation through ‘separate development’. The article then examines African engagements with urban influx control infrastructures and practices on a small scale, in the port and fishing town of Walvis Bay. Whether leveraging house rental payments as a promise of secure urban tenure or using beer to escape infrastructural ties to the state, African Walvis Bay residents emphasised the importance of the urban scale in the colonial exercise of power. Since these contestations had African urbanisation at their core, they proved the lie of bantustans as the physical and political homes of essentially rural Africans.

Keywords:

• influx control
• infrastructure
• migrant labour
• Namibia
• scale
• South Africa’s labour empire

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those who offered comments during various stages of research and writing: Ian Phimister, Richard Roberts, James Campbell, Gabrielle Hecht, Bernard C. Moore, William B. Lyon, Kai F. Herzog, participants in the 2018 Double Colonialism in Namibia conference in Bloomington, participants in seminars at the International Studies Group and the University of Hamburg history department, and three anonymous reviewers. I am also grateful to the JSAS editorial board for their support of this special issue.

Notes

1 National Archives of Namibia (hereafter NAN) BAC 202 10/3/2, Windhoek Bantu Affairs Commissioner (BAC) to Chief Bantu Affairs Commissioner (CBAC), 5 June 1970.

2 NAN BAC 202 10/3/2, Mathias David verklaring [statement], 26 May 1970.

3 NAN BAC 202 10/3/2, Joseph Abel verklaring, 2 June 1970.

4 NAN BAC 202 10/3/2, Josef Andreas verklaring, 3 June 1970.

5 NAN BAC 202 10/3/2, Fikameni Jeremias verklaring, 3 July 1970.

6 D. Henrichsen, G. Miescher, C. Rassool and L. Rizzo, ‘Rethinking Empire in Southern Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 3 (2015), pp. 431–5. To avoid tacitly legitimating colonialism in south-western Africa, I will use ‘SWA’ when referring to colonial officials or policies enacted before the coinage and international adoption of the country’s current name in the 1960s, and ‘Namibia’ in other cases.

7 J. Crush, A. Jeeves and D. Yudelman, South Africa’s Labour Empire: A History of Black Migrancy to the Gold Mines (Boulder, Westview, 1991); B. Paton, Labour Export Policy in the Development of Southern Africa (Harare, University of Zimbabwe, 1995).

8 Crush et al., South Africa’s Labour Empire.

9 A. Byerley, ‘The Rise of the Compound–Hostel–Location Assemblage as Infrastructure of South African Colonial Power: The Case of Walvis Bay, 1915–60’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 3 (2015), pp. 519–39; G. Miescher, ‘The NE 51 Series Frontier: The Grand Narrative of Apartheid Planning and the Small Town’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 3 (2015), pp. 561–80. Byerley and Miescher both examine the impact of migrant labour policy on a local scale. The territorial and regional scales are missing, and they provide important context for the local dynamics that they examine.

10 For an overview, see E. Summerson Carr and M. Lempert (eds), Scale: Discourse and Dimensions of Social Life (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2016); A. Moore, ‘Rethinking Scale as a Geographical Category: From Analysis to Practice’, Progress in Human Geography, 32, 2 (2008), pp. 203–35.

11 G. Hecht, ‘Interscalar Vehicles for an African Anthropocene: On Waste, Temporality, and Violence’, Cultural Anthropology, 33, 1 (2018), p. 116.

12 Carr and Lempert (eds), Scale, p. 3.

13 See, for instance: B. Struck, K. Ferris and J. Revel, ‘Introduction: Space and Scale in Transnational History’, International History Review, 33, 4 (2011), pp. 573–84; J-P.A. Ghobrial, ‘Introduction: Seeing the World Like a Microhistorian’, Past and Present, 242, S14 (2019), pp. 1–22. This approach is not new to African labour history. As Frederick Cooper wrote in 1987, ‘[t]he local may be more than a case study of global processes or an indication of their universal power; the local and the peripheral may in some ways shape the global’, F. Cooper, On the African Waterfront: Urban Disorder and the Transformation of Work in Colonial Mombasa (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987), p. 250.

14 On infrastructure as a carrier of politics in southern Africa, see: A. von Schnitzler, Democracy’s Infrastructure: Techno-Politics and Protest After Apartheid (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2016); M. Musemwa, ‘Disciplining a “Dissident” City: Hydropolitics in the City of Bulawayo, Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, 1980–94’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 32, 2 (2006), pp. 239–54.

15 D. Simon, ‘Desegregation in Namibia: The Demise of Urban Apartheid?’, Geoforum, 17, 2 (1986), p. 289.

16 P. Katjavivi, History of Resistance in Namibia (Paris, UNESCO Press, 1988), p. 69; J. Kane-Berman, Contract Labour in South West Africa (Johannesburg, South African Institute of Race Relations, 1972), p. 7; M. Wallace with J. Kinahan, A History of Namibia: From the Beginning to 1990 (New York, Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 275–6; K. Likuwa and N. Shiweda, ‘Okaholo: Contract Labour System and Lessons for Post-Colonial Namibia’, Mgbakoigba: Journal of African Studies, 6, 2 (2017), p. 42; R. Moorsom, ‘Labour Consciousness and the 1971–72 Contract Workers’ Strike in Namibia’, Development and Change, 10, 2 (1979), pp. 205–31; G. Bauer, Labour and Democracy in Namibia, 1971–96 (Athens, Ohio University Press, 1998).

17 For instance: B.G. Nkhoma, ‘Competition for Malawian Labourers: “Wenela” and “Mthandizi” in Ntcheu District, 1935–56’, Malawi Journal of Social Sciences, 21 (2012), pp. 27–44; A. Daimon, ‘Settling in Motion: Nyasa Clandestine Migration Through Southern Rhodesia Into the Union of South Africa, 1920s–50s’, WIDER Working Paper, 2018/41 (2018).

18 A.D. Cooper, ‘The Institutionalisation of Contract Labour in Namibia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 25,1 (1999), p. 137; R. Moorsom, ‘Underdevelopment, Contract Labour and Worker Consciousness in Namibia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 4, 1 (1977), p. 75; B. Kangumu, Contesting Caprivi: A History of Colonial Isolation and Regional Nationalism in Namibia (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2011), pp. 133–44.

19 NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, CNC to Secretary Native Affairs, 5 September 1939; NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, Secretary of Native Affairs to Secretary for SWA, 21 September 1939.

20 NAN SWAA 2463 A521.87, Transvaal Chamber of Mines to Department of Native Affairs, 30 October 1939; NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, CNC to Secretary Native Affairs, 10 November 1939.

21 NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, WNLA General Manager to Secretary Native Affairs, 17 November 1939; NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, CNC to Secretary Native Affairs, 10 November 1939.

22 NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, WNLA General Manager to Secretary Native Affairs, 17 November 1939.

23 NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, NLO to CNC, 29 March 1941.

24 NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, Secretary of SWA to Secretary Prime Minister, 18 April 1941; NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, Secretary Native Affairs to Secretary Lands, 14 June 1941; NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, Secretary of SWA to Manager Associated Manganese Mines of South Africa, 3 July 1941; NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, Associated Manganese Mines of South Africa to Messrs. Theron and Company, 20 September 1941.

25 NAN SWAA 2426 A521–26 vol. 5, ‘Minutes of a Conference Held at Windhoek on the 24th April, 1942, Between Representatives of the Northern Labour Organisation and the Lüderitz Chamber of Mines’.

26 NAN SWAA 2426 A.521–26 vol. 5, WNLA General Manager (Tropical Areas) to SWANLA Secretary, 15 February 1945; NAN SWAA 2426 A521–26 vol. 5, SWANLA Secretary to CNC, 17 August 1944; NAN SWAA 2467 A521/103, ‘Report of the SWA Native Labourer’s Commission, 1945–48’, p. 49.

27 NAN SWAA 2426 A.521–26 vol. 7, SWANLA, ‘Report on Period 1st January 1949 to 30th June 1950’, 30 December 1950; NAN SWAA 2426 A.521–26 vol. 7, SWANLA, ‘Meeting at Windhoek on 18th September, 1950’, 4 October 1950.

28 G. Miescher, Namibia’s Red Line: The History of a Veterinary and Settlement Border (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 137–76.

29 NASA NTS 2056 89/280, Secretary of Native Affairs to Secretary of the Administration of SWA, 16 March 1954.

30 Eliaser Tuhadeleni recalled, ‘[w]e signed up for any job as contract workers, hoping for good returns for our labour’. E.N. Namhila, Kaxumba KaNdola, Man and Myth: The Biography of a Barefoot Soldier (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2005), p. 9.

31 Namhila, Kaxumba KaNdola, p. 11; K.P. Nathanael, A Journey to Exile: The Story of a Namibian Freedom Fighter (Windhoek, Martial Publishing, 2017), pp. 6–7; V. Ndadi with D. Mercer, Breaking Contract: The Story of Vinnia Ndadi (Richmond, LSM Press, 1974), pp. 22–3.

32 NAN SWAA 2467 A521/103, ‘Report of the SWA Native Labourers Commission, 1945–7’, p. 45.

33 NAN SWAA 2426 A521/26 vol. 7, SWANLA, ‘Memorandum Submitted to the Administration of South West Africa’, 7 January 1949.

34 J. Ball, ‘Colonial Labour in Twentieth-Century Angola’, History Compass, 3, 1 (2005), pp. 1–9; A. Keese, ‘Developmentalist Attitudes and Old Habits: Portuguese Labour Policies, South African Rivalry, and Flight in Southern Angola, 1945–74’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 2 (2015), pp. 237–53.

35 NAN SWAA 2426 A.521–26 vol. 7, SWANLA, ‘Report on Period 1st January 1949 to 30th June 1950’, 30 December 1950; NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, SWANLA Manager to CNC, 7 December 1954; NAN SWAA 2463 A521/87, Native Commissioner, Ondangwa, to CNC, 17 December 1954. SWANLA staff believed that recruits rejected from mining or industrial contracts sought work in Angola, headed to WNLA or waited to re-offer their labour in hope of getting a better contract.

36 B.C. Moore, ‘Smuggled Sheep, Smuggled Shepherds: Farm Labour Transformations in Namibia and the Question of Southern Angola, 1933–1975’, elsewhere in this issue.

37 NASA NTS 2056 89/280, H.J. Brits to the Secretary of SWA, 28 April 1955; NASA NTS 2056 89/280, A.J. Smith to the Secretary for the Minister of Native Affairs, 16 February 1955; NASA NTS 2056 89/280, B.S. Vogelbruck to the Office of Native Affairs, 16 May 1955.

38 NASA NTS 2055 89/280, Director Native Labour to the Undersecretary White Areas, 7 July 1955.

39 NASA NTS 2056 89/280, Roberts Construction Company Transvaal Manager to the Director of Native Labour, ‘Re: Native Labour for South West Africa’, 2 August 1954; NAN NTS 2056 89/280, Roberts Construction Company Transvaal Manager to Secretary of Native Affairs, ‘Re: Construction Work in South West Africa’, 4 November 1954.

40 NASA NTS 2056 89/280, Fish Processing Factories’ Consultative to the Minister of Labour, 6 June 1955.

41 Ibid.; NASA NTS 2056 89/280, Lurie’s Canning Factory, African Canning Company, and Lüderitz Bay Cannery to Department of Native Affairs, Windhoek, ‘Insake Arbeidsbehoeftes: Kreeffabrieke Lüderitz’, 11 October 1955.

42 NASA NTS 2056 89/280, Minister of Native Affairs to the Secretary of Native Affairs, Minister of Native Affairs to the Secretary of Native Affairs, c.March 1955.

43 NASA NTS 2056 89/280, H.F. Verwoerd to the Minister Economic and Mining Affairs, copied to Japie Basson, 17 October 1955.

44 NASA NTS 2056 89/280, Minister of Native Affairs to the Secretary of Native Affairs, c.March 1955.

45 NASA NTS 2056 89/280, H.F. Verwoerd to the Minister of Economic Affairs and Mining, 29 September 1955.

46 NASA NTS 2056 89/280, H.F. Verwoerd to the Minister of Economic Affairs, 7 October 1955.

47 NASA NTS 2055 89/280, Head of the Central Labour Bureau to the Secretary of Native Labour, ‘Arbeidsburo’s in Suidwes-Afrika’, 7 December 1956.

48 For example: NAN BAC 142 HN9/9/3/2, ‘Minutes of a Special Council Meeting Held in the Council Chamber, Municipal Buildings, Walvis Bay, at 5 p.m. 9th February 1956’; NAN BAC 164 HN9/15/3/30, ‘Minutes of a Special Meeting of the Tsumeb Village Management Board’, 19 September 1957. See also Miescher, ‘The NE 51 Series Frontier’; Byerley, ‘The Rise of the Compound–Hostel–Location Assemblage’.

49 NASA NTS 2055 89/280, Head of the Central Labour Bureau to the Secretary of Native Labour, ‘Arbeidsburo’s in Suidwes-Afrika’, 7 December 1956.

50 Ibid. For similar sentiments about the unavailability of Police Zone labour, see NAN BAC 079 HN3/11/2, CNC to the Secretary of Native Affairs, ‘Oorplasing van Unie-naturellearbeiders na Suidwes-Afrika: Beleid’, c.6 September 1956; NASA NTS 2055 89/280, Director of Native Labour to the Undersecretary White Areas, 5 October 1957.

51 NASA NTS 2055 89/280, CNC to the Secretary of Native Affairs, ‘Stigting van Naturellearbeidsburo’s: Suidwes-Afrika’, 18 April 1956.

52 Ibid.; NASA NTS 2055 89/280, Regional Employment Commissioner to the CNC, ‘Naturellearbeidsburo-organisasie in Suidwes-Afrika’, 30 June 1956.

53 See Moore, ‘Smuggled Sheep, Smuggled Shepherds’. For an example of South African farm labourers approved to work in South Africa: NAN BAC 79 HN3/11/2, CNC to H.J. Brits, ‘Aansoek om Plaasvolk Vanaf die Unie in Suidwes-Afrika Binne te Bring’, 26 September 1955.

54 NAN SWAS 719 AS80/2/5, ‘Werkpermit vir Kleurling om Suidwes-Afrika Binne te Kom’: Norman de Jager (Pty) Ltd., 20 December 1966; NAN SWAS 719 AS80/2/5, Norman de Jager (Pty) Ltd. to Secretary of SWA, ‘Re: Application for Extension of Permit for Coloured Artisans in the Building Trade’, 15 November 1968; NAN SWAS 719 AS 80/2/5, Secretary of SWA to Tsumeb Magistrate, ‘Aansoek om Verlenging van Werkpermit Nr. K.167/66: Kleurling A. Meintjies’, 10 July 1970.

55 NAN BAC 88, SWANLA, ‘Annual Report for Financial Year Ended 30th June, 1961’, 11 October 1961.

56 NAN BAC 88 HN.3/16/2/1, New SWANLA, ‘Annual report for financial year ended 30th June, 1961’, 30 October 1961; NAN OVB 14 6/2-2 part 1, New SWANLA, ‘Annual report for the year ended 31st March, 1970’, 1970.

57 An exception was 1962–63, during which Angolan migrant labourers accounted for 42.05 per cent of SWANLA’s total, as opposed to 46.04 per cent in 1961–62. Poor harvests in 1962 seem to have contributed to the rise in the percentage of SWANLA migrant labourers from northern SWA, and Ovamboland in particular. NAN BAC 88 HN3/16/2/1, SWANLA, ‘Annual Report for Financial Year Ended 30th June, 1962’, 11 October 1962; NAN A.0370 box 12, SWANLA, ‘Annual Report for Financial Year Ended 30th June, 1963’, 14 October 1963.

58 Miescher, Namibia’s Red Line, pp. 146, 168–72. On earlier stages of the closure of the countryside, see B. Fuller, Jr., ‘“We Live in a Manga”: Constraint, Resistance and Transformation on a Native Reserve’, in P. Hayes, J. Silvester, M. Wallace and W. Hartmann (eds), Namibia Under South African Rule: Mobility and Containment, 1915–46 (Athens, Ohio University Press, 1998), pp. 194–218; J. Silvester, ‘Beasts, Boundaries and Buildings: The Survival and Creation of Pastoral Economies in Southern Namibia, 1915–35’, in Hayes et al. (eds), Namibia Under South African Rule, pp. 95–116; U. Dieckmann, Hai//om in the Etosha Region: A History of Colonial Settlement, Ethnicity, and Nature Conservation (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2007).

59 W. Werner, ‘No One Will Become Rich’: Economy and Society in the Herero Reserves in Namibia, 1915–46 (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 1998); Silvester, ‘Beasts, Boundaries and Buildings’; Dieckmann, Hai//om in the Etosha Region, pp. 177–86; L. Rizzo, Gender and Colonialism: A History of Kaoko in North-Western Namibia, 1870s–1950s (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2012); M. McCullers, ‘Lines in the Sand: The Global Politics of Local Water Development in Apartheid Namibia’ (PhD thesis, Emory University, 2012).

60 NAN BAC 164 HN9/15/3/30, Tsumeb Village Management Board, ‘Jaarverslag: 1958’, 12 January 1959; NAN MTS 9 N1/35, ‘Jaarverslag 1968: Nomtsoub Inboorlingwoonbuurt’.

61 Walvis Bay Municipal Archives (hereafter WB) B15/6, Walvis Bay Director Bantu Affairs to Walvis Bay BAC, ‘Verslag: Bantoesake 1961: Walvisbaai’, 1 February 1962; NAN BAC 224 (61) N1/15/6, Walvis Bay Director Bantu Affairs to Walvis Bay Town Clerk, ‘Jaarverslag: 1970’.

62 NASA BAO 3091 C39/1281 part 1, Director of Native Labour, ‘Bantoe-arbeid: Suidwes-Afrika’, 29 September 1961.

63 NASA BAO 3091 C39/1281 part 1, SWANLA Director to Grootfontein BAC, 21 June 1962.

64 NAN MMA 25 N12, Mariental Town Clerk to the CBAC, 17 February 1960.

65 NASA BAO 3091 C39/1281 part 1, Windhoek Town Clerk to CBAC, 18 December 1962.

66 NAN BAC 165 HN9/18/2, Walvis Bay Town Clerk to the CBAC, ‘Toestromingsbeheermaatreëls’, 8 May 1962; WB B2/4/3, To the Walvis Bay Town Clerk, 10 January 1972.

67 WB B2/4/3, Walvis Bay Director of Native Affairs to Town Clerk, ‘Toestromingsbeheer: R/P Stelsel’, c.early 1972.

68 NASA BAO 3091 C39/1281 part 2, Senior Technical Officer (Welfare), ‘Social Development: Semester Report’, 30 June 1966.

69 NASA BAO 3091 C39/1281 part 1, Project Committee Secretary to Director Bantu Labour, 4 July 1961.

70 NASA BAO 2550 C31/3/1216, Legal Department to Deputy Secretary of White Areas, ‘Suidwes-Afrikasaak’, 24 June 1964.

71 Ibid.; NASA BAO 2550 C31/3/1216, Director of Bantu Labour to the Deputy Secretary of White Areas, ‘Regsafdeling se Vertroulike Memo N.105/30/51(14) Hieronder Verwys’, 27 July 1964.

72 NASA BAO 3092 C39/1281 v. 3, CBAC, ‘Bantoe-Arbeid: Suidwes-Afrika’, 4 September 1964.

73 Ibid.

74 NASA BAO 3091 C39/1281 part 2, ‘Vergadering Gehou te Bantoe-Administrasie en -Ontwikkeling oor Rekrutering van Bantoe Vanuit Angola: 22 August 1967’.

75 NASA BAO 3092 C39/1281 v.3, Secretary Bantu Affairs and Development (BAD) to SWANLA Secretary, 6 November 1968; NAN OVB 14 6/1, SWANLA General Manager, ‘Resume of Discussions Between SWANLA Board and Representatives of the Department of Bantu Development and Administration in the SWANLA Board Room, Grootfontein, on the 21st February 1968’, 14 March 1968.

76 NASA BAO 3092 C39/1281 v.4, ‘Ooreenkoms Tussen Mnre. New South West Africa Native Labour Association (Proprietary) Limited – Nuwe SWANLA – en die Departement Bantoe-Administrasie en-Ontwikkeling’, 18 November 1969.

77 One official commented in November 1972 that, although ‘there were initially many growing pains’ in the transfer of SWANLA’s responsibilities to labour bureaux, ‘it had happily now been ironed out’. NAN BACC 201 N3/13/1, ‘Notule van die Projekkomiteevergadering wat Gehou was om 9 v.m. op 29 November 1972 in die Kantoor van die Hoofbantoesakekommissaris vir SWA’.

78 NAN OVB 14 6/2-2 part 1, ‘Verslag oof A.B. (Bantoe-Arbeid) se Besoek aan Grootfontein en Ondangwa: 3–5 Maart 1970’, 11 March 1970; NAN OVB 14 6/1, ‘Arbeidsburo: Ondangwa’, c. Jan. 1970; NAN OVB 14 6/2-2 part 1, Ondangwa Labour Officer to Ondangwa Area Magistrate, 12 March 1970; NAN OVB 14 6/2-2 part 1, SWANLA, ‘Annual Report for the Year Ended 31st March 1970’.

79 NAN OVB 14 6/2-2 part 1, SWANLA Director to Ondangwa Area Magistrate, 8 September 1970; NAN OVB 14 6/2-2 part 1, ‘Die Feitlike Posisie Ten Opsigte van Beleid en Administrasie van die Werwing, Kontraktering en Verspreiding van E.T. en N.-arbeiders in S.W.A’., c.early 1971; WB B9/1, Walvis Bay Director of Native Affairs to Walvis Bay Magistrate, 5 August 1970.

80 NAN OVB 14 6/2-2 part 1, Karasburg Magistrate to CBAC, 15 March 1970; NAN OVB 14 6/2-2 part 1, Windhoek BAC to CBAC, 24 April 1970.

81 Ndadi and Mercer, Breaking Contract, pp. 24–8.

82 Nathanael, Journey into Exile, pp. 10–13.

83 NASA BAO 3091 C39/1281 (MN1) 22, Secretary SWA Agricultural Union to Deputy Minister BAD, 9 November 1971.

84 On raids on the Windhoek compound in March and June 1971: R. Moorsom, ‘Labour Consciousness and the 1971–72 Contract Workers’ Strike in Namibia’, Development and Change, 10, 2 (1979), p. 222; ‘South West Africa: A Labour Repressive Society’, National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) ‘Press Digest on the Ovambo Workers’ Strike’, prepared by D. Hemson. The author cites the Natal Mercury, 12 June 1971. I am grateful to Rob Gordon for sharing this source. On raids in Walvis Bay: Moorsom, ‘Labour Consciousness’, p. 223; NUSAS, ‘South West Africa’, citing the Sunday Times, 12 December 1971.

85 R. Gordon, ‘A Note on the History of Labour Action in Namibia’, South African Labour Bulletin (April 1975), p. 11.

86 Nathanael, Journey into Exile, p. 19.

87 NAN BAC 287 (66) N3/11/2 part 6, ‘Proclamation: Dissolution of the New South-West Africa Native Labour Association’, 1974.

88 NAN PLA 1037 P84/41/3/1, Walvis Bay Town Clerk to Director of Local Government, ‘Uitbreiding van Enkelkwartiere: Verhoging van Lening WB 218 van R120 000 na R530 000’, 24 March 1975.

89 WB B8/3, Anonymous to Walvis Bay Location Superintendent, 20 April 1975. See also WB B8/3, Anonymous to Walvis Bay Location Superintendent, March 1976; WB B8/3, Anonymous to Walvis Bay Director of Native Affairs, 10 April 1975.

90 For similar occurrences in South Africa, see D. Posel, ‘Marriage at the Drop of a Hat: Housing and Partnership in South Africa’s Urban African Townships, 1920s–1960s’, History Workshop Journal, 61, 1 (2006), pp. 57–76.

91 WB B8/3, ‘Ekskuus aan Munisipaliteit’, 2 March 1974.

92 Literature on beer brewing has tended to emphasis the financial, social and political ramifications of African brewers’ activities, not brewers’ use of infrastructure. On alcohol in Namibia, see H. Siiskonen, ‘Namibia and the Heritage of Colonial Alcohol Policy’, Nordic Journal of African Studies 3, 1 (1994), pp. 77–86; J-B. Gewald, ‘Diluting Drinks and Deepening Discontent: Colonial Liquor Controls and Public Resistance in Windhoek, Namibia’, in D. Bryceson (ed.), Alcohol in Africa: Mixing Business, Pleasure, and Politics (Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2002), pp. 117–38; M. Fumanti, The Politics of Distinction: African Elites From Colonialism to Liberation in a Namibian Frontier Town (Canon Pyon, Sean Kingston Publishing, 2016); R. Gordon, ‘Inside the Windhoek Lager: Liquor and Lust in Namibia’, in W. Jankowiak and D. Bradburd (eds), Drugs, Labour, and Colonial Expansion (Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 2003), pp. 117–34; T. van der Hoog, Breweries, Politics and Identity: The History Behind Namibian Beer (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2019).

93 WB B8/3, Walvis Bay Director of Native Affairs to the Town Clerk, ‘Beweerde Onreëlmatigheid: Sandhotel Watervoorsiening’, 20 June 1975; WB B8/3, Kuisebmond Alcohol Control Officer to Walvis Bay Director of Native Affairs, 20 June 1975.

94 WB B2/12/5, To the Walvis Bay Town Clerk, ‘Bantoebier Verkope’, 30 July 1970; WB B2/12/5, Walvis Bay Town Clerk to South African Railways Division Manager, ‘Onhigiëniese Toestand Langs Spoorlyn op Walvisbaai’, 30 June 1978.

95 NAN MWB 1/341 (37/3), Walvis Bay Town Engineer to Town Clerk, ‘Munisipale Dienslyn Nr 3339’ and Addendum A, 1 July 1975; NAN MWB 1/341, Walvis Bay Management Meeting, 15 July 1975; WB B2/12/5, Walvis Bay Town Clerk to the South African Railways Department Manager, ‘Onhigiëniese Toestand Langs Spoorlyn op Walvisbaai’, 30 June 1978.

96 WB B2/12, ‘Bestuurskomiteevergadering: Verslae van die Advieskomitee’, 12 September 1978.

97 WB B2/12/5, Management Committee Meeting Held on Tuesday 15 May 1979.

98 WB B2/12/5, Report of the Walvis Bay Director of Community Development, June 1979.

99 WB B2/12, ‘Agenda van Bestuurskomiteevergadering gehou op 14 Aug. 1979: Verslae van die Advieskomitees’, 14 August 1979.

100 WB B2/12, To the Manager of Bantu Affairs and the Advisory Councils in Walvis Bay, 20 August 1979. I am relying on a translation of the original letter from Oshiwambo into Afrikaans, probably by an African municipal employee.

101 Ibid.

102 WB B2/12/5, Anonymous to the Head of the Municipal Compound, c.September 1978. An omuramba is a riverbed that contains pools of standing water and fish during certain parts of the year.

103 WB B2/12, To the Manager of Bantu Affairs and the Advisory Councils in Walvis Bay, 20 August 1979.

104 WB B2/12, ‘Ondersteuning aan Munisipaliteit se Drankwinkels en Biersaal’, 15 August 1979.

105 WB B2/12/5, Notice ‘vertaal vanuit Ovambo na Afrikaans deur Nr.S150873F Kst. T. Alfeus’, c.March 1980.