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THE COLONIAL DIVISION OF SPACE:
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SWAZILAND
LAND PARTITION
Jonathan Crush
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"Monopoly Control and the Imperial Response: The Case of the Swaziland Corporation
Ltd.," African Economic History (Fall, 1969).
'2Charged with the resolution of the perceived problem by the Colonial Office and by
virtue of colonial appointments were High Commissioners Milner (1903-1905) and
Selborne (1905-1910) and Resident Commissioners Moony (1903-1907) and Coryndon
(1907-1914). Coryndon was later heavily involved in the Rhodesian land question; see
R Palmer, Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia (Berkeley, 1977).
"Swaziland, Annual Colonial Report, 1907-8, (Cmd. 448-5, 1909), 13.
THE COLONIALDIVISIONOF SPACE 75
Coryndonwas undoubtedlyexaggeratingthe extentof the confusion
for effect, but there was certainly more than a germ of truth in his
statement. The permanent settlers particularly wanted a settlement
of conflicting rights to facilitate the influx of metropolitan capital.14
As disillusionment set in about the mining potential of the country,
there was an increasing awareness of the environmentalpotential for
settler-estate production and large-scale agricultural plantation
production. 5Integral to the realization of profits was the perceived
necessity for a coastal rail link, the introduction of a white settler
class, the creation of a cheap labor force, and unfettered and secure
private ownership of land.16
As a direct response, and despite virulent Swazi opposition, the
British colonial state commissioned a general survey to delineate
spatial rights and produce a single network of basal (or prior-
granted) land concessions to resolve the overlap confusion.17 After a
period of considerable vacillation, from 1904 to 1907, colonial
officials determined that partition was the most satisfactory means
of creating Swazi labor reserves and of according settlers direct
control over land and Swazi labor. Partition was also openly
recognized as being a concrete means to effect basic changes in the
indigenous mode of agriculturalproduction:
By limitingthe area availablefor native agriculture,land will be
improvedby the necessity for close grazing and less primitive
methodsof cultivation;... the presentpracticeof shiftingagriculture
andimpoverishingthe soil will then cease,18
and as a means to provide reserves along the lines of the South
African model, pending any future transfer of Swaziland to South
'9Eventual transfer was summarily assumed although no date was ever set; Selbore to
Elgin, n.d., Lagden Papers, Rhodes House Library, Oxford (RH.L.) Mss Afr S 209. See
A. R. Booth, "Lord Selbome and the British Protectorates," Journal of African History, 10
(1969), 133-148; and a rejoinder, R. Hyam, "African Interests and the South Africa Act,
1908-10," Historical Journal, 13 (1970), 85-105.
20HighCommissioner's Proclamation No. 28 of 1907, Article 4.
21Coryndonto Selbome, 6 May 1907, S.N.A. 45/07/640.
22For a discussion of these various schemes, see J. S. Crush, "The Spatial Impress of
Capital and the Colonial State in Swaziland, 1903-14," (M.A. thesis, Wilfrid Laurier
University, 1978), ch. 5.
23The partition commissioner, Grey, spent sixteen years in the employ of capital in
central Africa before this, his only colonial commission. He is credited with the discovery of
the Katanga copper mines in W. V. Brelsford, Generation of Men (Salisbury, 1965). The
partition was effected by Grey in continuous consultation with both Selbore and Coryndon.
24R.T. Coryndon, SomeAccount ofGeorge Grey and His Workin Africa (London, 1914).
25Persistence in the postcolonial period is described most recently in G. Maasdorp,
"Modernization in Swaziland," in C. G. Knight and J. L. Newman, eds., Contemporary
THE COLONIAL DIVISION OF SPACE 77
o 10o 20omiles
0 10 20 3' kms
Fig. 2: Demarcated Swazi Reserves, 1908
criteriaon which the partitionwas based. We can then assess to
what extent the partitionattemptedto lay the groundworkfor the
integrationof the countryinto capitalistmodes of production.
ProceduralCriteria
The partitioncriteriaused by Grey were a mixtureof principleand
praxis and were sufficientlyflexible to allow modificationas the
partitionproceeded.26 The initialquestionwhichpreoccupiedGrey
was how to provideexplicitandindisputableboundarylines around
Africa: Geography and Change (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976), 408-422. The reasons are
suggested within a political economy paradigmin I. Winter, "The Post Colonial State and the
Forces and Relations of Production,"Review ofAfrican PoliticalEconomy, 9 (1978), 27-43.
26This account is based on a number of sources, both official and private, but see
particularly partition instructions to Grey, 18 November 1907, CO 417/441, Enclosure 1.
78 JONATHANCRUSH
considered desirable, since the overall design of the state was not to
be thwarted by such protest. Hence the network contains no overt
expression of land desirability by the Swazi.
The partition is also related to Grey's perception of Swaziland's
four environmental provinces (the Highveld, Middleveld, Lowveld,
and Lebombo) which have been identified on numerous occasions in
secondary texts.32As a result,
The Middleveldis the most thickly inhabiteddistrict and has a
greatercapacityfor carryinga largenativepopulationthananyother
portion of Swaziland... While the natives appreciatethe fertile
middleveld,the concessionairesvalue morethanany otherarea,the
highveldgrassfor wintergrazing.33
The Middleveld was consequently the favored zone for reserve
demarcation;44 percent of the total area demarcated as reserve was
located in the Middleveld, and only 23 percent, 28 percent and 5
percent was in the Highveld, Lowveld and Lebombo respectively.
The Middleveld was not the exclusive preserve of the Swazi,
however, since settler interests were generally paramount and the
potential of this zone for settler-estate production was coming to
light: "In the middleveld I have succeeded in keeping out of native
area two large stretches in which a considerable farmingpopulation
might find settlement."34In the final analysis, settlers were left with
70 percent of the Highveld, 51 percent of the Middleveld, 66 percent
of the Lowveld and 73 percent of the Lebombo region.
Any land already under settler occupation and cultivation in
1908 was automatically precluded from the reserves. An examina-
tion of Grey's field notes reveals such comments as:
Thebestlandandmuchgoodgrazingis leftto thewhiteowner;... the
white owner should be well satisfied with his portions;the more
accessibleare left to him. .. .the portionleft to the concessionaire
containssomeof the finestcountryin Swaziland,is well-wateredand
containsgood agriculturalland.35
Land being thus "beneficially occupied" was automatically ex-
empted from the so-called "primitive agricultural technique" of
the Swazi.
lE[ SwaziAreas
* Chief's Homestead *
A Royal Household /
o Royal Cattle Post
o 10 2omiles
0 o1 20 3kms
Fig. 3: Distribution of Reserves Around Indigenous Structure Elements
chooses his master and looks up to him for help, advice and
protection.46
There is evidence to suggest, however, that landowners resident
outside Swaziland used their holdings to channel alienated Swazi
labor to their estates in the eastern Transvaal. "The whole interest
of the Boers of the Eastern Transvaal lies in the direction of
Swaziland since all of them want to... increase their supply of
Swazi labour."47This scenario, while an unavoidable byproduct of
partition, was not particularly desired by the state.
Colonial officials were invariably conscious of the strong hier-
archical social structure of the Swazi and the concentration of
S.N.A. 45/07/1464.
46Selbomememorandum,
47Selbore to Maydon, 3 April 1906, Bodleian Library, MS Selbore, Box 170.
THE COLONIAL DIVISION OF SPACE 83
Ls AREAS
SWAZI
O TOWNS
"-+.t-1--PLANNEDRAIL
ROUTE
0 10 2omiles
10 '20 i kms
Fig. 4: Reserves and the Colonial Infrastructure
Conclusion