Sheds new light on Native Life appearing at a critical historical juncture, and reflects on how to read it in South Africa’s heightened challenges today. First published in 1916, Sol Plaatje's Native Life in South Africa was written by one of the South Africa's most talented early twentieth-century black leaders and journalists. Plaatje's pioneering book arose out of an early African National Congress campaign to protest against the discriminatory 1913 Natives Land Act. Native Life vividly narrates Plaatje's investigative journeying into South Africa's rural heartlands to report on the effects of the Act and his involvement in the deputation to the British imperial government. At the same time it tells the bigger story of the assault on black rights and opportunities in the newly consolidated Union of South Africa - and the resistance to it. Originally published in war-time London, but about South Africa and its place in the world, Native Life travelled far and wide, being distributed in the United States under the auspices of prominent African-American W E B Du Bois. South African editions were to follow only in the late apartheid period and beyond. The aim of this multi-authored volume is to shed new light on how and why Native Life came into being at a critical historical juncture, and to reflect on how it can be read in relation to South Africa's heightened challenges today. Crucial areas that come under the spotlight in this collection include land, race, history, mobility, belonging, war, the press, law, literature, language, gender, politics, and the state.

Native Life in South Africa (1916) is a book by Solomon T. Plaatje. Written while Plaatje was serving as General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress, the work shows the influence of American activist and socialist historian W. E. B. Du Bois, whom Plaatje met and befriended. Using historical analysis and firsthand accounts from native South Africans, Plaatje exposes the cruelty of colonialism and analyzes the significance of the 1913 Natives’ Land Act. “Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African Native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.” Native Life in South Africa begins with the passage of the 1913 Natives’ Land Act, which made it illegal for Black South Africans to lease and purchase land outside of government designated reserves. The act, which was the first of many segregation laws passed by the Union Parliament, was devastating to millions of poor South African natives, most of whom relied on leasing land from white farmers to survive.Native Life in South Africa is a classic of South African literature reimagined for modern readers.

Martin Chanock's illuminating and definitive perspective on that development examines all areas of the law including criminal law and criminology; the Roman-Dutch law; the State's African law; and land, labour and 'rule of law' questions.

In Colonial Survey and Native Landscapes in Rural South Africa, 1850 - 1913, Lindsay Frederick Braun explores the technical processes and struggles surrounding the creation and maintenance of boundaries and spaces in South Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The precision of surveyors and other colonial technicians lent these enterprises an illusion of irreproachable objectivity and authority, even though the reality was far messier. Using a wide range of archival and printed materials from survey departments, repositories, and libraries, the author presents two distinct episodes of struggle over lands and livelihoods, one from the Eastern Cape and one from the former northern Transvaal. These cases expose the contingencies, contests, and negotiations that fundamentally shaped these changing South African landscapes.

Originally published in 1968, this volume traces the history and growth of Apartheid in South Africa. The acts which enforced Apartheid – the Group Areas Act, Population and Registration Act are given in full. The book also includes documents which reflected reaction to these measures: Parliamentary debates, newspaper reports and policy statements by the leading political parties and religious denominations. The documents are headed by a full historical and analytical introduction.

"Land reform is once again under the spotlight. Amidst calls by some politicians for confiscating land from white farmers without compensation, others claim that the land redistributed to black owners is not being productively farmed. The debate is dangerously polarised, the stakes high. At the same time new challenges confront policy-makers: climate change, threats to bio-diversity, urbanisation, high unemployment, food security, and global economic uncertainties. 2013 was the centenary of South Africa's notorious Natives Land Act, whose effects are still evident in the country's divided countryside and deeply racialised inequalities. 2014 is the deadline that the ANC government set for itself of redistributing 30 per cent of commercial agricultural land into black ownership. All agree that the target cannot be met, but there is little agreement on what is the best way forward. 2014 is also the twentieth anniversary of the founding of democracy. Building on the public debates generated by the centenary of the 1913 Land Act, this book presents a major opportunity to review the contemporary significance of land as a social, economic and natural resource in South Africa - to pose new questions and search for new answers. The book is illustrated with photographs from the acclaimed Iziko National Gallery exhibition "Umhlaba 1913-2013: Commemorating the 1913 Land Act", curated by David Goldblatt, Paul Weinberg, Bongi Dhlomo-Mautloa and Pam Warne." --Cover.