Union of South Africa and the Natives Land Act
The Union of South Africa, formed on 31 May 1910, fused the former Boer republics and British colonies into a single self-governing dominion. Reconciliation between Afrikaner and British whites was purchased explicitly at the expense of the Black majority, who were largely excluded from the franchise outside the Cape. The Natives Land Act of 1913 codified this exclusion into a system of racial dispossession: it confined African land ownership and tenancy to designated 'native reserves' amounting to about 7% of the country's territory, outlawing African purchase or lease of land elsewhere and evicting hundreds of thousands of tenant farmers. As state legislation by the ruling white minority systematically targeting and dispossessing the Black majority, it is a structural act of persecution. It provoked the founding of the South African Native National Congress (later the ANC) in 1912 and laid one of the legal foundations of what would become apartheid.
- Year: 1910 CE
- Category: Political
