Place of Thorns. Tshepo Moloi
by the role of the white chairman, which often precluded the possibility of direct criticism of the local authority’ ... [B]oard members were encouraged to use their “good office” in such matters as resolving domestic disputes, discouraging illegal brewing and sale of liquor, informing the authorities of necessary repairs and improvement of services and, in general preserving “peace and good order”.’51 In some places, such as Cradock in the Eastern Cape, location advisory board members ‘resolved small disputes, studied pauperism, launched ward clean-up contests and asked the town council to maintain the location’s cemetery’,52 and in Alexandra township, it was stated that the Native Advisory Board ‘... would not only assist the police in carrying out the law, but it would also make representation on any other matter affecting the welfare of the township’.53 Finally, board members were made to believe that they were superior to the rest of the community and that it was their duty to lead by example. This message was stressed to delegates attending the Location Advisory Boards Congress in 1935 by JR Brent, Kroonstad’s superintendent:
You leaders must never lose sight of the fact that you are at least a century or two ahead of the Bantu masses you lead. You are educated men. You understand and have absorbed the modern civilised outlook. Never fall into the error of imagining that any appreciable number of your followers have the same outlook. Labour patiently to teach and to leaven them so that one day they will be able truly to enjoy the benefits of modern civilisation. Don’t always aim at popularity or political advantage, but stem their rush towards the precipice, when the necessity arises, and head them gently in the right direction.54
During this period, when the Native Advisory Board was in existence in Kroonstad’s black locations, besides the economic hardships the majority of the residents had to endure, conditions in the locations were appalling. Roads were untarred, dusty, replete with potholes, and littered with ash, empty tins and discarded pieces of paper. There was no sewerage system – an outmoded bucket system was in use. ‘Equally outmoded was the water-supply system. The residents used communal taps placed strategically at corners of the locations’ streets and venue. Besides having to queue for the water on a daily basis, at times these taps ran dry. As a result women and young girls were forced to walk long distances to other taps in the locations to get water.’55
The first signal of the ineffectiveness of the Native Advisory Board became visible in 1932 when the white authorities divided the Kroonstad riverbanks into two separate areas for ‘Europeans’ and ‘Natives’ (those considered coloured were allowed access to the European section). This shocked Africans, who saw no difference between themselves and coloureds. The board demanded that the riverbank regulation should also apply to coloured persons but this was refused by the local secretary of native affairs. During this period the Kroonstad Town Council, under the tenure of Mayor FA van Reensen, stepped up the police raids for home-brewed beer, even on Sundays. The Kroonstad Native Advisory Board made an attempt to dissuade the Kroonstad Town Council but failed, and its relationship with the residents of the locations deteriorated.
These incidents, and the inability of the board to influence the town council to develop the locations, caused the residents to be disillusioned with it. Some public bodies in the locations bypassed the board and negotiated directly with the town council. The Registered and Ratepayers Association, under the leadership of Mr Mothibedi, opposed the decision by the board, which complained bitterly and requested the council to ensure that all public bodies in the locations approach the council through it. The residents’ intolerance of the Kroonstad Native Advisory Board had reached boiling point. More than 500 people assembled in the location for a meeting and, after a vigorous speech by ’Mote, unanimously asked the Native Advisory Board to resign en bloc.
In its final attempts to demonstrate its concern for the residents, the board requested the council to stop the night raids during the months of December and January. The request was turned down. Again, in 1945, the council rejected the board’s request to have the names of wives removed from lodgers’ permits and for the lodger’s fee to be reduced from three pennies to two. In the same year the board was reprimanded for misleadingly informing the council that the number of taxis in the location had decreased. Finally, in 1946 the board’s request that the location’s inhabitants be allowed to slaughter cattle for marriage feasts was turned down. To the residents of the locations these were clear signs that the board was failing to advance their best interests.
After 1944 some native advisory boards were radicalised, possibly as a result of the formation of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), which introduced radical ideas into black politics. It was at this stage that politicians, including members of the ANC and the Communist Party of South Africa, became members of the advisory boards. The people of Kroonstad’s black locations were, however, neither mobilised nor organised for some time. Concurrent with the functioning of the Native Advisory Board in the town, the Kroonstad Joint Council of Europeans and Natives, consisting of eighteen whites and eighteen Africans, was established in September 1928. Among its main objectives were to promote cooperation ‘between Europeans and Natives’; to investigate and report upon any matter relating ‘to the welfare of the Native peoples of South Africa to which the Council’s attention may be called’; and to make representation ‘to the Union Government, Provincial Administration, public bodies or individuals’.56
The list of council members included a number of church ministers, the rest being a mix of individuals involved in various trades. Among them were Robert Sello, ’Mote, Henderson Binda (trade unionist: ICU), J Crutse (teacher) and Jan Maraba (policeman). The non-militant approach of all except the trade unionists shaped the role of the council. By 1931, however, ’Mote was no longer a member, as is evident from correspondence between Charles F Martin Knight of the St Francis Priory and Rheinallt-Jones, in which Knight informs Rheinallt-Jones about ’Mote’s speech at a council meeting: ‘Rather a disturbed meeting of the Joint Council last night. ’Mote was introduced as a visitor and let off his usual hot-air. I doubt if he will be given another opportunity.’57
The absence of militancy in the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives was also possibly influenced by the presence of white members. Although the council’s constitution stipulated that whites should be in the majority in Kroonstad, this was not the case, although they did, as stipulated in the constitution, hold leadership positions. Like the Native Advisory Board, the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives had no real power to influence or change decisions of the town council. Its role could be likened to that of a pressure and lobby group, raising issues to put pressure on the local authority. For example, it took up the issue of trading rights for blacks in the locations, making representations to the Kroonstad Town Council and, later, to the OFS municipalities conference.58 It also made representations to the inquiry into native trading facilities in Kroonstad, which started on 5 September 1932, and sought to send a deputation to the minister of native affairs – who refused to meet it. While it discussed the issue of home-brewing in advance of the Illicit Liquor Commission’s report, it failed to mobilise the community (particularly African women brewing and selling beer) when the Kroonstad municipality decided to establish a municipal canteen system similar to those operating in Natal.
Differences in approach caused some of the blacks in the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives to feel that their white counterparts were controlling and dictatorial. In 1936 cracks in the Kroonstad Joint Council of Europeans and Natives began to show. In August 1937, Knight wrote to Rheinallt-Jones:
... in Kroonstad the type of European here is rather put off by the title Joint Council because he thinks it is a suggestion of what his ancestors called ‘ungodly equality’ ... It is true that the actual dissolution of the Kroonstad Joint Council was due to the defection of the Africans which made it impossible to carry on without doing them more harm than good. But there had always been a problem connected with European members.
In 1941 Father Amor, secretary of the Kroonstad Joint Council of Europeans and Natives, made the same point in a letter to Rheinallt-Jones:
I know how the Joint Council has faded away in the OFS. From the African side there was much desire to exploit the JCs for the purpose of getting things for themselves which were difficult or impossible in other ways ... And often Europeans also used their position in an endeavour to