familiar to us, saw this as eroding their wealth and power. In
1879 Matthew Blyth, the chief magistrate of the Transkei,
observed that there was opposition to surveying the land so
that it could be divided into private property. He recorded
that “some of the chiefs … objected, but most of the people
were pleased … the chiefs see that the granting of
individual titles will destroy their influence among the
headmen.”
Chiefs also resisted improvements made on the lands,
such as the digging of irrigation ditches or the building of
fences. They recognized that these improvements were just
a prelude to individual property rights to the land, the
beginning of the end for them. European observers even
noted that chiefs and other traditional authorities, such as
witch doctors, attempted to prohibit all “European ways,”
which included new crops, tools such as plows, and items
of trade. But the integration of the Ciskei and the Transkei
into the British colonial state weakened the power of the
traditional chiefs and authorities, and their resistance would
not be enough to stop the new economic dynamism in
South Africa. In Fingoland in 1884, a European observer
noted that the people had
transferred their allegiance to us. Their chiefs
have been changed to a sort of titled
landowner … without political power. No
longer afraid of the jealousy of the chief or of
the deadly weapon … the witchdoctor, which
strikes down the wealthy cattle owner, the
able counsellor, the introduction of novel
customs, the skilful agriculturalist, reducing
them all to the uniform level of mediocrity—no
longer apprehensive of this, the Fingo
clansman … is a progressive man. Still
remaining a peasant farmer … he owns
wagons and ploughs; he opens water
furroughs for irrigation; he is the owner of a
flock of sheep.
Even a modicum of inclusive institutions and the erosion
of the powers of the chiefs and their restrictions were
sufficient to start a vigorous African economic boom. Alas,