Political Rights, Land Ownership and Contending forms of representation in Colonial Natal 1860–1900

Abstract

In the days leading to July 18, 1891, Nozingqwazi, a widow of Nkunga, worked on a petition that she finally sent to the Secretary for Native Affairs (henceforth SNA), S.O. Samuelson. In her petition, Nozingqwazi drew the attention of the SNA to Reverend H.D. Goodenough's action of selling the land she occupied and cultivated to Sick Msomi, a resident of Groutville. Her petition elicited reactions not only from various individuals (all of them men) within the small community of Groutville, but also from local colonial authorities and ultimately the Natal colonial government itself. Community leaders and colonial authorities engaged the petition for seven months (between July 1891 and January 1892) without coming to a conclusion. While the outcome of the discussion about the petition is important, this article focuses on the collective production of petitions, and on their writers, readers, and intended onlookers. These remarkable activities attracted the attention of those who wielded power. The activities of the participants in these events demonstrate how far they had travelled in political terms. They had come to occupy a new space, one characterized by evening meetings and social gatherings where people who wanted to discuss grievances turned their ideas into intelligible petition. These gatherings ushered in a new form of responding to state power. Indeed, Nozingqwazi's petition belongs to this new culture of mission station life.