Port Elizabeth: An Abridged History of the Apartheid City

• Franco Frescura
  INTRODUCTION
  The first immigrant structure in Port Elizabeth was erected by the British in August 1799. Named Fort Frederick, after Frederick, Duke of York, its main function was to guard the landing place and water supplies at Algoa Bay. It is also probable that the British intended to establish a military presence in the region to deter potential Dutch uprisings in the district of Graaff-Reinet, and to protect Cape Town, and hence the India sea route, from possible French attack. The township of Port Elizabeth was laid out in 1815, but was not developed until 1820 when some 5000 British settlers arrived in the Eastern Cape. The economic development of the village was initially slow. James Backhouse (1844), who visited the place in December 1838, reported that:
  "Port Elizabeth is situated on the foot of a steep hill, at the margin of Algoa Bay; it is much like a small, English sea-port town, and contains about 100 houses, exclusive of huts; the houses are of stone or brick, red-tiled, and of English structure. The town is said to have been chiefly raised by the sale of strong drink."
  Thus at its onset Port Elizabeth served predominantly as a service centre for the agricultural hinterland of the Eastern Cape. Its basic function was to handle, and later process, goods and materials passing through its harbour. However developments elsewhere in the southern African interior provided economic stimulus to the new town, and by the 1860s it had overtaken Cape Town as the Colony's premier port. The growth of an ostrich feather industry in Graaff-Reinet, Oudtshoorn and the Albany, the discovery of diamonds in the northern Cape and of gold in the Transvaal, and the outbreak of wars against the Boer Republics, were all to benefit Port Elizabeth. As a result, in the early years of the twentieth Century, numerous manufacturing industries began to be established locally, most notable being a number of motor vehicle assembly plants, which created extensive employment opportunities. This, as well as increasing rural poverty in the region, attracted many workers to the town to the point that, until the 1960s, it maintained its place as South Africa's third largest urban centre.
  Port Elizabeth, as it stands today, owes its form to a number of physical and historical constraints. However, since the early 1900s, colonial segregation planning and a policy of statutary racial separation implemented after 1950, has resulted in what has become a protypical model of the "Apartheid city".
  COLONIAL SEGREGATION
  The early population of Port Elizabeth consisted, in the main, of Europeans, as well as persons of mixed race which the Apartheid system subsequently labelled as "Coloureds" and "Cape Malays". Initially few members of the indigenous population were attracted to the town and, almost from the onset, economic status was related to skin colour. Whites held a virtual monopoly over higher paid jobs and consequently could afford better housing in areas which were usually physically removed from "other" groups. Thus segregation was an integral part of early Port Elizabeth, with the industrial areas of South End and North End being predominantly Coloured, while the Central and Western suburbs were mainly White. However, while White attitudes to Coloured and Malay citizens remained relatively tolerant, official policies toward indigenous residents were markedly different.
  Thus, as a rising number of Black workers began to enter Port Elizabeth seeking employment, so then a number of so-called "locations" began to be established on the outskirts of the White suburbs. Rosenthal (1970) has defined locations as being:
  "Large Native Reserves as well as small areas in municipalities earmarked for residence by Africans."
  The pattern was first established in 1834 when the Colonial Government made a grant of land to the London Missionary Society (LMS) to provide a burial ground and residential area for "Hottentots and other coloured people who were members of the Church" (Baines, 1989). This was located at the crest of Hyman's Kloof, better known today as Russel Road. Other workers however chose to erect their homes closer to their places of employment, or where a supply of potable water was available. The major Black suburbs of that time were:
  Bethelsdorp 1803Fingo and Hottentot Location 1830sLMS Outstation 1834Dassiekraal c1850Korsten 1853Stranger's Location 1855Gubbs Location 1860Cooper's Kloof Location 1877Reservoir Location 1883
  With few exceptions these Black suburbs were informal in nature, and residents there were forced to endure living conditions which contemporary observers described as being squalid and open to exploitation by capitalist landlords. Many Whites considered them to be unhealthy and petitions were repeatedly organised demanding that they be removed to the outskirts of the town. These requests were in direct opposition to the needs of the growing commercial and industrial sectors which preferred to locate their labour sources close to the harbour and the inner city area. These conflicting vested interests created political tension within the Port Elizabeth Council which were only resolved in 1885 when the Municipality adopted its first set of markedly segregationist regulations.
  As a result suburbs for the exclusive use of Black residents who were not housed by employers, and who could not afford to purchase property, were established on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth. Most prominent amongst them were:
  Racecourse 1896Walmer 1896New Brighton 1902
  In 1901 an outbreak of Bubonic plague struck the town. This was the direct result of Argentinian fodder and horses being imported into South Africa by the British military during the Anglo-Boer conflict. These cargos also carried plague-infected rats, and although many members of the White and Coloured communities were also affected, the Black population bore the brunt of the Plague Health Regulations. In 1902 most of Port Elizabeth's old locations were demolished (with the exception of Walmer), their resident's personal belongings were arbitrarily destroyed, and restrictions were imposed upon inter-town travel. Although these curbs might initially have been necessary, they were only loosely applied to Whites, and were maintained upon the lives of Black residents well after they were eased elsewhere, this in spite of repeated complaints by the community's leaders.
  Because New Brighton was located relatively far from the centre, many families preferred to settle in Korsten which, at the time, was beyond the Port Elizabeth municipal boundary, but was still substantially closer to town. Korsten also had a substantially more relaxed attitude towards the brewing of illegal liquor, an activity to which many families turned to as a strategy to balance their monthly household budgets.
  During the colonial period therefore, the location system created a pattern of residential segregation based upon perceived racial and economic differences. However such divisions proved to be only partial, and it was only the implementation of Apartheid Group Areas legislation after 1950 which brought about a structural separation of Port Elizabeth's residential areas. None-the-less it was during this time that the seeds of the Apartheid City were sown.
  POST-COLONIAL SEGREGATION: 1910-1950
  By 1950 the population of New Brighton had grown from 3,650 in 1911 to 35,000. Almost all of it was Black. This polarisation was reinforced by the Native Urban Areas Act of 1923 which required municipalities to establish separate locations for their Black citizens, and made Black residents in "White" areas subject to a permit system which Apartheid legislation subsequently extended into the now-infamous dompas. The Native Land and Trust Act of 1936 also precluded Blacks from purchasing land outside designated areas. Existing suburbs, as well as new housing projects for Whites, began to include racially restrictive clauses in their title deeds. In this way most of Port Elizabeth's western suburbs were reserved for exclusive White residence.
  APARTHEID IDEOLOGY AND IMPLEMENTATION FROM 1950 TO DATE
  When the Nationalist Party came to power in 1948, the City of Port Elizabeth underwent a number of extensive changes in its land use patterns through the implementation of racially-motivated segregationist legislation. This included the separation of citizens into so-called "White", "Bantu", "Coloured" and "Asian" suburbs. Apartheid legislation laid down that such areas should be set apart by buffer strips at least 100m wide. These often coincided with existing physical barriers. As a result, industrial areas such as Struandale, and natural features such as the Swartkops River and its escarpment, and pieces of empty land such as Parsonsvlei, were used to define the parameters of the city's suburbs.
  It is important to note that Apartheid ideology did not view Black workers as a permanent component of urban life, but held that, at some stage, they would return of their own initiative and free will, to some rural "homeland". This is an attitude which had important political repercussions in later years. Not only did it relate directly to the quality of "Bantu" education, which in turn sparked off the Soweto student uprising of 1976, but it also created residential conditions which will take many years, and a substantial proportion of the national budget, to eradicate. Because of this, Black access to land tenure, quality housing, infrastructure, social amenities and economic opportunities was severely curtailed.
  Black suburbs were developed on the remote outskirts of the city making daily travel to the workplace expensive. Also, little retail and business development was permitted within the townships (as they began to be called), forcing residents to conduct the bulk of their shopping in the central city area. The Apartheid City thus did not merely seek to beggar its Black citizens, it also entrenched in its fabric the "company store" relationship existing between its Black suburbs and the White-controlled CBD.
  Matters did not change substantially after 1981 when the Government acknowledged the permanent status of urban Black communities and put in place an Ibhayi Town Council which would administer Port Elizabeth's Black suburbs as a separate municipality. At this stage, the zoning of all industrial, retail and business development within the boundaries of a neighbouring White Port Elizabeth ensured that the two Municipalities did not share equally in the city's tax base. This is one of the ways in which Port Elizabeth's Black citizens continued to subsidise the White community’s expensive segregated lifestyle.
  The process of Apartheid expropriation, relocation and residential control had the effect of increasing New Brighton's population from 35,000 persons in 1951 to 97,000 in 1960. As a result KwaZakele was established in 1956, and following the demolitions of Salisbury Park, Fairview and South End in the late 1960s, Zwide was declared in 1968 and Motherwell in 1982.
  It also needs to be borne in mind that although the Nationalist Government singlemindedly pursued a policy of racial segregation in the case of White areas, it tended to ignore racial mixing and even intermarriage in other communities. Thus even though new segregated suburbs such as Gelvandale, Bethelsdorp and Bloemendal were established for exclusive Coloured occupation, with Malabar being set aside for Indians, some areas such as Korsten which, historically, had enjoyed a mixed population, retained much of their integrated character well into the 1980s. Other communities, however, such as Fairview and South End, saw their homes literally bulldozed to the ground and their lands given over for exclusive White settlement.
  CONCLUSIONS
  It is clear that although the Group Areas Act was repealed in 1991, the component elements of Apartheid planning have been indelibly etched into the urban fabric of Port Elizabeth. It is probable that their effects will continue to be felt for many years to come, and that their traces may never be entirely expunged from the city's map.
  In practical terms this means that the economic inequalities and social injustices which Apartheid planning has imposed upon Port Elizabeth will not be done away through a long term, liberal, free-market exchange of land. Current experience has indicated that, despite the removal of Group Areas limitations, most middle and upper income Black families are trapped in their old suburbs through an inability to dispose of their properties without suffering massive financial losses. The plight of lower income Black families is even worse. It is obvious therefore that this deadlock can only be broken through an interventionist policy of stringent land and price controls orchestrated through a central government committed to strong democracy, community empowerment and the generation of wealth. This is not a philosophy likely to find favour with either White Liberals or the country's Neo-Democrats who have both benefited extensively from the interventionist policies imposed upon a voteless majority by a minority government obsessed with totalitarian notions of race, ethnicity and skin pigmentation. It is probable that the granite edifice of discrimination will not be dismantled by using rubber mallets.
  POSTSCRIPT
  This paper was prepared in about 1990 at a time when I was part of the ANC’s One City Initiatives in Port Elizabeth, and no coherent history of its Apartheid origins was available. To the best of my knowledge it has never been published, although I delivered any number of lectures and public talks on the subject when I was still living in the Eastern Cape. Now that it has been re-discovered, I am sure that I will be able to find a home for it in some journal. Please watch this space.
  BIBLIOGRAPHY
  BAINES, G. 1989. The Control and Administration of Port Elizabeth's African Population, 1834 - 1923. CONTREE. 26. 12-21.BAKER, Jonathan. 1990. Small Town Africa - Studies in Rural-Urban Interaction. Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.BACKHOUSE, James. 1844. A Narrative of a Visit to the Mauritius and South Africa. London: Hamilton, Adams.CALDWELL, Sharon Edna. 1987. The Course and Results of the Plague Outbreaks in King William's Town, 1900-1907. Unpublished BA Hons Treatise, Rhodes University, Grahamstown.CHRISTOPHER, AJ. 1991. Port Elizabeth Guide. University of Port Elizabeth.CLAYTON, AJ. 1986. Facts and Figures. Port Elizabeth: City Engineer's Department.DEL MONTE, Lance. 1991. One City Concept: Land Use. Port Elizabeth: Metroplan.FRESCURA, Franco and RADFORD, Dennis. 1982. The Physical Growth of Johannesburg. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand.INFRAPLAN. 1988. Port Elizabeth Metropolitan Study. East London: INFRAPLAN.LEMON, Anthony. 1991. Homes Apart. Cape Town: David Philip.OBERHOLSTER, JJ. 1972. The Historical Monuments of South Africa. Cape Town: NMC.ROSENTHAL, Eric. 1970. Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa. London: Frederick Warne.STRATEGIC FACILITATION GROUP. 1991. Development Facilitation. Port Elizabeth: SFG.TAYLOR, Beverley. 1991. Controlling the Burgeoning Masses: Removals and Residential Development in Port Elizabeth's Black Areas 1800 - 1900. Working Paper No 51. Grahamstown: Institute for Social and Economic Research.
  
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