There is a paucity of oral-history works on Kat River. Likewise, although various histories of Kat River/Stockenstrom exist, few have focused on the forced removals of Stockenstrom coloured people in the 1980s, the effects of displacement on them, and their involvement in current land claims issues. This dissertation seeks to redress these lacunae and provide information from "the underside" on the Kat River Rebellion of 1851-1853. In order to accomplish this, between 2011 and 2016 the author interviewed, with their consent, people of Khoikhoi descent in Kat River, recording, transcribing and analysing the interviews. The interviews, which range from conversations with male and female subsistence farmers and lay preachers to activists - such as the late Manie Loots, aka James Stewart - are set in the broader context of a selective Kat River history from 1829 to the present. Vagrancy legislation during the historical period is discussed; showing the link between pauperism, vagrancy, and colonial perceptions of disease such as leprosy, which was often associated with "loose" women. It is argued that the above perceptions, together with fear, led to the targeting of women and lepers during the attack on Fort Armstrong in 1852. Despite attempts to marginalise them, it was found that both colonial women, including rebels, and women in present-day Kat River exercised, and continue to exercise, remarkable agency. This thesis also reassesses the ideological bases of the Kat River Settlement, arguing that they were cultivation and militarism, with the latter exemplified in the Kat River settlers' service in frontier wars. Further, it found that neo-Marxist theories of commoning can shed light on the etiology of the Kat River Rebellion, and that people, whose access to their commons or other rights is restricted or denied, become radicalised. It was also found that, although their dispossession from Kat River took place in the 1980s, the interviewees, who all demonstrated strong ties to the land on which they grew up, still feel the effects of it, their all-consuming aim being the recognition of their land claims and the restoration of their titles.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/27847 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Blackbeard, Susan Isabel |
| Contributors | Penn, Nigel |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Historical Studies |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral Thesis, Doctoral, PhD |
| Format | application/pdf |
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