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Browsing College of Humanities by Subject "1850 - 1948"

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    Class, capital and state in colonial Swaziland c1850 - 1948
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 1988) Mlahagwa, Josian Reuben
    The history surrounding the emergence and metamorphosis of the Swaziland social formation is deep and complex. The moulding of a unitary nation with a single language and a hegemonic culture under a widely recognised dynastic ruler in less than a century; the struggles geared at maintaining the independence of the nation against the upheavals associated with the Mfecane; the encroachments of the forces of capitalism, particularly in the form of a hunt for consessions; the response of the Swazi rulers to those forces and their eventual subordination to colonial and global capitalism, despite their show of resilience in that situation; the impoverishment of the peasantry and proletarianization of a sizeable proportion of the population in the wake of the partition of the country and the operation of south African mineral capitalism; the protracted efforts of the colonial state to disentangle the mess created by the concessions onslaught so as to facilitate effective and profitable exploitation; the history surrounding these themes is very rich and the telling of that story is a noble task, though not easy. Despite this rich history, quite out of proportion to the territory's size and population, it is only recently that scholars have started reconstructing and synthesizing it. This study attempts to make a contribution to the reconstruction of that history along the above stated themes. Swaziland was created by a refugee society on the run. The emergence of strong states in the aftermath of the Mfecane is a familiar theme. But the uniqueness of Swaziland lies in the fact that it was the only state that carried the process of integration to a maximum, leading to a unique uniformity of culture. The military establishment (amabutho) and the homestead played a crucial role in promoting and maintaining the dominant production relations. While the homestead formed the basic unit of production the amabutho contributed to the process of accumulation, mainly through plunderand military incursions. Different forces were brought to bear upon the Swazi state which eventually led to its demise. Such forces were European settlement, the dynamics of merchant capital, concession capitalism, Anglo-Boer rivalries which culminated in the Anglo-Boer war and the consolidation of British colonial rule. The British colonial state emerged as the skilful manager of sharp contradictions within Swaziland. In its effort to consolidate itself and to effectively discharge its responsibility as overseer of c apitalist penetration the colonial state endeavoured to balance conflicting interests, the Swazi aristocracy, settler farmers, mining interests, and the Union of South Africa. Skilfully, the colonial state succeeded to control the finances of the Swazi royalty, partitioned the territory for effective exploitation, curtailed the judicial powers of the Swazi ruling aristocracy, broke the neck of the monopoly concessions, streamlined mining interests, intervened in the acquisition of labour, and successfully handled the issue of incorporation into the Union of South Africa. Indeed, it turned out that the colonial state became the chief beneficiary of that process since it emerged as the biggest capitalist' landowner. The picture which emerges out of all this is that the colonial state did succeed to resolve serious contradictions in the overall interest of a peaceful subjugation of the Swazi and of capitalist penetration and consolidation in Swaziland.