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The golden opportunity: Recruitment of “foreigners” into the Witwatersrand by mining corporations, 1913-1933
In this article the strategies used by mining corporations to facilitate the
illegal entry of mine-workers into South Africa between 1913 and 1933 are
discussed. In 1913 the government banned the outsourcing of mine-workers
from areas that were located north of the 22 degrees line of latitude, but despite
this, mining corporations devised ways of sourcing cheap labour to maximise
their profits. These workers were referred to as “tropical migrants” and were
brought in from neighbouring British colonies and the Portuguese East
Colony. Through the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA)’s
efforts to provide stable workforce and maximise its profits, the prevalence of
illegal recruiters bringing in tropical migrants was discouraged. In this article
I discuss how the mining corporations facilitated the illegal entry of workers
into the country and investigate the role played by WNLA, which benefited
immensely from the cheap labour provided by foreign mine-workers