Kranspoort removals, 1955 to 1964 in the sources
Between about 1955 and 1964, after a conflict with the resident missionary Lukas van der Merwe, most of the roughly 800 people living at the Dutch Reformed mission station of Kranspoort were removed, first those who had petitioned against the missionary and then the rest. In 1998 their descendants won a restitution claim to the farm.
What the sources say
Before the conflict. Magwira, writing from the community’s side, says tension grew after Van der Merwe was inducted on 27 October 1946. Residents objected to his ban on the traditional end-of-year dance competition; to a village council and church council hand-picked by him, with an evangelist and a village chairman as his closest associates; to burial rules that separated those the church counted as believers from others and barred outsiders; to a house-inspection campaign; to a higher annual levy on residents of the non-Christian areas; and to the sale of the orange orchard. The residents’ side came to be called Ba-Sofasonke and the missionary’s Ba-Daza (pp. 65 to 69). In 1955, a petition of 167 residents named the missionary, the evangelist and the chairman as unwelcome (p. 66).
The confrontation. Magwira’s account of the break is that the burial of an elderly woman from a neighbouring farm, whom the church council refused to bury at the station because her host was in arrears, led residents to bury her in the Christian section against the rules, and warn the three that they should not come to the grave; the missionary called the police, who made no arrests. A second death led to another refusal of the missionary’s prayers, and a petition went to the mission secretary. Two commissions of inquiry were appointed, the church council was suspended and reinstated, and when the residents would not accept the three men back, court cases followed in which, Magwira says, the magistrate ordered the complainants to leave because they were “no longer Christians” (pp. 70 to 72).
The removals. A retired policeman was called to issue residents with trekpasse, exit permits, at the school. When none left within three months, police arrested them and took them to Mara; they were fined for contempt of court, paid and returned; in bigger numbers they were arrested again, given higher fines, and many served some months in prison. Those who paid went to the Messina location, to relatives or to Johannesburg. Seventy-five families who obeyed the station’s rules were given permits to stay, renewable every two years at the missionary’s discretion, and people from the non-Christian areas were invited into the mission area. Those who had stayed on good terms with the missionary were removed in 1964 with compensation for their demolished houses and settled in the Maepa township and the Mara location in the area of Chief Khutama (p. 73; see Kutama). Magwira counts more than 600 of about 800 forcibly removed in under 20 years (p. 68).
The church’s side. Magwira cites the church-side researcher F. S. Malan (1973) as arguing that the people had no claim because they were fugitives from nearby farms, or were people fleeing witchcraft and mothers of babies who had cut their lower teeth first, who sought refuge; and Magwira rejects this, saying the missionaries found people living on the farm when they arrived in 1863, according to evidence in the later court case (p. 72). He argues that the church’s mission policy and the apartheid laws, especially the Group Areas Act of 1950, the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951 and Bantu Authorities Act of 1951, worked together, and that the church’s letters to the Native Affairs department show it (p. 74 and chapter 5). A letter of 8 July 1977 from the church to the education department said the removal of the black Christians in 1957 was beyond its control (p. 98).
Afterwards. The removal was the subject of the 1998 land claim; see Kranspoort.
Cautions
This page deals with a painful history in living memory, and we name only the missionary, who was a public figure, and none of the residents. The account of events inside the station is that of the dissertation’s informants and the Malan papers it quotes; the details (the dates of the petition, the number of removals) are as it gives them and vary: it uses 1955, 1956 and 1957 for the main removals and 1964 for the later ones. We have not seen the commission reports or the court judgment. Magwira’s dissertation is a missiological critique written from the standpoint of the community that was removed, and it leans on the Dutch Reformed Church’s own archive (the “DIV” files in Stellenbosch) as well as on interviews; we have not seen the archive, nor the church’s own account.
Izithakazelo and totem
We have found no confirmed totem or praise poem for this page. If your family belongs to the Kranspoort community or to one of the mission stations in this story and you wish to share its history, we would like to record it, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Mashonelo Anderson Magwira, “Land for mission and mission for land: a missiological reflection of the Kranspoort Mission Station in Soutpansberg within the Vhembe district of the Limpopo Province”, MTh dissertation, University of Pretoria (2016), chapters 2, 4, 5 and 6
- S. T. Kgatla (with M. A. Magwira), “Mission driven by fear and despair: the case of Kranspoort, the first Dutch Reformed Church mission station outside the Cape Colony”, Stellenbosch Theological Journal 1(2), 2015, pp. 471 to 490
See also Stephanus Hofmeyr, Kranspoort, Kranspoort removals, 1955 to 1964, Goedgedacht, Alexander McKidd and Madzhie.
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