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‘Good Lawyers but Poor Workers’: Recruited Angolan Labour in the Copper Mines of Katanga, 1917–19211

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Charles Perrings
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Extract

Between 1917 and 1921 Robert Williams and Company recruited labour from the Moxico Province of Angola for work in the Katanga copper mines of the Union Minière. The episode is one of the better documented in a period in which comparable recruiting operations were the mainstay of the industry, and provides a case study that is also a vehicle for the analysis of the significance of recruitment both as an instrument of industrial strategy and a determinant of worker behaviour. It is argued that recruitment is characteristic of a phase in the development of the colonial political economy marked by the use of highly unskilled labour intensive techniques of production in the dominant industry. It is a mechanism designed specifically to service such techniques through the regulation of the induced supply of short-term, unskilled labour. It is further argued that it is such regulation—realized as coercion—that gives recruitment its particularity as a determinant of worker behaviour, and this paper seeks to identify from the Angolan case the precise implications which this had for the workers themselves.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , April 1977 , pp. 237 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

2 For a statistical breakdown of the recruitment and turnover of Angolan labour in this period see table 1.

3 The UMHK was founded in 1906 and commenced production of copper in 1911. For a description of its early activities see Union Minière de Haut Katanga, UMHK 1906–1956 (Brussels, 1956)Google Scholar; and Robert, M., Géologie et géographie du Katanga (Brussels, 1956).Google Scholar

4 van Onselen, C., Chibaro: African mine labour in Southern Rhodesia 1900–1933 (London, 1976).Google Scholar

5 For these approaches see the archives of Tanganyika Concessions Limited; TC/UM 75/340: correspondence between H. Buttgenbach, managing director of the UMHK, and Robert Williams, managing director of Tanganyika Concessions Limited, in Sept. and Oct. 1910, and in particular letters of 18 and 20 Oct. 1910. At this stage, Tanganyika Concessions held 40 per cent of the UMHK. File references in these archives all commence with the notation TC, and this has been adopted here as the general indicator for material from this source.

6 TC/137: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 8 Apr. 1911.Google Scholar

7 Expressed in dollars per 100 lbs rubber prices averaged $207–7 between 1909 and 1911, compared to only $143–3 in 1908. See Banque Centrale du Congo Beige, Bulletin, I, 1955, table 1, 1–14.Google Scholar

8 TC/137: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 8 Apr. 1911.Google Scholar

9 Prices between 1910 and 1921 were as follows: 1910 $225–4, 1911 $198–1, 1912 $178–3, 1913 $144–1. 1914 $110–6, 1915 $109–9, 1916 $105–3, 1917 $74–9, 1918 $52–5, 1919 $44–6, 1920 $426, 1921 $25–9. Banque Centrale du Congo Beige, Bulletin, 1, 1955, table 1, 1–14.Google Scholar

10 This company had been set up by Tanganyika Concessions specifically to handle labour management and recruitment for the UMHK, and by the close of the war it held or had held recruiting concessions in North-Eastern Rhodesia, North-Western Rhodesia, Barotseland, the Niassa Province of Portuguese East Africa and Eastern Angola.

11 The concession in fact covered all of Angola east of 19° E. See TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Yule, R. W., Chief Recruiter Robert Williams and Company, 16 Feb. 1917Google Scholar, in Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 3 Mar. 1917.Google Scholar

12 TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Machado, M., manager of Benguela Railway Company and agent for Robert Williams and Company in Angola, 13 Jan. 1917.Google Scholar

13 P. K. Horner, general manager of the UMHK, in fact reckoned that Angolan recruitment would increase African labour costs as a proportion of total costs from 10 per cent to between 20 and 25 per cent. See TC/UM 33: UMHK, Board Minutes, 8 Mar. 1917.Google Scholar

14 On production techniques see Union Minière du Haut Katanga, UMHK 1906–1956: évolution des techniques et des activités sociales (Brussels, 1957)Google Scholar; George, F. and Gouverneur, J., ‘Les transformations techniques et I' évolution des coefficients de fabrication a l'UMHK de 1910 à 1965’ Cultures et Développements, 1969–1970/1, 53–100Google Scholar; and Gouverneur, J., Productivity and Factor Proportions in Less Developed Countries: the case of industrial firms in the Congo (Oxford, 1971).Google Scholar

15 The average grade of ore extracted between 1911 and 1921 was 8–95 per cent. The average grade of ore sent for treatment in the same period was 15.07 per cent. UMHK, ‘Exploitation des mines de L'UMHK et de SUDKAT: résultats globaux au 31 Décembre 1964’.Google Scholar

16 Between 1916 and 1918 the proportion of ore extracted that was stockpiled increased from 58 per cent to 76 per cent. Ibid.

17 Between 1916 and 1920 the total black labour strength increased from 5,980 to 15,121. By the following year black labour costs constituted 23.6 per cent of total cost per ton of charge at Lubumbashi, representing an increase of precisely the scale predicted by Horner in 1917. TC/UM 34: UMHK, Board Minutes, 26 Sept. 1921, Report by E. Sengier (who had succeeded Horner as general manager).

18 TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 9 Dec. 1916, and 13 Jan. 1917.Google Scholar

19 TC/138: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 3 June 1916Google Scholar; and National Archives of Zambia (hereafter NAZ) BS3/30: UMHK, Brussels, to Carton de Wiart, UMHK, London, 2 June 1916, in Bonar Law to Buxton, High Commissioner in South Africa, 22 July 1916. The order was subsequently withdrawn on pressure from the UMHK.

20 TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 14 Oct. 1916 and 25 Nov. 1916Google Scholar; and NAZ/BS3/426: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the year ending 31 Mar. 1917.

21 NAZ/BS3/426: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga; Report for the year ending 31 Mar. 1917.

22 TC/UM 33: UMHK, Board Minutes, 8 Mar. 1917.

23 See TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 16 June 1917.Google Scholar

24 In July 1918 Portuguese recruits were receiving 85 centimes per shift compared to 65 centimes for a BTK recruit. TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 20 July 1918.Google Scholar

25 TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Machado, M., 13 Jan. 1917Google Scholar; Watson, J. G. to Yule, R. W., Chief Recruiter Robert Williams and Company, 16 Feb. 1917Google Scholar in Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 3 Mar. 1917Google Scholar; and Yule, R. W. to Machado, M., 12 Apr. 1917Google Scholar, in Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 26 May 1917Google Scholar. Also Fisher, A. C., interview, Greystone Park, Kitwe, 18 and 25 Mar. 1975Google Scholar. A ration scale was laid down as follows:

Cassava was later introduced in place of rice and part of the maize issue.

26 TC/138a: Yule, R. W. to Schou, H., 25 Apr. 1917Google Scholar, in Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 16 June 1917.Google Scholar

27 There were 161 men in this gang made up of 120 Luena from the Nana Candundo district, and 41 from Bihe. TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 31 May 1917 and 16 June 1917.Google Scholar

28 TC 133: Report of recruiting abuses in Angola by Fisher, W., in Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 27 Aug. 1919.Google Scholar

29 TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Machado, M., 13 Jan. 1917.Google Scholar

30 TC/138a: Specimen forms for Angolan labour in Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 16 June 1917.Google Scholar

31 TC/133: Report on recruiting abuses, and Memorandum of statement made by Dr Fisher at Elisabethville on 28 July 1919, regarding brutalities perpetrated on natives in connexion with recruiting carried out in Angola by Robert Williams and Company, in Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 29 July 1919.Google Scholar

32 The palmatoria was described by Fisher as ‘an instrument about one inch thick made of hippo or rhino hide—sometimes of wood. It has a handle 9 in. long—same width as thickness. It is round and 3 in. in diameter, perforated with holes which suck in the flesh of the palm of the hand, and leave ugly wounds’. Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 TC/133: Memorandum of statement made by Dr Fisher.

35 TC/133: Report on recruiting abuses.

36 TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 12 June 1918.Google Scholar

37 TC/133: Memorandum of statement made by Dr Fisher.

38 TC/133: Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 29 July 1919.Google Scholar

39 TC/133: French, J. C. to Thomson, A. A., 13 June 1919Google Scholar, in Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 20 June 1919.Google Scholar

40 TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 12 June 1918Google Scholar. This is, of course, a comment on the limitations of the evidence used. Undoubtedly the official level of taxation could be determined with at least some accuracy by consulting the Portuguese sources, but it is likely that Africans were subject to other unofficial levies.

41 Workers engaged in Northern Rhodesia were on 6 month contracts, while BTK recruits were then being signed on for contracts of around 9 months.

42 TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Machado, M., 13 Jan. 1917Google Scholar; and TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 20 July 1918Google Scholar. It is argued below that by mid–1918 the Angolan workers in the concession were under unusual pressure, and that tensions were running high. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the women were intended to defuse the situation and this suggests an obvious parallel to the labour management practices of the larger mines in Southern Rhodesia, described in Charles van Onselen's Chibaro.

43 TC/139: French, J. G., Declaration made to the Capitao Mor de Alto Zambezi, 6 Aug. 1918Google Scholar; and French, J. G. to Watson, J. G., 6 Aug. 1918Google Scholar, in Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 13 Sept. 1918.Google Scholar

44 TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 13 Sept. 1918.Google Scholar

45 TC/133: French, J. G. to Thomson, A. A., 15 June 1919Google Scholar, in Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 30 June 1919.Google Scholar

46 TC/133 and TC/140: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns. These show a total of 635 engagements under the recruitment programme after the cancellation of the Company's concession in Angola.

47 See Companhia de Diamantes de Angola, A short report on its work in Angola (Lisbon, 1963), 12–16.Google Scholar

48 TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 20 July 1918.Google Scholar

49 By 1917 the UMHK black labour force had already suffered the ravages of four epidemics following the introduction of the Kaonde in 1911, the Luba in 1912/13, the Mwani and Makua in 1914, and the Luvale, Mankoya and Lozi in 1916.'

50 See TC/138a: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 16 June 1917.Google Scholar

51 NAZ/BS3/141.2: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the year ending 31 Mar. 1918. Grass compounds were theoretically renewed every 12 months, but in practice they tended to stand for a number of years. See TC/139: Pearson, A., Report on the UMHK compounds 31 Oct. 1918Google Scholar, in Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 7 Jan. 1919.Google Scholar

52 The tick, ornithodorous moubata, was not met with outside southern Katanga, and most of the workers brought into the concession had not developed any kind of immunity to it. It was specifically associated with the earlier grass or wattle and daub compounds, and once more permanent compounds of brick and cement were constructed in the 1920s it disappeared. See Pearson, A. and Mouchet, R., Practical Hygiene of Native Compounds in Tropical Africa (London, 1923), 171–4.Google Scholar

53 TC/138a: Pearson, A., Medical Officer, UMHK, Report upon the epidemic of sickness among natives at Lubumbashi commencing Sept. 1916Google Scholar, in Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 25 Nov. 1916.Google Scholar

54 On the general health record of the Angolan workers see Pearson, and Mouchet, , Practical Hygiene, 128–9.Google Scholar

55 For the growth of the compound see TC/138a, TC/139 and TC/140: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, 1917–20.

56 Pearson and Mouchet demonstrated this correlation in an examination of eight compounds in 1919. Practical Hygiene, 6–8.Google Scholar

57 TC/UM 75/347: Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 20 Feb. 1914.Google Scholar

58 Ibid.

59 TC/133: Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 28 Feb. 1919Google Scholar. See also NAZ/BS3/141.1: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the month of Apr. 1920.

60 TC/138: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 1 Apr. 1916.Google Scholar

61 Pearson, A. and Mouchet, R., Practical Hygiene, 76–7.Google Scholar

62 See Belgium, , Rapport tur I' administration de la colonie du Congo Beige présenté aux chambres législatives, 1921.Google Scholar

63 The more so since cassava is a food of lower antineuritic and antiscorbutic value than either maize or rice, though this was unknown at the time. See Pearson, A. and Mouchet, R., Practical Hygiene, 80–2.Google Scholar

64 NAZ/BS3/457: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the month of Dec. 1920.

65 See NAZ/BS3/141.2: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the year ending 31 Mar. 1918.

66 TC/UM 64/Annexure D: Horner, P. K. to UMHK, London, 15 Jan. 1919Google Scholar, containing an extract of a report dated 20 July 1917. See also NAZ/BA3/427: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the month of June 1917. In the four years before Angolan recruits were brought on to the mines, mortality amongst recruited workers had averaged 109–8 per mille per annum, compared to only 27.4 per mille per annum in the Southern Rhodesian mines (voluntary and recruited workers together). See van Onselen, C., Chibaro, 50Google Scholar. They were, of course, violent times. Many more men were being killed in the trenches in Europe, and the emotional cost of death was low. Moreover, so long as the production techniques then operated required only minimal skills from the bulk of the workforce, and so long as the area of labour supply was expanding, the financial cost of death was equally low.

67 TC/138a: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, 1917.

68 P. K. Horner, the general manager, had consistently resisted pressure to improve the compounds at the mine, arguing that all ore (high and low grade) would be exhausted by 1922, and that investment in compounds was not therefore warranted. See TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 13 Sept. 1918Google Scholar. On conditions at the mine by 1917 see NAZ/BS3/430: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the months Aug. and Sept., 1917; and TC/UM 33: UMHK, Board Minutes, 2 Jan. 1918.Google Scholar

69 TC/60: de Wiart, Carton to Williams, R., 17 Dec. 1917.Google Scholar

70 NAZ/BS3/141.2: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the year ending 31 Mar. 1918.

71 TC/UM 64/Annexure D: Horner, P. K. to UMHK, London, 4 Aug. 1917.Google Scholar

72 TC/UM 33: UMHK, Board Minutes, 16 Oct. 1917.Google Scholar

73 Pearson, A. and Mouchet, R., Practical Hygiene, 11Google Scholar op.

74 Ibid.

75 TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 21 Dec. 1918.Google Scholar

76 TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 12 Oct. 1918.Google Scholar

77 TC/139: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, Nov. 1918. Death rates amongst different categories of labour for the month of Nov. alone (on all UMHK properties) were as follows:

78 See TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 4 Jan. 1919.Google Scholar

79 Ibid.

80 TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 18 Jan. 1919.Google Scholar

81 NAZ/BS3/141.2: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the months Apr. and May 1919; TC/133: Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 5 Apr. 1919Google Scholar; and NAZ/BS3/141.1: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the month of Sept. 1919.

82 TC/139 and TC/133: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, Oct. 1918 to Sept. 1919.

83 NAZ/BS3/141.2: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the month of Mar. 1919.

84 NAZ/BS3/141.1: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Reports for the months Jan. to Apr. 1920.

85 TC/133: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, Jan. to Apr. 1920.

86 See table 1.

87 TC/138a, TC/133, TC/139 and TC/140: Robert Williams and Company, occasional reports on labour costs, 1916 to 1921.

88 Movements in the rate of exchange between the franc and the pound between 1917 and 1921 were as follows: 1917 25–20, 1918 25–20, 1919 32–32, 1920 50–32, 1921 51–91.

89 There is no accurate index of the prices of goods normally bought by Africans during this period, but it is evident that prices were rising sharply. When news of the first devaluation was received in Katanga in Apr. 1919, for example, storekeepers had posted immediate increases of 15 per cent. See TC/133: Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 25 Apr. 1919.Google Scholar

90 The corrective began with a narrowly focused attack on the backward-sloping labour supply curve by, for example, Miracle, M. P. and Fetter, B., ‘Backward sloping labor supply functions and African economic behaviour’ Economic Development and Cultural Change, xviii, 2 (1970), 240–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but the front has recently been broadened by Charles van Onselen, explicitly in his ‘Black workers in Central African industry: a critical essay on the historiography and sociology of Rhodesia’ Journal of Southern African Studies, I, 2 (April, 1975), 228–46Google Scholar, and implicitly in much of his other work.

91 Article 17 of the Decree of 17 Aug. 1910, governing the contract for hire of services and recruitment of labour, as modified by the Decree of 25 Jan. 1912.

92 A. C. Fisher, interview cited.

93 The position had apparently improved somewhat by the arrival of the Angolans—at least so far as workers from North Eastern Rhodesia were concerned—and the Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga reported in 1918 that ‘bad assaults by Europeans, at one time almost a daily occurrence, have now diminished’. NAZ/BS3/141.2: Report for the year ending 31 Mar. 1918.

94 TC/UM 33: UMHK, Board Minutes, 2 Jan. 1918.Google Scholar

95 Ibid.

96 See table 1.

97 TC/139: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, Likasi, Apr. 1918.

98 Mwebwe, Kayembe, former smelter hand at UMHK, Lubumbashi, interview, Lubumbashi, 3 June 1975.Google Scholar

99 TC/138a and TC/139: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, June 1917 to Dec. 1918.

100 TC/139: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, May to Sept. 1918.

101 See table 1.

102 See NAZ/BS3/141.2: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the months May and June, 1918; and TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 7 Sept. 1918.Google Scholar

103 See TC/139: Watson, J. G. to Williams, R., 20 July 1918Google Scholar. Watson's explanation for the problem was that the workers were getting ‘homesick’.

104 TC/133: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, Jan. to June 1920.

105 See table 1.

106 The terminology employed here is that which was in current usage at the time referred to. ‘Voluntary’ workers were those who, in contrast to the recruits, had themselves travelled to the concession and had engaged at the mine on a ticket to ticket basis. ‘Contract’ workers were those employed by labour contractors, and thus employed only indirectly by the Company.

107 TC/133: Thomson, A. A. to French, J. G., 18 June 1919Google Scholar; French, J. G. to Thomson, A. A., 13 June 1919Google Scholar, in Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 20 June 1919.Google Scholar

108 There is in fact a close correlation between wage fluctuations in the fringe market (dominated by the labour contractors) and supply in the controlled market. In March 1919, for instance, the Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga reported a scarcity of labour (in the controlled market) whilst noting thatco ntractors’ wages had risen from around 18 francs in mid 1918 to 35 francs. See NAZ/BS3/141.2: Report for the month, Mar. 1919.

109 The total number of Angolans engaging voluntarily between 1917 and 1921 was as follows: 1917/18 115, 1918/19 160, 1919/20 167, 1920/21 545. TC/138a, TC/139 and TC/133: Robert Williams and Company, monthly labour returns, Apr. 1918 to May 1921; and NAZ/BS3/141.2: Inspector of Rhodesian Natives in Katanga, Report for the year ending 31 Mar. 1918, table 1.

110 TC/133: Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 8 Aug. 1910.Google Scholar

111 TC/133: Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., n Nov. 1919.Google Scholar

112 TC/141: Thomson, A. A. to Williams, R., 29 Dec. 1921.Google Scholar

113 The average rate of desertion amongst recruited workers in the UMHK regular work force between 1917 and 1921 was 100–6 per mille per annum. In the same period the rate amongst voluntary workers was 245–3 Per mille per annum. For more detailed treatment of the behavioural distinctions to be drawn between these categories of worker see my ‘Black labour in the copper mines of Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo: industrial strategies and the evolution of an African proletariat 1911–1941’ Ph.D. thesis, London, 1976.Google Scholar