1894
Glen Grey Act
The Glen Grey Act of 1894 reorganised African land tenure and imposed a labour tax, becoming an important late nineteenth-century precedent for segregationist policy.
View in timelineThe Glen Grey Act, passed in 1894 for the Cape's Glen Grey district and later extended in modified form, reorganised African land tenure and imposed a labour tax. Its individualised allotment system, local administrative structures and labour requirements tied land policy to the colonial demand for workers.
Significance
The act linked restricted landholding, local administration and labour extraction, creating a model later used in wider segregationist and territorial policies.
Why it matters
The act linked restricted landholding, local administration and labour extraction, creating a model later used in wider segregationist and territorial policies.
Perspective notes
Cecil Rhodes presented the act as a route to orderly landholding, local responsibility and labour participation. African critics and later historians emphasised its constraints on communal land, political autonomy and economic independence.