Microsoft Word - PhD Thesis Final.pdf - University of Limpopo ...

traditional communal tenure in which communities used to share land
equally. Communal identity was dealt a severe blow in the Makgabeng
area. The communal settlement patterns of families and clans were
disrupted and were replaced by fenced farms which each of them
became an entity.
However, that was not the final end of communal identity which proved to
be resilient. The resilience of this kind of identity was because it was part
of the Blacks’ traditional way of life. Blacks were not used to living
individually on separate pieces of land. As a result, later the farms in the
Makgabeng area were transferred to other owners who sold them
towards the middle of the 20 th century. This they did by regrouping and
collecting funds among themselves from the 1930s and 1940s. They then
revived their traditional communal ownership of land, although that
followed a new pattern which would be discussed later.
In addition to causing the loss of land by most Blacks in the Makgabeng
area, the new laws on land by White rulers also provided for the
application of grazing and residential rights by those people who
completely lost their land. Because their land was dispossessed, Blacks
found themselves having to apply to reside and graze their remaining
livestock. The following correspondence is an example of an “Application
239