ABSTRACT
Segregationist policies and measures soon began to emanate from the new union government, especially in four main areas - land, labour, political differentiation, and urban control. Within six months of South African unification the new union government addressed the land question. It appointed a parliamentary select committee to investigate African land occupation with special reference to squatting. The committee recommended a uniform policy for regulating the settlement of Africans on private property. It also proposed the enactment of legislation based on the principle of territorial separation, as earlier recommended by the SAN AC in 1905. The
eventual outcome was what Keegan calls the 'most closely studied law in South Africa's history'20 - the 1913 Natives Land Act. According to its terms, Africans were prohibited from occupying land outside the reserves, except as labour tenants - cash tenants and sharecroppers were the targets. Nor could Africans purchase land outside the reserves, while the reserves themselves were set aside for exclusive African occupation. The act also defined scheduled areas which would form the basis of these reserves.21
