ABSTRACT
African colonial historiographers have for many years been intrigued by the ways in which various European colonial powers used their respective authorities and influence in relation to the chieftaincies they encountered within indigenous colonized communities, making them conduits in colonial rule. The dominant school of thought has tended to suggest and/or advocate in this regard clear-cut differentiations between the so-called systems of direct and indirect colonial rule. Based on a comparative juxtaposition of German and South African colonial rule models, this chapter suggests that in spite of the variation between the models of colonial governance imposed by the different colonial metropolises on their colonies, the overarching ideological outlooks and policy underpinnings of both colonial powers and their implanted apparatuses of power and domination also bore a number of striking resemblances. This chapter concludes that both the Union of South Africa, a British dominion, as well as its successor, the Republic of South Africa, continued on the same path as its German predecessor to dispossess the indigenous inhabitants of their land. The chapter demonstrates how ultimate results were achieved through the transplantation, adaptation and enforcement of foreign and colonial European legal discourses of property rights in land. This resulted in what has been described by McAuslan as the creation of evolving enclaves of Westernized legal modernities of property rights founded on individualized land designation titles.
