Revisiting the origins of the industrial colour bar in the Witwatersrand gold mining industry, 1891-1899

On the Witwatersrand gold mines during the 1890s, skilled white workmen's r ivals were not 'ultra-exploitatble' black migrant workers, but informally-t rained, long-service Africans, Indians, and coloureds. As this article demo nstrates, such competition laid the basis for the 'structural insecurity' o f white artisans and operatives on the mines, bur left the white miners (as supervisors) untouched. In the 1890s, they enjoyed relative job security. It was the white engine drivers (and not the miners proper) who demanded th e colour bar for a complex set of class-cum-race reasons. But the chief pro moter of the colour bar clauses, it is argued, was the State Mining Enginee r, A. J. Klimke, whose main goal was actually to promote safety, a function he believed black workers incapable of achieving. He therefore reserved fo r whites two major job categories associated with mining accidents: hauling and blasting. The article also demonstrates that a racial ordering of prod uction on the mines was fully supported by the American engineers who were so key in the Rand management structure at this time. Many of these men cha mpioned a racial supervisory system because of their values and their exper ience at the EI Callao Mine in Venezuela. The article thus suggests the nee d for historians to re-think the precise roles of white workers, management and the state in the early elaboration of job segregation on the South Afr ican gold mines.