Exploitation by design: The dismal science, land reform, and the Cape Boers, 1805-22

At home and in the colonies, there were reformers who believed that rational exploitation of land was a matter of national and imperial interest. At the Cape, this outlook became policy, and Charles D'Escury zealously fashioned the details. Ostensibly, the experiment at the Cape involved a refo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of imperial and Commonwealth history 2001-09, Vol.29 (3), p.1-32
Main Author: Weaver, John C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agrarian Structures
Cape of Good Hope
Colonial government
Colonial history
Colonialism
Economic development
England
European Cultural Groups
Exploitation
History
Imperialism
Land Reform
Land use
Nineteenth Century
Resource exploitation
South Africa
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Summary:At home and in the colonies, there were reformers who believed that rational exploitation of land was a matter of national and imperial interest. At the Cape, this outlook became policy, and Charles D'Escury zealously fashioned the details. Ostensibly, the experiment at the Cape involved a reformation of Cape Dutch land tenure and a more thorough extraction of revenue, but it had the veiled purpose of intensifying agricultural exploitation by displacing supposed laggards. From 1813-1822, D'Escury, the Cape's Inspector of Lands and Woods, laboured creatively to find the intrinsic value of land for individual farms. He wished to discover what classical economists described as rent, because he planned to use this figure to price land at rates that would reward industry and force idle holdings into productivity.
ISSN:0308-6534
1743-9329
DOI:10.1080/03086530108583125