Waves of Indian migration

INDIANS had come to South Africa through various routes. One theory posited by Professor Cyril Hromnik pointed to Dravidian gold miners having settled in southern Africa. Their likely port of entry was present-day Maputo, traversing Komatipoort, a name derived from Tamil, and travelling beyond into the Karoo.

- SELVAN NAIDOO

The next understudied route of migration was that of Indian slaves trafficked by slave-trading Europeans to make up 50% of the slave population of the Cape since the mid-17th century.

The best-known wave of migration was that of Indian indentured workers, who came to grow the colonial economy of Natal. Alongside these 152 184 workers who came from 1860 to 1911, Passenger Indians, who paid for their passage, came to South Africa as traders, artisans and workers, primarily originating from the Gujarati region of India, specifically the west coast.

The next wave of migration were Sikh and Pathan soldiers, who came at the turn of the 19th century to fight in the Anglo-Boer, Zulu and Basotho wars. The last wave of Indian migration to South Africa was those who arrived in post-democracy.

Throughout these waves of migration, anti-Indian legislation was introduced to curb economic growth and deny residential status for Indians living throughout South Africa. Law 3 of 1885 provided for separate residential and trading areas for Indians and “Arabs” in the Transvaal. The Orange Free State (Free State) prohibited Indian settlement from 1891, and the Cape introduced immigration restrictions from 1903.

Restrictions to prohibit Indian immigration intensified in the last decade of the 19th century with the Immigration Restriction Act (Natal) in 1897 and its subsequent amendments in 1900, 1903 and 1906. The act imposed educational, health, age and means test restrictions against Indians other than indentured workers who sought admission to the country, or entry to the Transvaal and Cape. This act virtually stopped all further immigration of free Indians into the colony.