Since the advent of colonisation, black South Africans have been subjected to discriminatory laws that dispossessed them of their property – without compensation – solely because of the colour of their skin. The intent was clear: landownership by the black population did not serve the economic interests of the ruling powers.
The 1913 Native Lands Act was the codification of land theft that started in 1657 when the first “free burgher”, Jan Hendrik Boom, began farming a plot of land previously used for grazing by the indigenous KhoiKhoi population. The act further established a policy of forced removals that prevented the emergence of a class of black landowners who had been able to successfully compete with those who were white.
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