Land Policy and the Native Population of Swaziland

Abstract

A geographical analysis of land policy is fundamental to population studies in African territories where native reserves have been established. In Kenya, Southern Rhodesia, Swaziland and the Union of South Africa, the alienation of land for European colonization and mineral development has led to a marked congestion in native areas; Swaziland, the smallest of these territories (6704 square miles), provides a compact yet comprehensive example. Here as elsewhere in South and East Africa, territorial segregation has been incomplete in that native reserves are interspersed in European areas and natives have not been entirely excluded from European lands. To remove the squatters but also to relieve congestion in the reserves, a native land settlement scheme likely to have the most far-reaching influence, not only in Swaziland, but also in other African Dependencies 1 was recently adopted. This scheme and the partition of the territory into European and native areas in 1909 will be considered in relation to a classification of the land and to the distribution and density of the population. Moreover, because the Swazis are essentially a cattle-owning people, the relationship between population distribution, cattle distribution and the carrying capacity of the veld will also be examined.