Marabastad (also called Asiatic Bazaar or Location) is a business area near the city centre of

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. The original ''Maraba Village'', situated just to the south of the present Marabastad, was founded and ruled by the

Ndebele Ndebele may refer to: *Southern Ndebele people, located in South Africa *Northern Ndebele people, located in Zimbabwe and Botswana Languages * Southern Ndebele language, the language of the South Ndebele *Northern Ndebele language Northern ...

Chief Maraba. The name ''Marabastad'' is the

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

word meaning ''Maraba's Town''.

Background

Marabastad was a culturally diverse community, with the

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

Mariamman Temple arguably being its most prominent landmark. Like the residents of other racially diverse areas in South Africa, such as

District Six District Six (Afrikaans ''Distrik Ses'') is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime. The area of District Six is now ...

, " Fietas" and

Sophiatown Sophiatown , also known as Sof'town or Kofifi, is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Sophiatown was a black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid, It produced some of South Africa's most famous writers, musicians, politicians a ...

, the inhabitants of Marabastad were relocated to single-race

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

further away from the city centre. These removals were due to

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

laws like the

Group Areas Act Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system o ...

. Unlike

, Fietas and

, it was not

bulldozed A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

, but it retained many of its original buildings, and became primarily a business district, with most shops still owned by the Indians who had also lived there previously. Some property was however owned by the city council and the government, resulting in limited development taking place there. In addition, a large shopping complex was built to house Indian-owned shops. The black residents of Marabastad were relocated to

Atteridgeville Atteridgeville is a township located to the west of Pretoria, South Africa. It is located to the east of Saulsville, to the west of West Park; to the north of Laudium and to the south of Lotus Gardens. The settlement was established in 1939, a ...

(1945), the Coloured residents to Eersterus (1963), and the Indian residents to

Laudium Laudium () is an Indian township (apartheid classification) in southwest of central Pretoria, in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. Claudius is a residential suburb that is effectively an extension of Laudium. History Older aer ...

(1968). There are plans to revive once-picturesque Marabastad, and to reverse years of

urban decay Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban deca ...

and neglect, although few seem to have been implemented as of 2005.

History

Marabastad was named after the local headman of a village to the west of Steenhoven Spruit. During the 1880s he lived in Schoolplaats and acted as an interpreter. During this period some Africans lived on the farms where they were being employed and also chose to live on other, undeveloped land. Schoolplaats could also not accommodate all the migrants and this resulted in squatting. An overflow from Schoolplaats to the north-west and Maraba's village occurred and in August 1888 the land was surveyed by the government. The location Marabastad was established and was situated between the Apies River in the north, Skinner Spruit in the west, Steenhoven Spruit in the east and De Korte Street in the south. There were 67 stands varying between 1400 and 2500 square meters each. Residents were not allowed to own stands, but had to rent them from the government at 4 pounds a year. They were allowed to build their own houses and to plant crops on empty plots. Water was acquired from the various bordering rivers and 58 wells situated in the area. The

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

was not private owned and was managed by the Transvaal Boer Republic. At the outbreak of the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...

in 1899 there were no rules and regulations with regard to Marabastad. Africans who streamed to Pretoria during the war were living in squatter camps near the artillery barracks, the brickworks and the railway stations at

Prinshof Prinshof is an area in Pretoria. It is the home of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Pretoria and the Steve Biko Hospital Steve Biko Academic Hospital (formerly the Pretoria Academic Hospital and before 1994 called H F Verw ...

. This resulted in the development of ‘New Marabastad’ in the area between Marabastad and the Asiatic Bazaar in 1900 by the British military authorities. They had been occupying the city since June 1900 and resettled refugees in the area. By 1901 there were 392 occupied stands in the New Marabastad and there was no real segregation between Africans, Indians and Coloured people. Although New Marabastad was intended as a temporary settlement the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

authorities granted permission for in their employ to erect brick houses. This resulted in the erection of other permanent structures like schools and churches. The new Town Council was established in 1902 and it was accepted that the residents of New Marabastad would be moved to other, planned townships. In 1903 New Marabastad had grown to 412 stands while Old Marabastad still only had 67. Along with the Cape Location, which was situated in the southern part of the Asiatic Bazaar, it fell under the jurisdiction of the City Council of that year. The greatest problem was the provision of water and this was only addressed after the war. Due to the fear of epidemic all wells in the area had been filled during the war, and a single public tap had replaced the entire system. New Marabastad didn't have any wells or taps. There was an attempt to rectify this in 1903 by providing more taps, but the number was still inadequate. In 1906 New and Old Marabastad became one location. Rates were determined and sanitary and building regulations came into effect. These regulations didn't achieve their objections as a result of

municipal A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

maladministration and the fact that Africans could not own land and afford well-built permanent houses. Streets remained unpaved, the water supply was inadequate and there were no sanitary facilities worth mentioning. More and more shacks appeared. By 1907 conditions improved marginally, but the streets were left in their unkempt state and by 1910 this had still not been addressed. The Native Affairs Department accused the Pretoria Town Council of inefficient administration, which had led directly to this situation.

Removals

The relocation of residents of Old Marabastad had been on the agenda of the town council since 1903 and in 1907, when the council decided to build a new

sewage farm Sewage farms use sewage for irrigation and fertilizing agricultural land. The practice is common in warm, arid climates where irrigation is valuable while sources of fresh water are scarce. Suspended solids may be converted to humus by microbes an ...

, it became a reality. It was decided to remove all residents of the area to a new location further away from the city centre and to demolish the old township. Now followed the struggle of finding a suitable site. The site on the southern slope of Daspoortrand was decided on in 1912 and in January planning for the ‘New Location’ started. It would include a number of brick houses that could be rented from the municipality. By September of the same year the first relocations were taking place and demolishing of old structures commenced. It was a slow process and Old Marabastad was only completely destroyed by 1920. The lack of space remained a problem and New Marabastad was experiencing severe overcrowding. By 1923 the last houses of the second municipal project was completed in New Location and Marabastad residents who had been exposed to the worst conditions were allowed to move in first. In 1934 part of the Schoolplaats population was moved to Marabastad and the squatter problem became more severe. There was no room for expansion due to a lack of space. An attempt to solve these problems manifested itself in the establishment of

in 1939. The Marabastad community would be moved here and compensation was offered to previous owners of property in the form of new houses they could rent, but not own. The war slowed the process considerably, but 1949 had moved three quarters of the population of Marabastad to Atteridgeville, and by 1950 the transition was complete.

References

External links

A short history of Marabastad

A newspaper description of Marabastad today

{{City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality Suburbs of Pretoria