Johannesburg — THE 1913 Natives Land Act is considered by many people to be SA's original political sin. The act, which became law on 19 June 1913, limited African land ownership to 7% (increased to 13% via the 1936 Native Trust and Land Act) of SA and barred Africans from buying land in 93% of SA set aside for white control.

It did this in part by enacting a legislative distinction between white-owned areas and native reserves, also known as scheduled areas. It also introduced anti-squatting measures to put a stop to sharecropping.

It was, said Sol Plaatje in his 1916 classic Native Life in South Africa, a "cruel law" that turned Africans into pariahs in the land of their birth.

Commenting in 1991, more than 70 years after Plaatje first published his observations, then state president FW De Klerk said: "Of all the processes which have brought about the inequitable distribution of wealth and power that characterises present-day SA, none has been more decisive and more immediately important to most black South Africans than the dispossession of land."

So powerful was the idea of the 1913 Natives Land Act as SA's original political sin that 19 June 1913, the day on which it was gazetted by the Union of SA, was set down as the starting date for land restitution claims.

The 1993 interim constitution and the Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1994, the first law passed by Nelson Mandela's government, both gave people the right to claim for restitution if they were dispossessed of their lands or right to land after 19 June 1913 "under or for the purposes of furthering the objects of any racially based discriminatory law".

The assumption behind the 1993 constitution and the restitution law is that the 1913 Natives Land Act explains everything, that it was SA's original political sin. De Klerk certainly shared this assumption.

His 1991 comments also included the following statement: "To an agrarian community whose entire economic and social structure is based on the distribution of land, dispossession was an act akin to national destruction." However, what if the 1913 Natives Land Act was not the original political sin it has been made out to be?

These are some of the questions that come to mind upon reading an essay published last year by Harvey Feinberg and Andre Horn on the 1913 Natives Land Act in the Journal of African History. Their essay is titled South African Territorial Segregation: New Data on African Farm Purchases, 1913-1936.

The authors use annual reports from the governor-general of the Union of SA, title deeds and property transfer records, and a "geo-referenced data set" to look at African land purchases in the Transvaal between 1913 and 1936.

The authors say the 1913 land act failed to stop Africans from buying land outside of the native areas. They find that African land ownership actually increased outside the reserves between 1913 and 1936, and conclude that the failure of the act raises questions about the extent to which the colonial state was able to impose rural territorial segregation. They say, ultimately, the act's failure revealed the limits of white power.

When the Union of SA was formed in 1910, whites made up 20% of the population. Africans made up 70%. But whites controlled 90% of the land. The 1913 Natives Land Act was one of the first laws enacted by the union government and its underlying principle was the promotion of territorial segregation.

However, the act also provided exemptions for Africans who wanted to buy land outside of the scheduled native areas. Feinberg and Horn say these exemptions effectively allowed Africans to nullify the land act.

The exemptions were not easy to get. Applicants had to satisfy strict criteria and rules laid down by the Native Affairs Department. They had to undergo evaluation, submit to interviews and agree to asset audits and official visits. These were intended to verify that African applicants did in fact have the means to buy the land they wanted and that the asking price was fair. The motivation for the tests was that government provided the bonds for some of the purchases.

So, between 1913 and 1936, for example, Africans bought about 3200 farms and lots outside of native areas. What's more, the 1913 act was not retroactive, meaning that Africans who already owned land outside of the native reserves could not have it taken away from them.

Feinberg and Horn say that between 1913 and 1924, under the governments of Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, there were 302 exemptions granted, amounting to 35% of the total. Between 1924 and 1936, when JB Hertzog was in power, there were 565 exemptions granted, amounting to 65% of the total.

Of the Africans who applied for exemptions, 22% were individuals, 20% small groups, and 11% big groups. So-called tribes made up the biggest buyers. These were often communities that clubbed together, pooled their resources and had themselves declared a tribe by the government for the purposes of buying land.

On 19 June 1913 Africans either owned or had held in trust for them 591 rural land units in the Transvaal. About 43% of these units were outside the native areas. By 1936 they owned 934 units and 63% of these were outside the native reserves. Whites were sellers in most instances and of the 288 white sellers Feinberg and Horn identified, only 32 were women. Africans rarely sold land.

The authors conclude that "African initiative played a major role in this phenomenon, as Africans took advantage of the exemption clause in the land act". Their article does not change the fact that land hunger remains one of the most serious problems facing SA today. However, it does call into question the many assumptions made about the land act.

Jacob Dlamini is author of Native Nostalgia (Jacana 2009).