Ndabeni
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Ndabeni is an
industrial suburb An industrial suburb is a community, near a large city, with an industrial economy. These communities may be established as tax havens or as places where zoning promotes industry, or they may be industrial towns that become suburbs by urban ...
of
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
, mainly occupied by light industries such as textiles and clothing. It is located about 6 km (4 miles) east of Cape Town city centre and is serviced by a railway station. Ndabeni is bordered to the south east by Pinelands and to the north by Maitland. Its postcode is 7405.


History

Throughout the 19th century the black population of Cape Town increased dramatically. An 1865
census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
carried out by the colonial government put the figure at 274 (Western, p. 45). By 1881, some of the whites had begun to think the black population in Papendorp and
District Six District Six (Afrikaans: ''Distrik Ses'') is a residential neighborhood in Cape Town, South Africa, located next to the city's Cape Town CBD, CBD. In 1959, people of color were banned from the area and most of them were resettled in Gugulet ...
was so sizeable that they " eededto establish an official 'Kafir location' for it..." (Saunders, p. 29). In 1890 the Dock Native Location was established to house black labourers at the dock. This removed the need for employers to house them, often in their own homes. By the end of the century the population had, according to Saunders, risen to 10,000 in greater Cape Town. The town was named "Ndabeni" after
Sir Walter Stanford Sir Walter Ernest Mortimer Stanford (2 August 1850 – 9 September 1933) was a South African civil servant and politician. Stanford was born in Alice, South Africa, in 1850 and was educated at the Lovedale Mission School. He left school and b ...
at the residents request. Called Kwa-Ndabeni by the original residents, meaning "house of Ndabeni", the name literally means "place of debate", or "place of speaking and conversations", but the term was a nickname for Stanford, Under-Secretary of the Department for Native Affairs, with a meaning closer to "in the news". In 1902, the
bubonic plague Bubonic plague is one of three types of Plague (disease), plague caused by the Bacteria, bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and ...
broke out among the population which the authorities soon blamed on "these uncontrolled Kafir hordes" (Iliffe, p. 115) leading to many whites demanding segregation. According to the Cape Town Medical Officer of Health the living conditions of Africans were 'very undesirable, both from the point of view of sanitation and socially, by bringing uncleanly, half-civilised units into intimate contact with the more cleanly and civilised portion of the community". (''Illustrated History of South Africa'', pp. 314–5). It was as a result of this that Ndabeni was established, Cape Town's first black township (Richmond, p. 48). The location was, at the time, on the
Cape Flats The Cape Flats () is an expansive, low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town. The Cape Flats is also the name of an administrative region of the City of Cape Town, which lies within the larger geo ...
near a sewage plant (Iliffe, p. 115). "Natives who were living under insanitary conditions in the slums of Cape Town were offered accommodation at low rental in Ndabeni" (Wilson & Mafeje, p. 3), although several thousand remained in the city. Iliffe suggests the number moved to the township is in the 6,000–7,000 range, "many at bayonet-point". In an early example of
Nimbyism NIMBY (, or nimby), an acronym for the phrase "Not In My Back Yard", is a characterization of opposition by residents to proposed real estate development and infrastructure developments in their local area, as well as support for strict land us ...
local residents objected to Cape Town "shunting its kaffirs" in their direction. There were also complaints from Cape Town merchants that it would be inconvenient to have their workers housed out of town. The ''Cape Register'' replied in March 1901, " e protection of the metropolis from the insanitary disease-spreading nigger is a much more vital matter than the convenience of a few St George Street merchants". (''Illustrated History of South Africa'', p. 315). The black township was not to be tolerated within the city so, as the city grew, new townships were built on its outer edge and the community was relocated. In 1923 Langa was established about 5 km south east of Ndabeni, and it was to here that the population was sent before Ndabeni was dismantled. In this year, the
Natives (Urban Areas) Act In South Africa under apartheid, and South West Africa (now Namibia), pass laws served as an internal passport system designed to racially segregate the population, restrict movement of individuals, and allocate low-wage migrant labor. Also k ...
was passed, restricting the entry of black South Africans into the city (Western, p. 46).


References

; Sources * * ''Illustrated History of South Africa'' (1988), Reader's Digest Association South Africa * * * * {{City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality Suburbs of Cape Town Industrial parks