Rural Resistance

• Response to apartheid, c.1950s

  1. Armed struggle

  2. Rural protest

  3. Formation of the PAC
• ANC


  • Had more support in urban areas
  • Many cases of rural unrest, often spontaneous and unplanned
• Rural resistance


  • Potato boycott, 1957 to 1959
  • Zeerust uprising, 1957 (Pass law opposition)
  • East Pondoland (Protest against corrupt chief)
• Rural unrest and lack of ANC influence in rural areas helped gain support for the newly formed Pan-Africanist Congress
• Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC)


  Formed by Robert Sobukwe, who disagreed with the ANC's integrationalist approach and was a firm supporter of Africanism
• Bantu authorities and homeland policies helped trigger a series of rural movements throughout the rural districts in the late 1950s
• Sekhukhuneland 1957-58 


  • People tried to stave off government interference in their political and social lives
  • Migrant workers formed organisations to assist with transport, finding jobs, financing funerals and getting money back to their rural homes
  • Deeply opposed to the idea of Bantustans and concerned to keep open their access to urban employment. ●1957 Bantu Authorities Act appointed chiefs who would cooperate with gov. ●May 1958 9 of those who were seen as gov collaborators were beaten and stabbed to death.
• Government imposed the Bantu Authorities Act


  Deposed the paramount chief and installed men who would cooperate
• Nine of those seen as government collaborators were beaten or stabbed to death and others burnt out of their houses
• Arrest and deportation of the deposed paramount chief was seen as a particular provocation
• Women and the ANC

  • Women were prominent in the grass roots protests of the Defiance Campaign
  • Led by Lilian Ngoyi, they staged a major protest against passes, collected signatures and 20,000 marched on the Union Buildings
  • Also led the resistance to forced removals in Cato Manor, Durban in the late 1950s