Bloemfontein anti-pass campaign

The 1913 Bloemfontein anti-pass campaign was a series of repeals by women of colour against official regulations which forced them to carry documentation of formal employment and restricted their movement.

The pass system was enforced to ensure control over the Black and Coloured women providing domestic services in what was then one of the Boer Republics, namely the Orange Free State[1] The discovery of minerals in Kimberley and gold in the Transvaal gave rise to economic development and necessitated the construction of a railway line between Bloemfontein and the Transvaal.

This development attracted a community of skilled and semi-skilled Black people, Coloureds and Indian South Africans as workers, professionals and farm labourers.

Government records at the time refer to the people of colour who settled in the city as “Bastard,” “Bushmen,” “Fingo,” “Griqua” and “Hottentot,” among other derogatory terms.

[2] Initially, there was no distinction between Black and Coloured people in Bloemfontein and they lived in the same areas unlike in other parts of the country, like in the Colony of Natal and the Cape.

The establishment of Waaihoek led to the implementation of formal regulations, restricting the settlement of Black people to this area in 1891, away from where the white population lived.

[2] By the early 1900s, the law required every Black male person, including school learners above the age of 16, to carry a service book which documented their employer and place of residence.

[2] Many women who did not live in urban areas or were not employed on a full-time basis as domestic workers did white people's laundry for income.

Health authorities eventually traced cases of diphtheria, scarlet and typhoid fever to the laundry done in unhygienic conditions in the township.

[6] When Black political figures repeatedly appealed to the Orange Free State authorities to abolish the pass laws, in vain, the women began approaching the higher offices of the national government.

[3] On 27 January 1914 the Executive Committee of the Orange Free State Native and Coloured Women's Association sent a petition to Governor General Gladstone.