Van armoedeverligtingsprojek tot volhoubare landbougemeenskap : die vestiging en ontwikkeling van die Skanskopeiland-besproeiingsnedersetting
Abstract
Skanskop Island was one of a number of irrigation settlements established in the early twentieth century along the Lower Orange River (today known as the Gariep) with the aim of alleviating white poverty. In the 1930s, the Carnegie Commission investigation and the Kimberley Congress of the Nation (1934) on the issue of poverty, shaped the approach of the state and the church, to support poor communities in order to enable them and their descendants to exist independently through personal initiatives and self-help; while simultaneously contributing to the country’s economy and developing the region through agricultural production. After the allocation of land, the first settlers received hardly any government aid and had limited resources at their disposal. Through sheer determination and backbreaking physical labour, most of them settled on Skanskopeiland successfully to become sufficiently independent to ensure a better standard of living for their families. With the aid of state mentorship and the settlers’ own initiatives, they managed to transform a wilderness within ten years into a successful agricultural settlement. They applied simple techniques and technologies available at the time to ‘tame’ the wilderness and to prepare the fertile soil for agricultural production. This study provides a historical background of the establishment of this settlement on Skanskop Island. It describes the laborious processes required for preparing the settlement for agricultural production. Furthermore, the study evaluates the efforts of these settlers to uplift themselves and their families from poverty through hard labour and self-help. An empirical study, undertaken as part of the research, determined the impact of the upliftment on the descendants of the pioneer settlers. These findings are reported in the study
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