Page 20 - Heritage Streets of KwaMashu 2025

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HERITAGE STREETS OF KWA-MASHU
FORCED REMOVAL ESTABLISHMENT
Kwa-Mashu was born during the late 1950s (1958), as a labour-sending township for large industries in and around Durban. At this point in history, South Africa was in the throes of the painful and inhuman Apartheid
system of “separate development along racial lines” - a system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination that was enforced by the government of South Africa between 1948 and 1994. The term “apartheid” means “apartness” in Afrikaans, which was the official language of a minority white population in South Africa adopted for a “divide and rule strategy” by the minority whites-only government as implemented by Hendrik Verwoed.
Today, KwaMashu is arguably one of the largest townships in KwaZulu-Natal following uMlaza (not uMlazi) (“Mlaza” means sour water separated of the ripen milk and oral narration mentions Shaka as the one who named the river that runs through this area as “uMlaza” after being disappointed by the sourness of the water when attempting to drink it to quench his thirst). Both Kwa-Mashu and uMlaza are the products of Apartheid, which institutionalized the Group Areas Act, the controversial and much-criticized act which ultimately led to forced removals throughout South Africa. Most of the early residents in these townships could trace their origins from uMkhumbane (named after the river) and Cato Manor (Kwa-Kito) area where they were forcefully removed and resettled in these townships. Many others, however, entered these townships directly from rural areas further afield, as people streamed to larger cities to find employment. Kwa-Mashu therefore is also one of Durban’s oldest townships.
Historically and planned deliberately, the townships were far from the city centres, which meant that their residents had to incur travel costs to come to the city to eke out their living. As such, Kwa-Mashu Township was established as a settlement for Africans who were forcibly removed from Cato Manor and Mkhumbane areas from around 1956 to 1965. It is believed that originally the land on which KwaMashu Township stands today was a sugarcane plantation which belonged to Sir Marshall Campbell (1848 - 1917). Sir Campbell was a sugar magnate and a member of the Legislative Assembly of the former Natal Colony (today Kwa-Zulu Natal Province). He was also the father of the late Dr Margaret Roach Killie Campbell, who developed a close relationship with the Zulu-speaking people living in Kwa- Mashu and later donated her house to the city and her entire African collection of artefacts or ethnographical collection to the then University of Natal now known as the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). The land purportedly belonged to