In 1867, Cape Town, South Africa officially became a city in the eyes of the British crown.   The city was divided into six magisterial districts, one of which was officially known as the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town.  These are the origins of District Six, an area on the edge of the city center, which stretched across the lower slopes of Devil’s Peak and overlooked the harbor.

The area attracted a mix of people from all races, creeds, and cultures, even before it got its official name.  Five thousand former slaves took up residence here after their emancipation in 1838.   Artisans, merchants, and immigrants of all races, including many Malaysians brought to South Africa by the Dutch East India Company, also came to call the area home.  The Malays became part of what is known as the “Cape Coloreds,” and took on Afrikaans, a derivative of Dutch, as their own language.  

District Six embodied the culture of Cape Town’s lower classes, where races and cultures lived and mixed since the 1840s, and in later times it became symbolic of the injustices of apartheid.  District Six suffered from chronic neglect throughout its history, as municipal spending on sewers, drinking water, roads, and other infrastructure in the district was far from adequate.  This created an environment where people had to, out of necessity, rely on each other for many of their basic needs.  

Some of the city’s white elites saw racial mixing in the district as problematic in the later nineteenth century.  Segregation became an increasingly popular concept, as theories of inferior and superior races came into vogue.  As hospitals, jails, and schools separated people by race, private establishments such as theaters and bars, and even sports, soon followed.  Residential areas like District Six, however, were much harder to separate.  

At the turn of the twentieth century, about ten percent of Cape Town’s population lived in District Six, and it was the most populous suburb of the city.  That is when the first ethnic removals from the area began.  As it was close enough to walk to the harbor and other industrial areas, where the many of the working class residents were once employed, the majority of African dockworkers lived here.  As they made up only one in sixteen of the city’s population, they were the easiest targets for removal. 

An outbreak of bubonic plague in 1901, during the Anglo-Boer War, offered an excuse for District Six’s first ethnic cleansing.  The plague came from imported hay that contained rats with plague-infected fleas.  As it came into the city through the docks, the disease hit African dockworkers first, and made them the scapegoats for the epidemic.  As African workers were still needed for labor, however, a compound system was put in place by the colony’s government, where the workers were moved out of areas like District Six and moved into tightly controlled barracks.  Despite this, Africans continued to make up a portion of the district’s diverse population.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Cape Town’s city council built low-cost housing for poor people of all races, and through delegation of who would live in these newly created residential areas, they foreshadowed apartheid.  The Slums Act of 1934 allowed municipalities to demolish any area considered a slum.  During this period, many ‘slums’ in District Six were demolished and new homes built exclusively for colored people.  

Though World War II saw a reprieve in the march towards this separation of races, the passage of two acts in 1950 further divided people.   The Population Registration Act classified South Africans into ‘whites’, ‘coloreds’, ‘Asians’, and ‘Natives’ and required them to register; it also made relationships and marriages between races illegal.  The Group Areas Act made it illegal for people to buy or rent in areas where their racial group was not allowed, and in 1966 District Six was declared a ‘whites only’ area.
 
Before this declaration, and even through it, the people of District Six had already created their own vibrant neighborhood.  Germans, Jews, Irish, Africans, Indonesians, Malaysians, Indians, and others with ties to far-flung places lived in harmony together.  Hanover Street ran through the district, and along its streets were shops and businesses, theaters and shebeens, schools and places of worship. Theaters were popular, and oftentimes ushers would turn a blind eye to children who could not pay.  Woodstock Beach was close enough to walk to, and the mountain with its myriad trails was its neighbor.

A deep sense of family developed in the crowded conditions of the community.  Sometimes whole families would stay together in one room.  Eighteen churches, three mosques, and four synagogues served the population, and members of each religion tolerated and respected one another.  Shop owners sold essential items in small quantities so that poorer people could afford to buy them, and even extended credit to residents who were unable to pay. Gentlemen gangsters walked the streets, informing the public of their intent to fight with other gangs so that there would be no civilian casualties.  

Removal of the residents began in 1968.  The government saw District Six as prime real estate, not to mention the fact that the mixed race community went against everything for which apartheid stood.  Over the course of many years, the people who lived here were relocated to new homes on the Cape Flats, far from the amenities of the city and the old neighborhoods that had been in existence from the early 1800s.  Many of the people who were relocated had lived in District Six their whole lives.

The government gave four primary reasons for the removal.  Apartheid philosophy stated that interracial interaction caused conflict.  As per the Slum Act, it was deemed an area unfit for rehabilitation.  White people saw District Six portrayed as dangerous and full of crime, and along with this perception, it was seen as a center of vice.

By 1982, over 60,000 people had been relocated from District Six and all the homes had been demolished.  Only places of worship still stood amid the heaps of rubble; on days of worship, former residents filled the mosques, churches, and chapels that remained.

Today, former residents and their children wait to be compensated under the Land Restitution Act of 1994.  Few homes have been built, as there is still much debate about how the area should be developed.  The only agreement is that the people who lost their homes and neighborhoods should be compensated.  However, there can be no return to what once was District Six, though the memory remains, captured in the District Six Museum on Buitenkant Street.


By D. A. Rupprecht