The urban poor and their condition has not been a specially popular theme in
local history. This is surprising given that they were in so many ways the
direct result of other significant events and policies of nineteenth century
Natal.1 Apparent lack of documents from a group who would have been
largely illiterate will have contributed to this. However, much research
material exists in unusual sources waiting to be sifted for significant insights
into the plight of the urbanising poor and their daily struggle for existence
within the bureaucratic web of the Colony.2
Bamboo Square at the Point, Durban3 was one nineteenth century
settlement of marginalised people whose persistent attempts to establish
1 Including: the segregationist system of indirect Shepstonian rule; immigrant labour;
the transformation of the indigenous peasantry from a pastoral and agricultural
economy to an industrial-capitalist one; and, not least, war.
2 Especially the records of the Sanitary Committee, the Inspector of Nuisances and the
Borough Police. Department of the Dutban Town Council. The records of the Natal
Harbour Boards and the Natal Harbour Department are also useful sources. The
Inspector of Nuisances acted officially for the Sanitary Committee from April 1875,
and preceded the establishment of the Borough Department of Health and the Building
Inspectorate.
3 Bamboo Square was only one of a number of names given to the settlement. There is
no clear evidence to indicate why it should have been so-called, other than the
30 'BAMBOO SQUARE'
themselves near places of wage employment sheds some light on life at the
urban edge. Drawing from numerous documents both official and
commercial, the saga of Bamboo Square is presented here as a descriptive
narrative. The records of the settlement also include other issues, such as:
early Natal approaches to racial segregation; problems of slums, sanitation
and planning; self-help housing using a variety of resources both natural and
industrial; the persistent efforts of local apostles of sanitation to improve the
environmental health of Durban; and the seeds of municipal and government
controls, policies and administrative techniques, which were to become
powerful instruments at a future time.