In its first decade, Congress essentially was a decentralised “confederation of provincial organisations”. It “remained a political association of ‘leading’ Africans”. This limited both its ability to speak with one voice to workers and its resources to reach out to and recruit them. At times deep divisions arose over provincial powers.

Yet relative independence from the strictures of centralised control by moderate SANNC leaders could aid closer labour ties by some more radical regional leaders. Transvaal Congress support for labour protests in the period 1918-1920 and less dramatic forms of sympathy for black workers from ANC bodies in other regions vividly demonstrated this. This chapter focuses on the Rand, the area of most rapid industrialisation, objectively positioning the TNC closer to the emergent black proletariat than any other provincial body of Congress.

Industrial growth after the 1880s was more heavily concentrated in southern Transvaal than any other region. It was not accidental that it was here the ANC took its first, hesitant, steps to engage with black industrial and mine workers. Such industrialisation also occurred in the Pretoria District; by 1910, there were 15 000 urban workers with another 14 000 at the Premier Diamond Mine.

As black militancy grew in this region in the latter part of the decade so white authorities groped about seeking explanations. Some felt militancy was due to “detribalised” Africans starting to live nearer their work and lamented that such agitation was likely to increase “with so many masterless men and unrestrained women floating about”. However, the transformation of underlying socio- economic causes into action requires very real and very purposeful politics, and this is where Congress came in.

In the period from 1912 to 1920, the Transvaal Native Congress (TNC) developed a number of viable branches and a wide range of contacts. Membership figures are sketchy, and there may have been overlap between TNC and SANNC members. Of some 106 delegates to the March 1913 SANNC conference in Johannesburg, over half, 60, hailed from the Transvaal. They represented a broad range of places, from urban Johannesburg, Kliptown, Sophiatown, Evaton, Vereeniging, Pretoria and Alexandra to rural Phokeng, Lydenburg, Spelonken, Volksrust, Heidelberg, Waterberg and Bethal.