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| Cape Town
Immigration |
Cape Town swelled in
the late eighteenth century, with many working class immigrants from Europe
settling in the city. In 1865 the population was 28,400, ten years later it was
45,00, in 1891 67,000 and in 1904 171,000. Once again Cape Town became a male
dominated city.
The villages and suburbs became dense urban areas and
settlements spread to the north of the city along Table Bay.
Certain other groups, barely represented in the city, now
became much more numerous. Jews escaping the pogroms of Eastern Europe numbered
8,000 by 1904. Indians and Africans arrived as labourers. German farmers
developed the Philippi area of the city for market gardening.
British residents resented the influx of Italians, South Americans and
Portuguese, whose habits were considered bad.
The arrival of new groups also created resentment in the
coloured population, especially of black labourers who accepted very low wages
and were a threat to their jobs.
Black workers arrived from across the sub-continent but mainly Xhosa from the
Eastern Cape. They generally worked in the docks, unloading ships, and the
railway yards. There was no specifically 'black' district in the city, although
certain single-sex hostels were set aside by the docks and railways for new
employees.
At the end of the century, however, in the era that emphasised
'control' and the 'protection of public health', black people were moved to
townships on the outskirts of the town. The township of Langa started in this
way.
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