Dumping ground
UNTIL its incorporation into the municipality of Durban in 1932, the Bluff was not subject to Durban’s bylaws.
As such, it experienced something of a frontier existence, particularly during the colonial period on account of its very sparse settler population and large farms such as Wentworth.
Indeed, it might be said that the Bluff was regarded by the authorities as a dumping ground where the diseased (smallpox and leprosy) could be isolated, the foreign Zanzibaris could be settled and smelly enterprises such as fish-curing and the whaling station could be located.
Remote from the village of Durban, which initially was separated from the Point by bush, the Bluff peninsula was regarded as the ideal place to isolate persons for health reasons. From 1861 until the end of the colonial period in 1910 – and possibly beyond – the bayside of the Bluff headland area housed a quarantine station or lazaretto. Indentured Indian labourers were routinely placed there on their arrival from India. Infectious diseases such as smallpox were greatly feared before vaccinating became compulsory after 1882. There was also a quarantine facility on the ocean side of the peninsula. An article in the Natal Mercury of 7 June 1882 noted that it comprised of ‘rough iron sheds’ and was erected in 1874 but up until 1882 had been used only twice. The same article described the lazaretto as offering ‘very scant accommodation’.
In 1878, those who worked at the Bluff signal station were quarantined there following an outbreak of measles at the station. In 1884, Amatonga labourers were placed in the Bluff lazaretto by the Harbour Board following an outbreak of smallpox among them. There was also a leper compound on the Bluff headland. Cases of leprosy occurred among Africans which necessitated isolation. Archival records of 1896 referred to the district surgeon making monthly visits to the Bluff leper compound.
On account of its separation from the Durban municipality, the Bluff found itself subjected to different bureaucracies: the Harbour Board, the Indian Immigration Trust Board and the various departments of the colonial government such as the Surveyor General’s office. As a result, neglect tended to characterise matters. It was always someone else’s problem. A case in point concerned sanitation at the quarantine station.
As late as 1904, the Indian Immigration Trust Board stated in a letter to the harbour department that ‘the question of proper sanitary arrangements is now engaging the attention of the Board’. By that it meant the replacement of latrines with a proper sanitation block from which sewage could be piped into the sea. But the Trust Board needed permission from the harbour department to run pipes through the railway embankment. Evidently that consent was not granted as five years later the Trust Board was requesting permission from the harbour engineer for the construction of a septic tank at the Bluff quarantine station.
Salisbury Island
LIKE the Bluff, Salisbury Island also languished in a bureaucratic grey area. In 1879 the Protector of Indian Immigrants suggested that the lazaretto be moved from the Bluff to the Island. Although that did not occur, a small hospital was built there in the late colonial period. In April 1909 four cases of smallpox were sent to the hospital from a ship which had sailed from Calcutta.
Bluff residents like Portland Shortt and Sidney Turner were critical of the numbers of Indians who were squatting on the island, some of whom were indentured deserters. In June 1877 Turner urged the Surveyor General to evict them but that did not happen.
In June 1881, the Mercury criticised the fact that Indians on the island were not subject to regulations regarding sanitation requirements. In January 1883 the Harbour Board granted Indians a sense of permanence by allowing them to rent land on the island. According to the Wragg Commission of Inquiry into Indian immigration, there were 187 Indians resident on the island in 1886. They had a thriving fishing industry which accounted for 30 tons of fish in 1885. The Harbour Board had granted a site for the erection of a school which, in 1886, had more than 20 pupils. In 1961, in keeping with its segregated nature, the apartheid government designated the island as the location of a university for Indians.
Researched and written by Duncan Du Bois
