The story of black businesses in South Africa remains underwritten. This book profiles the biographies of black people and communities who demonstrated impressive entrepreneurial and trading abilities both in the pre-colonial period and during the most difficult times of colonialism and apartheid.

Before the turn of the eighteenth century, the status of a Free Black in society was often influenced by the abilities of the individual rather than purely the colour of their skin. There is the story of the two formerly enslaved men, Anthony and Manuel from Angola, who had a white worker as their employee. Despite the upward mobility of a select few Free Black people, the vast majority were not in the same position. By the eighteenth century, poverty was a common feature for Free Blacks.

Regardless of how liquid a black man was, the discriminatory laws made it difficult for him to purchase land freely. A laborious bureaucratic process had to be followed and permission sought, as natives were not allowed freely to acquire property in certain areas. This was due to the segregationist Native Trust and Land Act of 1936. In crude terms what this meant was that natives had to get the permission of a white man on how to spend their hard-owned pounds. Wealth did not equate to freedom.

In the late 1860s, many Africans in Natal were in a position to produce agricultural surplus for trade and to withhold their labour.

The legislation discouraged the black entrepreneurs from pursuing their own business interests. Instead, it focused on meeting the labour needs of white farmers and the mining industry. Consequently, white farmers had less competition in the market as their former competitors’ appetite to pursue business has been thwarted. The dispossession through the Native Land Act not only converted the African industrialists into a proletariat, but also shifted the focus of the black entrepreneurs towards activities of protest and resistance. A great deal of energy that could have been used for growing black industry was now channelled towards the struggle against domination and discrimination.