The Cato Manor Riots and Killings
June 1959 – February 1960
The riots in Cato Manor began on 17 June 1959, when a demonstration of African women forced there way into a beer hall destroying beer and drinking utensils and beating the men drinking there. The women were lead by Florence Mkhize and Dorothy Nyembe. The protesters were dispersed by the police.
Several days later the Director of the Bantu Administration Department, Sighart (S.B.) Bourquin, met 2,000 women at the beer hall. Once they had stated their grievances they were ordered to disperse. When they failed to do so the police made a baton charge. General disorder and rioting followed resulting in damages to vehicles and buildings estimated at £100,000. Later that day Africans attacked a police picket and were driven off with sten guns. During these riots four people died and seventy nine were injured.
After this, things remained comparatively quiet in Cato Manor until a Sunday afternoon in *February, 1960. An ugly situation developed in which nine policemen lost their lives.
Reverend Ambrose Reeves said of the massacre: ‘This was a deplorable business. Whatever may be said of the actions of the South African police these men died while carrying out their duties. The blame for their deaths must in the first instance lie on those who murdered them’.
The fact that these deaths occurred in Cato Manor only a few weeks before the demonstration at Sharpeville must have been well known to the police gathered at the police station in Sharpeville the fateful morning of the Sharpeville Massacre. Certainly more than one spokesman of the South African Government linked these two affairs together.
The riots did not stop the forced removals, in fact after the police killings, the removals gathered pace, with the last shack in Cato Manor being demolished on 31 August 1964. The removals were done under the control of Sighart (S.B.) Bourquin who was Director of Bantu Administration in Durban and who, even though he supported the moves, wrote to the City Council on 23 June 1959 to say that something had to be done to improve the lot of workers in Durban so that they could afford the rents in Kwamashu. He pointed out that none of the City Council's own staff, if married, and few of those working for the South African Railways and Harbours could afford the rents.
*note: Sources differ on the date that the nine policemen lost there lives in Cato Manor in 1960. Some sources say it was in February, others say the massacre took place on 23 January.