Why were Black residents forcibly moved from central Johannesburg to Klipspruit in 1904?

In 1904, municipal authorities in Johannesburg forcibly relocated Black residents from the city center to Klipspruit under the guise of "sanitation" following a plague scare. This action was part of a broader era of social engineering and racist enactments, where authorities used public health concerns as a pretext to address perceived urban disorder.1

It is important to recognize that these justifications were fundamentally discriminatory and lacked genuine sanitary merit, as Klipspruit was a municipal sewerage farm. This forced removal was facilitated by the emerging ideology of segregation, which sought to treat Black residents as temporary inhabitants whose presence was only tolerated to serve the needs of the white population. Such policies were morally indefensible, as they prioritized the systematic exclusion and marginalization of Black citizens over their basic human rights and dignity.1