Freed slaves and the contribution of Abraham September at Upington

Freed slaves had limited options. They either remained in the colony as a landless laboring class, or they could leave to settle beyond the colonial boundary.

Abraham September, a freed slave, was granted a farm north of the Orange River in 1882. He realised the potential of leading water from the river by canal to irrigate his land. When local missionary C.H.W. Schroeder and magistrate J.H. Scott heard of this, they took steps to irrigate more extensively. The result was the Upington canal, “the largest work of its kind in South Africa at that time.”