Last Will and Testament dated 15 October 1920 for Shaik Amod

"Shaik Amod of Overport... Free Indian Passenger"

In late 19th- and early 20th-century Natal legal recordkeeping, a sharp distinction was drawn between indentured labor immigrants (who arrived under contracted bonds) and "Passenger Indians" (who paid their own passage, typically merchants, traders, and artisans from Western India). The classification dictated land ownership rights, taxation, and legal status under the Natal legal code.

Early Overport Property Ownership

Overport was one of the earliest outer suburbs of Durban where freed and passenger Indian families purchased freehold land and established residential and commercial hubs long before mid-century group area rezonings. The joint will outlines significant property inheritance ("movable or immovable... in equal shares and proportions share and share alike") for their named sons: Shaik Mahomed, Shaik Abdool Rahimam, and Shaik Mahomed Cassim.

Signatures, Vernacular Scripts, and "Mark"

Shaik Amod signed his name in Perso-Arabic script (written above the English transliteration "Shaik Amod in Indian Character (Urdu)").

Bambussia signed with "her X mark", reflecting the gendered literacy dynamics of early immigrant communities in Natal.

Special Statutory Certification for Non-English Speakers

At the bottom right sits a mandatory legal stamp signed by a Commissioner for Oaths:

"I hereby certify that the signature or mark of the Indian Shaik Amod & Bambussia was affixed to this document in my presence after the said document had been explained and interpreted to the said Indian..."

Because many Indian residents spoke Gujarati, Urdu, Tamil, or Hindi as their primary languages, colonial law required an official sworn court interpreter (annotated at the bottom as "Interpreted by...") to read and translate legal instruments into their native tongue before implementation.

210mm x 330mm

Worn at the edges. Some ink smudged.

R1,000