Place · Gandhian community settlement · South Africa
Phoenix Settlement
The 100-acre community Mohandas Gandhi founded in 1904 near Phoenix on the north coast of KwaZulu-Natal, 20 kilometres from Durban, after reading Ruskin's Unto This Last on a train journey. The settlement became Gandhi's first ashram-style community: residents did manual labour together, took the same low allowance, published the Indian Opinion weekly from the on-site press (begun 1903 before the ashram), and shared vegetarian meals across caste and religion. The 1908 Transvaal Satyagraha was planned at Phoenix. Gandhi's family lived here from 1904 to 1914. The settlement was destroyed in the 1985 Durban riots but partly rebuilt and now functions as the Gandhi Development Trust museum. The Phoenix model directly shaped Sabarmati Ashram (1917) and Sevagram (1936).
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- -29.739, 30.858
Connections (1)
- Architectural modelSabarmati Ashram
Phoenix near Durban and Tolstoy Farm outside Johannesburg are where the ashram was invented as a political instrument: a settlement where everyone did manual work, took the same allowance, ate together across caste and religion, and trained for civil disobedience. Sabarmati in 1917 and Sevagram in 1936 are the same institution rebuilt in India, and the rule about latrine cleaning — which cost him volunteers in both countries — was carried over unchanged.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Inanda, KwaZulu-Natal”. M.K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa; The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Publications Division).
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